45-51 Monmouth Street and 29-31 Mercer Street

Commercial offices above ground floor retail unit and entrance to Ching Court, built 1985-7 by the Terry Farrell Partnership as part of the regeneration of Comyn Ching Triangle.

The building is conventionally constructed with a steel frame or reinforced concrete. The elevations are predominantly clad in grey-brown brick with flush yellow stock brick and reconstituted stone bands, with narrow banding on or wrapping round the apex and outer bays. The building has flush glazed brick plinths and cills. Windows are coloured dark blue-grey and dark red; entrances and passages are dark red. The scale, forms and palette of materials and colours complement and provide both a unifying identity and new vitality to the scheme.

The block forms the northern apex of the triangular block first laid out in 1692 by Thomas Neal. It is laid out roughly symmetrically with four floors of commercial offices above a ground floor retail unit. On Monmouth Street is a monumental entrance and passage leading to Ching Court and within it, entrance to the commercial offices.

The apex is formed of a three-storey canted square section into which a glazed rotunda is slotted at third floor level, rising to five storeys, and set forward from two set-back, diminishing attic storeys on the return elevations. The glazed drum is facetted with a pronounced oversized cornice and to each side are small semi-circular balconies with pierced balustrades.

Ground floor shop door and window units are of timber, with fixed horizontal lights. Those at the apex are in deep stepped brick openings with full-height openings above a quadrant moulded cill. On both the Monmouth Street and Mercer Street elevations the shop window is divided by an off-centre brick drum with a dark red plain band at the head. First and second floor windows are slightly recessed, with pairs of deep red three-light casements or fixed lights. The fourth and fifth floors, with a four-bay centrepiece and set-back side bays, have pairs of similar two-light casements or fixed lights; the centrepiece has flush banding at cornice height and upper floor attic windows are in recessed moulded panels.

The main entrance to the office floors at 45 Monmouth Street is within the monumental public access to Ching Court. A square opening with flush stock brick dressings is divided by a central moulded drum pier on a masonry base, with the opening to No. 45 set back to the left in a moulded doorcase with a renewed door. A pair of steel gates in a geometric design with the opposing Comyn Ching C on each close the opening, with a similar dividing panel between. The passage is lined in timber panelling with robust simply formed oriental-inspired mouldings, the pier, panelling and doorcases all painted deep red. At the rear, the entrance passage leads into an open drum with a concentric panelled ceiling, supported on masonry piers, each with a moulded banded base and a simplified capital formed of three incised bands. The rear wall is glazed, lighting the lobby. The rotunda forms the base of the corner feature at the northern apex of the Court and is reached from it by a flight of masonry steps. Railings here as elsewhere have slender geometric panels flanking pairs of opposing Comyn Ching Cs. The drum rises through four storeys, with a giant order at first and second floors and attic storey above a moulded cornice. The principal floors have facetted tripartite glazed door and window units, with overlights and margin panels, and geometric window guards matching the railings below. The attic storey has slender pilasters, with simple plain window units and window guards between.

The ground floor office foyer at 45 Monmouth Street has shallow moulded cornices and ceiling mouldings.