THOUSANDS of tourists see Parliament House as a temple of democracy, but for Australia's politicians the 25-year-old building is simply an office. A very big office.
For those who worked in the old parliament, the sheer size of the new building is something that still awes.
"There was an element of dread, that you thought oh-oh, we're going to this huge space, do you leave a trail of cut paper to know where you've been," former speaker Harry Jenkins told AAP about the move up Capital Hill 25 years ago.
ACT Liberal senator Gary Humphries recalled showing a lost Nick Bolkus, then a junior Labor minister, to his office shortly after the move.
Getting lost still poses problems for newcomers to the building.
"All the floors look the same; you're on one floor and all of a sudden you actually think you're on the other floor so you're looking for something that's not there," said South Australian senator Anne Ruston, who began her term in September.
"That happens usually once or twice a week."
Minister Warren Snowdon said the new parliament's size initially caused some problems, with MPs not realising how long it would take them to get across the building for votes.
"I missed a division once with (then-minister) Clyde Holding," he told AAP.
"We were in a committee room and the bells rang and we didn't hear the bells initially. We ran down and the doors had just shut - whack - and we're standing outside feeling such idiots.
"Thankfully we had the numbers ... but we did get castigated by the whip."
The backbench offices provided a great contrast to MPs' old accommodation, with senior Liberal Bronwyn Bishop describing her office of 1987 as "a sort of a large broom cupboard".
"It had a window but if a third person came into the room we all had to stand up," she told AAP.
"Corridor parties were the order of the day."
But although the veterans reminisce fondly about the "cosy" old parliament, none of them would want to go back.
They admire the vision of architect Romaldo Giurgola and the symbolism of the new parliament.
This is shared by newer MPs.
"It's a beautiful and functional building," independent senator Nick Xenophon told AAP.
"Too bad that so much of what happens within it is so ugly and dysfunctional."
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young singled out the way it is built into the hillside so people can walk on top of parliament.
"We're not interested in Australia of having our MPs and our parliament up high in an ivory tower," she said.
Liberal backbencher Wyatt Roy - the first elected representative younger than the building - said parliament was still a place to inspire people.
He celebrated his 21st birthday during a sitting week in 2001 - "We put the party in the party room," he joked - and said it was a great privilege to work there.
But at the same time, "as a workplace it can be very long days, locked in a room with very long white walls".
He'd like to see backbencher office allocations separated according to party instead of being all jumbled up as they are now.
"That way we would have more interaction with colleagues from your own party and you wouldn't have to worry about what's being said," he told AAP.
"When I go to state parliament all the office doors are open, people come in and out of their offices because they don't have to worry about what's being said.
"I think because of that mixing we spend more times in our offices than out."
However the loss of the bar - the non-members bar was transformed into a child care centre after some years of disuse - or a similar place to socialise was lamented by Mr Roy and several other MPs.
"People don't have an opportunity to interact just casually as they would have in the old parliament," Mr Snowdon said.
"I think it's important that we interact as a community as well as individual workers.
"Whatever our jobs are, we should feel free to talk to one another, react with one another."
But one area where there possibly isn't enough space is the executive wing.
Both Mr Snowdon and former attorney-general Philip Ruddock say the increasing number of ministerial staff that have to be squeezed into offices has potential to cause occupational health and safety problems down the track.
The sense of isolation that accompanies the size of the building haunts many of its occupants.
Senator Humphries said independent senators or those on the outer with their party can feel very lonely indeed.
"You see people who appear to be pretty much adrift and that's a rather sad feature of life in the building for some people," he told AAP.
Nevertheless, he says it's the "bees knees of Australian parliaments".
Mr Jenkins thought that isolation wasn't just between people who work at parliament but also between MPs and the public.
"One great feature of the old place was that on the access between the Senate chamber and the Reps chamber, that was the meeting place, it was where the public came," he said.
"Here you can spend a day if you want to just staying behind the scenes."
This extended to the chamber too, which he compared to the 1970s redevelopment of the Waverley Park AFL ground, which put the spectators further away from the action.
"Members sort of occupy a space that's much bigger than we actually really require and then because of the set back, the public and other observers are further away," he said.
Mr Ruddock, the Father of the House, agreed the modern chamber was a much less reactive environment that didn't encourage much engagement or repartee in debate.
"But from the point of view of somebody who sat on the committee that helped supervise the building, I think it's served our purpose well," he told AAP.
"I certainly wouldn't go back to working in the old parliament if the offer was there that I could stay here."
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