Canberra
— — a city drawn on a blank hillside.
Not only on a wall.
“Australia's planned capital, set between Sydney and Melbourne in the Australian Capital Territory. The city was designed in 1912 by the Chicago architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, around a central lake the Molonglo River was dammed to make. Parliament House sits dug into Capital Hill; the War Memorial closes the long axis from the north. Eucalypts, magpies, and a clear southern sky most of the year.
Canberra, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Canberra is the capital of Australia and the seat of the Australian Capital Territory, with a population of around 460,000. The city sits inland at roughly 580 metres elevation, about 280 kilometres southwest of Sydney and 660 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, the compromise location chosen in 1908 after the two larger cities each declined to yield the capital to the other. Construction began in 1913 following a 1912 international design competition won by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. Parliament moved from Melbourne in 1927.
Parliament House, opened in 1988 on the city's bicentennial, sits buried into Capital Hill so the public can walk over its grass roof. The design by Romaldo Giurgola won an international competition with 329 entries. The building covers about 250,000 square metres and holds 4,700 rooms. The Australian War Memorial, at the north end of the Griffins' Land Axis, opened in 1941 and remains one of the most visited memorials in the country. The two structures face one another across Lake Burley Griffin in a single straight line.
Canberra runs through four distinct seasons, unusual for an Australian capital. Summer days reach the low thirties Celsius with cool nights at altitude. Autumn turns the European plantings along the lakeshore red and gold through April and May. Winter brings frost most mornings and occasional snow, with daytime highs around 12 °C. The skies clear in late spring, and the city averages about 2,650 hours of sunshine annually. Floriade, a month-long bulb festival in Commonwealth Park, fills September and October with around a million planted tulips.