• Parliament House is located on a 32-hectare site on Capital Hill, at the main axis of Walter Burley-Griffin's original Canberra plan.

• It was opened on 9 May 1988, 61 years after Parliament first opened in Canberra.

• Parliament House was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola and Thorp architects, following a design competition that attracted 329 entries from 28 countries. It is one of the largest buildings in the southern hemisphere and cost over $1 billion to build.

• There are 25,000 granite slabs on the curved walls which, placed end to end, would stretch 46 kilometres.

• The building required 300,000 cubic metres of concrete, enough to build 25 Sydney Opera Houses.

• The building has 4,700 rooms and 2,416 clocks.

• Gary Emery designed the typeface used on signage throughout the building.

• The roof of Parliament House provides spectacular views of Canberra. Visitors are welcome to walk on the grass ramps covering the building.

• The flag flown from the 81 metre flagpole is 12.8 x 6.4 metres and weighs 15kg.

• The Forecourt mosaic is based on a Central Desert dot-style painting by Michael Nelson Tjakamarra. The mosaic is made up of approximately 90,000 hand-guillotined granite pieces in seven different colours and represents a Possum and Wallaby Dreaming.

• The marquetry panels in the main Foyer are inlaid with designs featuring traditional Aboriginal food sources and botanical specimens documented by Sir Joseph Banks.

• The Tom Roberts' painting hanging in the foyer of the Main Committee Room shows the opening of the first Australian Parliament, in Melbourne's Exhibition Building on 9 May 1901.

• The Great Hall tapestry is based on a painting by Arthur Boyd. It features a eucalyptus forest in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. Measuring 20 x 9 metres, it is one of the largest tapestries in the world and took two and a half years to complete.

• Parliament House welcomes 1.1 million visitors from Australia and overseas each year, making it one of Canberra's most popular attractions.

• The AGDA National Biennial Awards gala celebration dinner will only ever be held in Australia's Parliament House once!

• Why don't you come and take a look for yourself.

Awards 2006: Get your tickets now!