From drab partitions to haute couture host: how a Sydney civic masterpiece was rescued

Its award-winning neighbour, now known as The Lands by Capella, partially opened earlier this year, and this week was a satellite host to Australian fashion week. When finished later this year, it will offer 10,000 sq metres of luxury retail, dining and event spaces for weddings, galas and conferences.

Designer clothing brand AJE held its Australian fashion week runway show at The Lands by Capella on Tuesday. Photograph: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet (architect for the General Post Office in Martin Place, Customs House and Darlinghurst ourt house, among others) and constructed between 1876 and 1892, the sandstone palace was once the centre of the colony’s land administration, housing survey maps and land titles that defined the state’s borders and real property.

The third floor of the Metropolitan District Survey Office in 1898, as seen in the GBA heritage conservation management plan. Photograph: Australian Town and Country Journal

It was also the site of high-stakes livestock ballots. For decades, hopeful selectors would fill the building’s grand halls, including many returned soldiers from both world wars seeking a new start through soldier settlement schemes. Thousands would crowd the marble corridors, waiting for their names to be drawn from a ballot box to secure a parcel of government-distributed bush.

The Brutalist landmark Town Hall House was also awarded. Photograph: Urbis

The awards also gave a conservation prize to Urbis and the City of Sydney for its restoration of one of Sydney’s most distinctive Brutalist landmarks, Town Hall House. The sheer scale of the restoration project in itself, the judges said, was “hard to comprehend”.

And Hector Abrahams Architects was recognised for restoring an almost totally ruined 1920s Castlecrag home designed by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin.

The restored 1920s Castlecrag home. Photograph: Richard Glover

White Bay Power Station’s entertainment hall won the interiors category.

White Bay Power Station’s refurbished Entertainment Hall. Photograph: Katherine Lu

More than 1,000 members of the public voted for the refurbished grand dining room in the Katoomba’s Carrington hotel in the people’s choice award.

The Carrington hotel’s restored grand dining room. Photograph: The Carrington Hotel

The president’s prize went to GPG Architecture for the Coolamon hotel redevelopment with the National Trust (NSW) president, Bruce Pettman, describing the five-year conservation project as an impressive testament to the cultural and economic impact of country pubs in Australia.