Customs House stands on the stretch of the Brisbane River known as Petrie Bight, named after architect and builder Andrew Petrie.
The current building was completed in 1889 and cost more than £38,000. It was built over the site of the previous, far less grand, Customs House which had opened in 1850.
The role of the new building was to collect custom and excise taxes from the huge number of ships entering the port city of Brisbane via the river, and the grand design was intended to impress newcomers and visitors. The Australasian Sketcher in 1894 described the building, with its iconic green copper dome and neoclassical columns, as “the finest Customs House east of the Suez”. Kenneth Jack’s Customs House, Brisbane (1962) details the building’s impressive exterior, including its neoclassical columns and iconic green copper dome.
The history of Customs House has not been all glamour. In 1904, rats living in its basement were the source of a local bubonic plague outbreak, causing the city to be declared an infected port.
A quirk of the building’s design is a curious carved emblem of a kangaroo and emu, which appears to be the Australian coat of arms. Yet the building was completed before Australia was a federated nation, and the emblem was inspired by an 1853 medal design commemorating the end of convict transportation to Australia, which would later be adapted for the Australian coat of arms.
The building functioned as Customs House until 1988, after which it was leased and restored by the University of Queensland and transformed into an events and dining venue.
