348–352 George Street, Sydney is a heritage-listed office building located at 348–352 George Street, in the Sydney central business district, in the City of Sydney local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by Edward Raht and built by Hudson and Loveridge. It is also known as the National Mutual Building (former), Society General Building, Societe Generale House, Equitable Building and 350 George Street, Sydney. The property is privately owned and was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History
The subject land, on the east side of George Street opposite the original Barracks Square had been built upon from the early days of the colony. In 1880 number 348 was occupied by Fraser's Auction Rooms, number 350 by a jeweller and number 352 by Paling's famous Music Warehouse. The backs of the buildings were accessible from Morts Passage (later known as Angel Place) to the south and through an arched right of way to the north. In 1890 a major American insurance company, The Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States of America, purchased the block containing numbers 348, 350 and 352, and the existing buildings were demolished. The Equitable Life Assurance Society sent out from America their distinguished New York architect, Edward Raht (born in Austria). Raht was noted for his commissions to design prestige buildings for insurance companies and banks. Raht designed the office building around an innovative steel frame, faced with heavy, load-bearing trachyte in the Federation Romanesque style. The trachyte came from the Bowral quarries on Mount Gambier owned by the contractors Loveridge and Hudson. The building was exceptional for its use of trachyte for the entire exterior and not merely for lower stories, arches and columns. It was one of the first buildings to be constructed with external walls entirely of trachyte, which was more commonly used as a decorative stone in combination with other materials. Erected in 1894, the building was an early example in Australia of the influence of the American Romanesque style developed by Raht's countryman, Henry Hobson Richardson, from the 1870s onward. After studying in Paris, Richardson had evolved his own simplified distillation of the Romanesque style and attracted numerous American disciples. The building is also a tangible expression of the expansion of major American companies into the Australian insurance market in the late Victorian period. Raht also designed offices for the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States of America in Melbourne in 1892, using the same steel frame and thick stone walls (in this case granite). Raht remained in Australia and designed the Bank of Australasia building at 354-360 George Street in 1904.