75 Pitt Street
One of ‘the first tall modernist style office buildings in Sydney’. This is an opportunity to bring a local modernist heritage building to the current era and to its changed contextual surroundings.
Built in 1937 the original Royal Exchange Assurance Building’s modernist architectural aesthetics stood out along the Pitt Street wall, with its modernist composition and the use of glass façade cladding and a glass block podium.
The brief was to upgrade the building to current standards, identify opportunities to value add, new entry, a sample fitout to a typical floor and to redesign the shopfront. The key heritage architectural qualities used as our inspiration were: the classic modernist composition, the play of light and translucency, the street interface and it’s location.
The building now has 3 frontages and is part of a historical laneways network that leads to the restaurant/bar precinct toward George Street. Large ground floor openings were added to allow filtering vistas through the building to the lanes.
The new entry foyer is part of the transparent interface. Original glass blocks found during construction are displayed on the façade. The material selection is consistent to the heritage inspirations in attempt to recapture the original modern simplicity. The backlit awning a reference to night glow from the glass block podium of yesteryear. The project successfully captured the historical qualities of the building and re-integrated it into its new built and social context.
