The 1901 Australian Federal Capital Congress Source: Planning
Perspectives, Volume 26, Number 3, 1 July 2011 , pp. 373-401(29)
Abstract:National and international conferences were a vital
force for advancing the theory and practice of modern town
planning from the early twentieth century. A conference held in
Melbourne, Australia, in May 1901 on the `Laying Out and
Building of the Federal Capital' represents one of the, if not
the, first national meetings dealing with the topic of city
planning in an Anglophone country. This paper explores the
genesis, organization and impact of the event, with the major
focus on the participants and discourse of their presentations.
The paper introduces the debate about a new federal capital of
Australia in the late nineteenth century before exploring the
content and themes of individual contributions and the broader
outcomes and significance of the event. What makes the little-
examined 1901 Congress important is not so much its direct
impact on the federal capital itself (C