Project Status: Completed in 2006
Location: Sydney, NSW

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Photography: Richard Glover

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AIA NSW Architecture Award for Commercial, Commendation – Addition to a Heritage Item, 2006

The City South Telephone Exchange building is a fine example of a large-scale, Inter-War Commercial Palazzo Style civic building. It was designed by the Commonwealth Architect, John Smith Murdoch. The landmark City South Telephone Exchange building is part of a prominent civic group that has significant townscape qualities when read against the adjacent Fire Station to the north along Castlereagh Street. This significance is largely related to the Castlereagh Street façade.

The project was to lift an existing restrictive covenant off the site so that the building might be added to and the site’s commercial viability be realised. It also required a policy for additions to heritage which facilitated a large expansion to an existing item of heritage listed by the City of Sydney.

The addition of a glass and steel structure above the existing building incorporates a light frame that juxtaposes in architectural intent to the heritage fabric at its base.