City
City ambassador
Jess Miller, Councillor City of Sydney
We’re delighted to have Jess Miller as our City ambassador. As a champion of the City, advocating for positive change we look forward to sharing her vision and creativity with you this year.
Jess Miller is passionate about creating community resilience and more liveable cities, reducing waste, improving food security, increasing urban greening and driving the night-time economy for Sydney. Throughout her time on Council, Jess has worked on the Breathable Sydney campaign, Eliminated 12 million single-use plastic straws as part of the #SydneyDoesntSuck campaign; Introduced a Liveable Slow Streets pilot in Redfern, Championed the need for a NSW Food Security Strategy and supported a thriving 24-hour economy in Sydney by supporting the venues, performers and other late night. She is also Program Director of Greener Spaces Better Places.
Public Sydney
with Philip Thalis and Peter John Cantrill
Self-guided audio tour
Hear from the acclaimed authors of Public Sydney as they take you on a journey through Sydney’s public spaces and architecture in conversation with Colin Bisset, writer, traveller and contributor to ABC Radio National's Blueprint for living.
Explore at your own pace with our self-guided audio tour providing unique perspectives on architecture and design in your city. Participants will require their own headphones and device.
Use our handy web app or download here:
Access denied
Usually inaccessible to the public – experience these secret spaces all to yourself on these virtual tours. Adventure down the abandoned tunnels of St James Station, learn about the spooky history of Mortuary Station, get inside the North Head Gun Battery, and find out about the incredible journey of the Tank Stream, still running far below our city streets.
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St James Tunnels
Take a virtual tour of Australia’s first underground railway at St James and Museum, designed and opened by Bradfield in 1926.
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Mortuary Station
Explore the only remaining example of a purpose-built Victorian funerary railway station in Australia, and possibly the world, in this virtual tour.
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North Head Gun Emplacement
Discover the military history of North Fort, with a virtual tour of the No. 2 Gun Emplacement.
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Tank Stream
Take a virtual tour of the Tank Stream, once a vital source of life for the First Fleeters, and before them, the First Australians.
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Parramatta Archaeology
Explore some of the artefacts from the City of Parramatta's extensive archaeology collection discovered after over a dozen excavations under the CBD.
Unique city stories
From our past to our future, Sydney’s architecture tells a unique story. We take you behind the scenes and give you a glimpse into Sydney’s built environment. From converted substations and significant sandstone heritage, to wharves and railways and onto the latest, contemporary projects find out more about what’s underway in Sydney.
Central Station
Highlight s of the transformation of Central Railway Station from its opening in 1855 to 1921, when the landmark Central Station Clock Tower was completed.
Darling Harbour over the years
Drawn from the extensive photographic collection of the NSW State Archives, these image galleries highlight the transformation of Darling Harbour.
Greenland Centre
The Greenland Centre in Sydney is a 64-storey apartment building of two components – a new 40-storey tower built upon an existing 24-storey building.
Hinchcliff House
Hinchcliff House is one of Sydney’s forgotten jewels at Circular Quay. Recently restored, it provides historical context to some of Sydney’s newest and most dramatic examples of 21st-century architecture.
Lucy Osburn-Nightingale Museum
The oldest remaining building on the site of the demolished 'Rum' Hospital is Australia’s first nursing school, the Nightingale Wing,
Quay Quarter
Spanning two city blocks in Circular Quay, Quay Quarter will be a mixed-use development that combines the revolutionary workplace architecture of Quay Quarter Tower (designed by architects 3XN ) with highly considered residential and fine-grain laneway retail and heritage refurbishments.
Quay Quarter Tower
Quay Quarter Tower will be a world first vertical village that redefines the future of work.
The Chinese Garden of Friendship
Step inside this unique cultural landscape inspired by the historical philosophies and design principles of a ‘learned stroll garden’ from China, rich in symbolic and ritual associations.
The Sandstone Precinct
The Sandstone Precinct project involves an extensive adaptive renovation and restoration of one of Sydney’s most significant heritage commercial buildings into a new 6-star luxury hotel.
AMP Building.
33 Alfred Street, Sydney
Built
1962
Architect
Graham Thorp, Peddle Thorp & Walker (now PTW Architects)
About the building
Located in Circular Quay at the gateway to Sydney’s CBD, 33 Alfred Street has been a prominent feature on the Sydney skyline for more than 50 years and remains the home and headquarters of AMP (the Australian Mutual Provident Society) to this day.
Opened in 1962, the AMP ‘Sydney Cove’ Building, designed by Peddle Thorp & Walker (now PTW Architects), was Sydney’s first to break the city’s 150-foot (46-metre) height limit, imposed from 1912. At 117 metres, it was Australia’s tallest building, almost double the height of anything else in Sydney at the time. It is also considered of state heritage significance.
But the building courted controversy for more than just its scale; its postwar International style was unlike anything Sydney had seen before. The twin crescent towers soared 26 storeys, linked centrally into an H-shape and set free from their podium. They symbolised an emergent new culture, that was dispensing with traditional ties. An observation deck on the top floor was open to the public, offering Sydneysiders and visitors views of the city and harbour from a never-before-seen angle.
Aluminium and glass curtain walling was used to capture magnificent harbour and district views. It was also one of the first buildings to use seawater air conditioning, requiring an onsite ‘frogman’ to maintain its water-intake pump house.
Part of this new building language was the use of public art. A Tom Bass sculpture on the western facade depicts the Goddess of Plenty watching over a family, to invoke AMP’s founding principle: ‘Amicus certus in re incerta’ (a true friend in uncertain times).
Participated in Sydney Open in 2019
Reserve Bank of Australia
65 Martin Place, Sydney
Built
1964
Architect
C D Osborne, R M Ure, G A Rowe & F J Crocker, Commonwealth Department of Works
About the building
You’d be forgiven for thinking the Reserve Bank of Australia head office in Sydney was a gallery of sorts, given its impressive collection of modern art and sculpture. It’s a legacy laid down by the first Reserve Bank Governor, Dr H C ‘Nugget’ Coombs.
The Reserve Bank of Australia was created by act of Parliament in 1959, with a charter to work for the economic prosperity and welfare of the Australian people. Governor Coombs had specific ideas about its operations and corporate image, and insisted that its headquarters should be contemporary and forward looking. To that effect, members of the committee overseeing the building design toured overseas, researching trends and facilities used by other central banking agencies.
The result was a Macquarie Street building that embraced aspirations of the International style. Designed by the Commonwealth Department of Works and completed in 1964, the 20-storey head office was a beacon of rationalism and clarity. Its grand double-height lobby featured granite-faced columns and a futuristic ceiling of gold-anodised aluminium.
The building was extended in the late 1970s along Phillip Street to create basement access for cash delivery. In the early 1990s its exterior was reclad by Arup Facade Engineering, with Australian and Italian stone applied on steel trusses over the original Wombeyan marble, which had become brittle with age.
As an art lover, Coombs had driven the Bank’s early acquisitions and commissions, including its ‘wall-enrichment’ by Bim Hilder, and the abstract sculpture of its Martin Place forecourt, by Australian-American artist Margel Hinder. Coombs’s vision remains today for all to enjoy.
Participated in Sydney Open in 2019
Sydney Masonic Centre
279 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
Built
1974
Architect
Joseland & Gilling
Additional architects
PTW Architects (2004, Civic Tower)
About the building
The Masonic Centre, on Castlereagh Street, is one of Sydney’s most enigmatic pieces of architecture. Its mystique lies not just in its imposing concrete form straddling Goulburn and Castlereagh Streets, nor in the 24-storey Civic Tower that seems poised above the podium on a pinhead. It is because these two dramatically interlocking elements were built some 30 years apart.
Architects Joseland & Gilling designed both podium and tower in the early 1970s, as headquarters for the United Grand Lodge of NSW and the ACT of Ancient, Free and Accepted Freemasons. But from 1974 to 1979, only the podium was erected.
Decades later, the air space above the podium was sold to a developer, along with plans for a glass curtain-wall tower. The new owner saw beauty in the original plans, as did PTW Architects, who completed the tower faithfully to the former design, while giving it a new defining feature — that precarious balancing act. The illusion made Civic Tower Australia’s first building to be fully supported on a central lift core, without perimeter columns extending down to footings.
During the tower addition, the podium was also amended at street level with a geometric awning of suspended glass, which tempers the elements while leaving the structure visible.
Sydney Masonic Centre has an Australian building greenhouse rating of 4.5 stars.
Participated in Sydney Open in 2019
9 Castlereagh Street
9 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
Built
1989
Architect
Harry Seidler
Additional architects
Harry Seidler & Associates (2010-11)
About the building
Designed in 1984 by the modernist architect Harry Seidler, 9 Castlereagh Street was built as the prestigious city headquarters of a major financial organisation and features a daring exposed steel vertical truss on the street elevation supporting column-free interiors behind. The position of the lift core internally was also unusual at the time, aiming to maximise the available unimpeded space on each floor. Lifts occupy an increasingly large amount of floor area in tall office buildings. Seidler was known for structural innovations and was a master of steel construction.
The building was also innovative in its full-height internal atrium providing daylight to every floor on a tightly bounded, sunless site and featuring hanging gardens at a number of intermediate levels. As with many of Seidler’s commercial buildings, commissioned artwork is an important element of the total composition – in this case a large tile mural created by ceramicist Lin Utzon.
Danish firm Steensen Varming opened an Australian office in 1957, initially to design the mechanical systems of the Sydney Opera House with architect Jørn Utzon. The firm stayed on after the Opera House was completed. In 2010, and true to their core value of sustainability, they moved into offices on level 8 of 9 Castlereagh Street for its green credentials.
In 2018, Steensen Varming was awarded CitySwitch National Signatory of the Year for operating at a high level of energy efficiency and for their effective waste management.
Awards
1991 RAIA (NSW) merit award
2012 AIA (NSW) - Commercial Architecture Award, Commendation (for lobby and forecourt enhancements by Harry Seidler & Associates)
2014 CitySwitch - State Winners Under 2000sqm NSW & ACT (Steensen Varming level 8 tenancy)
2017 CitySwitch - State Partnership Winner New South Wales (Steensen Varming level 8 tenancy)
2018 CitySwitch - National Signatory of the Year Under 2000sqm (Steensen Varming level 8 tenancy)
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Deutsche Bank Place
126 Phillip Street, Sydney
Built
2005
Architect
Lord Norman Foster, Foster + Partners
About the building
The unambiguous brief for Deutsche Bank Place, in the heart of Sydney’s court precinct, was to create ‘the most efficient floor plate Australia has ever seen’, and the response set a new benchmark for commercial floor space in Australia. Designed by one of the world’s most internationally recognised architects, Foster + Partners (with Australian firm HASSELL), its flexible open plan spaces reflect the more collaborative, less hierarchical work cultures taking shape globally. In the centre, the full-height, 34-storey atrium allows daylight and air deep into the building. Foster’s signature for the building can be read from the skyline – a crowning 92-metre (23-storey) chevron superstructure.
Awards
Property Council of Australia - Rider Hunt Award
Australian Stone Architecture Awards - Best Commercial Interior
ASI Steel Awards NSW & ACT - High Commendation, Architectural Industrial & Commercial Steel Design
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Grimshaw
Level 2, 333 George Street, Sydney
Built
2016
Architect
Andrew Cortese, Managing Partner (Sydney), Grimshaw
Additional architects
Crone (documentation)
About the building
Grimshaw’s new Sydney studio at 333 George Street represents an evolution of this global practice in its relation to the city. Immersed in its historic location, it engages with the city, making the process of architectural production visible.
The Grimshaw-designed building sits at one of Sydney’s most significant heritage intersections: where Regimental Square meets George Street, opposite Martin Place. It was designed to strengthen the experience of this historic corner, and celebrate the character of its setting. Defining its George Street entry is a series of fluted sandstone columns – a nod to the mason’s craft that defines this heritage precinct. By contrast, the contoured glass facade forms a transparent veil on which the surrounding sandstone buildings are reflected. Deep cantilevered floor plates and a series of landscaped roof terraces on the upper levels strengthen ties between occupants and the city.
Occupying Level 2, the Grimshaw studio has the most intimate exchange of views with its heritage neighbours and the public realm. Every detail of the fit-out is designed to enhance this interaction and exchange, from a 12-metre communal kitchen table to co-working benches, a boardroom curved to face the cafes below, and the beautifully coffered ceiling that unites the studio’s zones and services while managing its acoustics.
From the studio entry, a ‘concierge’ touchdown looks over an elevated architectural drawing room; next is the model-making workshop and gallery and then the open studio arena. Like the building itself, the entire studio is thoughtfully designed to interact with those both inside and out.
Awards
2018 AIA - NSW Commercial Architecture Commendation
2018 AIA - NSW Interior Architecture Commendation (Grimshaw fit-out)
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Marrickville Library
Marrickville
Built
2019
Architect
BVN
About the building
A library is far more than a place for books: it is a place to learn, a place to meet, a place to explore, and ultimately a place to be. BVN’s design of the new Marrickville Library has created a distinctive, environmentally sensitive and inviting civic heart for Marrickville. A canopy roof and sunken garden together provide a frame to the Old Hospital Building, which has been refurbished internally and externally to provide library collection and office spaces, along with outdoor reading areas along its reinstated verandahs. New library floors connect via light bridges to the old building and provide open areas to meet, work, learn or play. A cafe and a community facilities wing open out to the library entrance and sunken lawn.
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Primus Hotel Sydney
339 Pitt Street, Sydney
Built
1939
Architect
H E Budden and Nicholas Mackey
Additional architects
Woods Bagot (2013–15, conservation and hotel adaptation)
The opening in 2015 of the Primus Hotel on Pitt Street saw one of Sydney’s finest examples of Art Deco glamour reborn as a five-star, heritage-listed hotel.
This hidden gem in the heart of Sydney was once the headquarters of the mighty Sydney Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Drainage Board. In reimagining the building, award-winning design practice Woods Bagot retained its original spatial volumes and restored many of the wondrous early features, including 8-metre-high columns clad in red scagliola rising through a soaring void, and the panelled skylight of the grand lobby.
Implicit in the adaptation was the concept of ‘looking back to look forward’. Many of the new interventions either reference the building’s history in scale or materiality, or introduce a new graphic language to respectfully distinguish new from old. The lobby columns alone are worth seeing for their lustrous scagliola – an Italian stucco finish of the late Renaissance. So is the rooftop garden bar with its 20-metre lap pool and indoor–outdoor rooms.
Awards
2019 TripAdvisor Traveller’s Choice Awards | Top 25 Hotels in Australia
2018 World Luxury Hotel Awards | Luxury Heritage Hotel, Continent: Australia & Oceania
2017 World Luxury Hotel Awards | Luxury Architecture Design Hotel, Continent: Australia & Oceania
2017 Tourism Accommodation Australia Awards | Employee Excellence in Service
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
WeWork at 100 Harris Street
Pyrmont
Built
1890s
Architect
Unknown
Additional architects
2016 SJB, restoration and adaptation
About the building
Built in the late 1890s and expanded in the early 1900s, the former Schute, Bell, Badgery & Lumby Wool Store in Pyrmont has been skilfully repurposed to honour its heritage values while taking it into the future.
In the building’s heyday, bales of wool were brought in through the richly embellished Harris Street main entry, or smaller docks on Pyrmont Street. They were hoisted into higher levels where massive ironbark columns mapped out a modular storage grid, determined by the dimensions of standard wool bales (1.22 metres x .76 metres x .76 metres). After the wool trade peaked, the building was sold and from 1971 lay dormant.
In 2016, it was adapted by SJB for a WeWork shared office environment. They combined a restoration with some bold architectural moves to deliver essential new infrastructure and a stunning central atrium, which channels daylight deep into the six-storey interior from sawtooth skylights above. Entry is staged through a sequence of spaces – from a double-height volume with a cafe, through a timber-lined tunnel, then into the foyer and atrium where the historic post-and-beam structures are expressed, while new glass lifts and sculptural stairs rise up through the atrium,
WeWork at 100 Harris Street in Pyrmont presented a unique opportunity for WeWork’s second location in Sydney. Two floors of the former woolstore were converted into a shared workspace that fosters collaboration, creativity and connection. The spaces are layered with art to bring them to life, including a 15-metre-long mural by local Sydney artist Georgia Hill, experienced on entry to the main lounge as you walk through the tunnel of LED-lit mesh screens.
Awards
2017 National Heritage Architecture Award, AIA
2017 NSW Heritage Architecture Award, AIA
2017 Adaptive Re-Use Medium Density Development Award, Urban Task Force
Participated in Sydney Open 2018
The Grace Hotel
77 York Street, Sydney
Built
1926
Architect
Morrow & Gordon
About the building
A landmark building of the Federation Skyscraper Gothic style, The Grace Hotel on York Street was originally designed by architects Morrow & Gordon, and built by Kell & Rigby in the late 1920s. It was modelled on Chicago’s Tribune Tower, pioneer of Skyscraper Gothic (and home to the Chicago Tribune), and embodied the Art Deco style with state-of-the-art facilities.
The building opened in 1930 as the Grace Brothers headquarters, with two levels for its flagship department store, and the rest as office space for the company and other soft-goods merchants. During World War II it became the Sydney headquarters of the US armed forces, and in 1945 it was compulsorily acquired by the Commonwealth Government.
The building was purchased in 1995 by Malaysia’s Low Yat Group for redevelopment as a 382-room hotel. In the extensive renovation, many original features were restored, including elevators and stairwells, ornate pressed-metal ceilings and marble floors, grand hallways, elegant ironwork and light fittings. Ever since reopening as a luxury hotel in June 1997, it has been affectionately known as ‘The Grace Sydney’. The Grace Building was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register in 1999.
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
The Queen Victoria Building
George Street, Sydney
Built
1898
Architect
George McRae, City Architect
Additional architects
1934–38 Architects Branch, City Engineering and Building Surveyors Department, City of Sydney (remodelling)
1984–86 Rice Daubney with Stephenson & Turner (major restoration and remodelling)
2009 Ancher Mortlock and Woolley, Freedman and Rembel (further restoration and upgrade of interiors)
About the building
Built in tribute to the reigning monarch, the Queen Victoria Building (QVB) was designed by City Architect George McRae and completed, in 1898, on the site of the original city markets and a police court.
Sydney was in the grip of recession at the time and the QVB’s grand, elaborate Romanesque architecture was intended as a vehicle for the government to employ many out-of-work craftsmen on a worthwhile civic project.
When complete it housed shops, studios, offices and workrooms for some 200 traders, dealers and artisans. Its upper levels held bookshops and salons for aficionados of music, painting, sculpture, drawing and dressmaking, as well as amusement halls for popular parlour games such as table tennis.
A 1917 redevelopment saw many of the QVB’s magnificent interiors destroyed, including the beautiful ground-floor marketplace that was deemed to have never quite succeeded. A later redevelopment, in the 1930s, gave the building an Art Deco update, turning much of the interior into offices for the Sydney Electricity Department.
From 1983 to 1986 a major restoration by Rice Daubney and Stephenson & Turner saw much of the QVB returned to its original splendour and use as a grand retail gallery. Further restoration and upgrade of the building’s interiors were undertaken in 2008 by architects Ancher Mortlock and Woolley with interior designers Freedman Rembel advising on the historically interpretive colour scheme, frameless glazed shopfronts, new carpets, lighting and signage.
Every detail of the building is now faithfully restored, from the arches, pillars and balustrades to the intricately tiled floors, glorious stained-glass windows and 19th-century spiral staircase beside the central dome.
Awards
1987 Sir John Sulman Medal for Public Architecture – AIA (NSW)
1987 Heritage Commendation – AIA (NSW)
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
The QVB is one of the stops on our Public Spaces self-guided audio tour,
The Bushells Building
121-127 Harrington Street, The Rocks
Built
1924
Architect
Ross and Rowe
Additional architects
A C Lewis Constructions (Concrete Constructions)
Tanner Architects (1999 Renewal Project)
TKD Architects (2018 Base Building Upgrade)
Hammond Studio (Interior Architects)
About the building
The Bushells Building was built in 1924 as a seven-storey factory for Bushells Tea and designed by the prominent Sydney architecture firm Ross and Rowe. The factory housed innovative new tea-blending, packing and dispatch methods under one roof. It has local historical associations as its location in The Rocks provides evidence of the working history of the area.
The offices of HAVAS offer two perspectives. One is a journey through time to learn about the history of Bushells interpreted through the original equipment used by the factory. Alongside this is the intelligent re-use of the building as a commercial home to a modern innovative communications company. Coexisting with the contemporary life of the building the original timber structure, tea extractors, packing slides and lift shafts. The top floor still retains evidence of where the official tea tasting was done!
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Lendlease at Tower Three International Towers Sydney
300 Barangaroo Avenue, Sydney
Built
2016
Architect
Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners
Additional architects
HASSELL (Lendlease interiors)
About the building
Lendlease’s international headquarters is located at Barangaroo South. The contemporary interior design by Hassel promotes team-based working to deliver both improved productivity and healthier, happier employees. The emphasis on health is obvious in many of the spaces, including a double-storey ‘breathing’ green wall that cycles air from the tenancy through the plants. Client meeting rooms line the perimeter of the reception floor, and an internal staircase connects an event and co-working floor below.
Awards
2017 Leesman + certification - Lendlease Barangaroo ranked in the top 6% of workplaces globally for workplace functionality and effectiveness and is one of 44 companies globally to achieve Leesman+ credentials
2018 Platinum WELL rating
2018 Property Council of Australia Innovation & Excellence Awards - Best Workplace Project Lendlease, Barangaroo
Participated in Sydney Open 2019
Our city museums
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Hyde Park Barracks
A UNESCO World Heritage-listed site in the heart of historic Sydney, the Hyde Park Barracks is an extraordinary living record of early colonial Australia. Today it is a cutting-edge museum, currently open to the public Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm.
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Museum of Sydney
A modern museum built over and around the remains of Australia’s first Government House, the Museum of Sydney celebrates the people and events that have shaped the character and soul of this city. Museum of Sydney is currently open to the public from Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 5pm.
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Justice & Police Museum
Step into the dark side of Sydney’s past at the Water Police station and courts that once made up one of the city’s busiest legal hubs. Crooks and cops, thugs and judges, locals and drifters, the guilty and the innocent have all left their stories here. While currently closed to visitors, you can still explore the rich stories and collections online.
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Susannah Place
Located in the heart of The Rocks, Susannah Place is a terrace of four houses built by Irish immigrants in 1844. For nearly 150 years these small houses with tiny backyards, basement kitchens and outside wash houses were home to more than 100 families. While currently closed to the public, you can still explore these stories online.
