Parliament House is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, the legislative branch of Australia's federal tier of government. The building also houses the core of the executive (the Australian Government), containing the cabinet room and offices of the prime minister and other federal ministers.
Located in Canberra, Parliament House is situated at the southern apex of the National Triangle atop and beneath Capital Hill at the intersection of Commonwealth, Adelaide, Canberra and Kings Avenues, and enclosed by the State Circle.
Parliament House was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects and constructed by a joint venture comprising Concrete Constructions and John Holland. The building replaced Old Parliament House, where the Federal Parliament sat from 1927 until 1988, when members and their staff moved "up the hill" to the so-named New Parliament House. The current Parliament House was officially opened on 1988 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia. It cost more than $1.1 billion (equivalent to about $ billion in ) to build.
History
Before the establishment of Canberra
In 1901, when the six British colonies in Australia federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne and Sydney were the two largest cities in the country, but the long history of rivalry between them meant that neither city would accept the other as the national capital. However a compromise was reached and implemented in section 125 of the Australian Constitution, whereby the capital would be in a federal territory located in NSW; however it had to be located at least 100 miles from Sydney. The Parliament would sit in Melbourne until the new capital was completed.Australian Constitution s 125. "The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.
Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefore.
The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of Government."
In 1909, after much argument, the Parliament decided that the new capital would be in the southern part of New South Wales, on the site which is now Canberra. The Commonwealth acquired control over the land in 1911, but World War I intervened, and nothing was done for some years to build the city. Federal Parliament did not leave Melbourne until 1927.
In the meantime the Australian Parliament met in the 19th-century edifice of Parliament House, Melbourne,Australia Spirit of a Nation, p. 101 while the Victorian State Parliament met in the nearby Royal Exhibition Building for 26 years.
Old Parliament House
After World War I the Federal Capital Advisory Committee was established to prepare Canberra to be the seat of government, including the construction of a Parliament House. The committee decided that it would be best to erect a provisional building, to serve for a predicted 50 years until a new, permanent House could be built. In the end, Old Parliament House was Parliament's home for 61 years. In the last decade of its use as a parliament, the building had a chronic shortage of available space. Design and construction In Walter Burley Griffin's original design for Canberra, Parliament House would be located on Camp Hill, located between Old Parliament House and Capital Hill. Instead a "Capitol" building would be placed on Capital Hill, that would hold the national archives and act as a public assembly. Placing Parliament beneath the Capitol building would then represent the people standing above their representatives. Debate over the site continued over the years, with Menzies in 1958 supporting a site on the shore of the lake. However, there remained support for the Capital Hill site, which culminated in the passage of the Parliament Act 1974 with a free vote, which determined that the Capital Hill site should be used.
In 1978 the Fraser government decided to proceed with a new building on Capital Hill, and the Parliament House Construction Authority was created. A two-stage competition was announced, for which the Authority consulted the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and, together with the National Capital Development Commission, made available to competitors a brief and competition documents. The design competition drew 329 entries from 29 countries.
The competition winner was the Philadelphia-based architectural firm of Mitchell/Giurgola, with the on-site work directed by the Italian-born architect Romaldo Giurgola,Tony Stephens, "Like his work, he'll blend into the landscape", Sydney Morning Herald, 1999 with a design which involved burying most of the building under Capital Hill, and capping the edifice with an enormous spire topped by a large Australian flag. The spires supporting the flag pole traces the outline of the triangular capitol building envisioned by Griffin. The facades included deliberate imitation of some of the patterns of the Old Parliament House, so that there is a slight resemblance despite the massive difference of scale.
Giurgola placed an emphasis on the visual aesthetics of the building by using landscape architect Peter G Rolland to direct civil engineers, a reversal of the traditional roles in Australia. Rolland played a pivotal role in the design, development and coordination of all surface elements including pool design, paving, conceptual lighting and artwork locations. Horticultural experts from the Australian National Botanic Gardens and a government nursery were consulted on plant selection. Permanent irrigation has been limited to only the more formal areas. Irwinconsult was commissioned to provide structural engineering, including quality assurance of all structural elements, to deliver a building with a designed lifespan of 200 years.
Construction began in 1981, and the House was intended to be ready by Australia Day, 1988, the 200th anniversary of European settlement in Australia. It was expected to cost $220 million. Neither the deadline nor the budget was met.
The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 1988,The Australian Political System, p. 737 the anniversary of the opening of both the first Federal Parliament in Melbourne on 1901 by the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V),Australia Spirit of a Nation, p. 100 and of Provisional Parliament House in Canberra on 1927 by the Duke of York (later King George VI).Australia Spirit of a Nation, p. 146
The flag flown from the flagpole is , about the size of half a tennis court. The flagpole weighs 250 tonnes and is made of polished stainless steel from Newcastle, with the steel ball resting at the top of the flagpole manufactured by Leussink Engineering Pty Ltd. It was designed to be the pinnacle of Parliament House and is an easily recognisable symbol of national government. It is visible by day from outside and inside Parliament House and floodlit at night. The flag itself weighs approximately .
The site covers . The building was designed to sit above Old Parliament House when seen from a distance. About one million cubic metres (35,000,000 cubic feet) of rock had to be excavated from the site. It was used to fill low-lying areas in the city. Most of the granite used was sourced from Australia. Twice the amount needed was quarried as a very high standard of granite was required particularly for the curved walls.
It was proposed originally to demolish Old Parliament House so that there would be an uninterrupted vista from the New Parliament House to Lake Burley Griffin and the Australian War Memorial, but there were successful representations for the preservation of the historic building, which now houses a parliamentary museum. The original idea was for Parliament House to be open free to the public, and the sweeping lawns leading up to the entrances were intended to symbolise this.
Height
The top of the Parliament House roof slab/terrace was set at RL617Drawings held by the Department of Primary Services RL617 "is equal to the base of the flag pole of Parliament House".. RL617 (or RL2025 feet) was the limit recommended in 1972 to match the AMP Building and Russell Offices. In 1972 the location of the future Parliament House was unknown, however RL2025 was the "assumed level of its roof, one hundred feet above Camp Hill i.e. RL.2025", which was "in fact the roof level of the highest buildings" in Russell and the City.;
The building has been claimed to be four metres (13 feet) higher than the original height of the hill. A 1972 NCDC report states the "top (new level)" of Capital Hill was RL2005 feet (and "top of flagstaff" was RL2109 feet). A 1911 map utilising surveying by Charles Scrivener recorded the peak as 2005 feet above sea level.
"Until recently" before 1972 there was a controlling Central Canberra height limit of RL2000 (feet). This is contradicted by a January 1989 report stating the NCDC first introduced height controls in Civic in 1968, that the Commission "adopted an absolute limit of RL617, being the intended height of the Towers of the New Parliament House on Camp Hill", and "The 20 year-old limit of RL 617 is still valid";
The 1972 NCDC report stated RL2000 "corresponds with the top of Capital Hill".
External features The design of Parliament House is anchored around two large curved walls that divides the structure into four quadrants. Clockwise these are: the formal entrance and event space, the House of Representatives, the executive wing and the Senate. These walls are sunken into the hill so that the building appears to emerge from the land, rather that towering over those beneath it. The ability for people to walk on the grass roofs over their representatives also represents the people being above the government. The entire structure is surmounted by an flagpole flying the Australian flag. The flag is the largest in the country, measuring by , around the size of a double-decker bus.
Forecourt Visitors enter Parliament House through the forecourt, designed by architect Robert Woodward, surrounded on each side by a slowly rising wall and approaching the entrance which mirrors that of Old Parliament House, despite the massive increase in scale. The gravel of sunburnt red and the green fountain represents the outback, the bush and the billabong, all symbolic of Australia. This and a large mosaic, Possum and Wallaby Dreaming, emphasises the enduring Aboriginal connection to the land. The mosaic is forecourt mosaic and was designed by Indigenous Australian artist Michael Nelson Jagamarra. It depicts the tracks of several native animals (in white) moving towards the central circle, representing that Canberra is a gathering place. The style is reminiscent of the traditional sand paintings of the artists tribe, located near Papunya. Three stonemasons took 18 months to two years to hand-cut the 90,000 granite setts which were used in the artwork. The mosaic was digitised in April 2019 from a series of photographs taken from five metres above the artwork.
Gardens