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Photographs supplied by Russell Byers The plaque commemorates the start of the construction of the new Parliament House in November 1981. Parliament House is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. The building was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects and opened on 9 May 1988 by Queen Elizabeth II. It cost more than A$1.1 billion to build. Federal Parliament meetings were first held in Melbourne until 1927. Between 1927 and 1988, the Parliament of Australia met in the Provisional Parliament House, which is now known as "Old Parliament House". Construction of Australia's permanent Parliament House was delayed while its location was debated. Construction of the new building began in 1981. The principal design of the structure is based on the shape of two boomerangs and is topped by an 81-metre (266 ft) flagpole. Location
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Front Inscription This plaque was unveiled by the Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser, C.H., M.P. Prime Minister on 12 November, 1981 To commemorate the start of building construction of the new Parliament House The Hon. Michael Hodgman, M.P. Minister for the Capital Territory Sir Bernard Callinan, C.B.E., D.S.O., M.C. Chairman Parliament House Construction Authority Source: MAMonument details supplied by Monument Australia - www.monumentaustralia.org.au Old Parliament House was the home of the Federal Parliament from 1927 to 1988. During this time, great changes took place in Australian social and political life. This is the building in which democracy matured in Australia. It was here the nation was shaped. The building was designed by John Smith Murdoch; the first Commonwealth government architect. He was asked to design a ‘provisional’ building intended to serve as a parliament for 50 years. Around the building grew the new Australian capital city of Canberra. The need for a national capital arose when the Australian colonies united to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. Parliament House was like a town within the city of Canberra. It had its own library, post office, barber, carpentry workshop, bars and dining room. By the 1980s, thousands of people worked in the building including politicians, parliamentary staff, Hansard reporters, journalists, dining room and bar staff. During its life as a working parliament, this building was the setting for many of Australia’s major political events. Debates that influenced the future of the nation took place here, key decisions were taken, political careers were made and ended. While the building is important because of the events which occurred here, it is also significant in terms of architectural values. The House was designed by John Smith Murdoch, the first Commonwealth Government architect. He was asked to design a ‘provisional’ building that would serve as a parliament for fifty years. Murdoch worked with the ‘stripped classical’ style, common in government buildings in the 1920s and 1930s. It is recognisable in Murdoch’s other Canberra buildings, including the Hotel Canberra (now Hyatt Hotel Canberra), Hotel Kurrajong and the East and West Blocks, which are the original government office buildings in Canberra. Murdoch’s provisional parliament building was modest and functional, and was filled with natural light from windows, skylights and light wells. With its verandahs and colonnades, and strong horizontal lines, the building was not as some people expected a parliamentary building to be, and it attracted criticism from some architects at the time. In the 61 years that the building served as Parliament House, there were many changes in the size and nature of the Federal Parliament. During this time the House of Representatives grew from 76 to 148 members and the Senate from 36 to 76 members. In 1927, only the Speaker of the House, the President of the Senate, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Government in the Senate and ministers had their own offices. By the 1980s, the building had exceeded its capacity with almost 3000 people crowded into a building originally intended for a few hundred . Members and senators had offices of their own, most of them tiny and overcrowded. A new and permanent Parliament House was completed in 1988. In June of that year, members sat for the last time after 61 years in the old building. Today, the building is listed on the National Heritage Register and is home to the Museum of Australian Democracy—a museum that tells the story of Australia’s democracy, including the history and heritage of the building. Further reading
On a bright day during the summer of 1979 (it could not be any better considering its consequences), Sir John Overall – former head of the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) – walked into our office ‘Mitchell/Giurgola Architects’ in New York. He proposed I be an assessor of the design competition for the ‘new’ Parliament House of Australia. I said: ‘I am honoured by such an offer, but I would rather enter the competition.’ Thus, my team became one of the 329 competitors for the design of Parliament House. Like Walter Burley Griffin, before me, I had never been in Australia before starting work on the competition entry. However, in 1946, as a student of architecture I saw Griffin’s plan of Canberra. The magic relationship between geometry and land configurations of that plan, after that, often became the object of my architectural dreams. The brief for the design of the parliament compiled by the NCDC was possibly the best I had ever encountered in my professional career. I plunged into Australian literature rather than into guides and travelogues. Patrick White, Miles Franklin, Henry Lawson and Les Murray became my real instructors, while the sonorous voice and accent of Richard Thorp, the Australian in our office, produced the right atmosphere. It was our inclusion in the short list of five selected architects to enter the second phase, that finally gave me the chance to step on the dry slope of the Kurrajong (Capital Hill). It was an unbelievably hot summer, at a time of drought, yet a crystalline air made distances illusive on the landscape. The spatial conception of the Griffin plan in its true dimension soon confirmed in my mind the validity of our solution. In June 1980, the firm of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects won the commission for the design of Parliament House. After the cheers stopped, we realised that we faced a daunting task. The building, comprising 224,000 square metres on 32 acres to house about 4,000 people and 4,500 rooms, was to be opened in January 1988 to celebrate the bicentenary of European settlement. But above all, the building was to be the tangible expression of the nation’s major democratic institution. It is difficult to sum up in a few sentences the story of eight years of labouring. The spirit of solidarity among the makers, the enthusiasm, the goodwill, the energy and talents of all the participants in such an endeavour – from architects to managers, from artists to labourers, from politicians to public servants – made it possible to have the building available to the occupants at the set time. The methodology adopted for the project was based on the so-called ‘fast track construction process,’ a method popular at the time but hardly ever used for buildings of such significant public use. Four elements constituted the project team: the Parliament House Construction Authority, acting as a small executive managerial group; the architect and related consultants; the construction manager; and a project planner. All reported to a Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee, the Minister for the Territories and the Prime Minister. Thus, while construction continued throughout, from 1980 to 1985 the project was mostly ‘design led’ and, from 1985 to 1988, mostly ‘construction led’. Of major importance for the project was the art committee which began functioning at the very start. This committee assured the continuing, strong connection between architecture, the acquisition of a superb collection of Australian art and craft, and therefore, the presence of major art works available to the public at the opening of the building. The Joint Standing Committee, attended sometimes in the wee hours of the morning by parliamentarians, periodically reviewed the project. Some displayed a good grasp of art and architectural matters; others showed a preference for objects of questionable value and taste, with at times catastrophic results. However, Parliament House remains a building which, within the time constraints for construction, retains an internal logic of design together with an organic integration of architectural conception, art expression and construction. Above all, the building is a public space very much in the spirit of Canberra, within its pliable and unfolding landscape, a place with an identity that does not remain merely subject to the moment. Romaldo Giurgola Further Reading
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When was australia’s ‘new’ parliament house built?
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