Heritage+Architecture+Parliament

Parliament House In 1851 Charles LaTrobe instructed Robert Hoddle to select a site to build Melbourne's Parliament house. Robert Hoddle selected the site at the top of Bourke street. After the site had been selected a competition was held to select the design, Peter Kerr's design won the competition, and the prize of £500, which was a lot of money back then. Peter Kerr's original design featured a dome over the reading room, and two extra wings. These are not seen today as the original design was going to cost a lot more than the budget would allow, so therefore Peter Kerr was sacked and his plan only partly used in the construction. The architectural aspect was then taken over by Charles Pasley, a government architect, who used most of John Knight's design but cut bits out to make it conform to the budget. Parliament house was built in sections from 1855 to 1929, first the Victorian Legislative Assembly and the Victorian Legislative Council chambers were completed, taking only 1 year from 1855 to 1856. At the time when the two chambers were built, Bourke street ran straight through the middle of the two buildings. So then in 1860 the library was added, this created a courtyard which was of concern as politicians had to walk through the courtyard to exit and enter the chambers, and the courtyard created a space where protestors could gather and obstruct the politicians. So to prevent this from happening Queen Victoria Hall was built in 1879, Queens Hall eliminated the threat of obstruction. One of the final additions to Parliament House was the facade and front steps, in 1886. These features make the building look what it looks like today. In the 1990's Victoria's premier Jeff Kennett put forward a proposal to add the dome, proposed in the original design. This proposal was eventually knocked back, meaning that Parliament House still isn't finished.

Parliament House was also designed with gun slits just above the furthest street facing windows on either side of the building, these gun slits were put in so that in the event of a protest or demonstration riflemen would be able to fire into the crowd. The ornamental front doors are riot proof, so if the protestors/demonstrators try to break into Parliament the doors will be the second line of defense. Then after the riot proof doors there are concealed trapdoors, to isolate protestors and help stop them entering the parliamentary chambers. There's also a "dungeon" in the basement, used to hold members of parliament that disrupt the parliament by fighting, on the brighter side the dungeon is now used by the cleaners as a tearoom. Also there is supposedly a tunnel leading from the basement to either the Imperial Hotel across spring street, or to a picnic shelter in the Parliament Grounds. There are no reports of the escape hatch ever being used, but there would have been times when it would have seemed fairly tempting to some politicians.

In 1927 the Commonwealth Parliament moved to what is now the Old Parliament House in Canberra, the Victorian parliament received £50,000 appreciation, which was used to add the new parliamentary refreshment rooms.

Melbourne's Parliament House currently seats the the Victorian parliament, and at the opening of parliament each year, the chambers have all seats present, this only happens another few times a year.