Department of Lands building, Government building in Bridge Street, Sydney, Australia
The Department of Lands building is a heritage-listed government structure in the central business district of Sydney, fronting four streets: Bridge, Loftus, Bent, and Gresham. It is built from sandstone and topped by a copper dome that rises above its three floors.
Colonial Architect James Barnet designed this Victorian Renaissance Revival building, which was constructed in two phases between 1876 and 1892. It was built to centralize land administration for the colony of New South Wales.
The facades display statues of explorers and surveyors who mapped the Australian continent, set into niches along the sandstone walls. Walking around the building, visitors can look up and identify these figures one by one.
The building stands at a central intersection in Sydney's business district and is easy to spot from several directions. All four facades and the statues can be seen from the surrounding sidewalks without entering the building.
A surveying baseline is set into the base of the building, established between 1887 and 1894, and it serves as the reference point for all height measurements across New South Wales. This means that nearly every elevation measurement taken in the state traces back to this single point on the building's exterior.
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