A Metropolis for the 20th Century by Joyce Zhong

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

 At the start, most of the nationalistic commentators put Adelaide and Ballarat as part of the consideration list due to their unique landscape and the regional centre. Also, Charles Coulter, an architect from Sydney drew a picture for the future federal Capital (Figure 1) which is inspired by the European cities. But the most famous cities at that time, like Chicago, was not known for the great structure or the beauty of their parkland, by putting all the fancy structures together did not make them became well known; is the ‘happy-go-lucky’ environment that attracted people from all around the world. Therefore, the capital city should has a beautiful environment, with outstanding views. Also the capital should has features that are stand out from others, so that the city planner will always find it as an interested object to design.

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