An Historic Bank

The National Australia Bank at 308-322 Queen Street is registered as a Brisbane Historic Site. This forms part of the Brisbane Heritage Trail, which can be taken as a walking tour of the city. The Queensland National Bank was formed back in 1872, and all the big knob bankers of the time decided they needed a grand bank to represent them. As you can see, the size and for the time opulent nature of the bank reflected the prosperity of the time.

There is a guide reference next to the bank which outlines its history. It was completed in 1885 after five years of construction in what was known as the Italian Revival style. This was mainly for the Corinthian columns look, which gives it that slightly Roman feel. Inside they have a mahogany and walnut furniture, but I wasn't quite prepared to walk into the bank and take photos for the obvious security reasons.

For such a young country with respect to European influence, I'm still amazed that we seem to have a mix of architectural influences from various places and types in our Australian cities. Part of the reason for throwing this image up is because I love to look at historical sites and imagine the more historical reference markers they would have been using to define their style. Its hard to find much older than 200 years architecturally here in our cities in relation to when they were built, but from my naive eyes, and I'm no student of architectural design, their seems to be a hell of a lot of varying influence!

Cheers, I Love Brisbane, Wes.

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