Brisbane City Hall took decades, a swamp and a spectacular budget blowout to get right. Residents rejected the first funding proposal in 1909, then approved a larger one eight years later. The final bill still landed at nearly a million pounds. A 215-million-dollar restoration followed in 2013.

Completed in 1930, the building blends the grandeur of Rome's Pantheon with Venice's St Mark's Campanile. The 92-metre clock tower chimed in A-flat, loud enough to reach the bay suburbs. The architect visited Sydney's largest clock of the era, then quietly made Brisbane's bigger.

The bronze lions out front carry their own story: bullet holes from World War II, when American soldiers on a boozy night out apparently decided the statues needed shooting. VoiceMap's audio tours trace City Hall's role across Brisbane's history, from civic battleground to the heart of a modern city.