Canberra was where I lived in 2002 when I did my second exchange - and it really is a city unlike others. Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of just over 350 000 it is Australia's largest in-land city and the eighth largest city overall. It is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory - about 300 kms southwest of Sydney and 650 kms northeast of Melbourne.
The site of Canberra was selected as the site for the nation's capital in 1908 as a compromise between rivals Sydney and Melbourne. It is unusual among Australian cities, being an entirely planned city outside of any state, similar to the District of Columbia in the United States. Following an international contest for the city's design, a blueprint by the Chicago architects, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, was selected and construction commenced in 1913. The Griffins' plan featured geometric motifs such as circles, hexagons and triangles, and was centred around axes aligned with significant topographical landmarks in the Australian Capital Territory.
The city's design was heavily influenced by the garden city movement and incorporates significant areas of natural vegetation that have earned Canberra the title of the "bush capital". The growth and development of Canberra were hindered by the World Wars and the Great Depression however, the national capital finally emerged as a thriving city after World War II. The ACT, like Washington, D.C., is independent of any state, to prevent any one state from gaining an advantage by hosting the seat of Federal power. Unlike Washington, however, the ACT has voting representation in the Federal Parliament, and has its own independent Legislative Assembly and government, similar to the other Australian states.
As the city has a high proportion of public servants, the federal government contributes the largest percentage of Gross State Product and is the largest single employer in Canberra. As the seat of government, the unemployment rate is lower and the average income higher than the national average. Tertiary education levels are higher (over 30% of the population), while the population is younger - the median age is 34 years while less than 10% of the population is aged over 65 years.
I will be telling you more about Canberra in future posts as well, but I hope from this little bit of information so far you may get an indication of the 'uniqueness' of Canberra.
As I found out when I was booking my flight from Perth to Canberra, there is actually only one direct flight a day between those two cities (and not surprisingly this flight comes with the largest price tag), so I stopped over in Adelaide en route. Given the time for the stopover (2.5 hours) plus the time change between Perth and Canberra (3 hours), I did essentially spend the whole day Friday travelling. And although there's really nothing to say about a day spent in planes and airports, I did manage to get this (nice) shot of Adelaide from the air.
Like Ottawa, Canberra is the home to many national monuments and institutions, almost all of which are open to the public. On Saturday I went to the National Portrait Gallery. The National Portrait Gallery of Australia is a collection of portraits of prominent Australians that are important in their field of endeavour or whose life sets them apart as an individual of long-term public interest. The collection was established in 1998 but until 2008 was housed in a different location. In 2008 the collection moved to its permanent home, and this was the first time I had seen this building. In addition to the permanent collection, one of the current special exhibitions is called: "First Ladies - Significant Australian Women 1913 - 2013". It was really interesting.
Sunday was a movie day - saw Silver Linings Playbook. Definitely a "thinking movie", and it's easy to see why it's been nominated for, and has won, so many awards.
Today saw me at another of Canberra's wonderful national buildings, at the National Gallery of Australia. I was really keen to see the special exhibition on there right now - "Toulouse-Lautrec: Paris & The Moulin Rouge". The exhibition is apparently going to be seen only in Canberra, and it is the first major retrospective exhibition in Australia of the art of renowned French 19th century artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It features more than 100 paintings, drawings, posters and prints, and the works are drawn from 30 major international collections including the Tate and the British Museum, London, the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi and the Met. It is an amazing exhibition!!
One of the things I like best about the National Gallery (and it has an amazing permanent collection too), is its wonderful outdoor sculpture garden. No matter how many times I come to the Gallery I love spending time in the Sculpture Garden.
My second stop for today was at Canberra's newest national institution - in fact the National Arboretum just opened on Saturday (Feb. 2nd). The National Arboretum Canberra is an 250 hectares arboretum created after the area was burned out as a result of the Christmas 2001 and 2003 Canberra bushfires. In 2004, the Government of the A.C.T. held a nation-wide competition for an arboretum, which was to be part of the recovery from the 2003 bushfires. The winning design proposed 100 forests/gardens focussing on threatened, rare, and symbolic trees from around the world. An expert panel selected the tree species for the National Arboretum from the United Nations’ ‘Redlist’ which is an international listing of all trees with an endangered conservation status. From that list only trees that could cope with Canberra’s climate were chosen. And the arboretum has just opened - 100 forests to mark the national city's 100 years.
Planting at the arboretum began in 2006 so needless to say all the trees are still really small right now - but it's easy to envision what the area will look like in years to come. And the sweeping views over Canberra from the hills of the arboretum are fantastic.
Housed at the arboretum is the National Bonsai and Penjing Collection of Australia - some of the finest miniature trees in Australia.
The arboretum also features several pieces of monumental public art. Nest 111 is a found objects artwork depicting an eagle on a nest.
On another hill within and overlooking the arboretum is "wide brown land", spelling out the description of Australia by Dorothea MacKellar in her poem My Country. The artwork is taken from the original manuscript in McKellar's handwriting and it is approximately 35m in length and 9.5m tall.
I love a sunburned country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
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