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Top Ten Sydney Architecture

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Top Ten Sydney Skyscrapers

For a more complete list, see Sydney Architecture

Deutsche Bank

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architect	Sir Norman Foster
location	opposite Chifley Square
date	2005
style	Late 20th-Century Late Modern
construction	rcframe, steel head-dress
type	Office Building
notes	A level of detailing true to Foster. An otherwise dull building is greatly enlivened with a fantastic glass lift core.

While the clarity and rigour of the concept, the structural bravura and expression, the public space and the expressed vertical circulation are all Foster trademarks, some other aspects of the design feel compromised. It is particularly disappointing that the building, as a result of value engineering, has not incorporated the innovative environmentally sustainable approaches that we have come to expect from the Foster team. The building’s strength, however, is the reinvention of the detached side core building typology with a remote core and full-height atrium for the information age. As a result, Deutsche Bank Place is a new benchmark for commercial floor space in Australia, and has achieved the client’s aim of the most effective floor plate in Australia.

Aurora Place and Macquarie Apartments

architect

Renzo Piano

location

88 Phillip Street and 155 Macquarie Street Renzo Piano

date

2000

style

Late 20th-Century Post-Modern

construction

reinforced concrete

type

Office Building

notes

-	The building has an unusual geometric shape where not one panel was parallel to any grid.
-	Purchase transaction completed January 2001 for $485 million.
-	The curved and twisted shape of east façade is aimed to correspond spatially with Opera House.
-	The east façade bulges out slightly from its base, reaching its maximum width at the top floors.
-	Aurora Place was the winner of prestigious 2002 Property Council of Australia Rider Hunt Award, handled out for technical and financial qualities.
-	The exterior glass curtain-wall extends beyond the main frame, creating an illusion of its independence.
-	The assumptions of a planned tower were first presented to the Central Sydney Planning Committee in 1996, when three main architecs: Mark Carroll, Shunji Ishida and Renzo Piano put forward the innovative project.

Governor Phillip Tower and Governor Macquarie Tower

architect	Denton Corker Marshall
location	Corner Phillip and Bridge Streets
date	1993
style	Late 20th-Century Late Modern
construction	reinforced concrete 227 m 745 ft 54 floors The building is clad with 13,000 panels of granite with grey and pink tones. Sits on top of the Museum of Sydney, on the first Government House site.
type	Office Building
notes	Sydney's "belle of the ball" for the nineties. Incorporates an ingenious structural system to cantilever over landmarked terrace houses.

Chifley Tower

architect	Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates and Travis Partners
location	Chifley Square, Cnr Hunter, Phillip and Loftus Streets, Sydney
date	1988-93
style	Late 20th-Century Post-Modern
construction	reinforced concrete, granite cladding. 240m/787ft 50 floors
type	Office Building
notes	A nice touch of post-modern art-deco exuberance in an otherwise boxy city. Built when KPF were at their prime.

The international commercial city is based on the premise that it is more profitable to develop air space than it is to develop land space. For Sydney, Chifley Tower is one of the most expensive projects to date, with an overall cost approaching $1 billion. Incorporating technology seen in their East Wacker Drive project in Chicago, the American firm of Kohn Pedersen Fox grafted on the picturesque romantic skyscraper stylism found in early 20th Century American office towers.

Centrepoint

architect	Crone Associates, consulting engineers, Wargon Chapman & Associates Pty. Ltd
location	Pitt and Market Streets
date	1969-74 (2007- retail section below currently being heavily renovated by Westfields and JWA Architects, with the addition of a new commercial tower and recladding of the ATO building).
style	Late 20th-Century Late Modern
construction	see notes section. Hyperboloid structure
type	Office Building

The Sydney Tower sits a whopping 250 metres above Sydney city, the views from the tower are breathtaking and take in from as close as the Harbour Bridge and Opera House to sights as far away as the beaches to the mountains. You'll look down on one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
The tower has a capacity of 960 persons, and contains two levels of restaurants, a coffee lounge, an Observation Deck, two telecommunication transmission levels and three plant levels. To get there you can travel in one of three high speed double deck Lifts take approximately 40 seconds to travel from top to bottom or if you register for the annual Sydney Tower Run-Up you can get there by climbing 1504 stairs.

Capita Centre

architect	Harry Seidler
location	Castlereagh Street
date	1988-90
style	Late 20th-Century Late Modern
construction	reinforced concrete
type	Office Building
notes	The thinking man's skyscraper. Ingenious structural system allowed for multiple sky-gardens.

The Capita Centre occupies a tight, landlocked site on Castlereagh Street in the centre of Sydney city. Measuring only 1,537 square metres, and open only to the East, the restricted nature of the site demanded a very different design from the architect - Harry Seidler's other works in the city. In fact, the problem was so difficult and unusual that Seidler nearly abandoned the commission before putting pen to paper. It compelled Seidler to address the issue of the building's relationship with neighboring buildings.

The building bears the hallmarks of a Seidler building; maximizing public open space at the ground floor, with a proposed link through a neighboring building to Pitt Street, controlling sunlight with external louvres to the North and East and a bold, expressed structural system, characterized by the dramatic vertical truss to the Eastern facade on Castlereagh Street.

Australia Square Tower

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architect	Harry Seidler
location	Corner George, Bond and Pitt Streets
date	1961-7
style	Late 20th-Century International
construction	reinforced concrete 170 m 558 ft
type	Office Building

- Australia's tallest building 1967 - 1975.
- The tubular shaped building is 41 metres in diameter.
- A revolving restaurant is located 153 metres above street level.
- Tallest building in Southern Hemisphere from 1967-73 it was eclipsed by the 223 meter Carlton Centre of Johannesburg.

World Square

architect	Crone
location	George Street. (Former site of Anthony Hordern's) World Square covers an entire city block bounded by George, Liverpool, Pitt and Goulburn Streets , midway between Central and Town Hall Stations and is located on George Street bus routes. It is just a short walk from the light rail, and also has its own monorail stop.
date	c. 2004
style	Late 20th-Century Post-Modern
construction	rc frame
type	Apartment Building
notes	This was a hole in the ground for 20 years until the recent boom. Flashy type of architecture quite appropriate for this very dynamic and cosmopolitan entertainment district. A bit like Times Square in spirit.

King George Building (formerly American Express Building)

architect	John Andrews International Pty Ltd
location	corner of King and George Streets.
date	1976
style	Late 20th-Century Late Modern
construction	rc
type	Office Building

Iconic seventies building with filigree glazing grid that was unfortunately replaced in the nineties (it blocked out a lot of sun...). Its funky '70s character remains, with the modern inclusion of indoor gardens, etc.

AWA Building

architect	Robertson, Marks and McCredie in association with DT Morrow and Gorden
location	York Street
date	1939
style	Inter-War Art Deco
construction	brick and steel 112 m 367 ft
type	Office Building

Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd (AWA) was a household name from the 1930s to the 1950s as both a broadcaster and a manufacturer of radios, record
players and other electrical equipment. Wireless House, its headquarters on York Street, became a Sydney landmark when it was built in 1939, the steel tower being the highest structure in the city until the 1960s.

- The Tower has a viewing platform 97m above street level which was Sydney's highest for many years, it is no longer open to the public.
- The AWA Tower was Australia's tallest building until 1958 when it was overtaken by ICI House, now Orica House, in Melbourne.
- The white 159-foot tower on the roof was intended as a replica of the Eiffel Tower.