A
building designed to house 300 people
was expected to cope with over 4,000.
But successive governments blanched
at the likely cost of building a new,
much bigger Parliament House. There
was also a prolonged battle over where
to put a new House: either on the
same site as the old one, behind it
on Capital Hill, or by the lake shore,
which was where the original designer
of Canberra, Walter Burley Griffin,
had intended it to be. The flagpole
of Parliament HouseFinally in 1978
the Fraser government decided to proceed
with a new building on Capital Hill,
and the Parliament House Construction
Authority was created. The design
competition was won by the US-based
Italian architect (and now Australian
citizen) Romaldo Giurgola, with an
imaginative 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
facades, however, deliberately echoed
the designs of the Old Parliament
House, so that there is a family resemblance
despite the massive difference in
scale. Construction began in 1981,
and the House was intended to be ready
by January 1988, the 200th anniversary
of European settlement in Australia.
It was expected to cost A$220 million.
Neither deadline nor budget were met.
The building was finally opened by
Queen Elizabeth II on 9 May 1988,
the anniversary of the opening of
both the first Federal Parliament
in Melbourne (9 May 1901), and of
the Provisional Parliament House in
Canberra (9 May 1927). The final cost
was over $1 billion, making Parliament
House the most expensive building
in Australian history. From above,
the design of the site is in the shape
of two boomerangs enclosed within
a circle. Much of the building is
buried beneath Capital Hill, but the
meeting chambers and accommodation
for parliamentarians are free-standing
within the boomerang-shaped arms.
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