The Centenary Pool Complex is a heritage-listed swimming pool at 400 Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill.
It was designed by architect James Birrell and the built by Brisbane Master Builder, CP Hornick.
It was completed in November 1959 at a cost of approximately £150,000 and added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 1996.
The complex is best known for two objects that sit over the pools: a curvilinear kiosk and restaurant (now a gym) and a slender concrete diving tower.
The complex was Brisbane City Council’s principal contribution to the 1959 centenary celebrations of Brisbane’s proclamation as a city.
James Birrell designed the complex so it would fit into the slope of the hill overlooking Victoria Park.
The grandstand and amenities block – substantial elements of the design – are tucked under the street level, with only the raked roof planes visible through the landscaping.
Birrell attempted to create a work of art rather than a purely functionalist structure.
This post-war International Style complex loosely takes the form of a rhombus.
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It comprises a swimming pool (measuring 50 m x 18 m), a stepped concrete grandstand (with a capacity of 1,200 spectators), a diving pool, a wading pool, a bathhouse, and a restaurant.
By 2009, the restaurant had been replaced by a gym and medical suites.
The spatial quality of the complex is characterized by three, rounded forms: the long curve of the bathhouse, the smoothly crumpled outline of the restaurant, the circular pool, and the indents and rounded corners of the perimeter of the complex itself.
The complex was built primarily in concrete, steel, brick, and glass.
It’s often said to provoke the plastic curves that typify the works of Oscar Niemeyer.
The Brisbane City Council went on to build seven public swimming pools.
But the Centenary Pools complex was the only Olympic standard complex they developed, on par with those built in Melbourne and Canberra.
It would remain the principal pool for competitive swimming in Brisbane until the 1980s.
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