THINKING ABOUT LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE Figure 5.15 Aerial view of Canberra, the Australian capital city. Courtesy of the Australian National Capital Authority.
and in the end provided the resolution of what was a contentious debate between two competing cities. Looking at a recent aerial view of Canberra (Figure 5.15), one can see the axial framework for the plan. The layout of several of the major streets actually aligns to mountain forms visible and located near to Canberra itself. It is most probable that the reference to the alignment of the mountain features of Sydney and Melbourne is what gave the edge to the Griffins’ competition submission.
Symbolism Parliament Building, Canberra, Australia As the result of another international design competition in Australia for a new parliament building, the New York architecture firm of Mitchell/Giurgola was selected with site work designed by landscape architect Peter Roland (Figure 5.16). The new structure would replace the temporary parliament building constructed at the foot of a hill facing Lake Burley Griffin. The original intention was to tear down the old building and replace it with the new structure. There was a public outcry when these plans were revealed as the public felt the old parliament building represented a valuable part of the city’s cultural heritage. The Mitchell/Giurgola solution resolved the issue of maintaining the old building by positioning the new structure on the top of the hill above the old parliament with a roof garden or public park on top. This solution not only saved the removal of the historical building by placing a park above the new structure, much of which was buried underground into the hill. Building a park above the parliament building symbolically placed the people above their government. In these two examples for Australia, we can see the power of a design. Two national political conundrums were resolved through design, the first being the 1912 master plan for the new capital city 98
