The 46 Plans

This section contains descriptions of the 46 plans considered by the assessors at the capital site.

Gilroy's plan shows a free-flowing curvilinear street layout that avoids axial relationships between buildings. Parliament and government offices occupy a large rectangular site west of Kurrajong Hill with the art gallery and the national theatre to the south. An unusual feature is a monorail or electric railway curving along the southern part of the site.

Agache's exceptionally attractive but essentially impractical plan divided the city into quarters - the University Quarter, Industrial Quarter, Administrative Quarter and Business Quarter, with less detailed residential quarters in the outlying sections. Agache was one of the few competitors to include an airport, in the Business Quarter. The Molonglo River traced its usual course through a city which his drawings represent as a 'mini-Paris'.

Magonigle's federal capital plan has a clear theme, with its north and south portions centring on spiderweb street systems. A great central axis connects three major groups of buildings, each of which provides a strong focal point for its surrounding district. Parliament occupies the most prominent site, and its building terminates the view from eight radial thoroughfares.

This plan must be considered with No. 36, by Lawson and Parr, Pretoria, South Africa, for which it is the stormwater scheme. It recognises the topography of the site only as it imposes requirements for stormwater drainage. The Australian capital appears as a giant octagon. This is an essentially mechanical and over-rigid design.

One of the more attractively drawn plans, it is a curious combination of two superimposed grids placed at 45 degrees from one another. The larger of the two grids is oriented to the cardinal points of the compass, and the streets of the basic grid make elongated city blocks with a main north east-south west axis, to provide maximum sunlight for buildings.

This plan has Parliament, located on Camp Hill, as its major focal point, circled by departmental buildings. The lake follows the flood line contours, and is bordered by parks, gardens and playing fields. The plan's treatment of axes is often awkward, but it does have the advantage of a competent plan for sewerage and stormwater disposal, based on the designers' thorough knowledge of the site.

An obsession with circles and ellipses results in a town plan resembling a collage of dartboards and footballs.

This compact city would have almost concealed its planned origins. The plan concentrates all building on the south bank of a lake. His perspective drawing reveals his preference for the type of picturesque city planning advocated by Camillo Sitte. Gimson sites the main part of the city on the slopes of Kurrajong Hill and Camp Hill, radiating to lake shores, with Parliament House on Capital Hill.

One of the strangest designs, which extends the city site to the east, with everything located south of the lake, but no feature identified.

His plan for the governmental centre is particularly effective, with imposing axes linking prominent locations. The river is forced into an artificial configuration and has ten bridges. This would make the plan very expensive.

His plan features a Washington-like Mall framed by boulevards in a diamond composition. To do this he relocates the railway route to run on the west of the city, requiring a tunnel under Kurrajong. The plan reflects both an assured and mature talent in large scale planning, and the influence of the 1902 Senate Park Commission proposals for Washington.

Schulz's plan sets Parliament in modern Yarralumla. Radials leading to railway station make this the focal point rather than the government centre on the hill to the south east.

His plan is a glorious exercise in circles, but an obviously impractical design which completely ignores the site's topography. Most of the city is enclosed within a circular boulevard.

Nearly every element is located south of the river, with a major focus a City Hall set in Yarralumla and Houses of Parliament on Kurrajong Hill. There is a lake at the eastern end of the city with an artificial island in the shape of Australia.

Griffin's plan uses the natural topography of the site. Two dams create three bodies of water (the lake), further defined by two principal thoroughfares converging on Capital Hill and linking the two parts of the city north and south of the water feature. The existing hills and mountains are used to establish the outlines of the plan, defining three axes - a Land Axis, a Water Axis, and a Municipal Axis. Within and bordering the great triangle formed by two avenues crossing the lake and the Municipal Axis connecting them are located most of the major capital city buildings, with the most important those of the Commonwealth.

Mische's plan closely resembles the line drawing of the Washington Mall by the Senate Park Commission of 1902.

Highly detailed line drawing with federal buildings peculiarly arranged, and provision for a lake.

In this plan, the Molonglo River is re-routed and has a horseshoe configuration on its north bank. A central axis connects the south and north of the city.

Plan preoccupied with geometry, with small central circle from which radiate eight avenues.

Berard's plan for the federal capital is an absolute gem resembling Paris. Drops baroque compositions on the plan, seemingly without any logic.

An exercise in circular geometry. Two very large circles joined by axes are prominent features.

Comey's design is a combined grid and radial plan, with a rather clumsy version of curvilinear streets, and an axis north east to the State House.

This attractive and feasible plan strongly resembles Washington, with similar superimposition of major diagonal boulevards over a basic grid system.

This plan is something of a mish-mash, lacking any obvious central organising theme.

His plan shows a rigid grid of streets oriented north west-south east and north east-south west.

The plan submitted by the Maybeck team has a central portion consisting of a series of nested, adjacent and interlocked triangles, the most prominent of which is formed by major avenues linking important sites and buildings.

Holme's design places Parliament on flat land north east of Camp Hill, rather than on an elevation. The major axis of the city extends approximately north and south to the Houses of Parliament, across the river and on to and beyond the State House. Holme combines the ideas of Camillo Sitte with a more formal approach to create a design which would have produced a capital city of great interest.

His plan pictures the city as a stadium, with the entire city encompassed in a huge oval south of the river, with a broad thoroughfare leading from the railway station to Parliament, which faces west into the central oval.

Sherwood's plan is a geometric exercise, with the main part of the city on the south side of the river, consisting of a large circle containing all the public buildings, and an axis from Kurrajong Hill to Mount Ainslie. A curious and obviously quite impractical plan.

This design is the work of a skilled land planner, who successfully combines radial, grid, and curvilinear street systems to create what would have been a visually effective and functionally feasible city. There is a central composition in the form of the Southern Cross within which the Commonwealth Government departments would be located.

This plan is a glorious composition of octagons and circles, with the centres of the octagons serving as sites for major buildings or groups of structures. The major north-south axis of the city extends through Camp Hill, where a long cross-axis leads east and west to other circles and octagons. The plan also includes provision for an underground railway.

This plan is a strange, non-axial design of looping and curving roads and tightly clustered buildings, which may have fitted the site's topography, but fails to provide a setting for specified public buildings and uses.

Ritchie-Fallon's design places all major building north of the river. Parliament is snuggled tightly up Black Mountain slopes, with a major avenue leading south east to the city hall square. This square is in the centre of a series of concentric circular streets.

The city is encompassed by an irregular circle labelled 'Ring Road', with the most compelling feature of the plan a complex of major buildings grouped near the centre. Combines grid and radial systems.

Heath's design shows an ability to organise monumental spaces. A formal arrangement of public buildings in a central mall connects both sides of the river valley, and a lake is created between the two parts of the city. Heath chose City Hill for Parliament, placing departmental buildings nearby to define a large civic square. His residential streets follow contour lines, and are angled from the cardinal points of the compass to provide sunlight exposure to all sides of buildings. The University and technical colleges lie to the west near the Acton Peninsula.

An elegantly lettered but curious plan, with several questionable elements. Its designer has dropped diagonals into the plan without much thought. Radials focus on railway station, not on Parliament.

This plan features a lakeside Parliament in a large complex arranged in a semi-circle opening to the north east, with St John's Church as the centre of a minor axis to the lake shore.

This design is a strange combination of centres of activity linked only indirectly by major radial streets. Parliament is located on the north bank of the Molonglo. An avenue extends north west from the City Centre to a 'Pleasure Centre' with a National Theatre, Winter Gardens Pavilion, Music Hall, places of amusement and a church site.

This plan employs rigid geometry in the form of concentric squares. The Houses of Parliament are set in the middle of two concentric circles, with major federal buildings around the circle. There are rectangular ranges of 'Commercial', and 'First, Second and Third Class Residential' blocks to the north west. A circular lake interrupts the rectangular scheme on the south-east side. Appealing as an abstract composition, this design is impractical as a city plan.

This design features a large octagon created by a wide boundary thoroughfare, within which are four oval road systems each containing a grid system. An intricate system of water reservoirs, stormwater and relief sewer arrangements suggest the work of an engineer.

This plan has several meritorious points. Parliament is located on Camp Hill, with government offices grouped nearby. There is a City Hall on Vernon Hill, and a shopping area between this and the Molonglo River. Streets radiate from Parliament Square and City Hall, with cathedrals forming focal points, and churches and other buildings forming vistas in the smaller squares, crescents and circuses.

Their plan has a very clear axial theme. It is easy to understand, and has a consistent sense of organisation, though an essentially mechanical one. The chief axis extends from the Houses of Parliament on Kurrajong, crosses the river and leads beyond to the north. Two major radials create a central triangle.

His plan features an interesting and unusual street system, with connecting grids. A huge horseshoe-shaped area on the south side of the river interrupts the grid systems, and is called 'Acropolis'. It is occupied by a railway station. Parliament faces north off a curve of this great horseshoe.

Heaton's plan is a consistent study in concentric circles and radiating streets, with Parliament at the centre of this massive cobweb. Four main boulevards lead to the cardinal points of the compass. A very impractical design.

Gellerstedt's plan reflects the ideas of Camillo Sitte. It has irregular street patterns such as those that have evolved in older cities. Most of the city is enclosed by a great circular Ringstrasse-type avenue and a parallel semi-circle in the northern section, with a north-south axis.

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