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Far-sited: The Maps that Made Canberra

Sketch map of the Federal Territory, Commonwealth of Australia 1920

Sketch map of the Federal Territory, Commonwealth of Australia  1920
Department of Home and Territories, Lands and Surveys Branch, Melbourne
32.0 x 49.0 cm; lithograph
Maps Collection, nla.map-gmod107

Charles Coulter (1864–1956)Charles Coulter (1864–1956)
An Ideal Federal City, Lake George 1901
watercolour; 41.0 x 63.0 cm
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an5263460

The ACT Government’s Centenary of Canberra unit, in collaboration with the National Library of Australia, the Attorney-General’s Department and the National Archives of Australia, has just launched an exciting exhibition which will be on display in the Library’s Maps Reading Room from the beginning of September until at the end of January 2010. One of Canberra’s most significant foundation narratives is about maps; this visually striking exhibition carefully and artfully confirms that fact.

Just over 100 years ago, when six disparate colonies agreed to merge as states in an Australian Commonwealth, the decision about where to place the national capital was not going to be easy. Once it was controversially determined by Section 125 of the Australian Constitution that the capital would be in New South Wales, at least 100 miles from Sydney, any number of aspiring NSW towns and regions put their hat in the ring.

Towns with chilly, inland southern NSW climes espoused the almost universal sentiment at the time that the Anglo Saxon / Anglo Celtic intelligence positively thrived in cold conditions. This commitment to a cold climate capital, albeit based on a measure of utter absurdity that today we find embarrassing, was a driving force in the process to find a national city. It was a process that stretched, in effect, from the late 1890s to the last months of 1908, when the option known as ‘Yass–Canberra’ was announced as the winner.

The choice of Canberra would continue to be contested. Slowly and painstakingly, Australians began to accept the idea of a ‘Bush Capital’, a ‘City in the Landscape’, a ‘Garden City’. Playing a big part in that evolution were members of the design professions: the engineers, surveyors, architects, landscapers and planners who had the practical job of determining the precise building precinct, articulating the Territory’s borders and water sources and finally getting on with the physical construction of the city.

Far-sited takes us on a brand new adventure in re-claiming the rich history of Canberra beyond the ‘pollies’. For the very first time, we have gathered together a decade-spanning collection of maps—Canberra’s birth certificates from 1899 to 1910—that enables us to better understand and appreciate the city’s cartographic history. The maps are things of visual beauty, yet behind each contour and each squiggly line of a river or creek was a determined ‘mapper’ with a social and sometimes political agenda. Informative and elegant as they are, the maps contain biases and prejudices that give them layers of subterranean meaning.

As you work your way around Far-sited, we are sure that some of the more illuminating, hitherto missing pieces of the grand Canberra puzzle will fall into place. We hope you enjoy the experience every bit as much as we have done putting it together. The commemoration and celebration of 2013 will be all the more satisfying for all of us who have loved the challenging homework in anticipation.

Greg Wood
Curator

David Headon
Advisor, Centenary of Canberra unit (ACT Government)