Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306:reg:30:p1
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 30 (pt 1/2)
Character Range: 64683–67509

30   Minute, C.S. Daley to Secretary, Home and Territories Department, 12 June 1925, CRS A431, item 59/450; PWC, 'Report … relating to the Proposed Construction of … the National Museum of Australian Zoology', 1927, pp. iv, vi; Second Annual Report of the Federal Capital Commission for the period ended 30th June, 1926, p. 9.

Figure 3: Early site of Institute of Anatomy, Acton, Mildenhall Collection 1901–1948 (National Library of Australia, 2018)

Figure 4: Site of the Institute of Anatomy with notice board for the National Museum, 1927 (National Archives of Australia, 2018)

  In July 1925, the Department of Works and Railways was given responsibility for preparing, in consultation with MacKenzie, preliminary plans and cost estimates for the project. MacKenzie himself produced sketch plans in March 1926 for the Department's architects to work with. A.S. Robertson, a departmental architect, began to work up detailed plans and specifications, completing them by mid-1926. At this point, the Chief Commissioner of the FCC, Sir John Butters, who was probably being pressed by MacKenzie for an early start to the building program, informed the Minister for Home Territories that the FCC could not possibly embark on the work until other more urgent projects had been completed. Taking Butters's advice, federal Cabinet decided in September to defer work on the museum.31

Figure 5: Site plan showing the entrance from both McCoy Circuit and Liversidge Street, 1925 (NFSA 2018)

  While Butters was informing the government of the FCC's inability to start work on the museum,he was also beginning to have misgivings about the design that the Department of Works and Railways had produced for the building. He raised with the Minister for Home and Territories 'the general question of the policy to be adopted in carrying out buildings such as this, which I hope will be of a somewhat monumental character.' One way to achieve the character he desired for the building was, as he pointed out to the Minister, to hold a design competition, the sort of approach favoured by the Federal Institute of Architects. But while such competitions had already provided an economic bonanza for certain architects, it had proven a very expensive exercise for the federal government. The alternative was to have government architects prepare the designs for Canberra's buildings. Butters had no great faith in this method, however, as he believed that there was a 'danger of monotony' appearing in the designs.32

  Butters soon enlarged on his views before the Public Works Committee. Because the FCC had indicated to the government that it could not even properly consider the current proposals for the museum until April 1927 at the earliest, the government decided as a time- saving measure in February that the Public