414:, with powers conferred by Regulation 35a, National Security (General) Regulations, ordered the Brisbane City Council to construct 200 public surface shelters in the city area. Work had already started on 15 December, and later another 75 shelters were ordered. However, only 235 air raid shelters were constructed, the building programme being 90% complete by June 1942. In addition, around three kilometres of covered trenches were constructed in public parks, in 13 projects, including 315 metres (1,033 ft) of concrete-pipe covered trench in the Botanic Gardens, and 150 metres (490 ft) of the same in Victoria Park. It was believed that one person could be accommodated by each foot of trench. In addition to the public shelters, the Brisbane City Council also constructed shelters for leased wharves and council properties, including at the Stanley Wharf, Circular Quay Wharves 2,3 and 4, Norman Wharf, and Musgrave Wharf. Shelters were built under the
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allowed for the removal of the four blast walls after the war. There was an entrance at each end of the front wall, where an internal wall extended into the shelter. If the walls were made of brick, the shelter's dimension was 40 feet 9 inches (12.42 m) by 13 feet 3 inches (4.04 m) by 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) high, and if concrete was used the dimensions were 40 feet (12 m) by 12 feet 6 inches (3.81 m) by 8 feet 6 inches (2.59 m) high. The difference was due to the fact that the brick walls finished in line with the top of the roof slab, covering the fascia, whereas the concrete walls finished at the soffit of the roof slab, flush with the fascia. The minimum wall thickness for brick was set at 13.5", and 12" for concrete. The roof slab was intended to have at least four inches of concrete.
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entry for the porphyry retaining wall on
William Street. The other 20 public shelters owned by the Brisbane City Council can be divided into three types of pillbox intended for conversion after the war: "park", "bus", and "bus (stone)". They were designed to serve as structures such as bus waiting shelters or shade structures for parks, with some or all of the perimeter blast walls to be removed, leaving the concrete slab roof, floor slab and piers. The reusable pillboxes were designed to hold 70 people, as were the non-reusable standard pillboxes.
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but none of the surviving public shelters in
Brisbane City Council ownership are of that design. Of the 21 special shelters, only the one on Queens Wharf Road survives. However, of Costello's 58 reusable public surface shelters, 20 have survived; the removal of their blast walls, as planned, had given them a renewed purpose. The worker's shelters at the Story Bridge Hotel and Howard Smith Wharves also still exist.
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Schedule of Order No.1. Initially, 20 of the Local
Authorities were expected to construct a minimum total of 133 surface shelters, which were supposed to be able to withstand the blast of a 500-pound bomb bursting 50 feet (15 m) away. Four other Local Authorities would only build trenches. However, after plans were amended, 23 Local Authorities outside Brisbane, excluding
525:. Most are used as simple park shelters, as intended, but the shelter at Nundah has been modified as a toilet block, and the shelter at Kelvin Grove is used as a bus shelter (as distinct from those shelters in the next category, which were specifically designed as "bus" type shelters). About half of the surviving park shelters had concrete blast walls, while half used brick.
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part of an architecture employing the language of vertical and horizontal volumes and planes, floating flat roofs, masses set against voids and monumentality. Though modest in scale and form, the design of the shelters is characteristic of work in this idiom. The reusable shelters were often sited under fig trees, to aid in camouflage.
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The first of
Costello's reusable designs is the pillbox with double-cantilevered roof slab, or "park" type shelter. In an original list of all the shelters constructed by the Brisbane City Council, these were simply labelled as "cantilever". They had four central piers supporting the roof slab, which
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F.G. Costello, Brisbane City
Council City Architect between 1941 and 1952, was responsible for the design of the surface air raid shelters, and his variants of the standard pillbox were designed to provide a post-war utility for at least part of the council's shelter building programme. In an address
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supported by concrete piers. The roof and the piers of the shelter are painted green. The shelter is surrounded by shrubs and shade trees and is adjacent to play equipment. The middle bay accommodates a wooden picnic table and seats that are bolted to the floor slab. The shelter appears to have once
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Of the 235 surface shelters built in
Brisbane for the public, 21 survive and are still owned by the Brisbane City Council. One of the shelters, on Queens Wharf Road, is a site-specific "special" variation of the standard pillbox design. It is listed in the Queensland Heritage Register as part of the
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The
Brisbane City Council took responsibility for Air Raid Precautions activities, including establishing an Air Raid Warden system, firefighting systems and constructing air raid shelters. Aboveground salt water pipes were laid along city streets to aid in firefighting. On Christmas Eve, 1941, each
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The
Woolloongabba air raid shelter is important as a part of the Air Raid Precaution activities that were implemented for the defence of Brisbane during World War Two. Designed to afford protection to the civilian population of Brisbane in the event of air raid attacks or other emergencies, the air
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Most of the
Brisbane structures built for the war were removed at the end of World War Two. The saltwater mains, slit trenches, and sirens disappeared, as did the many standard pillboxes that had stood in the middle of the streets of the Central Business District. 156 standard pillboxes were built,
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The second design was the pillbox with single-cantilevered roof slab, or ""bus" type shelter, as it was called in the original
Brisbane City Council list. These were designed so that the three brick blast walls could be removed after the war, leaving a concrete back wall and five brick piers at the
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Costello's work was characterised by the use of an architectural language inspired by the modern movement in architecture. This movement pursued the rational use of modern materials and principles of functionalist planning and established a visual aesthetic largely inspired by the machine. It was
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in Hawaii by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft. England and its Commonwealth had been at war with Germany since September 1939, but now the war was truly global. The Japanese first bombed Darwin on 19 February 1942 and 14,000 Australians were taken prisoner following the fall of Singapore. Plans to
434:, ended up possessing a total of 129 public shelters: 123 surface and six underground. This effort had cost £56,596. Where Local Authorities were unwilling or unable to build the required number of code-compliant shelters, in some cases because they had already begun erecting other shelters, the
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Islands. Before the war, Queensland had a small population and no heavy manufacturing industries. To help overcome these problems, some buildings were prefabricated and standard designs for many structures were used. Designs took into account the scarcity of skilled labour and of some materials.
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The Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1 was applied statewide, and outside Brisbane another 24 Local Authorities in Queensland's coastal areas were ordered to produce surface or trench shelters for the public, to be built according to the Air Raid Shelter Code laid down in the Second
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The third design was also a "bus" type shelter, but it was built with a stone rear wall, instead of concrete, and six stone piers were later added, instead of five brick piers. The three brick blast walls could be removed as normal. Two of these "colonnade" types were built-referred to in the
472:"I can assure you that wherever it is possible, without sacrificing the primary requirements of shelter from air attack, I have endeavoured in our Council buildings to so plan the shelters that they will fit into schemes of improvement which we hope will proceed immediately after the war"
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defend Australia from an anticipated Japanese invasion and to use Queensland as a support base for the conduct of the Pacific war were implemented quickly. Australian and American personnel poured into Queensland and urgently required a wide range of new buildings and facilities.
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The blast walls of the air raid shelter at the Buranda playground were removed according to plan after World War Two, although evidence of the location of the walls is still visible. The shelter roof and piers have been painted and a picnic table and seats have been added.
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Australian State's Emergency Committee issued instructions for government, private employers and private households to immediately start building shelters. Slit trenches were built in parks and schoolyards, windows were taped, and brownouts were applied to buildings.
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swelled dramatically. As it was the major city in Queensland, and the most northerly major population centre in Australia, military planning headquarters were set up in Brisbane, as were a number of important maintenance, communication, and supply facilities. General
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The Woolloongabba air raid shelter, now used as a shade structure, demonstrates the secondary uses that were part of the original design intention. The shelter is a durable example of innovative design and use of concrete technology during World War Two.
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Although many air raid shelters were constructed during World War Two in Queensland, comparatively few survive. Also, there are not many types of structures built by the Brisbane City Council during World War Two, for wartime purposes, which survive.
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The shelter's solid construction, rectangular shape, and its siting near a population concentration, demonstrate the principal characteristics of a World War Two Brisbane public air raid shelter.
468:"if the emergency for their use does not arise ...(unused shelters)... remain in brick and concrete, in many cases having no further value and being a possible source of nuisance"
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became responsible for the shelters' construction. However, this led to problems when the department tried to recoup half of the cost from the Local Authorities in question.
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The demand on materials, services and labour was enormous and military projects took precedence in their allocation. Heavy Anti-Aircraft batteries were built at
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The air raid shelter is important as an example of the wartime work of the City Architect's Office and particularly the work of City Architect F.G. Costello.
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The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.
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raid shelter located in Buranda Playground is important in demonstrating the impact of World War Two on the civilian population of Brisbane.
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front. Again, entrances were at each end of the front wall. Of the 19 "bus" types listed only two survive, at
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denied any liability for costs, and a Bill had to be passed in December 1942 to force their compliance. The
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The Woolloongabba air raid shelter is a rectangular concrete structure comprising a heavy floor slab and a
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Of the 37 reusable shelters listed as being of the park type only 17 survive: one at Hefferan Park in
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shipbuilding workers, and five shelters were constructed on behalf of the Bureau of Industry at the
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In the Protection of Persons and Property Order No.1, gazetted 23 December 1941, Premier
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Brisbane City Council list as "bus (stone)" and only one survives, at King Edward Park.
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delivered to the Constitutional Club in Brisbane in February 1942, Costello noted that
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on 8 October 2014). The geo-coordinates were originally computed from the
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had claimed that the shelters would be death traps during an air raid.
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had one entrance in each long blast wall, in opposite corners.
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Playground, Woolloongabba as an air raid shelter in 1942.
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on 6 April 2005 having satisfied the following criteria.
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On 7 December 1941, the United States of America entered
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Location of Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter in Queensland
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578:Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter was listed on the
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690:"Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter (entry 602477)"
326:following the bombing of the American fleet at
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251:Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter (Australia)
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745:"Queensland heritage register boundaries"
574:The structure is located in a small park
756:licence (accessed on 5 September 2014,
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805:Frank Gibson Costello buildings
800:Air raid shelters in Queensland
775:Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter
315:built the concrete shelter at
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145:Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter
24:Woolloongabba Air Raid Shelter
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698:. Queensland Heritage Council
355:in Brisbane, and General Sir
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790:Queensland Heritage Register
695:Queensland Heritage Register
580:Queensland Heritage Register
301:Queensland Heritage Register
268:is a heritage-listed former
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810:Queensland in World War II
436:Department of Public Works
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361:University of Queensland
101:1939–1945 (World War II)
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299:. It was added to the
226:Show map of Queensland
153:state heritage (built)
777:at Wikimedia Commons
760:on 15 October 2014).
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313:Brisbane City Council
297:Brisbane City Council
286:Frank Gibson Costello
254:Show map of Australia
188:Brisbane City Council
123:Frank Gibson Costello
424:Howard Smith Wharves
412:William Forgan Smith
272:at 34 Sword Street,
750:State of Queensland
732:State of Queensland
82:27.4939°S 153.043°E
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334:The population of
179:1940s (historical)
174:Significant period
166:Reference no.
773:Media related to
748:published by the
730:published by the
456:Ayr Shire Council
347:at the corner of
341:Douglas MacArthur
303:on 6 April 2005.
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87:-27.4939; 153.043
44:34 Sword Street,
35:Structure in 2015
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523:Fortitude Valley
470:. He added that
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345:AMP building
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324:World War II
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161:6 April 2005
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715:Attribution
553:Description
507:Morningside
491:Albert Park
384:Fort Lytton
293: 1942
113: 1942
85: /
73:153°02′35″E
61:Coordinates
56:, Australia
784:Categories
629:References
440:Townsville
288:and built
282:Queensland
158:Designated
70:27°29′38″S
54:Queensland
559:flat roof
531:Newmarket
493:; two at
489:; two at
448:Gladstone
444:Toowoomba
119:Architect
758:archived
740:archived
702:1 August
535:Newstead
487:Annerley
392:Balmoral
380:Pinkenba
365:St Lucia
336:Brisbane
184:Builders
41:Location
519:Windsor
400:Moreton
388:Hemmant
317:Buranda
307:History
752:under
734:under
517:, and
511:Nundah
450:, and
418:, for
396:Bribie
376:Hendra
169:602477
106:Built
704:2014
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311:The
150:Type
452:Ayr
295:by
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