Parliament House, on the corner of North Terrace

North Terrace, Adelaide

North Terrace is one of the four terraces that bound the central business and residential district of the city of Adelaide, the capital city of South Australia. It runs east-west, along the northern edge of the CBD.-North Side of North Terrace:...

 and King William Road

King William Street, Adelaide

King William Street is the part of a major arterial road that traverses the CBD and centre of Adelaide . It was named by the Street Naming Committee on 23 May 1837 after King William IV, the then reigning monarch, who died within a month...

 in Adelaide city centre

Adelaide city centre

The Adelaide city centre is the innermost locality of Greater Adelaide, known by locals simply as "The City" or "Town". The locality is split into two key geographical distinctions: the city "square mile", bordered by North, East, South and West Terraces; and that part of the Adelaide Parklands...

, is the seat of the Parliament of South Australia

Parliament of South Australia

The Parliament of South Australia is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of South Australia. It consists of the Legislative Council and the House of Assembly. It follows a Westminster system of parliamentary government....

. It was built to replace the adjacent and overcrowded Parliament House, now referred to as "Old Parliament House". Due to financial constraints, the current Parliament House was constructed in stages over 65 years from 1874 to 1939.

History

A commission, appointed by the Governor of South Australia, was set up in 1874 to adjudicate a design competition for the new building. A design by prominent Adelaidean architect Edmund Wright

Edmund Wright

Edmund Wright can refer to:*Edmund William Wright , architect and Mayor of Adelaide*Sir Edmund Wright , Lord Mayor of London...

 and his partner Lloyd Taylor was selected winner. This Greek Revival

Greek Revival architecture

The Greek Revival was an architectural movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in Northern Europe and the United States. A product of Hellenism, it may be looked upon as the last phase in the development of Neoclassical architecture...

 design featured ornate columns of the Corinthian order

Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is one of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric and Ionic. When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the canon, the Tuscan order and the Composite order...

, impressive towers and a grand dome. However, lack of funds resulted in the towers and dome being removed from the design that was implemented. Occasionally, plans to construct the towers and dome are revived, but none have ever been implemented.

Parliament House was built with Kapunda marble

Marble

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite.Geologists use the term "marble" to refer to metamorphosed limestone; however stonemasons use the term more broadly to encompass unmetamorphosed limestone.Marble is commonly used for...

 and West Island granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

. Construction began on the West Wing in 1874 and was completed in 1889 at a cost of £165,404. The West Wing contained the new chamber for the South Australian House of Assembly

South Australian House of Assembly

The House of Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. The other is the Legislative Council. It sits in Parliament House in the state capital, Adelaide.- Overview :...

 and associated offices. The South Australian Legislative Council

South Australian Legislative Council

The Legislative Council, or upper house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of South Australia. Its central purpose is to act as a house of review for legislation passed through the lower house, the House of Assembly...

 continued in the Old Parliament House next door. Economic depression in the 1890s prevented the completion of Parliament House, and it was not until 1913 that plans were sketched for the East Wing. The outbreak of the Great War again delayed construction.

The project was taken up again in the 1930s following a £100,000 gift by Sir John Langdon Bonython

John Langdon Bonython

-Early life:Bonython was born in London in 1848, the second son of George Langdon Bonython and Annie MacBain. The family migrated to South Australia in July 1854. There, Bonython was educated at the Brougham School in North Adelaide...

. The project also functioned as a job generation scheme to alleviate the mass unemployment of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

. Work began on the East Wing in 1936, the year of South Australia

South Australia

South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...

's centenary, and was completed three years later in 1939 at a cost of £241,887.

The completed Parliament House was formally opened on 5 June 1939 by Lord Gowrie

Alexander Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie

Brigadier General Alexander Gore Arkwright Hore-Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie VC, GCMG, CB, DSO & Bar, PC was a British soldier and colonial governor and the tenth Governor-General of Australia. Serving for 9 years and 7 days, he is the longest serving Governor-General in Australia's history...

, the 10th Governor-General of Australia

Governor-General of Australia

The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia is the representative in Australia at federal/national level of the Australian monarch . He or she exercises the supreme executive power of the Commonwealth...

, (and also a former Governor of South Australia).

External links

• Parliament of South Australia