Knowledgeable guides provide tours of Parliament House every half hour, explaining unusual aspects of the Australian political system and the symbolism in design elements of the building itself. The Australian flag that flies from it is the size of a double-decker bus, visible throughout the city day and night. The symbolism of the architectural design is clear: The citizens ultimately hold the power and thus are above the legislators.Īnother distinctive feature of Parliament House is its 250-foot-tall, four-legged, stainless steel flagpole, a landmark for the city. Picnickers enjoy lunch and a commanding 360-degree view of Canberra, and groups of schoolchildren run around, while members of Parliament debate issues beneath them. It is located on Capital Hill, one of the highest points in the city.īut unlike probably any other congressional building, the Australian Parliament is built into the hillside, its roof covered with grass. One of the main attractions in Canberra, a city of about 327,000, is Parliament House, which opened in 1988. You can see a reproduction of Griffin's original plan for the city - along with some of the 136 other architectural plans that didn't make the cut.Government on display Through interactive displays, photographs and a three-dimensional model, the exhibits tell the story of the development of the city. One site along the banks of Lake Burley Griffin, the National Capital Exhibition, provides an excellent orientation for visitors. While it's possible to walk to all the major sites, the distances are larger than they may seem on a map, and the abundance of traffic circles can make crossing intersections an adventure. Most of Canberra's attractions surround the centerpiece of Griffin's plan, a huge artificial lake, which was later named for him. Interestingly, it was Chicago landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin who won the international competition in 1912 to transform the sheep-grazing bush into a federal capital for the new nation.
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