On this day in 1965, it was reported on the front page of The Canberra Times that the first steps towards building a National Art Gallery were being discussed.
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The Gallery was set to be Canberra's next national monumental building. Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies announced the day before that a committee of inquiry would examine the functions of the proposed gallery.
The report said the gallery was expected to be built on Capital Hill and that work should be completed by about 1970.
The proposal for the Gallery was submitted to cabinet earlier that year by the National Capital Development Commission.
Some of the NCDC's proposals were outlined in its book, The Future Canberra.
This showed that the plan was for the National Art Gallery to eventually be part of a complex of buildings on Capital Hill forming what the NCDC called a National Centre.
The NCDC proposed that the gallery should be set in an island site formed between State Circle and an inner ring road around the hill.
It envisaged that eventually two major museum buildings, a great exhibition hall and a monument would be set on the summit of Capital Hill to symbolise Australia's achievements in peacetime, to complete the National Centre complex.
It was said that when the government committed to build the Gallery on Capital Hill, speculation about the site of the permanent Houses of Parliament would come to an end.
