Page 17 - PGA Community News - August '22

August 2022 August 2022 PGA C.A.N.!, Page 17

Canberra: The Meeting Place from page 16

The new Commonwealth
of Australia acquired the
land for the city in 1911 in
accordance with Section 125
of the Australian Constitution.
A temporary capital was set
up in Melbourne, where it
remained until 1927 when
it was relocated to the new
capital in Canberra.
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 The High Court of Australia is one of many impressive
was awarded to Chicago structures spread around Lake Burley Griffin.
architect Walter Burley Griffin.
Griffin was born in Maywood,
Ill., in 1876. He attended View of Canberra from atop Mt. Ainslie
the University of Illinois in
Urbana, and after graduation he interned with Frank as Woden, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin have
Lloyd Wright in his Oak Park studio. He started receiving sprung up and surround the Parliamentary Triangle.
independent commissions in the first decade of the 20 Each of the self-contained communities has been nestled
th
century, mostly residential, that were influenced by between hills and waterways that have been left as open
Wright’s designs. His main interest then became directed space to separate these residential areas.
to landscape architecture. Griffin’s supervision of the city’s development
Griffin laid out Canberra based upon the “English started in 1915, however, work was put on the back
Garden City” concept of strict separation of functions burner during World War I. Shortly after work resumed
within a community. He also adopted a geometric following the war, Griffin had a dispute with then Prime
formalism to the city plan. He planned that the functions Minister William Morris Hughes; Griffin was removed
of various buildings became independent hubs, from from the project. He went on to design numerous other
which streets radiated. These main types of buildings commissions throughout Australia, and two years before
form the Parliamentary Triangle, with the government his death in 1937 he had relocated to Lucknow, India.
buildings located within the triangle and the Parliament The water feature in Canberra has remained a tribute to
House being one of the corners; the municipal center him – it was named Lake Burley Griffin.
and the commercial district are the other two. Major Construction of the new capital progressed rapidly
roadways have been established on the surrounding hills in the 1920s, with the first Parliament House opening in
to provide lines of slight between these functions that are 1927. At the time, the population of Canberra was about
contained in the Parliamentary Triangle. Griffin utilized 6,000. Like so many other government buildings, it was
the prominent hills in the valley and a man-made lake, added because of necessity, until the new Parliament
which is a central water feature of the city, to cleverly
accomplish all of this. Planned residential suburbs such Canberra: The Meeting Place on page 18 National Museum of Australia