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Capita Centre

Harry Seidler buildingsOffice buildings completed in 1989Office buildings in SydneySkyscraper office buildings in AustraliaSkyscrapers in Sydney
Sydney central business district
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Capita Centre crop

Capita Centre, is now known as 9 Castlereagh St Sydney, is a skyscraper in Sydney, Australia. Located at 9-11 Castlereagh Street, it is 183 metres (600 ft) tall from spire and 158 metres (518 ft) tall from roof. The building was designed by Harry Seidler & Associates in 1984 and completed in 1989. The building won Royal Australian Institute of Architects (NSW) merit award 1991. The structural engineer was Miller, Milston & Ferris and the builder was Civil & Civic. The building was designed to be the new company headquarters for City Mutual (Life Assurance Society Ltd). The land-locked site at 9 Castlereagh St was chosen because of its close proximity to the company's old landmark "City Mutual Building" at 60-66 Hunter St. City Mutual wanted their new headquarters to be lavish, so no expense was spared in the building design. In 1987, City Mutual changed its name to Capita. The building cost $200m and was opened in 1989. The Capita Centre is rectangular (with varying floor plans as there is a diagonal light shaft through the building) and consists of 34 levels, with a total floor area of 24,450 square metres (263,200 sq ft). The building is constructed of composite structural steel and concrete, with its support structures making it unique as it wears its structure on the outside as an outer skeleton. The external columns or lateral bracing truss are unique because they exist outside the core of the building. This building’s design is discussed in detail by Harry Seidler in a 1993 lecture (synchronised with illustrations nos 13-24) recorded by UK architectural journalist Monica Pidgeon whose film archive is available online. www.pidgeondigital.com After Capita went into liquidation, the building at 9 Castlereagh St then became a tenanted commercial office tower. Because the tower was originally a company headquarters (with a diagonal hollow shaft to allow sun through the building), this building is one of the few Sydney prestige office towers which can provide small spaced floor plans. The building's lobby was refurbished in 2011 and won Australian Institute of Architects (NSW) Commercial Architecture Award Commendation 2012.[1] There is a porcelain mural by Lin Utzon in the ground floor lobby - installed in 1989. There was a second Lin Utzon sculpture "Capita 2" on the company executive floor. The last managing director of Capita (who later ran the company into liquidation) did not like the executive floor's design so arranged for the whole Seidler -designed executive floor on Level 31 to be gutted. Some architects from the Seidler office saved the Utzon artwork from being destroyed (traced wall paint outline and removed the porcelain cylinders). This Lin Utzon artwork featured at Museum of Sydney during a Harry Seidler exhibition in late 2014-15, and in 2016 was reassembled to Seidler office penthouse, Milsons Point. A Charles O. Perry sculpture "30” Helix Mobius Mace" (1988) was also part of Capita's executive floor on level 31, but when the executive floor was gutted, the sculpture was moved to the building basement. The Perry sculpture was later relocated to the building's entry lobby as part of the ground floor enhancements of 2011.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Capita Centre (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Capita Centre
Castlereagh Street, Sydney Sydney

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N -33.8666 ° E 151.2096 °
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Castlereagh Street
2000 Sydney, Sydney
New South Wales, Australia
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Sydney ( (listen) SID-nee; Dharug: Gadi; Greater Sydney, Dharug: Eora) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Port Jackson and extends about 70 km (43.5 mi) on its periphery towards the Blue Mountains to the west, Hawkesbury to the north, the Royal National Park to the south and Macarthur to the south-west. Sydney is made up of 658 suburbs, spread across 33 local government areas. Residents of the city are known as "Sydneysiders". As of June 2020, Sydney's estimated metropolitan population was 5,361,466, meaning the city is home to approximately 66% of the state's population. Nicknames of the city include the 'Emerald City' and the 'Harbour City'.Indigenous Australians have inhabited the Sydney area for at least 30,000 years, and thousands of Aboriginal engravings remain throughout the region. During his first Pacific voyage in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook and his crew became the first Europeans to chart the eastern coast of Australia, making landfall at Botany Bay. In 1788, the First Fleet of convicts, led by Arthur Phillip, founded Sydney as a British penal colony, the first European settlement in Australia. After World War II, it experienced mass migration and became one of the most multicultural cities in the world. Furthermore, 45.4% of the population reported having been born overseas, and the city has the fourth-largest foreign-born population of any city in the world after London and New York City.Despite being one of the most expensive cities in the world, Sydney frequently ranks in the top ten most liveable cities in the world. It is classified as an Alpha global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network, indicating its influence in the region and throughout the world. Ranked eleventh in the world for economic opportunity, Sydney has an advanced market economy with strengths in finance, manufacturing and tourism. Established in 1850, the University of Sydney was Australia's first university and is regarded as one of the world's leading universities.Sydney has hosted major international sporting events such as the 2000 Summer Olympics. The city is among the top fifteen most-visited cities in the world, with millions of tourists coming each year to see the city's landmarks. Boasting over 1,000,000 ha (2,500,000 acres) of nature reserves and parks, its notable natural features include Sydney Harbour and Royal National Park. Built attractions such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House are also well known to international visitors. The main passenger airport serving the metropolitan area is Kingsford Smith Airport, one of the world's oldest continually operating airports.