The history of the Mackie Building

By Lyn Collingwood, Bulletin 1/2026 (March)

In 2024, the Mackie Building on a triangular block at 2 Arundel Street, Forest Lodge, was sold by the University of Sydney to a private developer for $16.5 million. The City of Sydney’s proposal to change the zoning so the site could be used for commercial rather than educational purposes had been opposed by Sylvie Ellsmore and some other Councillors.

An existing one-storey brick structure on the site had been acquired by the university in 1955 and named for Alexander Mackie, emeritus Professor of Education and Principal of the Teachers’ College. After an extra level was added to provide more rooms for lectures and staff, the building housed at various times the university’s Appointments Board, Department of Social Work, Aboriginal Education Centre and Psychology Clinic.

What became the Mackie Building was originally the factory and offices of Consolidated Neon, manufacturers of advertising signs illuminated by an electric discharge into a tube of neon gas. The company, registered in 1935 and headquartered in Bayswater Road Darlinghurst, awarded the £3800 building contract to Chatswood’s Benbow Munkman. Two cottages were demolished to make way for the new building and the firm was soon looking for a factory manager, glass workers and sign writers. The year was 1941.

The colourful attention-grabbing signs were a novelty and instantly popular. While work at Forest Lodge was progressing, Consolidated’s competitor Claude Neon was building its own £4800 factory at Mascot. But this was wartime and Sydney was suddenly subject to government-regulated blackouts. Consolidated did not sell its illuminated signs but rented them out on contract and many shopkeepers and other businesses fell behind in their payments. A court settlement was reached with Toohey’s brewery (it paid a lump sum and Consolidated removed the signs). Taronga Zoo, on the other hand, was ordered to keep paying for the sign over its aquarium even though it couldn’t be lit.  

The replacement of incandescent globes with ‘cold cathode fluorescent lighting’ solved the problem of indoor illumination. War meant an increased demand for wool for military uniforms and blankets. After thousands of feet of fluorescent lighting was installed, mills such as Bonds could operate on 24-hour shifts. Consolidated had to look for its glass elsewhere after trade with Germany ceased. The substitute Australian product was of inferior quality and arrived misshapen at Forest Lodge where it was straightened over a flame by ‘glass benders’.

At war’s end, the outdoor neon advertising industry boomed. Some signs were enormous and the buildings on which they were fixed had to be assessed as capable of bearing the size and weight. At Consolidated, inspectors from its Sign and Site Survey Department took measurements while suspended on outdoor planks high above the ground, unprotected from rain and wind. One of the firm’s first postwar signs was on the Red Cross building in York Street. An unusual commission was handled by Rosalie Hardwick, a young artist who specialised in the giant signs. Aware that any mistake would change the meaning, she nervously copied a Chinese calligrapher’s lettering. Designs became increasingly complicated, with changing patterns and colours controlled by high-voltage transformers.

In 1955 Consolidated Neon moved from Forest Lodge to Gladesville and the company was later taken over by Claude Neon. Consolidated’s animated sign on the roof of Sharpies Golf House, a landmark near Central Railway, was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register and dismantled. It was acquired by the Powerhouse Museum in 2014. Today, LED technology has largely replaced neon.

Note.  The history of the houses which were demolished to make way for Consolidated Neon will be told in a later Bulletin.

Sources:  Australian Women’s Weekly 27 March 1963; City of Sydney Oral History Collections: Ron Ries interview; Honi Soit 23 March 2024; Powerhouse Collection; Trove website.