The principal former AMP building is one of the most dignified in the city. Completed in 1928 to the design of Clere & Clere, it stands an imposing eight stories tall on its corner site with major elevations to both Hunter Street and Customhouse Quay; the main entrance is on the latter. It is as notable for the very fine materials and craftsmanship employed in its construction, including the distinctive rusticated ashlar sandstone to the façades (laid over a steel primary structure) and the marble cladding in the entrance, as it is for its quality of design.
The building is composed as an Italian palazzo with a double-height base (which is made up of a half-basement above the footpath with a generous double-height first storey set above that), trimmed with a stylised Doric entablature with a cornice supported on tri-glyphs, and a five-storey trunk which is divided from the top floor with a heavy Corinthian cornice with prominent consoles. Above this, the top floor is finished with a simple parapet line. With the exception of the vaulted main entrance, the openings to the building are all square headed. They are enlivened on the trunk of the building by a variety of pediments and ornamentation – flat pediments on brackets to the first floor, triangular pediments to the second, semi-circular pediments to the third and flat pediments to the fourth, bas-relief panels between the windows at the fifth and with recessed architraves at the top floor.
The main façades are articulated about a bevelled corner which rises to the carved pediment sculpture group on top of the parapet featuring the motto of the AMP “Amicus Certus in Re Dicerta” (“a certain friend in uncertain times”) and the legend “Established 1849”. This group features three adult figures, a child and an owl.
The main entrance, on Customhouse Quay, is the finest remaining in the city. It is a double-height barrel vault with deep coffering which rises over marble walls and steps and ornamental bronze work. Recent alterations have replaced a poorly detailed 1960s aluminium glazed weather-screen across the entrance with a modern frameless glass screen and most of the original fabric in this area remains in place and visible to the public.
While internal alterations, including the mezzanine division of the first floor, have somewhat reduced the overall heritage value of the building, the exterior remains highly authentic and the impressive entry is almost intact. This building is a major contributor to the streetscape on both of the adjoining streets and in the longer view north from the intersection of Lambton Quay and Willis Street.
The later AMP Chambers building, built in 1952 on the corner of Hunter Street and Featherston Street, is not of particular heritage significance although it has an important association with this building. It shows a carefully balanced composition, with an interesting concave bevel in the facades at the street corner drawing attention to a retail entrance.
The building is drawn to line with the earlier AMP from the top down. The upper floors align visually but become progressively de-synchronised as the building nears the street, a consequence of the disparity in inter-floor heights between the buildings. A strong projecting cornice, line divides the roof-top floor, presumably a later addition, from the top floor of the building itself. The top floor is heavily glazed and the base of the glazing forms another strong horizontal line that aligns with the principal cornice on the older building. The two façades are arranged with a central symmetry and focus with a large panel, subdivided horizontally by a beam line, of windows separated horizontally by mullions in two widths and vertically by bronze spandrel panels. This bay is flanked either side by a plain wall panel with regularly spaced small windows. The bottom part of the façade has a clumsy modern verandah.
