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Canberra: the capital's constant criticism



The Canberra Times today posted an article in defence of Canberra, in response to decades of criticism as a city, and as a capital.

Next year, in 2013, is the 100th anniversary of Canberra’s establishment. The planning for its celebrations commenced years ago. Yesterday at the National Press Club, Robyn Archer, the creative director of the Centenary of Canberra, called for the media to reverse the constant negative references to Canberra in preparation for its birthday. More specifically, she called for the media to separate Canberra and its 360,000 residents from the federal government, the city of the nation’s parliament and politicians. She was referring to the comments of Canberra as an irritant, a bully, or even a “force of evil.” She said Canberrans have become apologetic about living in the capital.

Part of the problem, Archer said, was that the criticism was generational. “This generation and older is still wondering whether there could have been a better choice of site and design,” she said in reference to the battle between Melbourne and Sydney over the right to be the site of the nation’s capital. None won, of course, and Canberra rose from a selected site along the main route between Melbourne and Sydney. Section 125 of the Constitution specified that the capital must be located in a Commonwealth territory within the existing state of New South Wales, but at least 100 miles (160 kilometres) from Sydney. The disputed chosen site was 300 kilometres southwest of Sydney in the foothills of the Australian Alps. Its region became the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), much like the District of Columbia (DC) in which Washington is the capital of the United States of America.

At midday on March 12, 1913, the city was officially designated Canberra. An international competition was held in 1911 to select a design for the layout of the capital city. An American architect, Walter Burley Griffin, won the competition in 1913 in collaboration with his architect wife and professional partner Marion Mahony Griffin. Their idea was to divide the proposed city into halves, using a lake as a dividing point and setting the democratic heart of the nation within a natural environment. This approach, influenced by Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s 1792 design for Washington DC, included wide tree-lined avenues that would visually connect significant topographical sites of the city.




Despite it being the capital, Canberra rarely, if ever, received positive comments – unlike Melbourne or Sydney. In fact, across the globe, many people think Sydney is the capital of Australia.

On March 20, 2012, The Canberra Times, reported on criticism of Canberra’s architecture in which the incoming Australian Institute of Architects ACT chapter president, Tony Trobe, said the city shouldn't ignore its heartless reputation. Trobe said last year’s comment (by another architect) that Canberra was “a place to go instead of waiting to die” was harsh, but not uncommon. Trobe wanted to spark a debate about the city’s planning and reputation. He said the bones of a good city were in place, but Civic (the city centre) had no middle, and the Canberra Centre mall was detrimental to the hub of the city. He also said that no deliberate act of city-making was evident and that it had grown accidentally. As a remedy he suggested a coalition of potent forces, including those who had previously attempted to fix the central business district, to review the original Walter Burley Griffin plan as well as plan for the future.

Robyn Archer, singer, writer and creative director of the Centenary of Canberra (and my former English lecturer many years ago in Adelaide) is encouraging Australians and tourists to visit Canberra, especially in its hundredth year, to update their opinion of the city. She added that Canberra “is going to do some very surprisingly beautiful things in 2013.”


MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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