Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00620:body:0:p15
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2022L00620
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23 May 1912 the Minister for Home Affairs concurred with the majority decision and Griffin was awarded first prize.  Entries by Eliel Saarinen (Helsinki) and Alfred Agache (Paris) placed second and third respectively.
It was not the Government's intention to fully implement the winning design.  Rather, the terms of the competition were that, 'the premiated designs shall become the property of the Government for its unrestricted use, either in whole or in part.'[11]  Accordingly, the three winning entries, as well as the scheme placed first by Coane (prepared by Sydney practice Griffiths, Coulter and Caswell) were purchased by the Government.
The Griffin scheme – planned by Walter and rendered by his wife Marion Mahony Griffin – was distinguished by an intimate relationship with the landscape.  The central component of the proposal was an equilateral triangle (the National Triangle) whose corners were aligned on topographic outcrops or elevated land, specifically Mount Vernon in the north-west, Mount Kurrajong in the south, and the saddle between Russell Hill and Mount Pleasant in the north-east.  The sides of the triangle formed the major avenues connecting the three primary centres of activity in the new city: the national government at the apex, and the municipal and market centres at the east and west of the base respectively.
A series of axes provided a further organisational underpinning for the plan, specifically the Land Axis, Water Axis and the Municipal Axis.  The Land Axis formed the central alignment of the plan.  The line extended from Mount Ainslie to distant Mount Bimberi via Mount Kurrajong, bisecting the central triangle and tying the city to its site.  The formality and definition of this broad central axis was reinforced by the symmetrical siting of buildings at major intersections.
Griffin's plan for Canberra envisaged the government complex as a symmetrical group of buildings overlooked by Parliament House on Camp Hill at the south (Figure 5).  Historian Paul Reid has described the composition:
Griffin's concept for government is simple: Parliament at the head, courts of justice at the foot and departments on the flanks.  The geometric response to topography [however] causes a response.  The keyhole-shaped government site has two parts: one dominant (the Kurrajong circle), and the other subordinate (the triangle including Camp Hill).  With the axial layout of the Griffin plan, Kurrajong became absolutely dominating.  It is the climax of the whole city design, the obvious site for Parliament …[12]
Griffin located Parliament House on the Land Axis, with the Senate and the House of Representatives clearly expressed to east and west of the building mass.  Ornamental ponds extended along the balance of the Land Axis to the lake, giving Parliament House a degree of prominence in the city (Figure 6).