Celebrating Canberra: a Nation S Cultural and Democratic Landscape

Celebrating Canberra: A nation’s cultural and democratic landscape

Exploring Canberra’s national heritage

The Australian Heritage Council

June 2012

The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do notnecessarily reflect those of the Australian Government or the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

© Commonwealth of Australia 2012

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Foreword

The Australian Heritage Council is excited to be considering the national heritage significanceof Canberra in the national capital’s centenary year. Canberra is vital to all Australians as the heartof our democracy and pinnacle of our justice system.

Born of the utopian ideals of the founders of Australian Federation and grounded in the Griffins’visionary town plan, Canberra has grown to be one of the world’s great twentieth century cities.

Australia’s national heritage comprises exceptional natural and cultural places that contribute toAustralia’s national identity, from the Great Barrier Reef and the West Kimberley to Bondi Beachand Sydney Opera House.

The National Heritage List identifies the critical moments in our development as a nation, it includes:places that speak to us of exploration and settlement like the Batavia Wreck Site, Port Arthur andBonegilla Migrant Camp, mark iconic events such as the Eureka Stockade site and the Wave Hill WalkOff Route, showcase creative achievements like the Adelaide Parklands and City Layout, or reflectjoys and sorrows in the lives of Australians.

It also encompasses those places that reveal the richness of Australia’s extraordinarily diverse naturalheritage, from remote ancient landscapes like Uluru/KataTjuta, resonant with meaning overthousands of generations of Indigenous habitation, to Riversleigh’s fossil site or the natural beautyof the Australian Alps and the Tasmanian Wilderness.

Several places within Canberra are already included on the National Heritage List: Old ParliamentHouse, the Australian War Memorial and Memorial Parade, the High Court-National Gallery Precinctand the Australian Academy of Science Building. Many other places of local or territory significanceare included on the Commonwealth Heritage List or the ACT Heritage Register.

The Council is taking a broad and overarching approach in assessing the significance of Canberraas the planned national capital. The proposed listing will capture those outstanding elements ofCanberra that contribute to the key themes of:

• Canberra’s historical and symbolic significance as a new capital city established by theAustralian Constitution;
• the city’s role in facilitating public engagement in the political process and as the siteof landmark decisions and national remembrance; and
• Canberra as a showcase of cutting-edge twentieth century town planning ideas.

The Australian Heritage Council invites all Australians to engage with the national heritageassessment of your national capital.

Dr Carmen Lawrence

Chair, Australian Heritage Council

May 2012

CANBERRA: 100 YEARS AT THE HEART OF THE NATION

In 2013 Australians will be celebrating the centenary of Canberraas the nation’s capital. The city of Canberra, its inception andplanning, embodies the development and evolution of Australia’sunique cultural and democratic landscape.

As one of the world’s great twentieth century planned cities, the city of Canberra has represented and reflected the political and cultural mood of the nation since Federation. Each Australian has their own view and perception of Canberra, whether it is Canberra as the seat of government, the home of parliament, a place for decision making, protest or national commemoration, reflection and healing. Canberra’s natural landscape setting and the outstanding city design by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin has also contributed to the creation of a city of great beauty. All Australians can be proud of their national capital.

To celebrate Canberra’s centenary the Australian Heritage Council is undertaking a national heritage assessment to determine if Canberra’s unique place in our nation’s history and heritage should be given Australia’s highest heritage honour, a national heritage listing.

CANBERRA: ONE PEOPLE,ONE NATION, ONE DESTINY

‘The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by theParliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted toor acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to theCommonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distantnot less than one hundred miles from Sydney.’

Section 125 Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia (1901)

The concept for the city of Canberra emerged during the movement towards Federation in 1901. Canberra was conceived as an ideal city, a nation’s capital worthy of the ideas, passion, values and patriotism of the Federation movement. Today, Canberra is internationally recognised as an outstanding example of twentieth century town planning and one of a few capital cities in the world designed through an international town planning competition.

The selection of the place for the nation’s new national capital was debated vigorously and at length as the nation moved towards Federation. Many assumed that either Melbourne or Sydney, as the largest cities in the new nation, would become the capital. However, there were concerns that consolidating economic and political power in one of the soon to be states could create unbalance and bias within thenew Federation. The decision about what and where the new capital should be was ultimately embodied in the new nation’s Constitution.

A congress on the planning of the new federal capital held in Melbourne in May 1901 decided that the capital ‘should be laid out in the most perfect manner possible’ and suggested the capital should be decided by a design competition. Selection of the site for Canberra was finalised in 1909. The site chosen was within a pastoral valley and a natural amphitheatre of hills, sheltered by the northernmost ranges of the Australian Alps. It provided a striking setting for the new capital city. After 137 entries, the inspirational designs of American architects, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, were chosen as the foundation for the new capital. TheGriffins’ designs drew on the ‘city beautiful’and ‘garden city’ town planning movementscurrent at the time.

City Beautiful
The City Beautiful was a reform philosophy current in North American architecture and urban planning circles during the 1890s and 1900s. The intent of the philosophy was to import European-style beautification and monumental grandeur into cities. The movement involved the promotion of beauty not only for its own sake but as an uplifting moral and civic force for the community. Advocates of the philosophy believed that such beautification could thus promote a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life.

Garden City

The Garden City movement was a style of urban planning that was initiated in 1898 by Sir Ebenezer Howard in the United Kingdom. Garden cities were intended to be planned, self-contained communities surrounded by “greenbelts” or parks containing proportionate areas of residences, industry and agriculture. The concept of garden cities is to produce relatively economically independent cities with short commute times and the preservation of the countryside.

The Griffins’ design also responded sensitively to the topography of the site, realising the potential to place national monuments in a natural landscape to create symbols of democracy and evoke the senseof a connection between a young city and the great civilisations of the past. Utilising a geometry of circles, straight lines between axial points and a central triangle, the Griffins laid out grand boulevards demarcating significant national spaces, a symmetrical central lake and grand vistas. The Griffins’ outstanding design influenced the city plans for New Delhi and Brasilia. Australian Architect Paul Reid considered the Griffins’ design as ‘one of the finest city plans ever made’[1], while John Reps, eminent American urban historian, stated that

Griffin’s vision ... remains anextraordinary achievement deservingrecognition and protection as one of thetreasures, not only of Australia, but of theentire urban world.[2]

Even though subsequent Canberra city plans only retained the Griffins’ street pattern, a more naturalistic interpretation of the lake (later named in his honour) and the location of the government zone and civic centre on opposite sides of the lake was developed. The legacy of the Griffins’ idealistic vision remains, however, clearly visible and popularly celebrated in the Canberra landscape and continues to be echoed in the planning and design of new national buildings and institutions added to the Canberra landscape.

The design of the 1988 Parliament House pays homage to the Griffins’ design by locating the building within rather than on top of Capital Hill and reflecting the profile of the Griffins’ proposed people’s Capitol building in the Parliament’s stepped retaining walls and iconic flagpole. The expansion of Canberra reflects changes and developments in Australia’s political and cultural landscape. The post-war decision to relocate the public service to Canberra led, in the 1960s, to the development of relatively self-contained ‘new towns’ in the valleys beyond the central amphitheatre, connected by an intra-urban network of motorways. Refined during the 1970s and 80s, what became known as the ‘Y Plan’ designed to maintain the central area of Canberra as a national showcase, retaining the inner hillsas natural green spaces and providing public amenity through a reinterpretation of the original ‘garden city’ planning concept. The aesthetic relationship between the designed city and its landscape setting is acknowledged by ongoing community appreciation of Canberra as the ‘bush capital’.

For almost a century Canberra has incorporated the latest innovations in designand social innovation in town planning.From the early garden suburbs of the 1920sthrough experiments in community townplanning and early medium density townhouse developments to the late twentiethcentury sustainable city ‘urban infill’ approach,Canberra has emerged as a world renownedexample of the layering, implementation andutilisation of significant twentieth century townplanning concepts. Planning historian RobertFreestone describes Canberra as

…an outstanding national outdoormuseum of the world’s best practicein planning from the 1910s.[3]

As the seat of Australia’s robust democracy, Canberra reflects the ideals and values of theFathers of Federation and their ideal of ‘Onepeople, one nation, one destiny’. The city ofCanberra provides the Australian communitywith public spaces for vibrant exchangesbetween the citizenry and their parliamentaryrepresentatives. Canberra has been the sitefor momentous decisions and movementsof change that have impacted on the lives ofall Australians. It has been the place for thedeclaration of war and peace, the decisionfor equal rights and pay for women andthe passing of the two amendments to theConstitution arising from the referendum ofMay 1967 granting Indigenous Australianscitizenship and the right to vote in federalelections.

The 1972 Aboriginal Tent Embassy located infront of Old Parliament House played a pivotalrole in raising the profile of the land rightsdebate. Landmark decisions by the HighCourt related to the Indigenous land rights ofthe Mabo and Wik legal cases took place inCanberra. Parliament House and it’s groundswere the site for the National Apology to theStolen Generations and the National Apologyto the Forgotten Australians and Former ChildMigrants.These moments in our nationalhistory continue to resonate today.

The heart of the nation is expressed throughnational commemorations held in Canberra.The Australian War Memorial, standing at thehead of the grand processional route withinthe Griffins’ monumental ‘Land Axis’ vista,is recognised as the pre-eminent nationalshrine defining the Australian spirit. TheAboriginal Memorial housed in the NationalGallery, Reconciliation Place and the NationalPolice Memorial in King’s Park may also benationally significant.

In addition to federal politicians andGovernors-general as a group severalpoliticians have set milestones in Australiandemocratic history such as the first womanor Indigenous person elected to Parliamentor serving in a significant role. A number ofpeople who played a vital role in the selection,creative design and planning of the nationalcapital are also associated with Canberra.These include politicians King O’Malleyand Sir Robert Menzies, surveyor CharlesScrivener, architect/designers Walter BurleyGriffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, townplanners John Sulman, Sir John Butters,John Overall, Peter Harrison and WilliamHolford, architect RomaldoGiurgola andhorticulturalists Charles Weston and LindsayPryor.

A national heritage listing would celebrate theoutstanding physical features of the city and theassociations with significant people and majorcommemorative events that make Canberraone of the world’s great capital cities.

CANBERRA: A NATIONALHERITAGE ASSESSMENT

Each year the federal heritage minister seeks nominations for theNational Heritage List. In 2009, based on the theme ofA Free and Fair Australia, two nominations for the City ofCanberra were received.

The nominations Canberra and Surrounding Areas and Canberra – Central National Area and Inner Hills have different approaches to the interpretation of the national heritagevalues of a planned city and this stirred theAustralian Heritage Council to think aboutwhat particular attributes or aspects of thedevelopment of the city are of potentialnational heritage value.

The Council is currently assessing the twonominations and also taking into accountthe recently received third Canberraheritage nomination, Lake Burley Griffin andLakeshore Parklands.In comparison to Canberra’s existing nationalheritage listed places which representparticular individual or singular historical,architectural, natural or social heritage, inexamining the Canberra nominations theCouncil is looking to discover the widerand more complementary national heritagesignificance of Canberra.

In taking this approach the Council ischallenging itself to define what the mostimportant historical and heritage elementsof the design and landscape of Canberraare and if these together are of outstandingheritage value to the nation. To do thisthe Council has established a number ofparameters for its assessment.

Canberra as a whole

The Council is taking a broad, overarchingapproach to the assessment of the nationalheritage values of Canberra. It is looking at Canberra:

• as an outstanding example of 20th centurytown planning;
• for its significance as the nation’s plannedcapital city conceived at Federation andthe city’s development over 100 years oftown planning theory and thought; and
• as a landscape and expression ofAustralia’s democratic ideals.

The proposed national heritage listing will not supersede, replace, or provide a dual listing for Canberra’s existing national heritage places but rather provide an umbrella under which existing more detailed individual heritage listings can co-exist.

The Canberra – Central National Area and Inner Hills nomination

The Canberra – Central National Area and Inner Hills nomination proposes a relatively constrained area that covers the inner historic area of central Canberra, including the Designated Areas comprising the Central National Area (excluding the Airport precinct) and the Inner Hills part of the National Capital Open Space System (the reserves associated with Black Mountain, Mt Ainslie, Red Hill, Isaacs Ridge, Mt Taylor and Mt Stromlo), and the inner garden city suburbs gazetted in 1928 (Barton, Ainslie, Braddon, Deakin, Forrest, Griffith, Kingston, Reid, Turner and Yarralumla). It includes all land within these areas, including commercial and residential lands.

The nomination highlights Canberra’s significance from its inception and early development and its representation as an outstanding achievement in town planning and social idealism of the early twentieth century. It also focuses on Canberra’s uniqueness and that it embodies contemporary town planning principles of the day that were the focus of national and international expert thought and practice.

Canberra as a planned city

The Council recognises that much of the significance of Canberra is related to its establishment as Australia’s only consistently planned twentieth century capital city and the ongoing management and development of the city through nearly a century of town planning theory and changing architectural movements. This concept of the layering of town planning during the course of the twentieth century is central to the Council’s assessment.

The Council acknowledges that the Griffin Plan was seminal to the establishment of Canberra, however the city envisaged by the Griffins was only partially realised and so cannot be listed as a place of national heritage significance. The Council however in its assessment recognises that the original Griffin Plan shaped and continues to influence the city of Canberra. It also acknowledges that the city owes it historical and present forms to a series of planning phases. The Council considers that the national heritage significance of Canberra likely relates to the evolved planned city. Rather than limiting the assessment to a cut-off date such as 1928, the assessment will cover Canberra’s development until 1988, when self government split planning control between the Commonwealth and ACT governments.

The Canberra and Surrounding Areas Nomination

The Canberra and Surrounding Areas nomination takes a broad view of what should be included to represent the planned city. It includes the component of the Australian Alps National Parks and

Reserves National Heritage listing that is within the ACT (ieNamadgiNationalPark and Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve); the Murrumbidgee and Molonglo Rivers corridors; all land within the Designated Areas as defined in the National Capital Plan; the entire national capital open space system; the whole of central Canberra excluding Fyshwick and North Watson; the idea of the metropolitan structure of Woden/Weston, Belconnen, Tuggeranong and Gungahlin; the landscape context for the peripheral parkways and landscape corridors; and main avenues and approach routes. It excludes all land outside the public domain in the Designated Areas (ie excludes privately owned commercial and residential land but includes features, parks or buildings in government ownership) except in the case of some privately owned elements in the Garden City suburbs and in other prototype suburbs in central Canberra planned and established by subsequent planning agencies up to 1984.