Daytime view of the Goulburn Street entrance: coffered concrete canopy on tall round columns, ribbed concrete, sign "Sydney Police Ce... 151-241 Goulburn, Surry Hills Police" on the wall. Overcast, bare trees overhead, bollards in the foreground.

Sydney Police Centre

151-241 Goulburn Street, Surry Hills

Richard Dinham, NSW Government Architect’s Office. 1980 to 1987, planned from 1975. Brutalism.

Size
About 115 m along Goulburn Street, 3 to 4 levels above ground. No height found; the drawing is estimated
Material
Exposed concrete, coffered slabs, round columns
Status
No heritage listing found. Appears to be still in police use

Planning for a police centre began in 1975 on the Premier’s instruction, and sketch plans were approved in 1979. Construction began in 1980 and, after long delays, finished in 1986. It opened in March 1987, absorbing Surry Hills station and replacing Walter Liberty Vernon’s 1899 station at Darlinghurst, and was also intended to replace Central Police Station. Much of it is out of sight: a 100-metre shooting range, forensic laboratories and holding cells all sit below ground. What you see from the street is a long, flat stack of slabs on round columns. It’s the least documented building here. SOS Brutalism listed it as endangered in 2017, and in 2024 reclassified it as least concerned or unknown.

Read about Brutalism in Sydney

Sources

  1. Sydney Police Centre Site Office: Unregistered papers (description from the Concise Guide to the State Archives of NSW), NSW State Archives, via Research Data Australia
  2. Sydney Police Centre [agency record], NSW State Archives, via Research Data Australia
  3. Darlinghurst Police Station [agency record], NSW State Archives, via Research Data Australia
  4. Richard Dinham: Surry Hills Police Center, #SOSBRUTALISM
  5. The Brutalist Project Sydney, Glenn Harper, Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarships, NSW Architects Registration Board (2016)