202 x 151 mm. Showing part of the amphitheatre and the semi-circular colonnade of the Union buildings, Sir Herbert Baker's first major essay in 'Imperial architecture' on classical models. 'The idea and its power to give dignity and beauty to the instrument of Government and symbol of the Union' owed its origins to Smuts and Botha who dispensed with the usual competition to find an architect, and offered the appointment to Baker on the strength of his work on the Pretoria railway station. While some criticism was made of the site's distance from the centre of the city (it is situated in the north-east corner) and the expense of building the amphitheatre, these were disarmed by Baker's explicit references to the old classical sites, Meintjes Kop dominating the town 'as did the Acropolis the city of Athens or as the higher Acro-Corinth which looks down upon the later Corinth on the shores of the Gulf' (Baker,1944, p. 58). The foundation stone was laid in 1910 and the buildings completed in 1913.