This four-story commercial office block is adaptively reused and the work was completed in 2006. The exterior was redesigned by heritage architect Howard Tanner, and the interior design by Form Follows Function.

In 1901 CSR closed its distillery in Fiji and replaced it with a much larger facility in Pyrmont. Rum was one of the distillery’s products, and it had to be stored in barrels. The original Cooperage building was therefore built for CSR as a specialist workshop to manufacture these barrels. They were then conveyed on steel tracks over a bridge across the road to the distillery. (Until the 1980s Bowman Street was much narrower than today.)

The structure remains intact, and significant pieces of machinery are exhibited to display the Cooperage’s heritage. A viewing gallery around the barrel hoist and equipment in the foyer allows visitors to see how the barrels were moved between floors.