Paul Costigan
August 2006
On a recent visit to Adelaide I took the time to meander along North Terrace cultural precinct. As with previous visits, it soon becomes obvious that the main reason for locals to use this site is to quickly enter or exit one of the university buildings along the terrace. Others, being tourists and cultural seekers, wander by to visit the museum, gallery or the library.
As Mads Gaardboe commented previously in Landscape Australia (Nov 2005), the extensive landscape architecture works by Taylor Cullity Lethlean have completely rejuvenated the terrace. They have delivered a variety of spaces, choices in how one travels through the area, and tantalising visual engagement through a variety of plantings as well as sculptural pieces. The work by Taylor Cullity Lethlean alone is worth the visit and I am sure many tourists have filled their digital flash cards with JPEGs to be taken home for the relatives.
However besides a place for rushing through, I would imagine that the terrace was also meant to provide opportunities for promenading, for quietly sitting, meeting with fiends and for just taking the time to watch the passing pedestrian traffic. This last task I undertook even though it was a cold winter day.
Again I was reminded that Mads Gaardboe and others had observed that the amenity of Adelaide’s North Terrace suffers from the many lanes of traffic and the rudeness of the architecture on the far side of the street. No matter how wonderful the new landscape works are, when one sits amongst it the buildings opposite loom large. This even more so as they are now being extended even higher with many floors of apartments being plonked on top of the already not-attractive car park. The result is that these unpleasant tall lumps of structures uncomfortably overshadow the more human scaled cultural architecture along this part of North Terrace.
Then to add to this discomfort, the ambience of North Terrace is also being wrecked by some of the world’s noisiest buses. There seems to be an endless stream of these roaring and fume belching machines. No one could possibly hold a peaceful conversation or spend time in quiet meditation along North Terrace because of the local public transport as it thunders down alongside what should otherwise be one of the great public spaces.
Meanwhile back in the home town of Canberra, the National Capital Authority (NCA) had set out in a splurge of publicity to convince the good citizens to agree to a change in legislation which would bring forth massive new developments along the northern side of Lake Burley Griffin. This all in the name of their Griffin Legacy.
The more curious ventured to briefings and to the public display to understand the proposals. At one of these public events, the link was constantly being made between the Griffin Legacy and the proposal to build lots of buildings; and I mean lots of new buildings. The architects and developers could hardly believe their eyes and ears. Such droolings were almost unbearable.
One such key site is to be West Basin. Having lived in Canberra for many years, I have to admit that I have rarely ventured along the shores of West Basin. This being the space to the ‘west’ of Commonwealth Bridge – to the present site of the National Museum of Australia.
A stroll or two later and it soon becomes obvious how golden an opportunity this site could be for Canberra to be put on the map again as a city where the landscape comes first. I would be urging those involved to slow down the push for building and buildings and buildings, and to think first about landscape, amenity, health, well-being, environment, and global warming.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if West Basin was developed as an engaging landscape, complete with a range of landscape experiences. Then the architectural solutions (read buildings) could be designed to respond to the landscape, amenity, health, well-being, environment, and issues of global warming.
We should hope that this site could be a new example of the art of survival. And one can only wonder how Marion and Walter would have proposed a landscape solution to West Basin, especially as one would imagine that they would indeed have considered landscape, amenity, health, well-being, environment, and issues of global warming.
The challenge for Adelaide is that they have inherited a wonderfully designed landscape in North Terrace. Now other competing urban pressures, namely imposing high rise and traffic noise, need to be addressed before the very successful work by Taylor Cullity Lethlean can be truly enjoyed.
Whereas in Canberra, the decision makers need to think from a contemporary Walter and Marion perspective. If these two people were to revisit Canberra today and apply their collective intelligences to the current issues of landscape, amenity, health, well-being, environment, and issues of global warming, what would they now propose? Will we one day see local citizens and their international guests promenading along West Basin and being proud that Canberra is again a city about landscapes.
And now to promenade elsewhere!
>> photo essay pages on the AILA project pages: North Terrace and West Basin
Paul Costigan, August 2006
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