The Alexander apartments, 4 Elizabeth Bay Road, is surreptitious. It is setback from its front boundary and its entrance leads to a ground floor carpark and entrance alcove.

A closer examination reveals a bespoke quality.

Its front signage, “Alexander”, is backlit for ease of identification at night. The interior of the entrance foyer is paved in Nero Marquina black marble. The exterior of the foyer is framed with a highly unusual and possibly completely unique architrave made up of pebbles and slivers of Carrera marble. These have been hand laid on site and create an individualised sense of luxury.

No other building known has this feature.

The Alexander was built in 1967 and designed by Gabor Lukacs and Stephen Gergely.

Its six levels and 54 apartments are built in blonde bricks with dark brick contrasts. giving the facade some visual interest and contrast. The use of chrome for the balcony railings is also unusual.

The provenance of the name Alexander is unknown. and very little is known about the architects.

Their names seem to indicate a European, possibly Hungarian or Czechoslovakian, heritage.

The Czech and Hungarian Revolution of 1956, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was an attempted countrywide revolution against the Russians and the government of the Hungarian People’s Republic and its policies caused by the government’s subordination to the Soviet Union. Many citizens fled.

It is possible Lukacs an Gergely were among them.

The firm also built commercial buildings including the Frisco showroom in Punchbowl in 1967. It was a slender structure of steel and glass punctuated by bold neon signage. It displayed a  great deal of their native Europe’s modernist cues whilst adapting them to the Australian landscape.

The Alexander is one of about 33 mid-century apartment blocks in the 2011 postcode area, a genre gaining in recognition and popularity.

By Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions