Civil and Civic

Civil and Civic

Industry	Construction
Fate	Acquired by Lend Lease Corporation
Successor	Bovis Lend Lease
Founded	Sydney, Australia, 1951
Defunct	1999
Headquarters	Sydney, Australia
Key people	Dick Dusseldorp

Civil and Civic (also 'Civil and Civic Contractors' and 'Civil and Civic Pty Ltd') was an Australian company acquired in 1961 by Lend Lease Corporation.

History

The Company was originally founded by Dick Dusseldorp in 1951 on behalf of the Dutch building companies Bredero's Bouwbedrijf of Utrecht and The Royal Dutch Harbour Company as an Australian-based building contractor.^[1] Its first contract was to supply and erect 200 prefabricated houses for the Snowy Mountains’ Authority which had been established by William Hudson, engineer of the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Hudson's greatest obstacle in the completion of the scheme was the provision of labour and materials. Without a resolution to these two problems the realisation of the project was doubtful. But 31 year old Dutch immigrant Dick Dusseldorp conceived a plan to prefabricate frames for worker housing in Finland, plumbing in England, ship materials via Cooma and recruit labour from the Netherlands to erect the homes. Dusseldorp established 'Civil and Civic' to take on and manage the multi-million-dollar contract.

Civil and Civic went on to become Australia's leading provider of project management services in the construction industry, delivering a number of landmark projects including Stage I of the Sydney Opera House,^[2] Australia's first high-rise (Caltex House),^[2] and the world's first high-rise strata title apartment building (Blues Point Tower).^[3]

In 1961 Civil and Civic was acquired by Lend Lease Corporation, but the company continued to trade under the Civil and Civic name for some time, also constructing the world's tallest lightweight concrete construction building (Australia Square),^[2] and the tallest building in the world outside North America (MLC Centre) at the time of completion.^[2]

In 1999 Lend Lease Corporation acquired P&O's Global Project Management Company, Bovis, rebranding the business as Bovis Lend Lease. The Australian operations of Civil and Civic were merged with the new subsidiary, effectively ending the use of the original company name.^[4]

Major Projects

Major projects included:

• Caltex House completed in 1957^[2]
• Sydney Opera House Podium completed in 1962^[2]
• Blues Point Tower completed in 1962^[3]
• Australia Square completed in 1968^[2]
• MLC Centre completed in 1977^[2]
• The Connaught completed in 1984^[5]

Australia portal

References

1. ^ Lend Lease History
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Infolink
3. ^ ^{a b} Towering ambition
4. ^ Bovis Lend Lease: History Highlights
5. ^ City Living

External links

• Bovis Lend Lease corporate site