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Main Roads Building
The Main Roads Building is a heritage-listed office building at 477 Boundary Street, Spring Hill, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Karl Langer and built in 1967 by Cyril Porter Hornick. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 June 2014.
The former Main Roads Department Building was built in 1967 to accommodate, consolidate, and modernise the department during a period of extensive expansion and upgrade of Queensland's road network. It housed the department until 2012. Designed by important Modernist architect, Dr Karl Langer, the substantial office building is an excellent, intact illustration of his commercial work and is a good representative example of a mid-twentieth century highrise.
In the early 1960s the Main Roads Department (MRD) faced a major task in modernising Queensland's road network. Prior to this, the department saw itself only as a rural roads authority responsible for the provision and maintenance of main roads connecting Queensland settlements. The decentralised nature of Queensland, with its scattered population and small tax base for local governments, was not conducive to systematic road building, and until the mid-twentieth century railways dominated long-distance transport. Although the Queensland Government was responsible for main roads and roads on Crown Lands open for selection, elsewhere local authorities had to finance their own roads; or where there were no local authorities, local landholders could form road trusts and receive government grants. Queensland's road system developed in a piecemeal fashion until 1920 and even after it remained a secondary government spending priority to railways, which spread rapidly in the early twentieth century to service agricultural areas.
Although railways were the priority, the rise of the motor car increased the need for an expanded and improved road network. The Queensland Main Roads Act 1920 provided for responsibility for roads and bridges to be shared between state and local authorities. The mission of the Main Roads Board, formed by this Act, was to develop a cohesive network of "main roads" partly funded by the state. Local authorities would fund half the cost, and would be the construction and maintenance authorities where possible. The priority for road construction was to join towns not linked by railways; to link farming areas to existing railways; and to build developmental roads to open Crown Lands for closer settlement.
The interwar period saw a massive increase in car registrations and the revision of the Main Roads Act. By mid-1923 nearly 17,000 cars were registered in Queensland (rising to nearly 92,000 by 1934). As more people took to the car, the need for serviceable roads for motor vehicles became apparent. The Main Roads Acts Amendment Act 1925 abolished the Main Roads Board and formed the Main Roads Commission (MRC), and the board was replaced by John Robert Kemp (formerly the Board's Chairman) as the Commissioner.
World War II (WWII) also stimulated road building efforts. During the war the MRC carried out a wide range of defence works, mostly for, and under the direction of, the Allied Works Council (AWC). Although the MRC increased its equipment during the war years, after WWII it faced resource shortages and a continued rise in car ownership, plus demands to seal more of the state's roads with bitumen.
After WWII, roads increasingly competed directly with railways. Vehicle numbers rose from 129,126 in 1945 to over 282,594 by 1954. By 1960, Australia was second only to the United States in terms of car ownership per head of population. In 1951, the MRC became the MRD. The MRD was responsible for the planning, survey and construction of state highways and of main, developmental, secondary, mining access, farmers' roads, and tourist roads and tracks, as well as bridges and related works. The department was under an increasing work load, brought about by the "explosion" in vehicle ownership and Queensland's buoyant economic expansion.
The MRD's Annual Report of 1955 noted that "Queensland is passing out of the earlier phase of road construction ... just sufficient to keep traffic moving. The State has entered a second phase where construction must provide for the traffic of to-day and the traffic of to-morrow in such a way that roads and bridges will carry in safety bigger volumes of traffic, comprising vehicles which move much faster and carry much more heavier loads...".
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Main Roads Building
The Main Roads Building is a heritage-listed office building at 477 Boundary Street, Spring Hill, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by Karl Langer and built in 1967 by Cyril Porter Hornick. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 13 June 2014.
The former Main Roads Department Building was built in 1967 to accommodate, consolidate, and modernise the department during a period of extensive expansion and upgrade of Queensland's road network. It housed the department until 2012. Designed by important Modernist architect, Dr Karl Langer, the substantial office building is an excellent, intact illustration of his commercial work and is a good representative example of a mid-twentieth century highrise.
In the early 1960s the Main Roads Department (MRD) faced a major task in modernising Queensland's road network. Prior to this, the department saw itself only as a rural roads authority responsible for the provision and maintenance of main roads connecting Queensland settlements. The decentralised nature of Queensland, with its scattered population and small tax base for local governments, was not conducive to systematic road building, and until the mid-twentieth century railways dominated long-distance transport. Although the Queensland Government was responsible for main roads and roads on Crown Lands open for selection, elsewhere local authorities had to finance their own roads; or where there were no local authorities, local landholders could form road trusts and receive government grants. Queensland's road system developed in a piecemeal fashion until 1920 and even after it remained a secondary government spending priority to railways, which spread rapidly in the early twentieth century to service agricultural areas.
Although railways were the priority, the rise of the motor car increased the need for an expanded and improved road network. The Queensland Main Roads Act 1920 provided for responsibility for roads and bridges to be shared between state and local authorities. The mission of the Main Roads Board, formed by this Act, was to develop a cohesive network of "main roads" partly funded by the state. Local authorities would fund half the cost, and would be the construction and maintenance authorities where possible. The priority for road construction was to join towns not linked by railways; to link farming areas to existing railways; and to build developmental roads to open Crown Lands for closer settlement.
The interwar period saw a massive increase in car registrations and the revision of the Main Roads Act. By mid-1923 nearly 17,000 cars were registered in Queensland (rising to nearly 92,000 by 1934). As more people took to the car, the need for serviceable roads for motor vehicles became apparent. The Main Roads Acts Amendment Act 1925 abolished the Main Roads Board and formed the Main Roads Commission (MRC), and the board was replaced by John Robert Kemp (formerly the Board's Chairman) as the Commissioner.
World War II (WWII) also stimulated road building efforts. During the war the MRC carried out a wide range of defence works, mostly for, and under the direction of, the Allied Works Council (AWC). Although the MRC increased its equipment during the war years, after WWII it faced resource shortages and a continued rise in car ownership, plus demands to seal more of the state's roads with bitumen.
After WWII, roads increasingly competed directly with railways. Vehicle numbers rose from 129,126 in 1945 to over 282,594 by 1954. By 1960, Australia was second only to the United States in terms of car ownership per head of population. In 1951, the MRC became the MRD. The MRD was responsible for the planning, survey and construction of state highways and of main, developmental, secondary, mining access, farmers' roads, and tourist roads and tracks, as well as bridges and related works. The department was under an increasing work load, brought about by the "explosion" in vehicle ownership and Queensland's buoyant economic expansion.
The MRD's Annual Report of 1955 noted that "Queensland is passing out of the earlier phase of road construction ... just sufficient to keep traffic moving. The State has entered a second phase where construction must provide for the traffic of to-day and the traffic of to-morrow in such a way that roads and bridges will carry in safety bigger volumes of traffic, comprising vehicles which move much faster and carry much more heavier loads...".
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