Nepal Peace Pagoda

The Nepal Peace Pagoda in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is located at the transformed Brisbane World Expo '88 site, South Bank Parklands. It is one of the most significant heritage items in Brisbane from the hosting of the Expo. It is the only international exhibit remaining on the site.

In 1986, the United Nations International Year of Peace, the Kingdom of Nepal agreed to participate in World Expo '88, and the Association to Preserve Asian Culture was commissioned to create, operate for the Expo, and find a new home for the Pagoda at the Expo's conclusion.

The Peace Pagoda was built by German architect Jochen Reier (APAC) on behalf of the Kingdom of Nepal. Immediately, 80 tonnes of indigenous Nepalese timber were sourced from the Terai jungle forest of Nepal, carted across to the capital Kathmandu where 160 Nepalese families worked for two years at crafting its diverse elements. These were then shipped to Australia in two 40-foot containers and one 20-foot container, where they were assembled at the Expo site by a handful of Australian workers under Nepalese supervision. The final assembly for World Expo '88 only took a few days.

Three-levelled, with a beautiful tea house on the second level, and one of the only hand-crafted pavilions, the Pagoda quickly became one of the most visited and photographed pavilions at the Expo. Towards the end of the Expo, a group of persons called Friends of the Pagoda established a petition to keep the Pagoda in Brisbane after the conclusion of the Expo, with some 70,000 signatories.

Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to ascend Mount Everest, was VIP guest to the Pagoda during the Expo on 8 August 1988.

The Pagoda is one of only three Nepal Peace Pagodas outside of Nepal, the other two being in Munich and Osaka, and is a close copy of Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, with significant Hindu and Buddhist iconography representing the different Avatars of Shiva, buddhas in different states of meditation, or mudras, the eight auspicious symbols of Buddhism, a sacred statue of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddhist deity of compassion, as well as a Peace Bell, two smaller side Pavilions, a Buddhist stupa, and a Peace Post, with the calling to World Peace in four languages Japanese, French, Spanish and English. Sanskrit prayer chants also feature inscribed on the roof eaves of the two side Pavilions, as well as the inscription for om above the central door.

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