Designed by Tzannes and Associates, and completed in 2009, the building evokes the quarrying which transformed the Jacksons Landing area before CSR moved here in the 1870s.

Sydney (actually Hawkesbury) sandstones formed millions of years ago, when this was the delta of an immense river. Pyrmont’s ‘self-colouring’ yellowblock variant is light grey until exposed to the air, when it darkens to a warm yellow-brown. Masons love it for its colour and soft texture, and every architect wanted to use it for Sydney’s public buildings, from the 1850s until the 1920s.

Small-scale quarrying had begun earlier in Pyrmont, where stone was near the water, sailing ships loaded ballast, or barges carried it to building sites. The vogue for yellowblock encouraged a shift to mechanised extraction, and consolidation of the industry into large enterprises like the Saunders quarries which made the landscape Stonecutters residents enjoy. Paradise, Purgatory and Hellhole employed many of the masons who formed Australia’s first successful trade union, while giant Clydesdale horses hauled huge blocks through the peninsula.

Like its neighbours, Stonecutters occupies a site dominated (after 1900) by the tanks which stored molasses as part of CSR distilling and industrial chemicals operations.