This unusual building at 42 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, is a former Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) branch. It still retains its brass night safe deposit box in the street-level, ground floor façade.

This asymmetrical Art Deco or Moderne style building consists principally of two-storeys and was constructed in 1940 with a basement and incorporates a later addition on its northern side also fronting Darlinghurst Road, constructed in 1978. It includes a highly distinctive, dramatic, decorative tower.

In about 1862, numbers 34-40 Darlinghurst Road, directly to the north of 42 Darlinghurst Road, were developed for a row of four terraces, known as known as Roslyn Terrace, and fronted Darlinghurst Road at the intersection with Roslyn Street. Portions of these terrace houses survive behind shopfront facades although substantially altered. The northern corner of the former CBA building occupies the southern portion of land that once held Roslyn Terrace. In 1923, the whole of the adjacent Alberto Terrace, numbers 42-76 Darlinghurst Road, was offered for sale by auction. Some individual terrace houses within the row were sold including number 42 Darlinghurst Road to a Mrs. Lillian May McCormack.

In 1938 The Sydney Morning Herald reported that a “three storey building of shop and flats at number 42 Darlinghurst Road has been sold to the Commonwealth Bank”. In 1940, during World War II, an advertisement appeared for “Demolishers, known men. Apply 42 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross”. In the following year, an article appeared in Building magazine showcasing the small “pocket” bank building at 42 Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross, designed by architects in the Federal Department of the Interior and constructed by Beat Bros. Pty Ltd.

The Department of the Interior was a commonwealth department that existed between April 1939 and December 1972. The department was diverse and dealt with a broad range of activities including preparation of designs and the execution of all commonwealth architectural and engineering Works in the states, Northern Territory and ACT including works for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wholly owned at the time by the commonwealth government.

The Commonwealth Bank was established as a government-owned savings and trading bank in 1911, with the first branch opening in Melbourne in 1912. In 1916, the Commonwealth Bank opened its new head office at 120 Pitt Street, Sydney (the “money box” bank). The Commonwealth Bank received almost all central bank powers in emergency legislation passed during World War II and these central banking powers were formalised at the end of the Second World War through the Commonwealth Bank Act 1945 and the Banking Act 1945. In 1960, the Reserve Bank of Australia was created to take control of the nation’s central banking operations. The Commonwealth Banking Corporation continued to provide trading, savings, and development banking. Between 1991 and 1996 the Australian government fully privatised the Commonwealth Bank.

By 2006 the bank’s building at number 42 had been de-commissioned and the site then became the “Bank Hotel”.

The configuration and appearance of the former CBA building have been substantially maintained to present day.

by Andrew Woodhouse 

Heritage Solutions