The Federal Capital Advisory Committee (FCAC) was a body of the Australian government which oversaw the construction of Canberra from 1921 to 1924 following the termination of the contract of architect Walter Burley Griffin.
The Committee was chaired by Australian architect Sir John Sulman, and advised the Minister of Home Affairs on the Construction of Canberra and conducted a review of the Griffin Plan. The Committee proposed that development should take place in three stages:
- Stage one, which was to take three years, would see the transfer of Parliament and key administrative staff moved from Melbourne to Canberra.
- Stage two, also to take three years, would include the construction of railways in addition to other key buildings
- Stage three would create character and permanence in the capital.
The Committee was largely unsuccessful in achieving its aims, for example Parliament did not move to Canberra until 1927, and no permanent rail connection between Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne was ever completed. However Sulman was instrumental in developing the garden city aspects of Canberra, he declared that the development of Canberra should take the form of ‘a garden town, with simple, pleasing, but unpretentious buildings’.
In 1924 the Committee was abolished due to the slow pace of development, it was replaced by the more successful Federal Capital Commission in 1925.
Successors of the FCAC:
- 1925-1930: Federal Capital Commission
- 1938-1957: National Capital Planning and Development Committee
- 1958-1989: National Capital Development Commission
- since 1989: National Capital Authority
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“A committee is an animal with four back legs.”
—John le Carré (b. 1931)