A Metropolis for the 20th Century
After the six Australian colonies formed a federation called the
Commonwealth of Australia on 1 Jan 1901, the first Commonwealth Parliament
was opened in Melbourne Exhibition Building; choosing a city to be Australia’s
Capital become one of the most important things for the federation. Melbourne
and Sydney were supposed to be the best choice out of all, because at the
beginning of the 20th century, they already contained about 500,000 residents
each and throughout the 20th century Sydney was developed extremely fast; it attracted more visitors,residents, businesses, jobs, and even introduced new advanced technologies in the 20th century such as aviation. However, some people thought Melbourne and Sydney had the most
boring design: ‘no one can call it beautiful’. Some people
even believed that the commonwealth parliament can be moving around the
existing capital cities. There were thousands of opinions from all over the
country coming to the government, which made this decision become very hard to
make.
In 1900, Surveyor
Alexander Oliver was appointed by the New South Wales
government to look for suitable sites for the federal capital. And the ‘Battle
of the site’ started.
Battle of the site
Figure 1.
It’s never a easy task to pick a site. First,
need to concern about the climate, access to resources, water availability.
Also the capital has to be inland, because World War two just finished safety
is one of the biggest concern, built the capital inland can avoid attack from
others. Furthermore, culture and history needed to be concern as well, since
Australian (aboriginal) belong to bush, In 1904, George Reid, Prime Minister,
encouraged that the new capital should be a simply constructed ‘bush capital’.
The city named Dalgety became the first
choice. It has the prefect tropics environment, the weather is always warm,
occupying a commanding position, is not on the coast and is surrounding by
mountains. In 1904 Dalgety, New South Wales, was confirmed by parliament as the
first choice for the federal capital site. However many thought the site was
too far from Sydney. The capital, as a new city, should stay close to Sydney
and Melbourne because they have higher prestige and advantages in economic.
Therefore another
condition was added on: the capital should be between Sydney and Melbourne no
more than one hundred miles from Sydney.
In 1908, Yass-Canberra was officially replace Dalgety as
the federal capital site. It not only has a wonderful surrounding environment,
it also has an port access — Jervis
Bay, and it also has access to sufficient water and never been contaminated by
industries or major urban development.
In 1909, Yass-Canberra
had finally bee selected by the parliament for the seat of government and
Lady Denman, wife of
the Governor-General, names the federal capital 'Canberra' at the official
ceremony to mark the start of building.
Battle of the Plans
After the site of capital is settle, an competition for
city design is held by the Commonwealth Government. Lots of people participated
but only a few ground plans were stand out from the rest. One of the great
plans is from Alexander Oliver, which was based on the ‘radiation principle’ . The radial street system was not only
convenience and interesting, the way the streets were designed also maximised
the access to solar. Another competitor, John Sulman, his plan was very special
as well. It was famous for the rectangular planning which maintain the convince
of moving from places to places and beauty of the structure of the capital.
This design is quite suitable for Canberra’s topographic and is really easy to access different
resources with this plan. Also an inventor, Lawrence Hargrave, who introduced a
‘spider’s web’ (Figure
2) to the community were very famous during that period. He believed that this
was the best distribution system for all public utilities.
Figure 2.
But the plan from the winner of the competition for a design for Canberra in 1912, Walter Burley Griffin, was even better. This unique plan is aimed to use the natural setting of Canberra to make the city became a symbol ‘of a democratic national identity’. He made the city’s hills became the centre point of the city and the main street of the city (Constitution Avenue) ran parallel to the Molonglo River. The most remarkable thing was he made a proposal that to built a civilised capital, a huge capitol building build with a globalised architectural style, should be built at the top of the Kurrajong Hill.
Although it took a really long period
for Australia to settle down its capital, Nowadays, Canberra has been re-built
for several times, it is still famous for its unique planning idea and its
great local landscape.
References
R.Freestone , The
Federal Capital of Australia: A Virtual Planning History Canberra, Urban
Research Program, 1997 pp.2-30
Pamela Statham, The
Origins of Australia’s
Capital City,1990