Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148:reg:2017:p10
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2019L00148
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2017 (pt 10/81)
Character Range: 66516–69270

never constructed.[40]  The National Library Act 1960 created the separate National Library, and the decision to proceed with a new building on the planned site followed soon after.

In 1964 Sir William Holford refined his plan for the parliamentary area, in line with the intervening NCDC planning, and reflected the location of the National Library on the western, and the High Court on the eastern side of the proposed lakeside Parliament House.  Holford proposed a common podium level for each building.  A decision had also been taken to construct a building for Treasury south of the Library site (opened in 1970).  The Library and Treasury building architecture was to be of a 'non-assertive character' so as not to draw attention from the proposed lakeside Parliament building.[41]

In 1968, the year the National Library building was opened, the Cabinet rejected the lakeside location for Parliament House, favouring a Camp Hill or Capital Hill location.  The House of Representatives and the Senate had opposing views about a Camp Hill versus Capital Hill site, and a stalemate lasted five years until Parliament in a joint sitting in 1974 decided on Capital Hill.[42]

In response to the 1968 decision, the NCDC issued a new plan for the Parliamentary Zone in 1969, with a Camp Hill location for Parliament House.  This plan, by Roger Johnson, located a vast monumental plaza, the 'National Place', in place of the now relocated parliament house, between the just-completed National Library to the west and the High Court site and a new National Gallery site to the east.[43]  The High Court was completed in 1980 and the National Gallery in 1982.

An east-west visual axis now linked the Library with the High Court and National Gallery sites across the National Place, an axis that had not existed in the now defunct lakeside Parliament House proposal, as the parliament buildings would have sat between the Library and High Court buildings.  The Holford/NCDC liking of asymmetry meant that the new Court and Gallery buildings did not have to be echoes of the Library in form or location.  Hence the entrance axes of the Library and Gallery do not line up, although the Gallery entrance location and bridge to the High Court Forecourt address the general east-west axis in accordance with the design briefs for those buildings.  The east-west axis has been given greater emphasis by the construction of Reconciliation Place (2002), which reinforces the alignment between the entrances of the Gallery and the Library, and the re-configuration and upgrade works to the entry drive and fountain east of the Library entrance in 2010.

2.3.3 Design and construction of the National Library Building

In 1965 the NCDC set out its beliefs about the