The planning intentions of Canberra’s ACT City Renewal Authority for land reclamation and boardwalk development at Lake Burley Griffin’s West Basin are unsympathetic to the Griffin vision and are the first stage of proposed massive apartment developments.

In May 2020 the Walter Burley Griffin Society made submissions on this development works proposal highlighting the failings of the proposal and requesting further public consultation on unresolved issues of scale and accessibility that need to be revealed and discussed.

Background
In 1992 the National Capital Planning Authority (NCA) and the ACT Planning Authority jointly issued a Draft Discussion Document on Acton Peninsula & West Basin – Where the City Meets the Lake and conducted wide public consultations on ideas for urban development of the precinct. In 2007, arising from their Griffin Legacy project, the National Capital Authority secured Amendment 61 to the National Capital Plan to enable intensive mixed-use urban development of West Basin.

The ACT City Renewal Authority (CRA) plans for West Basin are not settled but  include multiple land uses, 5,000 residents, 2,000 dwellings and 5,400 jobs by 2046 (2,600 residents and 4,000 jobs by 2031).  West Basin remains a Designated Area of National Significance and thus subject to NCA Works Approval.

The NCA issued a Draft Structure Plan in May 2017 for development of the adjoining Acton Peninsula Precinct, to the south, for ‘culture, education and recreation’. The neighbour on the westerly side of West Basin, the ANU, issued in August 2019 their ANU Campus Master Plan 2030.  To the north on elevated Territory Land is the high density, high rise and successful New Acton Precinct.

In March 2020 it was announced that the ACT Government had obtained ownership of 2.8 ha of West Basin to be reclaimed from Lake Burley Griffin in exchange for 32 ha of highly valuable land in the suburb of Curtin for a diplomatic estate. Shortly after, the City Renewal Authority (CRA) applied for NCA Works Approval for Stage 2 (Stage 1 is a completed picnic ground at the eastern end): reclaim the lake waters, build a 500m by 8m wide Boardwalk and preliminary land clearing; applications for stormwater and infrastructure were foreshadowed.

Public comments closed 22 May 2020. Former President of the Society Professor James Weirick and the Canberra Chapter have since 2006 made submissions criticising the nature of this development with reference to Griffin’s design vision and principles. The National Capital Plan still enshrines many elements of Griffin’s 1918 Plan. The Society’s submissions made in May 2020, and a growing chorus of community opposition, argue that the Works Application fails to meet the National Capital Plan statutory criteria.

The ANU and Acton Peninsula Plans are less advanced but raise particular concerns about Griffin’s Water Axis and the balance of building and landscape designs.

The CRA proponents typically enlist Griffin’s intentions as supporting the West Basin development. Griffin did not ever propose urban development on the West Basin waterfront.  He placed great emphasis on urban open space and extensive parklands in this location. He was committed to continuous public access to the foreshore and planned outdoors recreation, landscape vistas and settings, a hospital on the southern foreshore, an amphitheatre, cultural institutions, public structures and amenities evolving with the functional and symbolic purposes of the national capital.

Griffin intended the geometry of his Water Axis and crossing with the Land Axis to guide the consistent alignment of public buildings in the Central National Area, including the university campus, complementing and defining the landscape.

What is needed
Canberra and the Griffin vision deserves much better than what is being proposed by the ACT’s City Renewal Authority.

More inspiration about the great potential of this wonderful site, a central element in Griffin’s vision and Plan for Canberra is necessary. The planning intentions announced under City to the Lake for mixed land uses in West Basin do not appear to be on a scale balanced with the natural and design environments. Above all, the works application fails to offer a unique and special place for the Acton Waterfront Redevelopment.

You can make a representation about this to David Smith MP, the ACT representative of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on the National Capital and External Territories david.smith.mp@aph.gov.au

23 June 2020

The year 2021 will mark the centenary of Castlecrag and the 150th anniversary of Marion Mahony Griffin’s birth.

To mark that big year:
• the Museum of Sydney will have an exhibition about the Griffins and Castlecrag.

The Walter Burley Griffin Society will organise

• Griffin Houses Open Day
• Exhibition of Max Dupain photographs
• Marion Mahony Griffin Lecture
• School art project
• Sculpture to honour Marion Mahony Griffin

In addition, we are seeking the creation of a small park as detailed in Willoughby City Council’s Local Centre Strategy adopted in December 2019 (see Indicative Masterplan below right), which would be a most fitting celebration of the centenary of the Griffins’ Castlecrag. At present the location is a carpark for 8 cars and is an unattractive expanse of bitumen outside the historic 1925 Griffin Centre at the corner of Edinburgh Road and The Postern, Castlecrag.

Until the 1960s it was a large road island park and road reserve as designed by Walter Burley Griffin (see plan at right). A park would enhance the village atmosphere of Castlecrag and celebrate the Griffins’ passion for the natural landscape. The Society is working to advance support and funding for the park and hopes that the sculpture it commissions, to honour Marion Mahony Griffin, can be located there, and that the park can be named the Marion Mahony Griffin Park.

29 April 2020

The NSW Government has recently introduced changes to the EPA Act (clauses 10.17 and 10.18) and introduced the Planning System Acceleration Program (Media Release dated 3 April 2020) to fast track rezonings and development applications, justifying this by the need to stimulate the State’s economic recovery during the COVID-19 crisis.

It will enable the NSW Minister for Planning to approve DAs previously refused by local councils and/or Local or Regional Planning Panels. An example of such inappropriate development, that has been given the green light, is at 41 McLaren Street North Sydney which has a height control set in the recently updated NSLEP at maximum 100 metres, but the Planning Proposal is for a 226 metres high residential tower, more than twice the height, which would cast a huge shadow over much of North Sydney CBD Council to the south of this development.

The metropolitan and regional Councils’ strategic plans have been developed in consultation with local communities and all major stakeholders and identify the need for significant growth in housing and employment and important local priorities. They should not be ignored and over-ruled by the Minister. It is not in NSW’s best interests to give the green light to these inappropriate proposals that will almost inevitably have detrimental impacts on the heritage, environments and social fabric of Sydney and NSW in the long term. Such an opaque approach is fraught with risks.

As Elizabeth Farrelly pointed out in her Sydney Morning Herald article of 25 April 2020 “The government says fast-track planning processes will keep people in jobs and the construction industry moving throughout the COVID-19 crisis. If that were the priority, though, you might expect similar support for the arts sector which generates $16.4 billion to NSW GDP and employs 118,000 FTE [Full Time Equivalent] workers.

The Society has written to the NSW Minister for Planning and the Treasurer requesting that the Government revise its recent legislation and program to ensure transparency and quality planning outcomes that are not detrimental to NSW and future generations.

28 April 2020

To celebrate this year’s Heritage Festival and its theme of ‘Our Heritage for the Future’, the Walter Burley Griffin Society has organised a guided tour led by landscape architect James Smallhorn at Castlecrag. It will meander through Sydney’s original bushland estate revealing the restoration efforts that have taken place on some of the unique Griffin house exteriors, reserves and landscapes and how they have stood the test of time.

Bookings essential:

https://www.trybooking.com/BIEYG

Adult $20; Concession/Student $15; Child $0, Family $40

Meeting place provided on booking.

Please bring hat, walking shoes and water.

The Parliamentary Triangle, Canberra and its important symbolism created by the Griffins’ plan for Canberra is threatened by the proposed sale of two of its original buildings, East Block, home to the National Archives of Australia and West Block.

This privatisation within Canberra’s original public service precinct was confirmed by Finance Minister Mathias Cormann on 4 April 2017. Cormann’s proposed sale of government land and buildings in the Parliamentary Triangle was derived from the Audit Report which Tony Abbott commissioned upon becoming Prime Minister. That report recommended wholesale decentralisation of Seat of Government and National Capital functions and abolition of the National Capital Authority.

Both East Block and West Block are iconic buildings, built in 1925-1927 and redolent with our federal history and warranting the most careful preservation of the building and its aura of national significance. Yet the Department of Finance no longer has a heritage section to manage its heritage assets.

Brett Odgers, convenor of the ACT Chapter of the Walter Burley Griffin Society said that “it is very disappointing that the current government favours privatising public assets and rewarding the property and finance sectors, and thus abandoning its responsibilities for the stewardship of future development in the National Capital, the Griffin Plan and even Canberra’s heritage generally”.

The Department of Finance, a few years ago, steamrolled the ASIO Building on a manifestly inappropriate site within the National Triangle, with flagrant disregard of heritage and land use suitability considerations, and are about to make further incursions into the central symbolic National Area on terms basically at odds with the reservation of land for national capital purposes.

In September 2016 the Department of Finance advertised the crass commercial sale, allowing demolition, of the East and West portal buildings at the junction of Constitution Avenue and Anzac Parade. This sale was reiterated in Finance Minister Cormann’s announcement of the sale of East and West Blocks. They’re located prominently on Griffin’s Land Axis inside his great National Triangle.
Nowhere else in the world would such buildings and sites in a national capital be allowed to be summarily sold off to property developers.

Further information – The Canberra Times:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberras-east-block-and-west-block-up-for-sale-20170404-gvd336.html

Museum of Sydney, cnr Phillip and Bridge Streets, Sydney, Australia

Demolished Sydney is an exhibition exploring some of the buildings that once shaped Sydney’s skyline. It examines the histories of 13 sites including the grand Garden Palace, Rowe Street and the monumental Pyrmont incinerator designed by W.B. Griffin and E.M. Nicholls. Included in the exhibition is the bronze RIECo nameplate from the Pyrmont Incinerator and the skilful measured drawing of the incinerator’s magnificent east elevation drawn by architect Trevor Waters but reduced from its original large format to just A2 size.

The Concourse, Chatswood, Sydney, Australia

Special performances of The Carnival will raise money for the Haven Amphitheatre reconstruction project.

Described as “circus opera” The Carnival debuted on London’s West End in 2011 and is composed by very talented Castlecrag-born Chloe Charody.

Another of Chloe’s operas is currently on tour in Europe where she is rapidly becoming a leading female composer.

Soprano Valda Wilson will be The Carnival’s leading lady. Valda, also Castlecrag-born, won Opera Foundation Australia’s scholarship to train at the National Opera Studio, London. She has been a principal soprano at the Oldenburg State Theatre, Germany since 2014 and in December 2016 sang the title role in Handel’s Theodora for Pinchgut Opera in Sydney.

The Carnival will be an amazing performance, and you are encouraged to purchase tickets so as not to miss this fabulous and innovative circus opera and to help fundraising for the Haven Amphitheatre reconstruction project.

The performances are being organised by Haven Promotions Inc. Book now:
www.havenpromotions.com
Box office (02) 8075 8111
www.theconcourse.com.au
Ticketek 1300 795 012

Elmhurst History Museum, 120 E. Park Ave. Elmhurst, USA

Marion Mahony Griffin’s story is now being brought to light with a new exhibition presented by the Elmhurst History Museum entitled In Her Own Right: Marion Mahony Griffin. The exhibition brings Mahony Griffin’s own story out of the shadows as a brilliant architect, talented artist, avid environmentalist, and social activist. In Her Own Right traces Mahony Griffin’s early life, her personal and professional partnership with her husband on three continents, her final years in Chicago where she died in obscurity and penniless, and considers the legacy of a Chicagoan of immense but often overlooked importance, shedding light on the unheralded Prairie School innovator and Illinois’ first woman architect

The Griffins are perhaps better known in Australia than they are in the U.S. due to the years they spent there working on the elaborate Plan for Canberra, an impressive international contest-winning design created for the country’s capital city, and the suburb of Castlecrag, an idyllic community in Sydney that assimilated architecture into the natural landscape. So it is fitting that the Elmhurst History Museum turned to Dr. Anna Rubbo, PhD, an Australian and an adjunct senior scholar at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia University and a former Associate Professor of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney, for development of the exhibition content.

Lance Tawzer, Elmhurst History Museum’s curator of exhibits, shared his rationale for telling Marion’s story now explaining that “Anna Rubbo brings a special perspective to this story as a scholar, an architect and an Australian”.

Opening hours: Sunday, Tuesday through Friday from 1 to 5 p.m. and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
For information about exhibit-related programs with visiting scholars, authors and interesting tours visit: www.elmhursthistory.org