AWA Tower
45-47 York Street, Sydney
Robertson, Marks & McCredie, with Morrow & Gordon. 1937 to 1939, lattice tower rebuilt 1994. Art Deco.
- Size
- 112.5 m with the tower, on an 18.3 m front to York Street. The block under the tower is estimated in the drawing
- Material
- Steel frame faced in brick, polished trachyte at street level, steel lattice tower
- Status
- State Heritage Register, 1999. Offices
The wireless company AWA built this between 1937 and 1939, with a communications tower designed into the structure, its supports forming part of the building. The heritage register credits Robertson, Marks & McCredie in association with D. T. Morrow & Gordon. The State Library credits Morrow & Gordon. The tower was modelled on the Funkturm in Berlin, and both took ideas from the Eiffel Tower. Its height of 112.5 metres made this the tallest building in Australia until the AMP Building of 1962.
There are twelve office floors over a ground floor and basement, and the listing describes a front vertically modelled to give a skyscraper appearance. A winged Pegasus in brick relief sits on the parapet, said to have been chosen by Ernest Fisk, a founding director of AWA and a pioneer of wireless. For many years the tower carried the sign “Beam Wireless”, a radio service to shipping on the England to Australia route. Inside are a foyer in Wombeyan Russet marble, silver ash panelling, plaster reliefs by Otto Steen of the four elements, the zodiac and the nations of the world, and a world map cut into a polished trachyte wall.
In the 1960s large neon AWA signs went up on the building, to mark the company’s place as the first in Australia to make televisions. The company folded in 2000, the building was sold, and the red signs were later taken down. The tower was demolished and rebuilt in 1994 and is still lit at night. It can be seen behind the helicopter escape in the film The Matrix.