Parliament House is the meeting place of the Parliament of Victoria, one of the parliaments of the Australian states and territories. Located on Spring Street on the edge of the Hoddle Grid, the grand colonnaded front dominates the vista up Bourke Street. Construction began in 1855, and the first stage was officially opened the following year, with various sections completed over the following decades; it has never been completed, and the planned dome is one of the most well known unbuilt features of Melbourne. Between 1901 and 1927, it served as the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, during the period when Melbourne was the temporary national capital. The building is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Background Site The Victorian gold rush and population boom led calls for greater democracy and a home for political debate in Victoria. Prior to the Colony of Victoria acquiring self-government in 1851, Governor Charles La Trobe instructed Surveyor General Robert Hoddle to select a site for the colony's new parliament to meet. Hoddle selected a site on the eastern hill at the top of Bourke Street, which commanded a view over the entire city. It was not until April 1854 that Eastern Hill, the current Spring Street site, was formally agreed to due to ongoing disagreements over the best location. Design The exact sequence of events is unclear, with a number of architects and designs chosen and rejected in succession, with the final result possibly based on earlier work. The first design appeared as early as 1851 by then Colonial Architect Henry Ginn; however, the Legislative Council then decided to have a competition in 1853, which Ginn took as a slight and resigned. A design by Smith & Pritchard won first prize, but this was soon set aside as well. The Colony's newly arrived Chief Engineer (from Nov 1855 Commissioner of Public Works) Captain Pasley was asked to prepare a design by April 1854, possibly for a unicameral building, which may have been soon reworked into one for a bi-cameral Parliament, which had just been decided upon. A design was published in c1854 showing a restrained Palladian building much like the then recently started State Library of Victoria; this design was credited to Knight & Kerr "under the general directions of Captain Pasley". John Knight and Peter Kerr had just formed a partnership, and Knight may possibly still have been an architect