No_4_December_1963 — Page 95

NT HOUSE

LUMPUR

Architect: Ivor Shipley

sive combination of architecture plus setting if the spectator was to stumble upon it at the last moment around a bend in the road. So the Public Works Department was instructed to remodel the entire topography of the snaking. V-shaped ravine linking Parliament Hill with the centre of

town.

Tons of earth were removed to smooth out the contours and give to the valley a single extended S-bend. about a mile in length. offering a prospect of the site from a point halfway along its generous dual-

carriageway. This sweeping approach road. providing unlimited possibili ties for ceremonials. terminates in a viaduct spanning the last 600 feet to the hilltop itself.

P.W.D. architect Mr. Ivor Shipley was sent to India to study the Houses of Parliament in New Delhi and Chandigarh before settling down to the design of the project. Le Cor- busier's complex at Chandigarh. in which segregation of the two Houses was kept to a minimum, helped to confim a view that Mr. Shipley had already formulated in his own mind.

He returned and set to work on a design that would pursue this aim as far as was feasible.

The result is that the senators and members of the House of Representa- tiives share the same dining. library and administrative facilities and are separated only with regard to their respective chambers. lounges and coffee rooms. To provide extra seat- ing in the House of Representatives for the use of senators on ceremonial occasions such as the opening of Parliament. Mr. Shipley fitted the padded leather benches with generous arm rests that could be swung out of the way when required to furnish the additional space.

With the object of avoiding the dispersal of related but separate structures over a wide area of the site, the architect attacked the parlia mentary theme by placing the two Houses and their attendant facilities

in

one rectangular complex. four storeys high around its perimeter. 390 feet wide and 280 feet deep. covering just two of the 40 acres available. Rising up through the centre of this concourse is the sharp triangular outline of the roof of the

Parliament House general view.

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