State Library Of Queensland

This multistory award-winning architectural landmark building on the riverfront between the art galleries, the State Library of Queensland, is home to the main archival collections of Queensland’s history, from newspapers, magazines, books and film, food, indigenous, music and visual arts.

With a bold 21st interior that is state-of-the art, including river decks, The Corner - a sunken children’s arts room, indigenous knowledge centre with outdoor fire pit, studio gallery and teapot room patio, as well as gallery and studio spaces housing fascinating free exhibitions. One of the most striking aspects is the book-free ground floor, which is essentially an Info Zone awash with plugged-in students utilising the free internet connection.

Since its inception as the Brisbane Public Library in 1896 with a collection derived from that of Justice Harding, the State Library spent most of its life in the old Museum premises on William St (whose modernist 1959 extension featured the standout mosaic by Lindsay Edward) until moving to its current location as a fairly nondescript and un-trampled arm of the Cultural Centre in 1988. In 2001 as part of Peter Beattie’s Millennium Arts Project that saw the creation of GOMA, the library was redeveloped into its current form as a quintessential part of the pedestrian arts precinct.