New South Wales Sites
Sydney
Olympic Park, Homebush Bay, Sydney
article published Landscape Australia no 22 (3- 2000)
Debating the Olympics Site Public Space
by Caroline Butler-Bowdon
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- Osmosis at Haslams Pier by Ari Purhonen (Photo courtesy: John Gollings).
- Olympic Plaza at night with Lighting Towers and Stadium Australia in background (Photo courtesy: Bob Peters, Highlight Studios).
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In March 2000, the Museum of Sydney hosted Debating the City 2 Urban Visions, Public Space, the second conference in a series that examines links between built forms and cultural forms in the city
Tensions between public and private space are a perennial subject of urban design debate. At the start of the new millennium in Sydney, the pre-Olympics building boom has rejuvenated the debate.
Public Realm and Democracy
The relationship between urban form and democratic ways of urban life was a recurring theme of the day. Associate Professor Kim Dovey of Melbourne University argued that citizens' right to public space is an essential element of a democratic society-in Lefebvre's famous phrase, a 'right to the city'.
His was a passionate attack, detailing examples of the erosion of public space, tranquillisation of public behaviour and dismantling of democratic control; situations where the spontaneous and authentic diversity of urban public life is replaced by a commodified and ersatz version. Using the example of Melbourne's highly visible urban projects, Doveylisted current expectations of urban designers: to reconcile global/local tensions; to frame 'public' space under new forms of private control, and to legitimate political authority in the face of an eroding democracy.
Not all speakers were as pessimistic about current city trends. Urban design professional Helen Lochhead argued that recently every level of government has responded in some way to community demands for more livable cities and a quality public realm and infrastructure. Lochhead claimed that public interest in the public realm has gained political recognition.
Privatisation of the public realm is not a recent phenomenon, although during the past thirty years we have witnessed the demands of private development accelerating at the expense of the public realm. Her paper discussed the period of significant privatisation of the public realm in 19th century Sydney and compared this with recent development.
Contemporary and Historic Perceptions of Public Space
A major focus for the day was on the green space of Sydney. Dr Ian Hoskins of the Powerhouse Museum used Sydney's Cook and Phillip Park debate to explore contemporary and historic perceptions of parks in Sydney, which entailed attitudes towards culture, nature, heritage and democracy.
He focused on the differing camps for retaining - passive or 'heritage' green space versus the demands of the contemporary urban lifestyle.
He argued that those opposing the project were guilty of a reflexive response to the removal of green space-an automatic aversion to the annexation of nature by culture', regardless of the relative qualities of the nature being annexed or the culture supplanting it. Like Lochhead, Hoskins used 19th century historical context to demonstrate that the controversies we face today have historical precedents. He argued that as community awareness grows, heritage significance has become increasingly contested and complex, and acknowledgement and reconciliation of diverse sentiments more difficult.
This point was underlined by Jennifer Barrett, a lecturer at UWS Nepean. Barrett contended that the idea of public space and its relationship to the concept of democracy are poorly understood. The idea of public space, and its manifestation in physical form must be dynamic, like democracy itself. Barrett focused on the relationship between concepts of democracy and public space and the historical issue of public access, with a focus on the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney and the Domain. Always there have been competing publics and 'public spaces' have been sites of contestation. While the rhetoric of public space may seem inclusive, it tends to be blind to the interests of competing publics.
Both Barrett and Hoskins questioned the belief that parks and gardens offered sites capable of civilising the citizenry; that they offer an opportunity for all sectors of the population to interact.
Indigenous artist and curator, Brenda L. Croft spoke revealingly about the meaning and history of place and heritage sites. Hers was a highly personal paper that challenged the way white Australian history acknowledges places of historical significance. Detailing urban developments that have enforced displacement of indigenous people in neighbourhoods such as her former Redfern, Croft underscored the continuing issues endured by urban Aborigines-including dispossession from their lands. Most copelling was Croft's emphasis that indigenous peoples never think of themselves as owning the land but as caretakers of it and all the responsibilities that this entails.
Sydney Olympic Site
The third theme focused on the Sydney Olympic Games. Dr Charles Pickett of the Powerhouse Museum discussed Olympic Park and Stadium Australia, one of the new precincts to attract debate in the past decade - others include Darling Harbour, Melbourne's Crown Casino and the 'Toaster'. He argued that the relationship between public space and sport has an interesting history, and is not quite the same history as the better known story of Modernist attempts to dominate landscape and cityscape.
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Dr Philip Goad from the University of Melbourne demonstrated that in the last fifty years the Olympic Games have become one of the most powerful and rapid shapers of existing urban form. In each Olympiad, a city re-presents itself to its own nation and to the world. Goad argued that Sydney on the eve of the Gaines seems a more assured, complete and aesthetically consistent phenomenon than Melbourne's more modest post-war effort.
However, despite the differences in scale, Melbourne exhibited an attempt to modernise the city after the deprivations of Depression and war, while Sydney, by contrast, has created a new satellite sports city. Goad was keen to point out that he could only describe the tale of two cities, rather than providing the definitive historical account, as the Sydney Games have not yet opened or been assessed by an international architectural or sport-loving audience. |
Olympic Plaza with Lighting Towers, aerial (Photo courtesy: Mike Horne).
Both Pickett and Goad examined the design of the Olympic Site, at the true demographic centre of Sydney, as an opportunity to resurrect Sydney's western suburbs through the provision of publicly accessible facilities and remediation of a degraded industrial landscape. Pickett argued that much of the debate about the Olympic venues is conducted by people with little experience of these types of buildings and the events they host-and sometimes a fundamental mistrust of their purpose.
Hence this debate has ignored many functional and symbolic shortcomings of the new stadiums. Goad spoke of missed opportunities, stating that the widely perceived mediocrity of several Olympic venues is due to the tendering process via design/construct packages the need to work to tight budgets and deadlines saw the sacrifice of the competitive design process.
The original Olympic Site masterplan placed the major pedestrian avenue running east-west, connecting Homebush Bay and the major venues. The main avenue now runs north-south, terminating in wetlands and minor watercourses, surrounded by a new landscape of exaggerated hills and valleys-a very different result. Nevertheless, both speakers felt that, combined with the Green Games Strategy, the regenerated landscape and new public spaces of the Olympic Site will be widely declared a success. In part this would be because they do not satisfy the expectations of local urbanists, but instead gratify romantic notions of Australia as a refuge from urbanity, rather than a celebration thereof.
Impressions of the Olympic Site
After the conference, Head of Urban Design with the Olympic Coordination Authority, Bridget Smyth, and Philip Goad took a group tour of the major buildings, the public domain and the commissioned public art at Homebush. The group were not overwhelmed with individual masterpieces or the merits of any of the pieces of architecture to become a valued part of the city's collective image.
Rather, the overall impression was of an unassuming consistency of the architecture and public domain, with sonic highlights including the Durbach Block amenities blocks, the Stutchbury Pape Archery Centre, the signage package and the Tonkin Zulaikha multi-functional light towers. The artists' installations make subtle interventions in the sports landscape and draw on the history and contemporary uses of the site.
Acknowledgement
The conference was jointly organised by the Museum of Sydney and the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. Proceedings will be published in an anthology in 2001, contact the Publications Officer, Historic Houses Trust of NSW.
