Landscape view from near the Quay at late afternoon: the curved-top AMP Building with its sloped vertical piers, flags and AMP sign, beside the InterContinental and AMP Centre. Soft sky, building clear.

AMP Building

33 Alfred Street, Circular Quay

Peddle, Thorp & Walker. Opened 1962. Modernism.

Size
117 m (some sources say 114 m), 25 or 26 floors
Material
Steel frame encased in concrete, with an aluminium and glass curtain wall
Status
State Heritage Register, 2025. Refurbished offices at 33 Alfred Street

Sydney had a 150-foot height limit from 1912. In 1957 the AMP Society asked to go at least 100 feet over it, and a bill reached Parliament within a month. The tower that opened in 1962 was the tallest building in Australia, and it gave 45 percent of its site back to a public plaza. People objected to the curve as much as the height. A public lookout on the roof drew over a million visitors in its first two years, and Australia Square later opened a higher one. Breaking the limit is what let the rest of this skyline happen.

Read about Modernism in Sydney

Sources

  1. Modern Movement Architecture in Central Sydney: Heritage Study Review (2019), City of Sydney / Tanner Kibble Denton
  2. AMP Building, Docomomo Australia
  3. AMP Building, Sydney, Wikipedia
  4. Australia’s first tower to be refurbished, ArchitectureAu