Parliament House, Adelaide

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Painting of the original Parliament House design. The dome has never been built.

Opening of the Parliament House by the Governor-General, June 5th 1939.

Parliament House in Adelaide, Australia, is the seat of the Parliament of South Australia. Built to replace the crowded Old Parliament House, the current Parliament House was constructed in stages over 65 years due to financial restraints. It is one of the grandest parliamentary buildings in Australia.

A commission appointed by the Governor of South Australia was set up in 1874 to adjudicate a design competition. A design by prominent Adelaidean architect Edmund Wright and his partner Lloyd Taylor was selected winner. This design featured ornate columns of the Corinthian order, impressive towers and a grand dome. However, lack of funds resulted in the towers and dome being scrapped from the design. Occasionally, plans to construct the dome have been mounted but have all fallen wayside. Parliament House was built with Kapunda marble and West Island granite.

Construction began on the West Wing in 1874 and was completed in 1889 at a cost of £165,404. The West Wing contained the new chamber for the South Australian House of Assembly and associated offices. The South Australian Legislative Council continued in the Old Parliament House adjacent. Economic depression in the 1890s prevented the completion of Parliament House and it was not until 1913 that plans were sketched for the East Wing. However, the outbreak of the Great War again delayed construction.

The project was taken up again in the 1930s following £100,000 gift by Sir John Langdon Bonython. The construction effort also functioned as a job generation scheme to alleviate the mass unemployment of the Great Depression. Work began on the East Wing in the year of South Australia's centenary and was completed three years later in 1939 at a cost of £241,887.

The completed Parliament House was formally opened by the Governor-General of Australia (and former South Australian Governor) Lord Gowrie on 5 June 1939.