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The National Museum of Australia first opened its doors to the public in March 2001 in the nation's Federal capital city of Canberra . It encompasses nearly every aspect of Australia n life and culture from its Geography , Prehistoric history, Aboriginal first inhabitants to white settlement and subsequent development, and its future. The museum is located on Acton Peninsula in the suburb of Acton , next to the Australian National University . The peninsula on Lake Burley Griffin was previously the home of the Royal Canberra Hospital which was demolished on July 13 , 1997 . The museum was officially created by Act of Parliament in 1980, but didn't have a permanent home until the opening of its current buildings in 2001 . Since 2003, the museum has also hosted '' Talkback Classroom '', a Radio National student political forum. ARCHITECTURE As designed by architect Howard Raggatt , the museum building has quite striking architecture, based on a theme of knotted ropes, symbolically bringing together the stories of Australians. The building is meant to be the centre of a knot, with trailing ropes or strips extending from the building. The most obvious of these extensions forms a large loop before becoming a walkway which extends past the neighbouring AIATSIS building ending in a large curl, as if a huge ribbon has haphazardly unrolled itself along the ground. Known as the " Uluru Axis" because it aligns with the central Australian natural landmark, the ribbon symbolically integrates the site with the Canberra city plan by Walter Burley Griffin and the spiritual heart of indigenous Australia. The shape of the main entrance hall continues this theme: it is as though the otherwise rectangular building has been built encasing a complex knot which does not quite fit inside the building, and then the knot taken away. The entirely non-symmetrical complex is designed to not look like a museum, with startling colours and angles, unusual spaces and unpredictable projections and textures. EXTERNAL LINKS |
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