An Unfinished Masterpiece
History of Parliament House Melbourne,

Gideon Haigh & Peter Elliott
Parliamentary Library, Melbourne 2022

“It has been said that we shape our buildings, and our buildings shape us.

Parliament House is widely regarded as one of Australia’s most significant public buildings, planning for which began in the 1850’s. Today some 170 years later, the building remains a grand but unfinished masterpiece.

Gideon Haigh tells the story of this most venerable and architecturally distinguished building of its Australian peers, designed for the purpose it still serves. The story begins with the building’s construction in a Marvellous Melbourne fuelled by the spoils of the gold rush and the ambitions of a prosperous city’s early legislators. Equally abrupt austerities would render the building unfinished and largely unchanged for nearly a century, until the 2018 completion of a member’s annexe.

Haigh takes us on a sojourn through time, people and place, collecting stories about the people who made the building and who worked there, myths about the building from dome to dungeon, and along the way affords precious glimpses of Victoria’s history, community attitudes and patriotic aspirations.

Annexe architect Peter Elliott, AM, brings his eye to the Parliament’s features and affords us valuable insight into how one builds back to the original building after a space of more than 150 years.

An Unfinished Masterpiece is a tribute to the Parliament House of Victoria as a piece of living history, and remains a fitting monument to the unending business of democracy and civic engagement”