Of his eventual competition-winning plan, Walter Burley Griffin told the New York Times on 2 June 1912: I have planned an ideal city – a city that meets my ideals of the city of the future. …

As Federal Capital Director of Construction and Design , Griffin directed and oversaw all the early development of the fledgling capital until 1920. His revised 1918 Plan was gazetted in 1925 and remains today the core of the National Capital Plan, as amended 97 times by the federal Parliament over the past 100 years.

In 1934, in his article titled Canberra Founded on National Sentiment, published in the Canberra Annual (Federal Capital Press), Griffin pointed out that great capitals are centres of national sentiment:
It is not so important that [these forces] have been strong enough to delay the Federal Capital for a quarter century and belittle its growth. But it is significant that an unorganised, incoherent, unvoiced Australian sentiment [has] sufficed to impose on all these special interests the compromise that is Canberra after a third of its first century. Though not yet victorious, that sentiment is intact as yet and is ever less liable to dislodgement as time goes on.

In a recent talk, Brett Odgers stated that “The creation of Canberra has been the achievement of many individuals and organisations, but it is still ascribed to Walter Burley Griffin, popularly and by special pleading, positive or negative, of planners and developers, public and private. Read Brett Odgers full paper titled Canberra_100 years Griffin planning_Brett Odgers Sept 2024

In 2002 the National Capital Authority undertook their Griffin Legacy project. After extensive research, consultations with stakeholders and the community, the Griffin Legacy Report was published in 2004. Four major amendments to the National Capital Plan under the Seat of Government Act, Amendment Numbers 56, 59, 60 and 61, were expedited through Parliament and gazetted together in 2007.

The Amendments were manifestly developer-driven, excessive in scale and neo-liberal ‘new urbanism’, short on detail and impact assessment, with significant departures from the Griffin Plan.

The statutory Amendment process breached convention by failing to refer the Amendments to the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital (PJSCNCET). Responding to widespread public outcry, the latter held a Public Inquiry, inviting submissions and broad expert and stakeholder attendance at a Roundtable public hearing in Parliament House on 23 February 2007. The Committee’s report Review of the Griffin Legacy Amendments issued in March 2007 recommended to Parliament that all four Amendments be disallowed and returned to the NCA for further work. Tasmanian Senator Bob Brown’s formal motion for disallowance was defeated in the Senate on 10 May 2007, so the Government ignored the Committee’s report and Roundtable deliberations.

The inadequacies and issues with the Griffin Legacy Amendments have since regularly caused conflicts, controversies and distractions regarding the National Capital Plan. Case studies of problems are well documented: the opposed alienation of the Albert Hall precinct, the failed Immigration Bridge, the rejected high density towers development at Barton and massive war memorials on the Rond Terraces beside the Lake, the dubious location of the ASIO building, the Nishi building at Acton, the opposed Stirling Ridge embassies estate, the sales of West and East Blocks, the submersion of City Hill and conversion of West Basin.
Recalling Walter’s and Marion’s markers of the Australian national ‘soul’ and a unified ‘sentiment’ warranting and underwriting a worthy National Capital, such attributes, achievements and aspirations have waxed and waned over the decades.

As a consequence, Canberra has lost some momentum as the National Capital. Canberra – a city designed for the future, placed in a beautiful natural environment, firmly rooted in democratic spirit and high aspirations. Its status as a worthy National Capital is in the balance under present ACT and federal governance, declining heritage, prevailing national values, policies, democracy and prospects.

Griffin had detractors and opponents all the way from his time as National Capital Director of Planning and Construction, but we can see in Canberra today the enduring basic purpose, structure, principles and values of the Plan, still.

An inventory of enduring elements of Griffin’s Plan can draw on around 40 such objects and concepts including the National Triangle, constitutional and democratic layout, the Land and Water Axes, grand avenues, landscape vistas, the Lake, hilltop lookouts and forests. As Griffin stated ‘it is a city like no other’.
The Canberra Chapter of the Walter Burley Griffin Society has produced a handy brochure Griffin Trail Booklet-Interactive as a guide around Canberra. It is also available in printed form from the National Capital Exhibition at Regatta Point, Canberra – https://www.nca.gov.au/attractions/national-capital-exhibition#

The full paper: Canberra_100 years Griffin planning_Brett Odgers Sept 2024

The Society is indebted to Brett Odgers, former Chair of the Society’s Canberra Chapter for this Paper.