Night Companion Notes

Night Companion Notes
Also popularly known as the Stefan Sky Needle
West End, Brisbane

The 88-metre high symbol tower of the Expo 'Night Companion' was Bicentennial Australia's largest art commission - at approximately 20 storeys height - and topped with a beautiful gold and copper dome and black spire (now also featuring the rainbow colour rings of its new owner) and a 60-km radius xenon-beam laser-eye that surveilled the Expo and Brisbane horizon night skies, was purchased at the Expo's conclusion by popular Brisbane business magnate, Stefan Ackerie, of Stefan Hairdressing fame. The tower's dome and spire is also a popular reference to Brisbane's oldest European edifice, the Old Windmill (made in 1828), atop of the CBD's highest peak, Spring Hill. During the six months of the Expo, the $AUD 4.5 million tower was located just beyond the Expo's principal Melbourne Street Gate, and in the Expo's most prominent power axis - flanked by the flagship Australia (with its popular colourful Ken Done-inspired AUSTRALIA alphabet letters) and Queensland Pavilions on the left, and, the New South Wales, Victoria, and United Nations Pavilions on the right. The colourful China Gate arch of the People's Republic of China Pavilion completed the picture at the axis' end. The copper corrugated frill-neck roof of the tower base and its raised dais was perhaps the Expo's most popular rendezvous, and best vantage point for the daily Daytime and QANTAS Light Fantastic Night Parades, which snaked their way through the site. The Tower is now a prominent part of Brisbane's southern CBD, where it proudly stands as the only landmark of its height - and is visible from most of the inner city. Designed by award-winning Melbourne based sculptor Robert Owen, and was interpreted by Charles Sutherland, the tower joins with Brisbane City Council's prestigious outdoor art collection from the Expo as one of our most cherished Expo icons.

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