Hotel Kurrajong, Heritage-listed hotel building in Barton, Canberra, Australia
Hotel Kurrajong is a two-story building in pavilion style with separate wings connected by corridors around central garden courtyards. The layout uses covered walkways and interior gardens to bring outdoor space into everyday movement through the building.
Hotel Kurrajong was built between 1925 and 1927 as a hostel for public servants arriving ahead of Parliament's move from Melbourne. Commonwealth chief architect John Smith Murdoch designed it in Garden Pavilion style, following Walter Burley Griffin's garden city plan. During the Great Depression it and Hotel Canberra were the only hotels left open for a time. Closed by the late 1970s for parliamentary offices, it reopened as a hotel in 1995.
The building reflects the architectural principles of Walter Burley Griffin's garden city concept, integrating nature with governmental infrastructure in early Canberra.
The hotel stands in Barton, a short walk from Parliament House and the Parliamentary Triangle, with the entrance set behind a low brick wall and metal railings off a curving paved driveway. The building is a working hotel, so interiors are accessible to guests and patrons rather than as a general sightseeing stop; the 2015 renovation added a ramp with metal railings at the single-storey wing.
Former Prime Minister Ben Chifley lived at the hotel from 1940 to 1951, passing away in room 205. His extended stay links the building to a significant moment in Australian political history.
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