01/09/2026
BARRACK HOUSE CELEBRATES ITS CENTENARY WITH A RESTORATION 🏛️ 📍343 George Street
The heritage-listed building was constructed between 1921 and 1925, and was built in two stages. The Barrack Street section went up first, followed by the George Street section.
The building was originally known as Barrack House, and served as the main office for the Commercial Banking Company of Sydney until the bank merged in the 1980s to become the National Australia Bank (NAB). Banking operations continued in the building until 2008.
The building was design by architects Kent and Massie, and follows the Inter-war Commercial Palazzo style, which made office buildings look like grand Italian palaces, and projected confidence and stability in banking during the 1920s. The ground floor features rare Australian marble finishes and bronze details inside the main banking chamber.
The lower ground floor holds a rare circular Chubb Safe Deposit Vault door, which is one of only two of its kind left in Australia, and represents the pinnacle of 1920s security engineering
When the adjacent building at 341 George Street was built as the Bank of New South Wales headquarters in 1932, prominent architects (including Professor Leslie Wilkinson from the University of Sydney) publicly panned the two mismatched designs as “one of the most clashing things I have ever seen”
A New South Wales Government-owned superannuation fund now owns the property. The upper levels operate as commercial office spaces for companies such as Atlassian, while the luxury brand Burberry occupies the prominent ground-floor retail space.
The landmark building has just undergone a multi-million dollar façade remediation and sandstone conservation project managed by the City of Sydney to preserve its heritage features.
