Parliament House – Canberra

The centre of Australia’s politics:  Parliament House.

• Parliament House, situated on Capital Hill in Canberra, Australia, is where the Parliament of Australia meets, and much of the building is built into the hill.
• Parliament House has 4,500 individual rooms, with the Main Foyer, a marble staircase leading to the Great Hall, a green coloured House of Representatives and a red coloured Senate, and is host to 4,000 to 5,000 workers when Parliament meets there.
• Parliament House cost AU$1.1 billion to build at the time of construction and is said to have been the world’s most expensive building at that stage.
• Parliament originally met in Melbourne from 1901 to 1927, before moving to Canberra where they met in the Provisional Parliament House, now known as Old Parliament House, which was intended to be a short-term site, until the new permanent site was opened by Queen Elizabeth in 1988.
• The American company, Mitchell/Giurgola and Thorp Architects, were the winners of the design contest for Parliament House, and construction commenced in 1981 and took 7 years to complete and involved in 10,000 workers.

Parliament Houses
Image courtesy of Brendon Ashton/Flickr

• Parliament House caters for 1 million visitors every year, and is often visited by school groups.
• Parliament House has a large, stainless steel, 81 metre (266 feet) high flagpole, flying a 12.8 by 6.4 metre (42 by 21 feet) Australian flag that weighs 15 kilograms (33 pounds).
• Parliament House is 300 by 300 metres (328 by 328 yards) in area, and in the Southern Hemisphere, it is one of the largest buildings.
• Parliament House houses an art collection of over 6,000 items and includes one of the world’s largest tapestries.
• Parliament House is home to over 2,700 clocks, designed to inform members of parliament where they need to be, by flashing green or red lights.

Bibliography:
Parliament House, 2013, Parliamentary Education Office, http://www.peo.gov.au/students/fact_sheets/parliament_house.html

Parliament House, Canberra, 2013, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Canberra

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