Royal Automobile Club of Australia building is a heritage-listed clubhouse located at 89–91 Macquarie Street, Sydney, City of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by H. E. Ross and Rowe and built from 1926 to 1928 by William Hughes and Co. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
The Automobile Club of Australia, formed in Sydney on 20 March 1903, was the first motoring association in Australia. It was followed later in 1903 by state associations in South Australia and Victoria and in 1905 by Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. Although the initial impulse for forming the ACA was the protection of motorists against tiresome restrictions, it quickly turned to wider activities, including road races and reliability trials.
The Club met initially in a city hotel, then from 1906 to 1908 in a room over a garage at 109 Elizabeth Street and from 1908 until 1914 in the basement of Challis House in Martin Place. With increasing membership the Club bought its own 3-storied premises at 132 Phillip Street in 1914, but during World War I motoring virtually ceased and expansion was delayed until 1919, when the Club became the Royal Automobile Club and acquired 134 Phillip Street as sleeping accommodation for country members.
In 1922–1923 a new site was purchased at 89–91 Macquarie Street. A member, the architect Ruskin Rowe of H.E. Ross and Rowe, designed the new building and supervised its construction by William Hughes and Co as a goodwill gift. Building began in 1926 and the Club was opened by the Governor of New South Wales on 23 March 1928. The two lowest floors were garages, with lifts installed by Major, Stevens and Coates Ltd (replaced in 1947). The terrazzo staircase was by Melocco Bros and the wall tiling beside the staircase by the Australian Tesselated Tile Co.
This was followed by a difficult period of economic depression and the Club rather stagnated until after World War II, when a series of major alterations were made, most notably to floors 3, 5 and 6 in 1961 by Crane, Scott and Ferris in 1963–1973 by Rudder, Littlemore and Rudder. The second-storey windows on Albert Street were bricked up in 1961. Although the building had been designed to allow for the construction of four more stories and, although plans for two extra stories were drawn up and published in 1953, the aspiration was never realised.
Description
The Royal Automobile Club of Australia building is a five-storey building with three basement levels which occupies an important site on the corner of Macquarie and Albert Streets. It is a fine and characteristic example of the Interwar Commercial Palazzo style used for major commercial buildings both locally and overseas, particularly in the United States. The major facades are divided into the characteristic three-part classical/Italianate division and feature dark face brickwork with lighter coloured sandstone dressings to the five stories of the main building. A fine stone colonnade lines the main Macquarie Street elevation and has an accessible terrace with wrought iron balustrade. Steel-framed French doors give access from the first floor. On the rear elevation both the main ground floor level and three below this (levels 1–3 + basement carpark) have cement rendered walls and much of the detailing of the upper brick walls is also in render. Though largely intact externally, the building has had a number of internal alterations and extensive redecoration particularly to the residential accommodation, function rooms and service areas and the original basement car park.
Significance
The RAC building is an important and relatively rare surviving example of a purpose built gentleman's club from the early 20th century and continues to provide a number of its key original services and facilities for members. It is also significant as the home of the first motoring association in Australia – the Automobile Club of Australia of 1903 (later the Royal Automobile Club) – and it is strongly associated with this function in the community. The building is also socially significant through its long tradition of providing overnight accommodation for visiting country members.