Paolo Tombesi's intriguing article (7/2, pp140–154) on the genesis of Australia's Parliament House inevitably raises the question of possible comparisons with Scotland's Parliamentary saga. The differences, of course, are as striking as the similarities. Tombesi's position is that the Canberra building's design, which he dislikes, is explicable by the commissioning process, and the desire of the Australians to have reliability and delivery on time. Apart from the obvious formality of plan and pomposity of approach (although we are not altogether exempt from recent exemplars of either in twenty-first-century Britain), he takes it for granted that the architecture is entirely mediocre. Yet I would have been intrigued to know whether the spaces between the curved walls of the gathering spaces building and the Chambers and offices on either side, had any qualities.