Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306:reg:37:p2
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01306
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 37 (pt 2/2)
Character Range: 78529–81004

private collection of its type in the world. With the acquisition of these two collections, the Australian government found itself under an obligation to provide proper museum accommodation for them.

  This need to house the collections soon became bound up with proposals to establish a National Museum in Canberra. In September 1927, federal Cabinet affirmed the principle of establishing such a museum, but decided not to proceed with it immediately. A year later, a government committee that had been appointed to consider the question of the museum reported that the need for a national museum was, in its opinion, 'not great', largely because excellent museums already existed in each of the Australian states. During its deliberations, however, the committee suggested that the Institute of Anatomy might, in time, be constituted as the first unit of the proposed National Museum. In the meantime, there remained the problem of providing suitable accommodation for the Horne-Bowie

  and Milne collections. The Institute of Anatomy was an obvious location and, in this way, the building came to be a repository for ethnological material, in addition to its anatomical specimens. It was probably this new ethnological aspect to the Institute's functions that led to the inclusion of the Aboriginal-style motifs that adorn the exterior of the building.40

  2.8  The Final Design and Construction

  Morris completed his plans for the building in mid-1928, at which point Butters submitted them for review, along with the two earlier schemes devised by Robertson and the Public Works Committee, to the Committee of Public Taste. This was a body of five leading Australian architects chaired by G.H. Godsell. On examining the various plans, the committee found that it could not recommend the Robertson or Public Works Committee schemes, but that Morris's design was acceptable with some alteration. The substance of the desired alteration was the conversion of the building from a T-shaped to a U-shaped structure, with provision for eventually closing in the end of the 'U' to create an internal quadrangle. MacKenzie, when told of the proposed alteration, would not agree to it at all, even though the new U-shape would give him two museum halls instead of one. As the Committee of Public Taste would not budge on the issue, Butters organised a meeting involving MacKenzie, Morris and the committee, and here they succeeded in talking MacKenzie around to the idea.41