The New South Wales branch, under its founding president, the highly distinguished Sir Arthur Renwick, grew from small beginnings in 1880 to be the largest in Australia.

[1] The BMA flourished in New South Wales during the 23 years, 1908 to 1931, when its secretary was Dr Robert Todd, a prominent physician, barrister, clarinettist, university lecturer and medical administrator.

137 and 135 Macquarie Street, were demolished in 1929 and the BMA commissioned the winners of a vigorous competition, Fowell and McConnel, and their contractors, Hutcherson Bros, to erect a prestigious high-rise building on the double site.

[1] The new building was completed in April 1930, acclaimed, along with Grace Bros' new store in King Street, as "the first two local examples that can be said to really follow the dictates of skyscraper and modern American architecture generally".

[1] The faience terracotta panelling of the exterior by Wunderlich was matched in the principal public interior spaces and the six full-size medieval knights in armour along with two koalas perched high on the facade were manufactured by the same firm.

[1] The AMA House has high aesthetic significance as a particularly fine and rare example of early Sydney "skyscraper" designed in an exuberant and idiosyncratic Inter-war Art Deco style embellished with "Medieval" and "Gothic" decoration.

[1] The building's technical significance arises primarily from its generous and varied use of new materials, detailing and technologies characteristic of the new commercial "skyscrapers" of the Interwar period and the high degree of intactness of these elements.

AMA House has high aesthetic significance as a particularly fine and rare example of early Sydney "skyscraper" designed in an exuberant and idiosyncratic Art Deco style embellished with "Medieval" and "Gothic" decoration.

The building's technical significance arises primarily from its generous and varied use of new materials, detailing and technologies characteristic of the new commercial "skyscrapers" of the Interwar period and the high degree of intactness of these elements.

The building is a rare example of so highly and idiosyncratically decorated an Art Deco "skyscraper" from the Interwar period and is unique in its exuberant use of Australian iconography on the main facade.

AMA House is a fine representative example of many of the architectural elements, construction techniques and materials used in Interwar commercial high-rise building design and the influence of American models on these.