Tucked away in the centre of town and opening directly to
the main shopping street of Dubbo at the end of a narrow alley, is the Old
Dubbo Gaol. There is something strange in this juxtaposition. The casual,
everyday business of the shopping street is interrupted by the haunting
presence of the past. The gap defined by the void facade is almost ghost-like.
The main street frontage is marked clearly with two buff-coloured, rendered
piers that formally define gaol-place, its location, approach and entrance, as
if the prison had a civic role beyond detention. The street structures reminded
one of the entrance into the churchyard on Union Street in Aberdeen. Doric
columns form a classical, grand gateway opening into the graveyard surrounding
the granite-grey cathedral. The cemetery fills with workers at lunchtime. They
feel comfortable enough to use the table graves as seats. Such is life that
transforms this grave-green area into a civic retreat. There is no one pausing
or eating lunch here in this Dubbo lane, for the place has little joy. It is
grim.
At the end of this dumpy Dubbo alleyway is the entrance into
the gaol with its big, brown doors fitting into a bold, flat-arched opening in
a brick wall, all formally fringed with heavy quoins. These bulky wooden
barriers - they are more than doors - are emboldened with large bolts and
locks, as if to declare their purpose: to separate the outside from the inside,
and vice versa. Through the open leaf one can see yet another enclosure that
adds a further layer of separation. A pair of steel gates with cliché
vertical bars and more large bolts and locks define the purpose of this place
clearly – prison security. This is the lobby of the old gaol that has now been
transformed into a tourist attraction. The change in use gives a different
sense to the markers on the shopping street frontage, creating a less
intimidating gesture, almost a point of welcome. The previous message must have
been much more foreboding, forming the preamble to the threshold of a fearful
future. These pillars are now ceremonial markers for tourists who choose to
seek this place out as though it might have been a palace. The place is signed
by these masonry columns and confirm the arrival of those with maps and tourist
brochures in their hands. Large numbers of visitors stream into this lockup to
envisage its horrors and experience its trauma as theatre. There is a sense of
voyeurism in this visit. On this occasion we were a part of the crowd milling
along the narrow thoroughfare that must have seen much foreboding and sadness.
It certainly was no palace. After moving over the old wooden
setts and through what felt like a guard’s gatehouse, the first glimpse of the
interior space and its buildings was disappointing. The place was small; the
buildings were mere modest sheds and shacks surrounded by paths and green,
well-kept lawns that had the ‘KEEP OFF THE GRASS’ feel. The high brick
perimeter wall made it possible for the shelters to be simple weatherboard and
brick enclosures with light, lean-to roof approaches and covered way links.
Chris, who confidently introduced himself as the ‘Experience Manager,’
recreated the inner world of the gaol in expressive and emotive words that
poured out forcefully and continuously with grand flourishes. He had stories
for everything, grim tales of a horrendous existence. A little well-rehearsed
exaggeration seemed to add some flavour to the message hype, that stimulated
much intrigue and shivering hair-raising chills. After over fifteen minutes of
introducing the group to the gaol, as if it was a warm-up for the real event,
the ‘Experience Manager’ ushered the visitors across to the Male Quarters and
into the ‘black hole,’ the dark room that was isolated for solitary confinement.# It was with much enthusiasm that the group was told that the space was pitch
black and acoustically isolated so that the prisoner who had been put in the
room for twenty-one days, would see no light and hear no sounds or voices over
this period. He would be totally disorientated, truly alone. One wondered how
this confinement might improve things for this unfortunate, recalcitrant
individual. It seemed to be close to torture, a circumstance that might only
aggravate behavioural problems. Little wonder that there was a need for a large
padded cell in this complex.
Guests were invited to experience the room under the guide’s
guidance, illuminated by his torchlight and continuous spiel. The chosen number
moved in through the dark light lock and turned into the abyss. The torchlight
went out and everyone was invited to not see their own hand directly in front
of their own eyes. A great urge of concern surged up and created personal
panic, heightening an immediate desire to get out of this space even after just
a few minutes. Chris’s continuous calamitous chatter did not help calm matters.
What torment had prisoners gone through here? Were there phantom spirits in
this black place? Which person had stood here before? We visited the gaol on a
warm day in spring. The room was nearly stifling. Imagine what it must have
been like in the black of nothingness in the mid-summer heat of the western
plains. In his never-ending chatter, Chris told the small group in the cell
about the inmate’s game of flicking a button off a coat in the room, listening,
and then searching for it. The diversion helped pass the time; but it was time
that the gaolers played with. They would deliver breakfasts within a couple of
hours of each other, and dinner some twelve hours later, just to befuddle the
mind of the prisoner. It must have been a living hell. Was this toying with
lived experience seen as an amusement by those in control? Chris seemed to take
pleasure in telling the story. Sadly, he seemed almost proud of it.
Other stories told of whippings, of head covers that
revealed only the eyes so that no relationships could be developed. The
prisoners had to remain silent too. There was no conversation allowed or aloud.
Only screams could be heard, those of the insane in the padded cell and those
being flogged, or other protesters wishing to make their abusive thoughts
known. Stories continued with gruesome details of the hangings. Chris seemed to
enjoy his job. Did he have nightmares? Could he sleep? Might he have liked
being a gaoler?
Architecturally the gaol was mediocre; ordinary. This is not
to say anything about the place other than one’s expectations of it. It held a
temporary, bush-hut character that jarred; that looked out of context;
temporary, casual, when it was not. The buildings appeared more suited to a
sprawling homestead complex than a lock-up. Other old gaols like those at
Southwest Rocks and Port Arthur held a unique quality of built space and place.
Was it the romance of the ruin that embellished these remnant structures? There
was something civic about them, their form and organisation, that did not seem
to be here; but Dubbo was never a high security prison. Perhaps it was the
sense of meanness, callousness, that made Old Dubbo Gaol difficult to enjoy -
no, appreciate - without a reciprocal feeling arising to pervert ordinary,
unbiased seeing? There was a solid meanness here, something spiteful. The
enclosure had been built on this site and the town had grown around it. This
history explained the unusual location of the gaol today - in the main street
of Dubbo. In its latter days, shortly before it was closed, the prison held
only minor offenders. In one way it looked more suited for this use, apart from
the awful punishment cells and the grim gallows. One wondered if the black
hole, the isolation rooms and the padded cells continued to be used during
these later years: surely not.
As one exited the gaol buildings into the bright light of
the centre court after completing Chris’s chosen lecture circuit, the group
filed out past the gallows. The flight of thirteen, open wooden stairs looked
like any other but for its terminus. Behind this structure that stood centrally
in the yard as if to declare its presence as a constant threatening reminder to
all inmates, was a small toilet shed - a typical dunny. It said everything
about this lack-lustre place that lacked the compassion to stimulate even the
depth of ordinary care and interest. There was something ‘flat’ about it. It
was one dimensional, shallow; no doubt a perception heightened by the horrors
of its past. This situation was not helped by the fact that the gaol had been
tarted up for tourists, with one section converted into a slick video
presentation area with an adjacent display of models of prisoners on show in an
smart, newly decorated exhibition room, complete with photos, crimes, sentences
and life history. It was macabre. Children were being paraded past this array
of figures as though it might be useful for them to see. Was this part of the:
“If you are not a good boy/girl, you will end up like this” story? One felt
uncomfortable. There was a gross insensitivity here that seemed like a
reverberation of earlier attitudes. The video room displayed all the details of
a hanging while children rolled around on the floor nearby, being told by
parents to sit still and listen. The rope noose and its associated
paraphernalia were displayed in the hangman’s box at the rear of this space.
Sadly, it all looked like exotic entertainment. It was time to go.
Later in the afternoon after lunch, the group visited the
Dubbo Zoo. This was a zoo with a great reputation. We had visited it some years
ago, so it would be good to see it again. Returning to places previously
visited is always of interest as it says something about yourself as well as
the place. The zoo’s reputation was that it held animals humanely in open
countryside without cages, making it sound ‘compassionate,’ if a zoo can ever
be this.
The first stop led us to a caged off area that had been
closed. There is little worse than seeing empty enclosures at zoos. A stench of
departure, of failure, hangs there. What has gone where? So we strolled on
despondently to the rhino nearby. Numerous signs repeatedly told us what was
where. One lonely rhino stood in a fenced area on the side most distant from
the people gawking at it, in a well-worn, dusty zone. This fellow did not look
too delighted or too ‘free.’ It was a dismal sight to see a proud animal so
demeaned; so obviously disheartened, lonely. The next stop was the wild dogs. There
was a clear sequence to this place. The dogs had a lovely, light, prancing gait
that oddly took the dogs along a well-worn trail. The contrast made one ponder:
was there happiness in the gait, or was it just native habit layered over
boredom?
Nearby the giraffes could be seen standing in the far
distance. Surprisingly they slowly sauntered over towards the visitors, led by
the huge male. The rangers were setting up. It was feeding time. Those who had
purchased a ticket could give a giraffe a carrot. Zoos cater for all
experiences as if on demand. The giraffes knew this too, so they all came over,
young and old, as if trained to perform. But the older animals left soon after
arrival and a supercilious surveillance of the crowd, to chew on fodder strung up
high in a tree some distance away. They seemed to leave the feeding
re-enactment to the inexperienced younger ones with some arrogant contempt that
looked promising. These animals had style and attitude. They were indeed
marvellous creatures. Of all the enclosures observed this day, it was this one
that appeared the most ‘unenclosed.’ A log barrier wall and a deep ditch were
sufficient to keep the giraffes in their defined zone.
We drove on to look at: the hippo, two; the cheetah, one;
the elephants, two; the tigers, two; the otters, two; zebra, five; the
Galapagos tortoise, one; ostriches, three; and sundry other deer and the like.
On reflection there was no great quantity of animals here, nor was there great
happiness. All the creatures looked jaded and gloomy. One was reminded of the
prisoner in the dark room. The poor tortoise stood close to the barrier and had
to tolerate the indignity of the poking and prodding of both children and
adults who should have known better; but perhaps this was the only excitement
it had in life?
One tiger kept walking up and down a well-worn track along a
wired fence, growling manically to a colleague nearby, but out of sight. What
experience were these animals going through? The poor cheetah had no space for
pace, unable to get any speed up in his run. It was left to stroll along the
water edge of the island that fenced it in: back and forth; forth and back.
Even the otters that seemed lively and brisk were undertaking a repetitive
routine, a cycle of: run to the glass; race to the hutch; race out of the
water; sit on the rock; swim to the glass; get out and run to the glass; race
to the hutch; etc. – forever and ever. They might as well have been flicking a
button and looking for it in the dark.
Then it occurred to one that Dubbo was a gaol town, chosen
for its remoteness not only for men and women, but also for the zoo animals. Is
there really such a thing as a humane zoo? – indeed, a humane gaol? Can any zoo
hold animals in a way different to the way the Old Dubbo Gaol once held men and
women? No matter how we might feel about things, the animals are always
enclosed, hindered, controlled. This visit emphasized the captivity of these
creatures, not their promoted wandering in hundreds of acres. Come to think of
it, if the animals had the option, they would be kilometres away from visitors,
so they had to be controlled for their public exhibition. It is only to our
eyes that they might seem to be ‘free’ of bars. There were no bars, but there
were barriers that must have meant the same to the animals inside. Only we have
the luxury of reading glee or satisfaction into the existence of these creatures
as a part of our entertainment experience: visit; look; see; move on for more
excitement; go home and seek yet more diversions in any manner possible.
One can recall Lebutkin’s penguin pool at London zoo and
admire its sweeping interlocking ramps as a beautiful design. But what did the
penguins think of it? They made a marvellous spectacle, but this seemed to
please only the observer who saw cheeky little birds quaintly waddling along
slick, new, ‘designed’ concrete paths in smart dinner suits. I now recall the
very sad sight of beautiful king parrots at Mudgee held in a cage about two
metres by one metre, two metres high, along with several other smaller parrot
species. We are holding our fauna with the same disregard that we once showed
to ourselves, and managing our flora similarly.
What should occur? If man was not so spiteful and greedy, he
might consider giving some space to other species in this world, to acknowledge
that they too have a role to play in this place. Diversity needs to be enhanced
rather than curtailed. We need to be much more responsive and careful with our
environment, not only for matters ‘green,’ but also for the well-being of
everything and everyone - men, women, flora, fauna. There is a wholeness that
needs our attention now, for without such care, the zoos that boast that they
are saving species will only be participating in their destruction, perhaps more
slowly and differently, but destruction it will be. And if we lose this fauna
and flora, then we lose a part ourselves too. Only last week, (mid-February
2014), a zoo in Holland self-righteously killed a giraffe and fed it publicly
to the lions because of inbreeding. Why? The spectacle? Why not let those who
wanted it take it. One did not have to breed from this animal that seemingly
came into existence just because of zoos. It was a sad farewell for this animal
as it was for us. Dubbo Zoo was not the exhilarating place one had hoped for.
It was not the place remembered. Maybe the memories had been made more chirpy
and pleasant because of our children who had bounced around excitedly on seeing all
of these variations of nature many years ago. The zoo really was a gaol.
At the end of the gaol tour, Chris bid everyone a good
morning and offered his best wishes to the group for the remainder of the day.
Then, after ten strides, he started his spiel yet again with a new group that
was going to have its ‘experience’ of the gaol managed too. There was something
cold and calculating here that reverberated through Dubbo Zoo too. Experience
was being redirected, manipulated, when true feelings, less managed, might have
stimulated other responses.
Architecturally one has to ask: who designed the gaol; the zoo? Who envisaged the experiences of torture, punishment, frustration and enclosure? What is an architect’s role in all of this? Those who have designed gaols argue that they use the opportunity to better the souls that become involved in these places. Can this really be so? Can design change people in such a manner in such a place? There is the enjoyment of having good design fit a circumstance of body, its size, sensing, touch, and purpose, functionally and emotionally, positively; but is this life-changing or merely enhancing? What is there to enhance in a prison? What ambitions might one have for any design? Indeed, what is design? – see: http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/what-is-design.html
For more on design, see:
and
http://voussoirs.blogspot.com.au/2011/04/design-controls.html
# Louis Kahn: 'A room is not a room without natural light.'
# Louis Kahn: 'A room is not a room without natural light.'
