A quiet sunday at Parliament House, Canberra

It was a quiet Sunday in Canberra. Parliament House was closed, yet the gardens around it were open and still. As I walked along the winding paths, I noticed how effortlessly the building blends into the landscape. It doesn’t rise as a tower of authority — it rests like a curved hill of glass, stone and grass, as if the land itself is carrying the parliament rather than being overshadowed by it.

Designed by Italian-American architect Romaldo Giurgola of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects, Parliament House opened in 1988 — exactly two hundred years after the arrival of the first European settlers. Much of the structure is embedded into Capital Hill, its roof covered in grass. Visitors can even walk across the top, a symbolic gesture that democracy is meant to be of the people, not placed above them.

The architecture is full of intention: curved lines that follow the shape of the two parliamentary chambers, Australian timber and stone that anchor the building in its national identity, and clear sightlines that stretch toward the Australian War Memorial, echoing the relationship between history and governance. Even the gardens are part of the story — a place where landscape, memory and politics fold into one another.

But long before laws were written here, this was the land of the Ngunnawal people. They lived in this region for thousands of years, gathering in the valley for meetings, ceremonies and seasonal life. The word Canberra likely comes from their language, meaning meeting place — a fitting name for the capital of a country still shaping its sense of self.

The first European settlers arrived in the early 19th century, drawn by the fertile grasslands. What was once an open valley with ceremonial routes and temporary camps slowly transformed into the administrative heart of modern Australia.

Today, Parliament House stands not only as a centre of politics but as a symbol of connection — between land and people, between past and present. Even when the doors are closed, like on that quiet Sunday, the surrounding landscape tells the story: of ancient land and a young nation, of architecture that bows rather than towers.