Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868:reg:4:p26
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2021L01868
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 4 (pt 26/63)
Character Range: 419501–422313

height and the steepness of its approaches. This was despite the fact that Murdoch had produced a scheme for cutting off the top of the hill, levelling an area on which to erect Parliament House and placing a cluster of administrative buildings on the slopes around the Parliament. But Sulman would have none of this. He and his colleagues on the Advisory Committee favoured building the provisional building on the northern slope of Camp Hill in front of the position that Griffin had reserved for the permanent parliament house. In this location, the provisional structure would not, they felt, hinder the later construction of the permanent building. The provisional structure would also stand astride the Land Axis, would maintain the planned proximity to the

    14      Owen, Murdoch and Sulman in evidence to PSCPW, 'Report … relating to the proposed Erection of Provisional Parliament House, Canberra', pp. 5, 24, 40, 119.
    15      Federal Capital Advisory Committee, 'First Annual Report', p. 11.
    16      JS Murdoch, 'A short talk on the buildings at Canberra', Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Journal and Proceedings, vol. 22, no. 5, November 1924, p. 161; PSCPW, 'Report … relating to the proposed Erection of Provisional Parliament House, Canberra', pp. xi, 6; Building, 12 January 1926, p. 58.
  departmental and judicial buildings in the Parliamentary Triangle, and would stand in much the same relationship to – and benefit from – the landscaping and garden development that was intended for its permanent successor. Above all, Sulman, who was the most ardent advocate of the scheme and in all likelihood its author, claimed that it would have no adverse impact on Griffin's city plan.17

  Sulman's view was met with far from universal approbation. Various critics of the scheme expressed the opinion that, once a provisional or semi-permanent building had been erected in the position that Sulman and his colleagues favoured, it would tend to take on a permanent air and would be difficult to remove. The growth of an attachment to the building as the nation's first purpose-built Parliament would aid this process. The most trenchant criticism of the scheme, however, came from Griffin himself. He disagreed vehemently with Sulman's view that constructing Provisional Parliament House on the northern slope of Camp Hill would not violate the city plan. 'To build the provisional building just below Camp Hill,' he said:

     would absolutely destroy the whole idea of the Government Group, which is the dominating feature of the Federal Capital; it would be like filling a front yard full of outhouses, the walls of which would be the frontages of the buildings facing the yard. It would never be pulled down; history teaches us that such things are not changed, the pressure