and string lines in low relief on smooth rendered walls. Criterion D: Characteristic values Bowen Post Office is an example of: a retail post office typology (third generation 1930–1974) an Interwar architecture c. 1915-1942 (Neo-Georgian Revival with Art Deco flourish) a work of the Commonwealth Department of the Interior under Horace Mackennal Typologically, Bowen Post Office, built in 1936, is an example of a third generation retail post office. This generation demonstrate an emergent retail function in postal operations, separation of the telephone exchange area and increased requirements for larger post office box lobby areas with independent access and serviced by a frontally positioned mail sorting room and/or a rear loading yard. These aspects are evident in the original design to the extent that symmetrical porch entries were placed either side of a central postal hall, allowing the telegraph and postal services to operate independently. Subsequently, the internal subdivision of the mailroom has facilitated the enlargement of the retail function and installation of the post office box lobby, and a new mailroom added to the northwest corner of the building. The former telegraph and telephone facilities have been removed and the areas refurbished for other uses. In the state context, and with regard to post offices still owned and operated by Australia Post, Bowen Post Office is one of three "Type M6 1930s Twin Porch" built in the period 1935–38 with similar planning arrangements and municipal siting, the others being Ayr Post Office (1936) and Ingham Post Office (1935). The type is defined as following the basic layout and form of 1920s and 1940-50s post offices, are domestic in scale, and are physically associated with townscape civic gestures or elements such as war memorials. Architecturally, the basic configuration comprises a symmetrical expanded porch in the manner of many 1920s and 1930s Queensland post offices, but translated here as cuboid pavilions. The primary distinguishing feature of Bowen Post Office is its Art Deco styling, which is concentrated along the Herbert Street parapeted frontage, and is albeit restrained and conservative. Criterion E: Aesthetic characteristics Bowen Post Office is a domestically scaled building which a degree of municipal and landmark qualities. This is principally due to its parapeted building frontage to Herbert Street and its physical proximity to other civic buildings including the Shire Council Chambers, police station, ambulance station and courthouse, as well as their collective frontages to Herbert Street, the town's