Hilton Hotel

The original building, designed in the 60s by Kolos & Bryant, was a hermetically sealed concrete fortress that was a labyrinth of car-park ramp; precast, windowless panels; and low-ceiling, cavernous reception areas. It had no visual connection to its environs at all - the building was a stark, uncommunicative façade, sensually empty, and it could have been anywhere - so the architects at Johnson Pilton Walker wanted a building that, first and foremost, engaged in a character-driven dialogue with its Sydney surrounds.

The reconstruction of the hotel's five storey podium and the forty-four storey tower was organised around a strategy of untangling a complex, confused building and actively opening spaces. The hotel foyer and reservation desk was relocated from the upper levels of the podium, above a failed shopping arcade, to a street-level location, accessed by a newly fabricated ‘street' that connects George Street and Pitt Street. In one move, this eliminated the need for the Pitt Street ramps and exposed the tower as a freestanding, cleanly erect building, fronting an open-air courtyard bolstered by a podium of sandstone and glass that polish and celebrate the existing street-level vernacular. The new arrangement and simplification of space projects a 20 metre high space. Shops established on street level mend the tragic failure of the 1960s double-level internal shopping complex, favouring cosmopolitan street-side promenades encouraging accessibility.

The award winning renovation, that visually cues its heritage-listed precinct (Town Hall, Queen Victoria Building) effectively allows the glitter of the CBD to enter the Hilton: the fully glazed restaurant, aptly titled the Glass Brasserie and designed by celebrated New York interior designer Tony Chi, as well as the large ballroom and extensive new convention facilities (accommodating up to 3000 delegates) offers spectacular views of both George and Pitt Street, as natural light dramatically floods the hotel and the theatre of the city penetrates its walls.

Underneath the hotel, the Marble Bar resides, once the opulent centrepiece of the 1893 Adams Hotel, built on the site by the founder of Tattersalls, and demolished, along with the spectacularly contorted glass-topped galleria of the Royal Arcade to make way for Kolos & Bryant's concrete structure. Remnants bespeaking its Victorian grandeur survived, and were quickly gleaned by the architects at Johnson Pilton Walker. The bar is reconstructed deep under the hotel, linked to the vertically stacked Zeta Bar and the Glass Brasserie by glass elevators. The tower itself, with its 577 wholly refurbished rooms, has comparatively had minor changes. Its notorious cellular box construction precluded major structural works; only new vertical glazing and infill cladding was added.

The results are so impeccable, that even the hideous, pale blue, adjoining 1980s monorail line doesn't rain on its parade. +

Previous. JPW's Hilton Hotel. A manufactured and stylised ‘street' connecting George and Pitt Streets at ground level has replaced the unsightly parking ramps, making the whole Hilton complex open and alluring.

Top. The rebirth of the Sydney Hilton saw its rebranding as a place to ‘meet, eat, sleep and play' - the new design combines various function rooms, fine dining, popular night-spots and luxury accommodation.

Second. Glass Brasserie, its interior created by New York interior designer Tony Chi, focuses on the stunning vista of the facing Queen Victoria Building.

Third. Suspended from the ceiling of the four-storey lobby space, Bronwyn Oliver's coiling aluminium masterpiece, Vine, reaches more than 16 metres up through the atrium towards the newly exposed natural light source.

Bottom. It took over 30 months and $200 million of total deconstruction and reconstruction to finally complete the planned metamorphosis.