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Canberra, Australia:
A Capital Garden City
Asa Hopkins
1 May, 1998
CITY 377 -- Topics in Modern
Architecture: The Garden City
This paper is Copyright 1998 Asa Hopkins, and may not be used without
express permission.
Contents:
When Walter Burley Griffin won the international
competition to design Canberra, the capital city of Australia, in 1912,
he declared: "I have planned an ideal city"1.
The plan -- a geometrically balanced, visually interesting, and dense
layout -- was well liked in Australia, despite negative reactions from
British planners2. The city plan owed much to
the Garden City ideas of Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin and to
American City Beautiful planning. Griffin's plan was based on high
density development, similar to Daniel Burnham's Chicago Plan3, but the city was built at a much lower density.
In the course of the construction of the city, which was not seriously
undertaken until the 1950s, the Griffin plan was changed in many small
ways to accommodate changes in Australian culture. As a result, the
city of today is quite different from the city Griffin designed. The
planning of the city is in some sense a model of what can happen when
planning concepts are put into practice. Since the government owns all
land in the city, it has been able to execute exact plans without
opposition4. Both the original plan and the
current situation have much in common with Garden City ideas of green
space and geometrical order, but they also take other elements from
Howard's plan and use them differently.
The basic layout of Canberra is an equilateral triangle straddling a
"land axis," which runs from one hilltop to another, through Capital
Hill. The points of the triangle serve as foci for concentric streets,
while the central axis centers the city in the surrounding hills. In
Griffin's plan, the three foci serve as centers of commercial,
municipal, and governmental buildings. In the center of the triangle
lies a large lake (a "water axis" crossing the "land axis"), which adds
to the spacious feeling of the city5. The
residential areas in between consist of neighborhoods enclosed within
the major roads, each containing a school and shopping areas. In
Griffin's plan, each block of the area was a single large building,
similar to row-houses or an apartment building, surrounding a common
green space in the center6. This reflects
Raymond Unwin's approach for better land use7.
However, in the actual construction of the city, bungalow houses of the
type common in Australia were built in place of the single building in
each block. This changed the density of the city and made expansion
beyond the scope of the original plan a necessity. In this expansion,
however, the Garden City idea of satellite cities was planned and
built8, although on a very American model.
Early History of the City and Its Plan
When Australia became an independent country on January 1, 1901,
Melbourne and Sydney were its two largest cities. The rivalry between
these cities was well established, and it was felt that a decision to
house the nation's capital in one or the other would offend the losing
city. Therefore, it was decided that a new site would be chosen, and a
great new capital city would be built there9.
Australians were particularly aware of the example of Washington, D.C.,
where a planned city had succeeded in housing the government in great
style. They decided on a site approximately two-thirds of the way from
Melbourne to Sydney, but outside the 100-mile circle deemed to be
Sydney's area of dominance, to place the Australian Capital Territory
(ACT)10. An international competition was
announced for the design of a capital city, to be named Canberra.
Entries were received from around the world11.
Figure 1 (198 K):
Walter Burley Griffin's "Official Plan" (Fischer, Fig 5, pp.
161)
However, the 1912 competition for the design of Australia's new capital
was not received well by the British town planning community. In the
October, 1912, Town Planning Review, the editors attacked the judges of
the committee, citing the fact that the competition was barred by the
Royal Institute of British Architects. As a result, they say "that
probably not more than a half-dozen competitors - and these men who do
not represent the cream of the profession -- submitted designs from
[Great Britain]"12. Partly as a result of this
ban, the top plans chosen by the adjudicators were an American, a Finn,
and a Frenchman. Walter Burley Griffin, an American "land planner" as
he preferred to be called, took first place, while architects Eliel
Saarinen and Alf Agache took second and third, respectively13.
Figure 2 (124 K): Map,
showing the location of Canberra in relation to Sydney and Melbourne
(Fischer, Fig 3, pp., 159)
Burley Griffin's plan, presented in very fine drawings (by his wife,
Marian Mahoney Griffin -- see Figure 3), was based on two axes. The
first (the "Land Axis") runs from the top of Mt. Ainslie, in the city,
to Mt. Bimberi, 25 kilometers to the south of the city and the highest
point in the ACT. It crosses Capital Hill, where Griffin sited his
Capital complex, at the center of his Government Centre. Capital Hill
is laid out with the Capital in the center of a circular road, with
concentric rings of streets outside that. The "Water Axis" crosses the
Land Axis at right angles, and runs along a series of artificial lakes
formed from the flooding of a river. This places the Capital on a hill
overlooking the lakes, and facing a grand avenue to the base of Mt.
Ainslie. This grand avenue does not cross the lakes. It is lined along
its length, on both sides of the lakes, by important buildings, and
culminates in a casino at the base of the mountain. Two subsidiary
avenues running at angles from the Capital do cross the lakes. One
leads to the Municipal Center, another set of concentric rings, this
time clearly hexagons. Beyond the Municipal Centre lies the
manufacturing section, with large rail yards to its north. The other
subsidiary avenue runs to the Market Centre. The Market Center is home
to the main railway station, and is not a ring center. On the same side
of the river as the Capital lie mostly residential areas. They are laid
out in similar geometric fashion to the other Centres of the city14.
Figure 3 (142 K):
Competition drawing by Marian Mahoney Griffin (Proudfoot)
The same editorial in the Town Planning Review (TPR)also criticized the
Griffin plan, on the basis of it geometry, its grand avenue, and its use
of the artificial lakes. The editors believed that the "filling in,"
beyond the formal centers, should not have retained the formal geometric
layout, and "should gradually have merged into a landscape treatment"15. This idea is consistent with British town
planning at the time, as epitomized by Raymond Unwin, who designed
Letchworth and Welwyn Garden Cities. Although his plans show some basis
in geometric forms and focus on important buildings, most of the streets
are designed to give medieval street vistas through winding streets16.
Figure 4 (130 K):
Final version of Griffin's plan, showing the land and water axes
(Hendry, Fig 2, pp. 137)
Burley Griffin's axial treatment is stronger than Unwin's, and more
befitting a grand National Capital. The editors of the TPR criticize
Griffin, however, for terminating his grand axis in a mountain, rather
than running it through a valley, since "roads naturally lead through
valleys rather than over the tops of mountains"17. However, Griffin was in fact more in touch
with Australian national ideals than the editors of the TPR. The
Australian national identity is based very strongly on the importance of
nature and the outdoors. Griffin's city is reflective of this ideal.
By placing the termini of his axis at two mountains, he based his entire
plan on nature. The plan builds only in the valleys, leaving the
mountains undisturbed, except for recreation purposes. Griffin's
creation of lakes as his water axis was also criticized by the TPR. By
choosing still, wide water, Griffin abandoned the idea of a grand river,
such as the Thames or Hudson, in favor of a more park-like atmosphere.
As well as being consistent with Australian ideals of nature, this
reflects his interest in Chinese geomancy, most notably Feng Shui. Feng
Shui places a great deal of emphasis on having a slow-moving body of
water below a place of power, such as the Capital. Also, Feng Shui
dictates that a building should face northward, and toward a mountain,
with mountains to its East, West, and South as well. The site on
Capital Hill fulfills all these requirements18.
After the acceptance of the Griffin Plan,
the Australian government released a plan for the city, made up of some
of the parts of each other the winning plans. However, this decision to
mix plans was criticized sharply in town planning circles19 and in Australia, and was dropped quickly20. When Walter Burley Griffin arrived in
Australia to supervise construction of the city in 1914, he took control
of the design, and developed it further. He discarded ideas from the
other plans, and concentrated on his own. However, World War I
intervened in the construction of the city, so very little was built for
some while. Griffin continued to refine his plans. However, he was
under a great deal of pressure from the Australian government to cut
costs, and eventually resigned in 1920, leaving only a few roads and
cuttings actually constructed21.
Continue to next page
1 Proudfoot, Peter. The Secret Plan of Canberra, Kensington, NSW: Univ. of NSW Press, 1994, pp. 65.
2 Town Planning Review editorial, October, 1912, vol. 3, no. 3, pp. 165-7.
3 Burnham's Plan is printed in: Burnham, Daniel. Plan of Chicago, Chicago, 1909. Rpt. by New York: Da Capo Press, 1970.
4 Neutze, Max. "Planning and land tenure in Canberra after 60 years," Town Planning Review, 58 (2), 1987, pp. 149.
5 Fischer, K.F. "Canberra: myths and models," Town Planning Review, 60 (2), 1989, Figure 5, pp. 161.
6 ibid., Fig 7, pp. 164.
7 Raymond Unwin's design approach can be seen in: Unwin, Raymond, "Nothing Gained by Overcrowding!" London: Garden Cities and Town Planning Association, 1912. Rpt. in The Legacy of Raymond Unwin: A Human Pattern for Planning. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1967.
8 Fischer, pp. 180-1.
9 ibid., pp. 158-9.
10 ibid., Fig 3, pp. 159.
11 TPR, Oct. 1912, pp. 165
12 ibid, pp. 165
13 ibid, pp. 165
14 Fischer, Fig 5, pp. 161.
15 TPR, Oct. 1912, pp. 166.
16 Unwin, Raymond, "Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs," London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909. Rpt. in Raymond Unwin: A Human Pattern for Planning, Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T Press, 1967.
17 TPR, Oct. 1912, pp. 166.
18 Proudfoot, pp. 61.
19 Town Planning Review editorial, January, 1913, vol. 3, no. 4, pp. 221.
20 Fischer, pp. 162.
21 ibid., pp. 166.
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