Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p35
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 35/63)
Character Range: 442634–445355

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  Apart from some doors to the press rooms and several sashes on the lower floor of the dining–recreation block, all of the joinery in the building was fashioned from Australian timber. Tasmanian blackwood was used for panelling the lower walls in the legislative Chambers and for most of the timberwork, doors and doorframes throughout the building. The same timber, faced with copper, was used for the front door of the building. All of the exterior window and door frames were of Queensland maple coated with a tough oil- based varnish to give protection against Canberra's harsh summer sun. All of the flooring in the building was also of Australian timber, except for a small amount of Baltic pine used for flooring in the press rooms. On the lower floor, all of the floor bearers and joists were made of Australian hardwood, but imported oregon was used for the joists in the main floor, upper floor and flat roof, and for the main trusses over the legislative Chambers. Oregon was used because it was felt that, as a seasoned timber in these areas, it would produce less movement and therefore have no deleterious effect on plastered ceilings. This, however, was soon to prove an illusory hope.32

  Construction of Provisional Parliament House was completed in 1927 at a cost of £644,600, a figure almost three times in excess of the original cost estimate of £220,000. A further £250,000 was spent on furnishing the building. At the time of its completion, the building covered 4 acres (1.6 hectares) of ground and included a total of 182 rooms, plus the two legislative Chambers. Surrounding the House, another 132 acres (53.4 hectares) were in the process of being converted – not without difficulty – into lawns, gardens and recreational areas, including tennis courts, a bowling green, cricket pitch and at some point a putting green. Among the guiding principles of the layout and planting of the grounds were that the levels should be symmetrical, that the design should be of a formal character and accentuate the land axis running to Mount Ainslie and that the plantings should be 'loose and low' such that they would not dwarf the flat profile of Parliament House or obscure views of it. Another, far more prosaic principle was that grass needed to be

    31      Sydney Morning Herald, 29 August 1923; Grover, A Descriptive Guide to Canberra, p. 35; Greg McIntosh, 'As it was in the beginning: Parliament House in 1927', Legislative Research Service: Current Issues Paper No. 12, 1987–88, pp. 18–19.
    32      Memorandum, CS Daley to Secretary, Home and Territories Department, 7 August 1926, CRS A1/15, item 26/15054; ms minute, Robert P Christie, 'Renovation and Maintenance of External