Canberra City Plan Case Study: Lake, Land Axis and the Griffins' Design

Canberra's city plan comes from an international competition that Walter Burley Griffin won in May 1912, with drawings rendered by Marion Mahony Griffin. It sets out a city on two axes fixed on hills: a land axis from Mount Ainslie to Capital Hill and a water axis along a lake made on the river flats, with a triangle of avenues joining three centres. This case study explains the plan, what was built and changed over a century, who looks after it now, and what Indian cities can take from it.

Canberra city plan: the facts

Planners: Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, American architects; Walter planned the entry and Marion rendered it.

Client: the Commonwealth of Australia, through the Minister for Home Affairs, who launched the competition in April 1911.

Location: Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, on the Molonglo River.

Years: competition won May 1912; Preliminary General Plan October 1913; final revised plan 1918, gazetted 1925; lake filled 1964; National Capital Plan first gazetted 1990.

Type: planned national capital: a seat of government with a city around it.

Size: Griffin planned for 10,000 to 12,000 people before Parliament arrived; the city reached about 250,000 by 1985 (ABS).

Status: a living city. The Parliament House Vista (place ID 105466) and Lake Burley Griffin and Adjacent Lands (2022) are on the Commonwealth Heritage List.

Where to see the real plans. The Griffins' competition drawings are held by the National Archives of Australia and are on the Australian Memory of the World register. Griffin's own 1913 explanation of the plan is free to read as The Federal Capital: Report Explanatory of the Preliminary General Plan. Our guide on how to do an architecture case study shows how to turn sources like these into sheets.

The Canberra city design competition: the brief and who planned it

Parliament named the Yass-Canberra district as the site of the federal capital in 1908, and the Commonwealth took control of the territory on 1 January 1911 (ABS Year Book 1988). In April 1911 the Minister for Home Affairs launched an international competition for the layout of the city.

A 2018 heritage management plan by Lovell Chen, published on Australia's Federal Register of Legislation, gives the sequence. A three-person panel judged 137 entries. Two of its members chose Walter Burley Griffin's entry on 14 May 1912, and the Minister concurred on 23 May 1912. Eliel Saarinen came second and Alfred Agache third (Lovell Chen 2018, section 2.2). Accounts that give 14 May or 23 May are describing different steps.

The entry went in under Walter's name, but it was a joint work. Lovell Chen says it was "planned by Walter and rendered by his wife Marion Mahony Griffin", and the Walter Burley Griffin Society credits the two of them with laying out the city (Griffin Society, Di Jay). Her ink and gold leaf panorama of the northern side of the water axis is about 6 m long. A 2014 University of Western Australia story calls her his "wife and design partner" (UWA News).

Winning did not settle the matter. The government bought the winning entries rather than adopt one in full, and in November 1912 a Departmental Board prepared its own plan. Griffin was then appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction in October 1913 on a three-year contract, and he signed his Preliminary General Plan that month (Griffin 1913). The city had been named Canberra at a ceremony on 12 March 1913 (ABS).

The site: an amphitheatre of hills

Griffin read the site before he drew on it. His report describes it as "an irregular amphitheatre" and says hills rising to about 61 m (200 ft) give "most appropriate public building sites". The Molonglo River ran through a flood basin across the middle; Griffin proposed to hold it back to keep "a surface of 5 square miles of water", about 13 km².

The plan therefore uses the hills as fixed points. Mount Ainslie closes one end of the land axis and Black Mountain closes the view along the water. The smaller hills take the main groups: government on Kurrajong (now Capital Hill), municipal offices on Vernon (City Hill), and a military group on Pleasant Hill, which Griffin calls "the highest crest within the City". The lesson for students: the geometry is anchored to landform, not laid on a blank sheet.

Canberra city plan: the idea

Griffin's report calls the Water Axis and the Land Axis the two co-ordinate lines on which the federal buildings are arranged. Lovell Chen describes the land axis as running from Mount Ainslie to Mount Bimberi by way of Mount Kurrajong; the 1913 report itself names Ainslie and Kurrajong as its working ends. The water axis follows the lake toward Black Mountain.

Laid over the axes is a triangle of avenues. Griffin's report says it connects the centres of government activity (government, university and military) and "the two urban centres of local business (Administration and Merchandising)". Lovell Chen places its corners on Mount Kurrajong, on Mount Vernon, and on the saddle between Russell Hill and Mount Pleasant. At its apex is the Government group, with a Capitol on Kurrajong that he intended for archives and for "commemorating Australian achievements rather than for deliberation". The Parliament House was to sit lower down, on Camp Hill, with departmental buildings on terraces either side of the axis down to the lake (Lovell Chen 2018). The other two corners are the municipal centre on Vernon and a mercantile centre, where Griffin put "the Central Station and the Public Produce Markets". The base of the triangle is "a municipal axis in the form of an avenue, north of and parallel with the water axis", which is today Constitution Avenue. The Vernon corner is today's City Hill: the NCA's 2006 Amendment 59 to the National Capital Plan calls it a corner "completing the National Triangle" and "the municipal heart of central Canberra" (Amendment 59, City Hill Precinct).

Schematic plan of the Griffin design for Canberra: a land axis runs from Mount Ainslie past a recreation group, across the lake's central basin, through a government group on terraces and Camp Hill to Capital Hill, and on toward Mount Bimberi; a water axis runs along the lake toward Black Mountain; a triangle joins Capital Hill to a municipal centre on City Hill and a markets and station centre, its base being the municipal axis, now Constitution Avenue; West Lake and the central basin are shown as built and East Lake as dropped — The plan principle: two axes fixed on hills, a triangle of centres and a lake on the river flats. Diagram: MOA

Urban structure: avenues, lakes and suburbs

Avenues. Griffin's circulation avenues have "a uniform width of 200 feet", about 61 m. The sides of the triangle became Commonwealth Avenue and Kings Avenue, which now cross the lake on bridges included in the 2022 heritage listing.
Lakes. The report describes circular pools and a connecting basin forming "three lagoons", with a dam holding a lower lake and a weir forming a "naturalistic lake" upstream. The 2022 heritage listing says the lake as built "closely resembles Griffin's 1918 plan with the exception of the deletion of East Lake" (Commonwealth Heritage List, 2022).
Suburbs. Residential sections were planned for "domestic life, which demands privacy, quiet, and stability", with suburban units around outlying centres. Griffin warned that "considerable elasticity" was needed in placing outlying centres.

On how many people the plan was for, sources differ. The 1913 report gives only an initial town of "10,000 or 12,000 before the advent of Parliament". Journalist Crispin Hull, in his history of Canberra, writes that the Griffin plan was for 75,000 people (Crispin Hull, Decade 6). We could not find the 75,000 figure in the report itself.

Canberra city plan history: how it was built and governed

A Royal Commission on Federal Capital Administration in 1916 and 1917 found that Griffin had been obstructed. He prepared his final revised plan in 1918, and his contract ended at the end of 1920. A Federal Capital Advisory Committee was set up in January 1921, and the Federal Capital Commission, created under a 1924 Act, gazetted Griffin's 1918 plan in 1925 (Lovell Chen 2018, sections 2.3.1 to 2.3.3). The provisional Parliament House opened in May 1927.

Growth was slow until the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) took over on 1 March 1958 (ABS Year Book 1988). The heritage listing says the planner William Holford was engaged by the Menzies Government to recommend a way forward on the lake. The valves on Scrivener Dam were closed on 20 September 1963, and after a drought the lake filled within a few days in April 1964 (Australian Geographic, 2013). The ABS Year Book dates the completion of major construction to the end of 1963, so you will see both years.

The NCDC then grew the city past Griffin's frame: from 1962 growth was directed into new towns, each with its own commercial, employment and retail centre (ABS). Its 1970 strategy Tomorrow's Canberra planned for growth from about 130,000 people toward 500,000. Hull describes the resulting "Y plan": North and South Canberra, Woden and Tuggeranong as the stem, and Belconnen and Gungahlin as the forks.

The last big act on the land axis came in 1988. Griffin had put Parliament House on Camp Hill, "just below where it is now located"; Parliament chose Capital Hill instead, on the axis that "runs from Mount Ainslie through Capital Hill" (Parliamentary Education Office). The building is by Mitchell/Giurgola and Thorp Architects, chosen through an international competition, and about one million cubic metres of earth and rock were removed to build the House into the hill. It opened on 9 May 1988.

View from Mount Ainslie along Anzac Parade, a straight red avenue lined with trees, across Lake Burley Griffin to the white Old Parliament House and Parliament House with its flagmast on Capital Hill, with wooded hills and distant ranges behind — The land axis on the ground: the view from Mount Ainslie toward Capital Hill, taken in 2014. Photo: Jason Tong, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Canberra urban planning today: the National Capital Authority's role

Canberra now has two plans. The Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988, assented to on 6 December 1988, set up a Commonwealth authority, now the National Capital Authority (NCA), to "prepare and administer a National Capital Plan" (the Act as made, sections 6 to 11). The Plan's object is to ensure that Canberra and the Territory are planned and developed "in accordance with their national significance". It may name Designated Areas and set detailed conditions for them; the Parliamentary Zone is one (Lovell Chen, section 4.2.3).

The ACT's own planning authority prepares the Territory Plan for the rest of the city. Under section 26 the Territory Plan "has no effect to the extent that it is inconsistent with the National Capital Plan". The National Capital Plan was first gazetted in 1990 (Lovell Chen, section 4.2.3). The Walter Burley Griffin Society says the 1925 gazetted plan "remains today the core of the National Capital Plan" (Griffin Society, Brett Odgers).

Timeline of Canberra's planning from 1908 to 2022 in four phases: the Griffin years from site selection, the 1911 competition and Griffin's 1912 win to his final 1918 plan; the committee and commission years to the 1925 gazettal and the 1927 provisional Parliament House; the NCDC years with the lake filling in 1964 and the 1970 Y-Plan; and the NCA years with Parliament House in 1988, the National Capital Plan in 1990, The Griffin Legacy in 2004 and heritage listing of the lake in 2022. Below, two boxes show the National Capital Plan of the National Capital Authority over the ACT's Territory Plan, which has no effect where it is inconsistent — Who planned Canberra, when, and how the two plans relate today. Diagram: MOA

What changed from the Griffin plan

Lake and Parliament. One lake without East Lake; Parliament moved up from Camp Hill to Griffin's Capitol site.
The centre stayed thin. Tom Greenwell, writing in Inside Story, notes that the station was never moved, the main street on Constitution Avenue never appeared, and only two of the planned government buildings were built along Federation Mall. Parks, car parks and open land fill much of the triangle (Greenwell, 2019).
The city spread outward. The Y-Plan's town centres, separated by bushland and linked by roads, overlaid Griffin's plan rather than completing it.

Reception and criticism

Views split along two lines. One is that the plan is too formal: Greenwell records Martin McKenzie-Murray calling Griffin's vision "sterile in the living" in 2013, and a Canberra Times critique blaming the plan for car dependence. Greenwell disagrees: he argues the problem is the missing central density Griffin intended, not the plan.

The NCA reached a similar view in its 2004 study The Griffin Legacy, which found that "physical barriers and empty undeveloped spaces separate federal and local activities" and proposed extending the city centre to the lake (Greenwell, 2019). The other line of criticism is about how that has been done. The Griffin Society calls the four amendments to the National Capital Plan gazetted in 2007 developer-driven and a departure from the Griffin Plan. A parliamentary committee recommended in March 2007 that they be disallowed, and on 10 May 2007 the Senate defeated a disallowance motion (Griffin Society, Odgers).

Lessons for Indian cities

These are our reading, not rules from the sources.

Anchor the plan to the ground. Griffin fixed his axes on hills and put his lake on the flood plain. Indian new towns often sit on ridges, nallahs and river edges that a grid drawn on a revenue map ignores. Let ridgelines, drainage and views set the main lines.
Protect a few things in law, not everything. Canberra's National Capital Plan overrides inconsistent plans, but sets detailed rules only where it must. An Indian capital region or new-town authority could likewise fix a short list of non-negotiables (axes, water bodies, view corridors, public land) in a statutory plan and leave the rest flexible.
Do not leave the middle empty. Canberra's own planners found its centre too thin. India's National Transit Oriented Development Policy, adopted in May 2017, aims at "compact, coordinated, and connected development" with mixed use and higher density near transit stations (WRI India, 2017). A planned capital needs that density at its core, not only in its suburbs.
Plan for growth you cannot see. Griffin asked for "elasticity", and the city grew far past his first figures. Leave room in the structure for later layers.

Griffin has his own link to India: he went to Lucknow in October 1935 to tender for a university library and died there on 11 February 1937, with Marion Mahony at his side (Griffin Society, Geoffrey Sherington). Our Capitol Complex Chandigarh case study covers another planned capital. For thesis ideas on urban design, see our B.Arch thesis topics by typology, and for a campus-scale master plan in India, our IIT Kanpur campus case study.

Visiting: how to see the plan

The National Capital Exhibition at Regatta Point tells the story of Canberra as the capital, including how the site and design were chosen. VisitCanberra lists entry as free; check hours on the NCA's site before you go (VisitCanberra). The Mount Ainslie view shown above lines up the whole land axis.

FAQ

Who designed the Canberra city plan?

Walter Burley Griffin won the 1911 to 1912 competition, and his wife and fellow architect Marion Mahony Griffin rendered the drawings. Sources credit the plan to the two of them, though it was entered under Walter's name.

When was Canberra planned and built?

The competition was won in May 1912, Griffin's final plan dates from 1918 and was gazetted in 1925, and Parliament moved to Canberra in 1927. Most of the growth came after 1958 under the NCDC, and the lake filled in 1964.

What are the land axis and water axis in Canberra?

The land axis runs from Mount Ainslie through Capital Hill, where Parliament House stands; the water axis crosses it along the lake. Griffin arranged the federal buildings on these two lines.

Is Canberra a state or a city?

Canberra is a city. It lies in the Australian Capital Territory, a territory rather than a state, which has its own Territory Plan alongside the Commonwealth's National Capital Plan.

Who manages the Canberra master plan today?

The National Capital Authority prepares and administers the National Capital Plan. The ACT's planning authority prepares the Territory Plan, which must not be inconsistent with it.

Planning a campus, township or public project in India? Find an architect on MOA.

Sources

Walter Burley Griffin: The Federal Capital: Report Explanatory of the Preliminary General Plan, Department of Home Affairs, 1913 (signed October 1913), Project Gutenberg Australia edition (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Lovell Chen: West Block and the Dugout Heritage Management Plan, October 2018, Federal Register of Legislation, sections 2.2 to 2.3 and 4.2 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Federal Register of Legislation: Inclusion in the Commonwealth Heritage List of Lake Burley Griffin and Adjacent Lands, 8 April 2022 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Federal Register of Legislation: Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988, as made (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Australian Bureau of Statistics: Year Book Australia 1988, A Pictorial History of the Australian Capital Territory (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Australian Memory of the World: The Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin Design Drawings of the City of Canberra (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
National Capital Authority: National Capital Plan Amendment 59, City Hill Precinct, Federal Register of Legislation, 2006 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Walter Burley Griffin Society, Brett Odgers: Canberra: Soul of the Australian nation? 100 years of the Griffin plan (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Walter Burley Griffin Society, Di Jay: Urban planning (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Walter Burley Griffin Society, Geoffrey Sherington: India (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Inside Story, Tom Greenwell: A city in search of its centre, 31 July 2019 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Crispin Hull: Decade 6: 1963-1973, Boom by benign dictatorship, History of Canberra 1913-2003 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Australian Geographic, Natsumi Penberthy: On this day: Lake Burley Griffin begins to fill, 7 November 2013 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
ANU Open Research: Tomorrow's Canberra: planning for growth and change, 1970, record (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Parliamentary Education Office: Australia's Parliament House and Parliament House (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
University of Western Australia News: Canberra's architects unite three nations, 3 December 2014 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
WRI India, Prerna Vijaykumar Mehta and Merlyn Mathew: Ratification of the National TOD Policy and its Implication for Indian Cities, 1 August 2017 (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
VisitCanberra: National Capital Exhibition (accessed 11 Nov 2026)
Wikimedia Commons: Copyright rules by territory: Australia (freedom of panorama) (accessed 11 Nov 2026)