Page 10 - Palm City Spotlight - August '22

Page 10, Palm City Spotlight

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Canberra: The Meeting Place

By Don Kiselewski, MCC,
D.S., Palm Beach Gardens
Travel Leaders
About 175 years ago, a
small settlement of squatters
gathered at a clearing
some 185 miles southeast
of Sydney and 290 miles
northeast of Melbourne,
Australia. The place was
called Canberry or Canbury,
derived from the aboriginals
in the area and meaning “meeting place.” A dozen years later
the name Canberra was settled upon. Now an Aussie can
quickly tell where you’re from by the way you pronounce the
name of their capital city; in Australia it’s not Can-bear-ra,
but rather it’s Can-bra. The name has been “Aussie-ized,” Australia’s striking Parliament House in Canberra
like so many of their other city names such as Cairn (Cans),
Brisbane (Bris-bin) and others. So what had been happening on this site before this
So why so much hype for this town that lies on a plain at time? Well, the earliest evidence of a settlement dates back
the foot of the 6,000-foot spur of the Australian Alps? Well, only 21,000 years. It was the aboriginal Wiradjuri tribe that
to put it simply, it was the compromise location between controlled the site when Europe was developing. This tribe
Melbourne and Sydney when it was chosen for the site of used to visit the site in the late spring to feast on a mountain
the national capital in 1909. This site was selected just eight delicacy, the bogong moths. Charles Throsby is said to have
years after the inauguration of the Commonwealth. been the first European settler in the area, arriving on the
It was the Australian Constitution that required the limestone plain in 1821. The land was divided into tracks
establishment of a territory, and so the Australian Capital over the next 10 years.
Territory was formed, much the same as Washington, D.C., The new Commonwealth of Australia acquired the land
which does not lie in any state. The 900 square miles of the for the city in 1911 in accordance with Section 125 of the
territory lies within the Southern Tablelands district of New Australian Constitution. A temporary capital was set up
South Wales. Canberra itself is located in the upper northeast in Melbourne, where it remained until 1927 when it was
corner of the territory. relocated to the new capital in Canberra. View of Canberra from atop Mt. Ainslie
At the same time as the land purchase, the Commonwealth
launched an international architectural competition for the
design of the capital city. The contract to develop the plan for
the city of Canberra was awarded to Chicago architect Walter
Burley Griffin. Griffin was born in Maywood, Ill., in 1876.
He attended the University of Illinois in Urbana, and after
graduation he interned with Frank Lloyd Wright in his Oak
Park studio. He started receiving independent commissions
in the first decade of the 20 century, mostly residential, that
th
were influenced by Wright’s designs. His main interest then
became directed to landscape architecture.
Griffin laid out Canberra based upon the “English Garden
City” concept of strict separation of functions within a
community. He also adopted a geometric formalism to the The Parliament House’s sloped lawn roof helps it blend into
Australian War Memorial city plan. He planned that the functions of various buildings the landscape.
became independent hubs, from which streets radiated. These
main types of buildings form the Parliamentary Triangle, with World War I. Shortly after work resumed following the war,
the government buildings located within the triangle and the Griffin had a dispute with then Prime Minister William Morris
Parliament House being one of the corners; the municipal center Hughes; Griffin was removed from the project. He went on
and the commercial district are the other two. Major roadways to design numerous other commissions throughout Australia,
have been established on the surrounding hills to provide lines and two years before his death in 1937 he had relocated to
of slight between these functions that are contained in the Lucknow, India. The water feature in Canberra has remained
Parliamentary Triangle. Griffin utilized the prominent hills a tribute to him – it was named Lake Burley Griffin.
in the valley and a man-made lake, which is a central water Construction of the new capital progressed rapidly in the
feature of the city, to cleverly accomplish all of this. Planned 1920s, with the first Parliament House opening in 1927. At
residential suburbs such as Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong the time, the population of Canberra was about 6,000. Like
and Gungahlin have sprung up and surround the Parliamentary so many other government buildings, it was added because
Triangle. Each of the self-contained communities has been of necessity, until the new Parliament House was finished
nestled between hills and waterways that have been left as open in 1988. The rest of the city didn’t move as swiftly, being
space to separate these residential areas. influenced by the Great Depression and World War II. Twenty
Canberra’s National Carillon on the shores of Lake Griffin’s supervision of the city’s development started
Burley Griffin in 1915, however, work was put on the back burner during Travel on page 11

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