Looking up the round tower from the plaza: buff concrete fins taper as they rise between continuous bands of dark glass, converging toward the top against a white and blue sky. The black steel arcs and blade of Calder's stabile cut across the foreground at lower left and right.

Australia Square

264 George Street, Sydney

Harry Seidler, with Pier Luigi Nervi. 1961 to 1967. Modernism.

Size
170 m, 50 floors, 42 m across
Material
Lightweight reinforced concrete, 20 tapering precast columns
Status
A State Heritage Register nomination is under consideration

Dick Dusseldorp of Lend Lease bought about 30 properties to make this block, and Seidler put a round tower on just a quarter of it, leaving the rest open so that the street wouldn’t become a dark canyon. Each floor is a doughnut around a 20 m core, spanning 11 m to the windows with no columns between, and each took five working days to build. When it was finished it was the tallest lightweight concrete building in the world. Seidler commissioned Alexander Calder for the plaza. It won a Sulman Medal and, in 2012, the National Award for Enduring Architecture.

Read about Modernism in Sydney

Sources

  1. Australia Square, Docomomo Australia
  2. Modern Movement Architecture in Central Sydney: Heritage Study Review (2019), City of Sydney / Tanner Kibble Denton
  3. Australia Square, Sydney, State Library of NSW
  4. Australia Square, Wikipedia
  5. Australia Square (consultation), NSW Government, Have Your Say