This fantastic photograph of the Shine Dome surrounded by snow dates back to Saturday, August 7, 1965, when Canberra had one of its heaviest falls of snow for the 20th century. It was apparently on a par with the heavy fall recorded in 1929 when much of the city was yet to be built.
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The image was captured by John Crowther for the Australian News and Information Bureau and is a part of the National Archives of Australia collection.
Keen anoraks will spot the EH Holden and the Hillman Minx parked next to the dome, the Peugeot 403 in the foreground and the Mini Minor largely concealed behind the pine tree.
I was originally mystified by the actions of the scarf, coat and glove-wearing woman standing next to the Peugeot. On closer examination it became obvious. She is making a snowball.
The picture was forwarded to Gang-gang by staff at the Bureau of Meteorology to promote their centenary at the Shine Dome on Saturday between 9am and 3pm. Senior meteorologist Sean Carson will be talking about the weather; a pastime that is incredibly popular in these parts.
He will be looking back over some of the city's ''big weather events'' including the snowfalls of 1965 and 1929.
When this picture was taken the Shine Dome, affectionately referred to by Canberrans of a certain age as ''the Martian embassy'', was very much a new kid on the block.
It was also easily the most unusual and challenging important public building in the ACT until that time.
Originally named Becker House, in honour of Australian Academy of Science benefactor Jack Ellerton Becker, the 45.75-metre diameter dome was commissioned in 1956 and finished in 1959. It just pips the AD 128 Pantheon, in Rome, for size. The Pantheon is 43.4 metres. The difference between the two is that the Pantheon remains the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.
The Shine Dome, while aesthetically pleasing as most domes are, is small beer by world standards for this form of construction.
The largest reinforced concrete dome was Seattle's Kingdome which was demolished in 2000 after just 14 years of existence. It spanned 200 metres, more than four times the diameter of the Shine Dome.
The world's largest dome of any type is the Louisiana Superdome, a sports stadium of structural steel, built in 1975. It spans 207 metres.
Domes have been crowd- pleasers for more than 3000 years, with the first known such structure cut into a hill near the city of Mycenae, in Greece. The Treasury of Atreus spanned almost 15 metres and was an impressive achievement for the time and the place.
Rome's Pantheon was the last word in dome construction for well over 1000 years when Renaissance architects started pushing the boundaries again in the 15th century. This is when Filippo Brunelleschi designed a 45 metre dome, known as ''the Duomo'', for the Florentines.
His achievement still ranks as the largest brick-and-mortar dome, eclipsing St Peter's Basilica which, although it dates from two centuries later, spans only 42.3 metres.
But size isn't everything. The Shine Dome, renamed in honour of the benefactor who underwrote the cost of renovating the structure in 2000, has a simplicity of form that captivates the eye - particularly as great care has been taken to ensure it is not built out by less look-worthy structures.
My personal favourite remains the Pantheon, however. As tall as it is wide, this first of the great domes pioneered the use of structural concrete - a secret mankind then lost for more than 1000 years.
