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Adorned with \u201cindecent\u201d sculptures, Sydney\u2019s idiosyncratic Reader\u2019s Digest building has confounded the public since it was unveiled in 1967 as an idealistic Mad Men-esque workplace.<\/p>\n
It was conceived as art as architecture. Or architecture as art. And its fans say it may just be the most fabulously ugly thing you\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n
SJB director Adam Haddow loves the way its architect John James married an obsession with Gothic architecture with Brutalism. \u201cI call it Beaut-alism,\u201d Haddow said.<\/p>\n
Haddow\u2019s SJB and architect Matthew Byrnes of Design 5 \u2013 Architects have unveiled plans for a $23 million adaptive reuse project to start later this year. It will turn the 4200-square-metre heritage-listed building in Waterloo Street into a \u201choney pot for creative activity\u201d in Surry Hills.<\/p>\n
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The Reader\u2019s Digest building in Surry Hills. Credit: <\/p>\n
\u201cIt should become the Surry Hills Town Hall, emotionally at least, because there isn\u2019t one \u2013 unless you count the Clock Hotel,\u201d said Haddow, who lives a five-minute walk away.<\/p>\n
Built to house the Reader\u2019s Digest\u2019s state-of-the-art $1 million computer that was the size of a small home, and its ground-floor printing presses, the offices were designed to give employees a sense of modernity and spaciousness.<\/p>\n
Byrnes said James believed an office space should look and feel like home: \u201cA place where you wanted to spend your day, rather than a glass box with little sense of the human scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Adam Haddow of SJB architects with Matthew Byrnes of Design 5 \u2013 Architects inside the Reader\u2019s Digest building on Waterloo Street in Surry Hills. Credit: Kate Geraghty<\/p>\n
To achieve that, James collaborated with sculptor Douglas Annand and landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie, who designed what is thought to be Australia\u2019s first rooftop garden on a commercial building.<\/p>\n
Byrnes said the approved new works would build on James\u2019 original vision. The architects planned to restore warmth, light and amenity to the building, now owned by the Barana Group, and avoid \u201cthe sterile, impersonal feel associated with commercial architecture\u201d.<\/p>\n
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An article about the new Reader\u2019s Digest Building in 1967. Credit: Reprinted with permission of Reader\u2019s Digest November 1967.<\/p>\n
The project will finally install a large pile of Annand\u2019s original anthropomorphic sculptures that Byrne discovered had been banished to the building\u2019s undercroft because they were too lewd.<\/p>\n
In a self-published book on the project, architect James recalled a 5am call from a visiting Reader\u2019s Digest manager who had just flown in from the US and taken a taxi direct to the almost completed site.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe man was in a towering rage,\u201d James wrote. \u201cDoug\u2019s cast iron railings, just installed on the verandas, were \u2018indecent, with a hideous sexuality\u2019 and \u2018gross insult to decent people\u2019. They were \u2018perverted\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
James wrote that the executive threatened: \u201cI want them removed from the building before I have showered, breakfasted and back in the building, or you are fired. I will dismiss you on the spot if those gross horrors are not removed at once.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project will also replace the rooftop garden and failing waterproof membrane.<\/p>\n
Other internal features, including those synonymous with mid-century architecture, such as the original copper artichoke pendant lights, and lift panels with chrome circular ashtrays on every floor, will be retained.<\/p>\n
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A sculpture by Douglas Annand on the exterior of the Reader\u2019s Digest building in Sydney\u2019s Surry Hills.Credit: <\/p>\n
The bespoke balustrades and beautifully crafted timber handrails curled like a shepherd\u2019s crook will be polished, and the building will be updated to meet accessibility guidelines.<\/p>\n
The project\u2019s goal of bringing life back to this part of Surry Hills seems direct from the pages of the Reader\u2019s Digest article about its sparkling new home in November 1967.<\/p>\n
The editors wrote that they hoped the Digest\u2019s new home would fulfil the then-mayor of Sydney\u2019s goal of bringing new life to Surry Hills, and encouraged their 610,000 Australian subscribers to visit.<\/p>\n