AWA Building - Sydney

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	AWA BUILDING SYDNEY Australia
Stations	Frequencies	Power	Pol'n
RADIO	None known

TELEVISION	None known

These photographs of the AWA BUILDING in Australia are by Professor Anthony C Davies who has also kindly provided us with some background information.

"The AWA building and communications tower, Sydney was built for the Amalgamated Wireless Australasia Ltd. company, and seems important in the history of radio, etc. The tower is probably no longer used to transmit anything - but the picturesque Art Deco building is now a Heritage Site (meaning that the exterior has a permanent conservation order - probably does not extend to the interior which can be ripped out - and much of it seems to have been). Originally it had many decorative features associated with radio - for example the electric light fittings were apparently made to look like radio valves, etc. The winged horse (Pagasus) features in various parts of the design, intended to convey a 'communications' theme.

The tower (perhaps a copy of Eiffel Tower?) made it the tallest structure on the Sydney skyline for many years, now it is dwarfed by modern high-rise office blocks, and even quite difficult to locate and impossible to see from many directions.

Currently the building is up for lease: I tried to get inside, but the main entrance is closed by a padlocked iron grille I got into a side part of the building which is in use by a variety of small offices, and maybe I could have got up to the roof via the elevators, but did not have time as it was my last day there and I needed to leave for the airport."

Roger Easton adds some further information further down this page.

The photograph above shows how the tower is now dwarfed by other buidlings - from most directions the 'dwarfing' is even more substantial - actually often so much that you cannot see the tower at all!

This mosaic forms the floor of the main entrance from the street. I could not get in and took the photo through the locked metal grill.

Thanks to Professor Anthony C Davies for these photographs.

Roger Easton kindly adds the following:

"Just a short note re your page on the AWA Building, that I stumbled across when delving into the history of AWA.

I worked at 47 York St from 1960 to 1963 (although some of that time was also at 72 Clarence St. - directly behind the building and joined by a catwalk on the 3rd floor of 47 York.

On the ground floor KLM -Royal Dutch Airlines had the centre as an office (I remember the big posters for the new DC8). Entrance to AWA offices was off to the left, and I can't remember what was on the right.

I worked in the Broadcasting and Recording Division, which had administration on the 10th floor, with studios on the 11th and 12th floor. The 11th floor studios were used by radio 2CH (one on-air and two production studios and a central control room with a centralized engineering room) as well as one large recording studio (its height extended up to take up half of the 12th floor). There was also one of the disc mastering facilities on this floor. The rest of the 12th floor was the 2CH record library and a few production offices. This studio was used for large productions, as most of the commercial work at that time used original music with a fairly large orchestra. (The "Bread and Butter" work - soap operas - were all recorded and mastered in the hole in the wall Clarence st. facility.

The 10th floor administration was quite large, as AWA also had broadcasting licences for (I think) 6 country radio stations as well as providing technical staff for other stations including 2SM in Sydney. (The licence for 2SM was held by the Catholic Church and religion was a factor in staff assigned there - this was before human rights, equal opportunity etc!). All personel management for this scattered empire happened on the 10th floor.

Two things stand out re my time at AWA. I was lucky enough to be able to persuade the Building Manager (a much feared man by we youngsters) to take me up to the roof in order to take photos of the skyline. The AWA was indeed the tallest building in Sydney at that time.

The second memory was that the interior of the building had wood panelling up to the height of the windows on all floors. Because of this there was a full time french Polisher on staff who spent his life systematically stripping and refinishing this woodwork. You always knew when he was around because of the foul cigar what was always lit.

Another interesting aside was that the basement was given over to the Marconi School of Wireless. All Marine radio operators, and most formal technical training was held here."

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