A Constructor’s Tribute to Adlo Giurgola

An extraordinary Architect who evoked a sense of common purpose in making his buildings.

Tomorrow will see a gathering of family, friends and professional acquaintances who knew and respected Aldo Giurgola. It will be my privilege to be amongst them. Today is the 25th August 2016, nearly 28 years after the parliament first sat in Australia’s New Parliament House in Canberra.

I first met Aldo in 1985 when I took over the task of leading the Concrete-Holland Joint Venture - the construction managers for constructing our new national capital building. My first impression of Aldo was that he typified the architects I had first met when I started my career as an apprentice carpenter in 1969. In those days there was an amazing respect between architects and builders. It was a time when carpenters were represented by the Australian Society of Carpenters & Joiners. And it was a time when architects, builders and craft representatives would regularly sit down and discuss their common challenges. There was always mutual respect and collaborative goodwill to get things done.

 Aldo came to the New Parliament House project from the Philadelphia practice of Mitchell Giurgola he and Mitch (Ehrman) founded in 1958. Mitch visited often. Aldo had a distinguished career that I am sure will be well narrated by others, and it should be. It was a sufficiently prestigious career to justify Aldo to be a more pompous style of architect as some who I have had to deal over the years. But not this understated and able man. He was happier to be in the background refining his designs, coaching his design team to grasp his vision for how the project should come together and unfold. He was never a person looking for aggrandisement or conflict, but do not interpret that as any lessening of his determination to protect his design and stubbornly resist unreasonable efforts to force less than worthy compromises. Aldo was also a realist, he knew what to yield on, and when his statesman like style could be played to put credit in the drawer for later.

 At every turn you were meeting a designer who wanted to tread lightly and leave the appropriate response to the making of Australia’s new capitol building. And tread he did. Aldo went to the source of everything to consult with manufacturers, raw material suppliers, artists, crafts people and of course some of the most competent design collaborators that he mustered to help make this project a reality. Aldo embedded a deep appreciation amongst his design team that if you were aspiring to build a building that would last for over 200 years, it would not be possible to do this without gathering all the learned knowledge there was available. And his team soon had his style coded in the way they went about selecting the pieces, specifying how they were to be made and detailing how they were to be incorporated into the building. And this quest for knowledge was not a process of just race out and collect it, job done. No, Aldo wanted continuity from those who had the knowledge and experience in using the materials. He had them visit the job regularly during construction and was the first to consult them when issues arose.

Making the New parliament was not easy. The client needed to be brought along. They needed to have the building interpreted and they needed to confirm the Parliament’s brief when from time to time earlier requirements were not practical. Aldo had to develop the capacity to work through a Joint House Standing Committee that oversaw the progressive signing off of design and expenditure. It was here his toughness and capacity to win the day by delivering models, amplified by a spontaneous ability to draw the simplest of sketches on the spot, that built the trust and respect he needed to deliver confidence to his design team to push on. There were however, many scope changes as the project evolved and its costs grew. I personally believe that while the government never fully appreciated the complexity and standards its new building needed to embrace, the end cost was not a result of whim.

Many of those who may read this article will not appreciate that the new parliament was possibly the last hand drawn major institutional building undertaken in Australia. It is wonderful that so much effort has gone into curating the design documents as many are truly unique. Today designers have been using CAD and BIM as the normal tools of trade. I liken the difference being similar to imagining the last time one of us used a wind up window in a car. It’s been a while. But it all seems like yesterday. So those without the modern tools of multi-design discipline co-ordination, shop drawing integration and clash detection may not fully understand how this 200,000m2 building came together so ably.

There was possibly as much design effort put in at the workface of the project as there was off-site. A building of this form and complexity is not always so easily explained in two dimensional drawings. Aldo had amongst his team people like Hal Guida who were adept at sketching in the field. They were confident to sit on a concrete slab and sketch with a crayon to explain an intended outcome to workers. They were just as prepared to work in a place of manufacture or assembly to resolve details and improve on their initial design. They always showed extraordinary respect to anyone who was on-board with the mission and had something better or worthwhile to contribute. And, if Aldo was needed it seemed always possible to muster his presence within a day or so to add interpretation or clarity.

Returning to my early encounters with Aldo in the early part of 1985, things were not going so well on the project. Four years in, the project had spent only $100 million of its eventual cost, the costs were blowing out due to scope changes, delays and industrial disruption. Politicians were having a field day lambasting the project as wasting money and the media were happy to climb on board the hype for the evening news. It was clear that the project needed to lock down all of the remaining design and to stop the constant stream of changes feeding new scope that resulted in diluting designer productivity. On a daily basis my recollection was running out of ‘for-construction’ documentation to enable work to proceed on site. There was a huge backlog in unresolved variations and claims that had built up over the preceding few years’ as parts of the design were put on hold or changed.

In mid 1985, the government elected to refresh the new Parliament House Construction Authority (PHCA) Board. That change signalled a high level resolve to focus on completion as opposed to definition. It was a timely political action, but much housekeeping needed to be done to allow the design to move ahead of construction. And, to enable a confident climate to be built with the projects contractors and suppliers that they could now productively commit the necessary resources and cash flow to getting the project finished by 1988. The project cash flow had to increase from $25 million per annum to $25 million per month.

It was estimated that for every worker on site, there were 4 either partly or fully employed off-site making the components that seemed to be consumed by the project within moments of their arrival. This was evidenced by the trucks that lined State Circle each morning, having come from all points of Australia. No matter how long the line of trucks every day, the project seemed to consume their loads by mid-morning and they were on their way to return again. The project workforce involved over 30 percent at any time temporarily locating to Canberra. Maintaining a commitment to their presence in town required a confident escalation of production on site. Documentation flow was essential.

To gain the re-ignition of large organisations off-site upon whom the project depended, required an early resolution of outstanding variations, claims and resetting the cost to complete. The new Authority Board sanctioned a process to sort out contractor entitlements and to settle outstanding costs in exchange for staged payments which were to correlate with progress on site. This was a Waterloo moment for the design team. They just had to get ahead and stay ahead, despite the still ongoing client interventions that seemed minor to them but were of significant distraction to the main game. This phase of the project was highly stressed and could have even turned into an Utzon like outcome if it wasn’t for the steady hand and full-time commitment Aldo made to getting it done.

I recall Aldo and Tim Brown turning up at our office at 7 or 8 am each day to see how design production was going and what the most pressing issues were.

The emphasis soon turned from ‘for construction design’ to approving shop drawings, prototypes and samples. This was no easy task as the construction industry was still coming to terms with the more exacting standards and compliances that were required for a 200 year building and for many resetting their ‘close enough is good enough’ norms. Through this period of shifting from designing and making to acceptance, a new era of collaboration and belief was required. The C-HJV had set up a very impressive QA Group headed by Holland’s Richard Roberts for building and engineering works and Tony Taylder from Concrete’s for services. This team had the role of building the trust with Aldo’s team that it would assure the design was met without their number having to dedicate duplicated supervision, avoiding design dilution.

Aldo and his team rose to the challenge of finishing the project just as they had in conceiving and defining it. There is no escaping the fact that a number of things did not come together as planned and required rework or variation. It was always, all hands to the pumps metaphorically and on one occasion literally as we worked through these challenges. Some of these were not easy work-arounds as there was to be no compromise to fitness for purpose or the standards contracted. The building stands today as a testimony to the collaborative approach to jumping these hurdles as they arose. There has not been a material failure of any of the building’s parts or systems since it was built. Not only has the New Parliament become a focal point of national pride, few would argue that its end cost of $1.1 billion was not value for money.

Its finishes have inspired Australian buildings since.

The two construction principals of the C-HJV, were John Lewis the owner of Concrete Constructions, and Sir John Holland founder of Holland Construction Group. It was through these leaders and those of Gordon Peatey the CEO of the NPH Authority and Aldo Giurgola and others of the design effort that the most respected relationships were struck. The JV held several functions each year as part of the team building needed on such a demanding project. To listen to Sir John honour, the design and the team effort was captivating, but to then listen to Aldo give a talk in response which was both self-depreciating and in awe of the people making his building confirmed my initial impressions of this man. A great designer, who I doubt could have been bettered in giving Australia a more inspiring capitol building and one who could work with the makers to make it possible so collaboratively.

Over the years I have heard to odd professional jealously that one design or another may have been more fitting at the end of Burley Griffith’s land axis for Canberra. I don’t think so. And occasionally the odd politician will lay claim to a view that the new building is not as good to work in as the old one – the main complaint being size and separation. I respect these views, but the brief for the building was developed by politicians and their advisors because to old one had long past its functional days. So that is not for me to judge.

All I will comment on is that I think the building lost some of its approachability when the Non-Members bar was closed in an exercise to contain politicians from wandering off the reservation and making unscripted comments to the public or journalists. This sort of censorship is ineffective in today’s modern media age and frankly is an affront to the informal access Australians should have to their elected officials. It’s not too late to rethink re-establishing this connection with the public that is part of our national character.

And I think that our elected officials should realise that they are not only the custodians of our national interests, they are but passing custodians of a building that is now regarded nationally and internationally as one of the best buildings serving a parliament and its people in the world. I would urge that they reflect on the humility of Aldo Giurgola in listening to their aspirations, interpreting these into the building every Australian admires and carefully conducting is making as composer, conductor and lead musician. It is testimony to the affection Aldo, had for Australia that this is now his final resting place.

On behalf of all the Constructors of Australia’s New Parliament House we salute him.

A small collection of images recalling Aldo and the project can be viewed via the following link. https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0iGdIshaGwSV9    The other final design contenders are included in this collection. The link will be left open for others to contribute too until the 31st October 2016.

 David Chandler OAM, B. Build, FAIB       Former C-HJV, Construction Director, 1985 – 1988

Messages of support;

"Thanks David…beautifully developed and especially your reference to “…composer, conductor and lead musician”. It’s a great metaphor for all construction because regardless of the Composer’s reputation, sometimes it works…other times not. Obviously Aldo was one-of-a-kind and when the music needed to be inspirational and more , he delivered". Phil.

"Dear David, Your “constructor’s contribution” was a great read and it was good to get that different perspective. Thank you for sending it. I did send your email on immediately to Ric, Tim, Hal, and Pamille. I have to confess that I have only just now had time to read it myself and apologise for the delay in responding. Aldo would have been 96 tomorrow - - it was, indeed, a rich and rewarding life - Lesley"

"DC ...A wonderful, heartfelt and moving tribute to an architect forgotten by most of today's aspiring upstarts. The majority are unlikely to ever reach Aldo's skills and very human approach to his professional responsibilities. It is truly humbling to call oneself an Architect when compared to exemplars like Aldo Giurgola". David

"Hi David, Thank you for sending me the wonderful tribute you wrote as well as comments from others. I tried posting a recent photo of my father with the guides past and present but had no luck so I am attaching it to this email if you wish to share it". Paola (Now posted on the photo link above)