Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148:reg:2017:p8
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2017 (pt 8/81)
Character Range: 61222–64147

person also a member of the Council.[30]

In the meantime, the location and design parameters for a national library building were also being decided.

2.3.2 Deciding the location for the National Library of Australia Building

In 1912, a design submitted by Walter Griffin was chosen for Canberra as the nation's capital.  Griffin's initial and subsequent designs reflected his concept of the ordered structure of a democracy, creating a Parliamentary Triangle with a Capitol Building (being a 'people's palace' rather than part of the legislature) crowning Capital Hill at the apex, a parliament house a little down the triangle or pyramid of civic structure, then a group of government buildings flanking the Land Axis and the judiciary immediately south of the proposed lake, symbolically located between the executive, legislature and bureaucracy, and the people.  The civic and community functions formed the base of the triangle to the north of the lake, being the foundation of the democratic structure reflected in the planning.  Here were to be located public gardens, a stadium, theatre and opera house, galleries for graphic and plastic arts, and museums for national history and archaeology.[31]

While the community/national institutions functions were to be north of the lake, a library was, in Griffin's scheme, to be co-located with Parliament, presumably in recognition of the Parliamentary Library's key parliamentary function, and possibly in line with the model of the Library of Congress.[32]  A plan exists for a Parliament House drawn in Griffin's office, which shows a large library connecting directly to the lobbies of the chambers of parliament.[33]  The Griffin plan for the parliamentary zone sat, largely unimplemented, for the next four decades.

The issue of the development of Canberra rose again in the mid 1950s, when Prime Minister Menzies resolved to accelerate the development of Canberra as the national capital.  A primary consideration driving Menzies' wish to see the city develop was his desire to have his ministers and their departments co-located.  This meant the provision of housing and infrastructure to allow the move of public servants from Melbourne to Canberra, and the creation of the buildings and institutions in which the public service departments would work.[34]

Menzies promoted Allen Fairhall to the Ministry of the Interior in 1956 to further this aim, and Fairhall moved to implement the recommendations of a 1955 Senate Select Committee (chaired by Senator John McCallum) on the city's development.  A key stone of the new approach was the creation of a single authority to oversee the development of Canberra, and in August 1957 the National Capital Development Commission Bill was introduced.  Menzies demanded changes to the Bill to strengthen the independence of the proposed National Capital Development Commission (NCDC), to avoid the inter-departmental