CANBERRA LOCAL HISTORY

Ten years after the federation of Australia in 1911 the parliament of Australia officially decided the site for the nation's capital, Canberra. The following year Chicago architect, Walter Burley Griffin, won an international competition to design the city. Griffin's design symbolically placed Parliament House on Capital Hill at the centre of Canberra, with wide avenues radiating outward. World events, specifically the First and Second World Wars and the intervening Depression, meant construction of the city was slow and subject to disruption.

In 1927 the Australian Parliament officially relocated from Melbourne to its permanent home in Canberra. With the influx of public servants, development gained pace. Residential architecture of this period contains a mixture of elements from the Arts and Crafts movement, Mediterranean and Georgian styles and is unique to Canberra. Good examples of the style can be seen in the older suburbs of Braddon, Reid, Forrest and Barton.

In the 1960s the Molonglo River was damned to form Lake Burley Griffin, named after the city's architect. The population grew rapidly as did the physical presence of the city with large-scale office development, the establishment of many embassies and residential expansion.

In 1988 the new Parliament House was opened, replacing the provisional building that had been in use since 1927.