Street-corner view: the black granite entrance portal with carved figure panels and the red granite base, with the sandstone tower rising above (66 Hunter Street and Bligh Street sign visible). Portrait, overcast. Not a wide view of the whole building.

City Mutual Life Building

60-66 Hunter Street, Sydney

Emil Sodersten (some sources add John Crust), sculpture by Rayner Hoff. Opened 1936. Art Deco.

Size
11 floors. No height found; the drawing is estimated
Material
Steel frame; red and black polished granite; Hawkesbury sandstone above
Status
State Heritage Register, 1999. Strata offices

Sodersten didn’t win the competition. The Society preferred a design he had withdrawn, and hired him anyway. He regarded the skyscraper as the acme of efficiency and perfection, and a journal of the day reported tram passengers leaning forward to gaze at this one. It was among the first air-conditioned offices in Sydney. A roof garden was removed because the wet soil was too heavy. In 1946 the Society asked him to put a mezzanine in the three-storey Assurance Chamber. He refused, sued over fees on another job, won, and lost his client.

Read about Art Deco in Sydney

Sources

  1. City Mutual Life Assurance Building, Wikipedia