The MLC Campus is an icon in its own right; once the largest commercial building in Australia and start of the new Central Business District that is now North Sydney. This defining building was designed by Bates Smart Architects and opened in 1957 by Prime Minister Menzies to great fanfare.
MLC has always embodied a culture of cutting-edge innovation, derived from James P Garvan, the founding father of the organisation in 1887. Garvan's vision brought life insurance to the masses, it was no longer limited to society’s elite, this sense of frontier-style thinking continues to this day and is very much aligned to Australian popular culture. MLC not only took on the English financial institutions back in the day, but was a foundation block of Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD and key to establishing North Sydney's CBD. MLC is inherently a patron of modernist architecture, a leader of innovative financial investment products and a champion of modern work place culture.
In 2000, Bligh Voller Neild Architects introduced glass stairwells through the centre of the building to facilitate vertical pedestrian traffic between floors. The architects also introduced the integration of completely 'themed' floors, an innovation of work place environments. Each floor is an extremely different experience, which is refreshing when in such a large building (25,000SqM over 12 floors). Many have attempted to copy this formula with varying degrees of success compared to MLC.
MLC has always embodied a culture of cutting-edge innovation, derived from James P Garvan, the founding father of the organisation in 1887. Garvan's vision brought life insurance to the masses, it was no longer limited to society’s elite, this sense of frontier-style thinking continues to this day and is very much aligned to Australian popular culture. MLC not only took on the English financial institutions back in the day, but was a foundation block of Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD and key to establishing North Sydney's CBD. MLC is inherently a patron of modernist architecture, a leader of innovative financial investment products and a champion of modern work place culture.
In 2000, Bligh Voller Neild Architects introduced glass stairwells through the centre of the building to facilitate vertical pedestrian traffic between floors. The architects also introduced the integration of completely 'themed' floors, an innovation of work place environments. Each floor is an extremely different experience, which is refreshing when in such a large building (25,000SqM over 12 floors). Many have attempted to copy this formula with varying degrees of success compared to MLC.
