The thousands of people who walk every day past the MLC building, a sad, empty 14-storey office building in North Sydney, can blame the architecture industry’s veneration of Bates Smart.

Considered so important that its historical records are kept under restricted access at the Melbourne University library, Bates Smart’s design was a big deal when the building, finished in 1957, launched an office precinct to compete with the other one just starting to tower over Circular Quay.