Creating a design is merely the first part of a continuing process. The design then has to be executed...
There are many obstacles in the way: unsympathetic people; conflicting priorities; insufficient money; lack of commitment to the concept. And ideas change: the grand visions of one generation may be denigrated by the next.
As soon as Griffin's plan won the competition, it was challenged by architects and town planners, critics and journalists, politicians and bureaucrats. Some defended it. Later it suffered from well-meaning attempts to implement it in part, or according to town planning fashions of a later era. What happened to the Griffin plan, as it was interpreted by successive planners, reflects all these problems.
It also demonstrates what happens to a plan as conditions change. Political and constitutional developments have meant an enormous increase in population in the federal capital. Griffin's plan for a city for 75 000 has been adapted to deal with vastly more people. The current shape of the city is determined more by transport requirements than by symbolic arrangements of buildings, roads and landscape.
 |
|---|
The new federal capital of Australia was named on 12 March 1913 at a ceremony on Kurrajong Hill (now Capital Hill).
The name derived originally from the Aboriginal inhabitants of the area, who called it 'Nganbra', anglicised to 'Canberry' or 'Canberra' when Joshua John Moore took up land at Acton in the 1820s. It was said to mean either 'woman's breasts', referring to the surrounding hills; or, more felicitously, a 'meeting place'. Stones for a commencement column for the city were laid by Prime Minister Andrew Fisher, Governor-General Lord Denman, and King O'Malley.
 |
|---|
Walter Burley Griffin came to Australia in 1913. The Departmental Board failed to agree to his revised plan and was dismissed. Griffin was appointed federal capital director of design and construction, and remained in this position until the end of 1920. He departed in bitterness when he was invited to become a member of a Board under Sulman, saying "Mr Minister, I will not sit on a Board, a Board has length and breadth, but no depth".
 |
|---|
The first significant departure from Griffin's plan was in 1923 when the government decided to build a provisional Parliament House on the forward slope of Camp Hill. This decision inhibited future design options for the parliamentary triangle. Griffin protested in vain.
 |
|---|
Sir John Sulman, British-Australian architect and town planner, became Chairman of the Federal Capital Advisory Committee. Griffin's plan was gazetted in 1925, so that planning in Canberra could be said to be continuing his design. Nevertheless, changes were made. The emphasis shifted in favour of Garden City-style planning for residential development.
After a long period when Canberra stagnated, Prime Minister Robert Menzies sought expert advice from British town planner Sir William Holford, and appointed the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) to carry it out. Holford drew up a revised plan for Canberra in 1958, which relied on picturesque landscaping effects rather than the formal geometry of the Griffin plan. He also recommended that Australia's permanent Parliament House should be sited by the lake which would be created. Several large buildings were later located near the lake in anticipation that Parliament House would also be there.
Sir John Overall, first chairman of the National Capital Development Commission, had the task of dealing with the expansion of Canberra and accommodating large population increases. Under his leadership the NCDC built the lake, the new towns of Woden, Weston Creek and Belconnen, and implemented the Garden City style in accordance with Holford's plan.
 |
|---|
In 1974 the government decided to build Australia's permanent Parliament House on Capital Hill. Although not on the site Griffin nominated, it occupies a commanding position, and its design restates some of the complex geometry embedded in the Griffin plan. It was opened in 1988.
The national capital's first population expansion occurred in the 1920s, when Australia's government formally moved to Canberra, and provisional Parliament House was opened. The second world war enhanced the role of central government in Australia. This continued in the postwar period, as more government departments moved from Melbourne to Canberra in the late 1950s.
Commonwealth and State relations were changing. By the 1960s central government was taking control of many functions previously handled by the States. A more complex federal system was the result, with public servants concentrated in Canberra. The Whitlam Government of the 1970s was committed to the role of central government, and expanded the Commonwealth Public Service.
People came to the new towns of Woden, Weston Creek and Belconnen, and later Tuggeranong and Gungahlin. Canberra's population doubled, from 100 000 in June 1967 to 200 000 in March 1976. By contrast, the period from 1976 to 1991 saw slower growth, with job reductions in the public service. In 1993 Canberra's population was 300 000.
Walter Burley Griffin planned a city for 75 000 people. Could he have imagined that the city he designed would have expanded to hold 300 000 by the end of the century?
| back to section 4: The Winner |
|---|
| onwards to section 6: Planning - a continuing process |
|---|
All materials at this site, both images and text are the property of the NLA and Australian Archives and cannot be reproduced.