Inauguration of Lake Burley Griffin
Image from ‘Weekend Notes’.
On this day, 17 October 1964, Robert Menzies officially opens Lake Burley Griffin in what was referred to as the lake’s ‘inauguration’. The occasion was the culmination of a long-standing investment by the Menzies Government into the development of Australia’s capital city, which fundamentally shaped the Canberra we know today.
The lake had long been the centrepiece of ambitious plans for Canberra, which had originally been drawn up by American designers Walter and Marion Griffin in 1911. They sought to create an ‘ideal city’ with their innovative 'city of the future’ design which won a widely-advertised government competition, being judged as superior to over 136 other plans for the national capital. However the pre-war optimism that lay behind the competition was not to last, and the Griffins’ grand vision was ultimately abandoned as too costly, particularly as Australia faced the twin disasters of first the Great War and then the Great Depression.
Canberra’s development subsequently proceeded sporadically and to some degree aimlessly, until in 1957 the Menzies Government stepped in, creating the National Capital Development Commission, and appointing the 44-year-old architect and war hero John Overall as its inaugural commissioner. He was given clear instructions to finally make a slightly more modest version of Griffin’s plan a reality.
The work involved in building the lake was immense. ‘Hundreds of workers removed thousands of tonnes of soil, deep enough to dispel insect infestations, prevent weed growth and provide for boat keels.' There was much wrangling over the cost, and at more than one stage the funding looked likely to be cut before Menzies personally intervened to make sure the project was seen through to completion.
He therefore took great pride when the lake was finally finished, giving a speech where he recounted:
‘The creation of this lake is the result of a pretty long struggle. I remember being very much in favour of it in the late thirties, but I was a humble, miserable out-voted Attorney-General at that time and there were powerful forces arrayed against me because there was a golf course (Laughter) and all the Heads of all the Departments belonged to it, and they took a fine pride in making the then Prime Minister the President of the Club (Laughter) and I fought an uphill battle for a long time. But after the war when I had an opportunity in my own right, I began to come back to this project because I have always believed, and never more than today - that you can't have a great city unless you have water in it. You look around the world and wonder to yourselves what London would be like without the Thames, or what Paris would be like without the Seine. Indeed, I have always thought that part of the dullness of Berlin if I may so speak was due to the fact that it had nothing but a miserable trickle of water running through it. Water, water in all the great cities of the world, and I have looked forward to this moment – or to a recent moment – when the lake was filled...
I wouldn't like to go into the details of it, but at least twice during its [the lake’s] history, having been abroad, I found when I got back that evil men had been at work and that something was being taken away from us and I had to be the humble instrument of providence to restore it. This is of the essence, this is the heart of the city, and I hope it will be a heart that will be quietly beating, not noisy, not uproarious a quietly beating, restful heart for the rest of our lives....
There is a pride in Canberra being developed and that is tremendously important, not for us because we live in Canberra, some of us temporarily, this is not just a matter of pride for us. This is a matter of national importance, because more and more as people understand that this is the capital of the nation, a capital of which they may be proud, then more and more will they begin to realise instinctively that the nation is more important than any part of it and that the nation is symbolised by the capital of the nation in this place.’
It is notable that to this day Menzies is commemorated in Canberra not with a suburb as is normally the case for former prime ministers (he specifically said that he did not want that), but instead by the ‘RG Menzies Walk and Statue’, which serves to encourage people to enjoy the beautiful body of water that Menzies so desired.
Further Reading:
Nichole Overall, ‘The day Mr Menzies launched Lake Burley Griffin’, Canberra City News, 16 October 2019, The day Mr Menzies launched Lake Burley Griffin | Canberra CityNews
‘The “inauguration” of Lake Burley Griffin’, ABC Education, The 'inauguration' of Lake Burley Griffin - ABC Education