The Trust Building

The Trust Building, at the corner of King Street and Castlereagh Street in downtown Sydney, is a historic office and commercial building that is now considered an important heritage landmark. Built between 1914 and 1916 by the architecture firm Robertson & Marks, it originally served as the headquarters of the daily newspaper The Daily Telegraph. The design follows the Interwar Commercial Palazzo style, making it an outstanding example of early high-rise architecture in Sydney. The facade is built of stone: the lower floors were originally faced in rough trachyte, the upper floors in dressed Pyrmont sandstone. Inside, you'll find a mix of marble, tilework, and stucco ornament, and the Art Deco banking halls, foyers, and elevator lounges in particular are largely preserved in their original condition.

The building's history is closely tied to the economic and social changes in Sydney. After the newspaper moved out in 1929, the building was first converted into the Hotel Savoy, but that venture failed during the Great Depression. A local consortium then bought the building and had it renovated for the insurance company Southern British National Trust. These alterations, completed by 1934, shaped the building's present appearance, with new entrances, a conference room, and a polished trachyte floor on the lower levels. The Bank of New South Wales, today's Westpac, later took over the building, which led to further changes, including the installation of Classical Revival elevator interiors in the 1980s.

Today the twelve-story building, with its three basement levels, houses mainly law firms and jewelers on the upper floors. As one of the few surviving commercial buildings from the Edwardian era and one of four surviving newspaper offices from the period between 1900 and 1930, the Trust Building has great historical significance. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register in 1999, as it not only documents the development of the local media landscape but is also regarded as an architectural masterpiece of Sydney's first generation of skyscrapers.