The club from the corner of Martin Place and Castlereagh Street in February 2008: the pale drum with two strips of curtained windows between three deep bands, raised on its single fluted column whose ribs spread under the rim; steps down to the concourse and the plaza stairs at right, a street tree and traffic lights at left, the MLC tower behind at left.

Commercial Travellers’ Association Club

Corner of Martin Place and Castlereagh Street (25 Martin Place), Sydney

Harry Seidler, with Pier Luigi Nervi. 1975 to 1977, opened July 1977. Brutalism.

Size
Two floors of 28 bedrooms over the street, three levels of club rooms below it
Material
Reinforced concrete with a white quartz finish, cast in permanent precast forms
Status
Part of the MLC Centre heritage item, Sydney LEP

The Commercial Travellers’ Association of New South Wales, founded in 1883 to represent commercial travellers and salespeople, bought the corner of Moore and Castlereagh Streets in 1907. Robertson & Marks won the competition for its club, which opened on 5 June 1909: heavily rusticated sandstone, two basements and nine floors above, with shops along Castlereagh Street, a dining room, a social room, a billiard room and a board room, and bedrooms for members on the floors above. Moore Street later became part of Martin Place.

When Lend Lease and the MLC assembled the block for the MLC Centre, the association kept its corner. It turned down an offer to buy in 1969, and in March 1973 its members voted to trade their building for the freehold of a new one on the same site, paid for by Lend Lease. The last official function in the old club was held on 25 April 1975.

Harry Seidler’s office designed the new club as a drum of two floors raised on a single column. Pier Luigi Nervi developed the column: it is fluted and tapered, and its flutes run up and out as ribs to the rim of the drum, with petal-shaped coffers between them. The drum holds 28 single and double bedrooms behind two bands of window. The club’s social rooms lie on three levels below the street, and the walkway from Martin Place station comes up at the foot of the column. Governor Sir Roden Cutler opened the club in July 1977.

The club shares the white quartz finish of the tower beside it. Its concrete was poured into permanent precast forms, a technique of Nervi’s that was new in Australia and was used across the tower, the Theatre Royal, the restaurant and the club.

Read about Brutalism in Sydney

Sources

  1. MLC Centre complex including Theatre Royal, commercial and retail buildings, significant interiors, plazas, and artworks (heritage inventory report), City of Sydney (2018)
  2. Commercial Travellers' Association of New South Wales building, Dictionary of Sydney
  3. CTA Business Club, Dictionary of Sydney