“I have planned a city that is not like any other in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any government authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city — a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future.”
So said Walter Burley Griffin of the city he so famously designed, our national capital, reviled and revered for a century. Canberra.
The orchestra is limbering up and champagne is flowing around the shores of Lake Burley Griffin today as Canberrans celebrate their city’s 100th birthday. It was in 1913 that Lady Denman, wife of then governor-general Lord Denman, stood upon the newly laid Foundation Stones and declared the capital would be named Canberra.
Readers elsewhere may know little of these festivities and care less. Canberra is a dull, remote, overgrown provincial capital, right? Full of public servants and roundabouts, baking hot in summer, freezing in winter — you can’t even catch a train or a tram.
Well, perhaps after a century it’s time to rethink our comfortable condescension with this country’s capital and its residents.
It’s much closer to nature than its big sisters, Sydney and Melbourne. There are trees over the fence and kangaroos on the lawn. There are birds, there’s fresh air. There’s glorious space, there’s a bevvy of interesting, well-educated people who love discussing big ideas and make for top dinner party guests. There are museums and galleries. And there’s the addictive drug of federal politics which will hit up the city again tomorrow, as Parliament resumes.
It may not be Burley Griffin’s “ideal city”, but if you’ve written it off it might be time to think again. And wherever you stand, you have to concede one point: it really is “a city that is not like any other in the world”.
A lot of Canberra’s best nooks are known only to Canberrans or people like me who visit locals regularly. If you’re a tourist you’d never find them.
Also you can’t beat the Brindabella Mountains as a backdrop for a city. Always beautiful, always looking different
“federal implications” is simply a media-hype word to sensationalize a “maybe”. If the print media used English rather that “marketing” lingo allowing the reader to draw his or her own conclusions, we would be better served.
Canberra has many charms but, apart from the obvious (such as the National Gallery, Portrait Gallery etc), a visitor is unlikely to discover them the first time.
Thanks for providing the WBG quote and this article. But the last sentence simply begs the question: What city is like any other in the world? And to any responders, please spare me the multitude of references to all the cities that are or have been the “Athens of the South”.
As the video Canberra: How Many Stars? (look it up on youtube) reminds us, Canberra is a city where pedestrians can walk around whilst enjoying their maximum armspan. And any visitors should be sure to schedule their visits to coincide with the annual Marquee festival, surely the highlight of the cultural calendar.