Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p29
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 29/63)
Character Range: 427223–429928

positive, saying that Murdoch's design aimed 'to obtain effect with simple lines, and without expensive architectural embellishment' and that it did not 'provide any features purely for the gaining of effect'.23

  The design of the building was also influenced by Griffin's conception of parliamentary government. In his scheme for the city, he had felt that he could not make parliament house the focal point of the Parliamentary Triangle and of the city plan in general because the legislature consisted of two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. His concern was that, if he did make parliament house the centrepiece of his plan, the focal point would be occupied by one or the other house; this would then act to elevate the status of one house at the expense of the other. As Griffin believed in the equality of the two houses, such an arrangement was not acceptable.24 Thus, he made the Capitol building on Kurrajong Hill the focal point of his plan and placed parliament house in a subordinate though still important position in the Parliamentary Triangle, depicting the building as a long rectangular structure sitting transversely astride the land axis. The clear implication was that the land axis would divide the parliamentary building into two halves equal in size and status, with the House of Representatives on one side and the Senate on the other. The whole conception was reminiscent of the Capitol in Washington which, of course, Griffin would have been familiar with. The idea survived to become one of the underlying assumptions of Murdoch's design for the provisional building on the northern slope of Camp Hill. It is not clear why Murdoch, who had visited the Capitol in Washington, reserved the eastern half of the building as the Representatives side and the western half as the Senate side. As the building is viewed from in front, this is the reverse of the arrangement in the Capitol.

  The size of the building was based on the needs of Commonwealth Parliament, as expressed to Murdoch and his colleagues by parliamentarians and parliamentary officers. One of the most important considerations here was the assumption that the numbers of parliamentarians would not rise above a total of 168 – 112 in the House of Representatives and 56 in the Senate – for the projected life of the building as the home of the Commonwealth Parliament. This seemed entirely reasonable as, at the time of the building's official opening in May 1927, the figures for members of the House of Representatives and senators were 73 and 36 respectively, a total of only 109. In his design for the two legislative Chambers, therefore, Murdoch allowed sufficient space to cater for an