Queen Victoria Building
George Market, York and Druitt Streets
1893-98 George McRae (as markets)
1984-86 Stephenson & Turner (Alan Lawrence) and Rice
Daubney in Association (restoration)
This was the great retailing success of Sydney, despite the jeremiahs at the time it was being developed. The massive building was originally designed as a fresh produce market, called the Queen Victoria Markets, and construction commenced in the economically disastrous year of 1893. Architectural styles were in such a state of flux that the City Architect George McRae presented the Sydney City Councillors with four distinct design options: Renaissance, Gothic, Romanesque and Queen Anne.
American Romanesque which is "now so largely employed by American architects", according to a building journal description of the day, won out narrowly. The construction uses brick vaulting between steel beams with a heavy basalt base quarried in Bowral. The original concept of an internal glass roofed shopping street was lost with alterations in 1917 and, in 1935, it was converted to office space. A dominant feature is the 20 metre diameter central dome surrounded by twenty smaller copper sheeted cupolas.
Following proposals for its demolition to make way for a city car park, a restoration proposal was negotiated between developer Ipoh Garden and the owner Sydney City Council. Its feasibility hinged on the provision of a car park under York Street, to which Sydney Council agreed. The building is now an architectural and commercial success, commanding some of the highest retail rents in Sydney.
The lower, mezzanine level (basement) provides one of the city’s busiest pedestrian concourses connecting Town Hall railway station to the Pitt Street Mall.
At ground level, the gradual rise in George Street has been cleverly absorbed into the design with shops steadily rising in height along the length of the block.
Information appearing in this section is reproduced from Sydney Architecture, with the kind permission of the author, Graham Jahn, a well known Sydney architect and former City of Sydney Councillor. Sydney Architecture, rrp $35.00, is available from all good book stores or from the publisher, Watermark Press, Telephone: 02 9818 5677.
Last Updated: Wednesday 12 December, 2007