International Design Competition entries go on display

The ballroom of Government House, Melbourne, as the first entries in the International Design Competition are mounted for display, March 1912. King O'Malley, the controversial Minister for Home Affairs, is in the light suit, second from the left. O'Malley's determination to be the competition's final decision-maker prompted the Royal Institute of British Architects to advise its membership to boycott the competition. The response was significant, for it no doubt contributed to the choice of a non-British, state-of-the-art design for Canberra originating in Chicago— the celebrated home of the Prairie School (which included Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright) and arguably the leading design city of the world at that time.