Originally completed in 1969, Murray Building was a former government headquarters tower. It was the tallest government building at that time standing at 27 stories.
Ron Phillips was the original architect from the Public Works Department. Murray Building was designed with its windows meticulously recessed and oriented to avoid intrusion of excessive direct sunlight. This design won the Certificate of Merit of the Energy Efficient Building Award in 1994. Another distinctive design feature of Murray Building, which is tightly surrounded by major roads on all sides, is its vehicular entrance consisting of a sequence of four-storey high arches intersected by a podium and a vehicle ramp.
The building was re-purposed in 2018 as a hotel, The Murray, with Foster + Partners as the new architect. The new design conserved the recessed windows white façade as well as an old tree, which rises up through a void in the parking slab of the podium as the centrepiece of the arrival sequence for guests.
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