CANBERRA is internationally renowned for Walter Burley Griffin’s award-winning design – but what role have women played in how the city is shaped today?

It’s Australian Women’s History month and this year’s theme is “Women with a plan: Australian architects, town planners and landscape architects”.

Annabelle Pegrum has been an integral player in Canberra’s urban planning since arriving in Canberra more than 30 years ago.

She can easily shoot off a list of women in Canberra who have played big roles in urban planning from landscape architects Helen Cohen and Gail Williamson to urban planner Barbara Norman, architect Ann Cleary, and women “not necessarily designers” such as her daughter Elisabeth Judd and Catherine Carter – and “this list goes on and on”.

“In Canberra, there are probably more women getting more involved, particularly in planning and landscape architecture, than you might have found elsewhere,” she says.

“It’s been a good town that way for encouraging women in those areas and a good place to demonstrate how very good women are in those roles.”

Ms Pegrum is now University of Canberra’s university architect, but is best known for her role as CEO of the National Capital Authority for 10 years.

“I was the first woman who headed up the equivalent of the National Capital Development Commission for Canberra, it was fascinating and quite wonderful,” she says.

Ms Pegrum moved here in 1980 when Canberra felt “very youthful”.

“The other thing that was very interesting about Canberra then was it felt classless, it had this mix of population from many different cultures as well as many different employment types and social housing was mixed with regular housing, which was sort of unusual in those days,” she says.

“So it felt kind of progressive and young and very forward thinking.”

After working in senior public service roles in the ACT, she took on the post as CEO of the National Capital Authority in 1998 and says one of her biggest achievements there was the reinstatement of the priority in the parliamentary zone.

“We undertook the Parliamentary Zone Review and from that implemented plans; Commonwealth Park was built, Reconciliation Place was built, the walkways, the lake foreshore, the kiosks, the sites for the Portrait Gallery, the extension of the National Gallery, signage and then layering that with use that hadn’t been seen before, like bringing events to the capital,” she says.

But it’s now time for the next generation “to start to make their mark”.

“There’s a group of young architects in Canberra, two of whom are women, one of which is a recent graduate called Sarah Herbert, from the University of Canberra, who are putting out online discussion about Canberra,” she says.

“That’s fantastic, they’re young, some of them are registered, some of them aren’t, they’re staying in Canberra and putting a positive spin on what’s good about the city. “And they’ll start to leave their mark from there, I think.”

For more information on Australian Women’s History Month visit womenshistory.com.au/events.asp