The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > What Australia needs: another someone to frighten the pants off us > Comments

What Australia needs: another someone to frighten the pants off us : Comments

By Natasha Cica, published 12/7/2006

Mainstream Australians today apparently want to be encastled, ensconced and entombed.

  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. All
What if greed turns out to be just another facet of fear?

What if the size of a dwelling is only a measure of the insecurity of it's inhabitants?

What if the economy turns on an irrational human need for a store of value?

What if value can't be stored - really?

What if we haven't made any progress since the pyramids were built - where it counts?
Posted by Chris Shaw, Carisbrook 3464, Wednesday, 12 July 2006 9:58:36 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Harry should have been made to run up the stairs of Blues Point Tower. Once at the top he should have been made to apologise for the blight on Sydney's skyline and then made to walk the plank.
Posted by Sage, Wednesday, 12 July 2006 1:55:02 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Whilst I agree with the sentiment of Sage's post, I can't agree with the details. Surely we shouldn't have hoped to kill the architect, but rather to demolish the building. The problem with the modernism which "challenges" us as the author things is that there is a cult of the architect. Rather than a building being built finely, to fit into yet enrich the streetscape, as traditional building would dictate, Seidler's modernist towers do not. They show a complete lack of respect for our ancestors who bequeathed us one of the most beautiful Victorian cities, expecting us to continue their work. They show a complete lack of respect for people, who no longer live around builds of a size which they can relate to, and who will be corralled into Le Corbusierian "machines for living" stacked upon one another.

The McMansion is symbolic of the loss of architectural wisdom. Despite the modenrists' plans to raze the great cities of the world and replace them with towers in acres of grass, people have voted with their feet to choose a way of life that is more traditional. Because traditional architecture has not been taught by any university in this nation for about 40-45 years, the basic vernacular which Australian cities had developed was lost. Our oldest and most beautiful suburbs, many being working class suburbs built with a sense of simple beauty and dignity, were often not built by architects, but rather by builders with pattern books and architypes prepared by architects by studying the best possible buildings. McMansions lacks the humility of other traditional buildings, are built on streets which lack the orientations of traditional urbanism, and show that parody of style which occurs when style is itself lost. In order to revive it, the final stage of the cycle of traditional architecture (a style is born, embellished, falls out of fashion, is revived purely, embellished furthur... eg.), we should return to these.

Venice is a city largely of mediocre buildings which seek to fit in with some exceptional ones. The effect, however, of buildings being built in relation to
Posted by DFXK, Wednesday, 12 July 2006 3:14:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
one another is to make a whole greater than its sum parts. The fact that buildings do not seek to be iconic, stand less than 50 metres tall (as the old high-limit in Sydney was), are of local materials and of a traditional style with all the diverse options that such a style encompassed, is the basis of the great cities of the world.

For any local of Sydney, an example of this is the QVB. It is a great example of Romanesque architecture in the Victorian period (http://www.sydneyarchitecture.com/cbd/cbd3-007.htm), taking Venetian and American influences. It is fine, pleasant, and fits in. If you walk south down George street, past the town hall and the Cathedral, there is a 3 story red-brick and sandstone building in the Victorian Romanesque style, once a bank, now KFC, (http://www.sydneyarchitecture.com/cbd/cbd3-004.htm) the detail of which on the sandstone reaffirms subtly the serpentine floral designs and Romanesque round-arches. If you walk north up George street and come to Martin Place, opposite the GPO is the Federation Romanesque Bank of Australiasia (http://www.sydneyarchitecture.com/cbd/cbd5-02.htm), which again hints subtly in its arches to the QVB. Thus is references the past, and fits in, but throws in diversity and novelty nonetheless. The street is thus balanced. The architect's ego is nowhere to be seen. That is the beauty of traditional architecture.

"Big, bold, generous Australian statements of substance. Statements that move us, and maybe even the rest of the world, like the curve of a Seidler staircase."

What is more Australian a statement than a building build from our traditional architecture, with our local materials, for the sake of our future generations who will have these buildings for centuries to come? Why the cultural cringe?

I cannot see how a style known as the "international style" which seeks to detach man from his past is in any way Australia, and how one curl of a staircase can justify the destruction of the amazing richness of architectural heritage that we have.

If you need more proof, look at Seidler's proposal for the "Grollo Tower" in Melbourne. Big, bold, yes, but hardly respectful. (http://www.seidler.net.au/projects/027Frameset.html).
Posted by DFXK, Wednesday, 12 July 2006 3:14:44 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Whether you like Seidler or the Opera House seems beside the point. For such a small population we used to be an adventurous, daring nation. Now we're happy to settle for the blandest version the parochial has to offer.

The older working class areas and new McGated communities offer the atmospheres of their times. Compare the street life of the two and it's scary to think where we're going.
Posted by chainsmoker, Wednesday, 12 July 2006 4:25:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. Page 1
  3. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy