RETURNING TO BRISBANE - THE DEMISE OF PLANNING

BRISBANE - RIVER CITY

Leaving the airport

Welcome to Brisbane

It was some years ago before Shetland had experienced the full impact of the ‘boom’ from the oil industry that developed in the nearby North Sea regions. The changes that all the money from this discovery brought to the islands had not yet had time to transform the place, but the signs were there. Money was available for the seeding of some fields: the islands would now be greener than ever before. Yet the pattern of the years of crofting history still maintained their natural rhythm. We visited Unst, the cliché ‘most northerly’ island, and spent six weeks there in conditions that were pleasant and basic: homely – we were amongst family and friends on a croft. Crofts still grew their potatoes, neeps, (turnips), and kale, and killed their own lambs for meat. The typical croft milking cow had just been replaced by bottled milk from the local store; muesli could now be purchased too, to replace the oat gruel; this was progress: but folk were still substantially, sustainably, self-sufficient, just as they had been for centuries, past years when the typical pattern of croft life meant a happy co-operation with the land, each other, and the seasons. 

Moving into suburbia

Suburban variety

We were greeted by our uncle in a nearby field; he was building a haystack with the croft worker/handyman who still remains nostalgic about these times. There is the classic harvest photograph of everyone leaning against the huge pile of cut oats, happily fatigued in brilliant sunshine: it was late summer. We helped the following day with the cutting of another field below the cottage, and assisted in the making of the stooks. It was unusually hard, manual work for us, but was considered nothing other than a part of the normal life on the croft: the memory holds a sentiment and a yearning.

Today, grass is cut, baled and wrapped in plastic for silage by clever machines that trim, tumble, turn, and pack, wrap, and stack, a sequence that takes a few days and provides interesting bundles of glossy black cylinders piled up for winter feed. Only a few folk grow anything for the kitchen now, as supplies can be readily purchased at the local stores; Lerwick has its Co-op and Tesco too. Haystacks are rarely seen today, and stooks are a thing of the past. The landscape has lost its sequential summer field patterns, forms and textures, but the land remains a marvellous changing patchwork of colour, varying as it does with the timing of the cut, starting with the green grass that develops a purple haze in seed, that turns to a pale ochre when cut; to be transformed into a fresh lime green within a couple of weeks regrowth, to darken back to the original hue, and then quickly change to a richer, more mellow beige with the chilly late autumn winds, dying off for winter. The cycle begins again next spring when the fresh shoots of green re-appear through the bronzed, copper-coloured farmlands.

This time, years ago, is recalled not only because of our arrival, our first visit, or the six-week stay, but also, ironically, because of our departure. After this sojourn in these casually different croft/country conditions, where street lighting did not exist – electricity, water, and sewers had just been installed across the island in the late 1960s – the occasion was memorable because of our leaving. Transport across the islands was by bus; between the islands one travelled by open boat. There were no RO-RO ferries as exist today. At Toft, on the northern Mainland, one got the final bus into Lerwick after sharing two to cross Yell. It was this return to Lerwick that was astonishing.

The anomaly at Albion (a suburb, not Blake's primeval man)

After the simple, basic life on the croft, Lerwick glittered with an excitement of shops, lights, signs, and people – commerce and its energies - in a glowing, busy, intense density that was exhilarating for the eye and spirit. It was a true marvel to return to after so many different weeks away in such happy, isolated croft existence in Shetland’s stark and naked hills, when potatoes and neeps were dug up for each meal, and kale cut; fish and eggs would be brought in by friends and neighbours; a lamb might be killed for meat; sausages, ‘puddings,’ mealy, sweet, and black, were made in the kitchen; and the peat fire provided the glow for homely warmth. We can recall the uncle’s amazement at our wonder, our marvelling at such simple things that were so familiar to him and his family, so ordinary. It was the first time uncle had seen a map of his island that he knew so well, like the proverbial ‘palm of his hand.’

A glimpse of the CBD

So it was that, after a long sojourn overseas, we were looking forward to our return to Brisbane. Might one again experience this special buzz? The A380 gave a comfortable flight from Dubai, and a gracious landing; it is always astonishing how huge machines can touch down so gently: then the tensions started to rise. The taxiing into the airport building seemed to take a long fifteen minutes, aggravated by passengers jumping up in uncontrolled anticipation, grabbing their overhead luggage while the plane was still moving in spite of the announcements for all to remain seated.

Inner City Bypass

Everyone expected a shorter trip into the terminal and was keen to move on after the 14 hour flight. Eventually, following another fifteen minutes waiting for passengers to progressively leave the plane, we found ourselves at the most distant gate from the arrivals area. Another ten minutes hike, and one was squeezed through the duty free shop, then into the immigration area: click, in! After travelling the full width of the terminal’s baggage reclaim area to get a trolley, the next task was to retrieve the bags. One felt like a participant in a life-size Monopoly game, what with the required, sequential demands by way of rule: “Park here;” “Pay tax;” “Go to jail.” We hoped to avoid the latter move.

As the mobile pile of luggage stacked up on the conveyor belt, (well, segments – it was not one belt), one was alarmed at the risk involved in the collection of one’s bag. Had not the Workplace, Health and Safety officer seen this shambles, where moving bags were piled up three deep, forcing folk to reach and lift over an awkward distance with a tricky, balancing stance that involved constant movement? The act of bag retrieval and handling, once an item had been identified and reached, ended up in such a desperately eager pull, a quick, uncontrolled, ill-considered, frenzied yank, that nearby passengers waiting patiently for their bags to materialise were frequently nearly crushed under the flying masses being whipped out of the shambles. One had to be patient, and stand and watch every bag go by, and go by again and again, as the luggage was progressively heaved out, with every bag looking just like yours. It was a shared experience; folk reached, pulled, looked and frequently replaced, as they jumped aside for those who thought that they had their bag – at last, maybe. Some twenty minutes later, the real bags appeared. We had survived the ordeal – so far: now “Go to Customs.”

The CBD - central Brisbane

The freeway that fringes the CBD, cutting it off form the river

Once the bags were on the trolley, one had to re-orientate one’s position in the arrivals space and work out where to go next. It was not immediately obvious, such was the chaos. There was a shambles of travellers not knowing what to do; but one eventually discovered the organisation after quizzing the uniformed observer there to assist: there was a line about half a kilometre long snaking through the space between the baggage conveyors. The area seemed to have outgrown its usefulness, such was the mess. In the distance one could see the officials studying the declarations and determining the next step. One eventually arrived to be interrogated, and was redirected to another check point because one was carrying sugar-free chocolate - food! Another direction was then given for our feet to be placed on the painted black shoe prints on a green strip. We soon discovered this was a dog checkpoint. After passing this sniff test, there was a further interrogation: “Do you have any fruit?” “No.” “Go.” We had survived the travails of the trials, or so we thought. At last we were free to line up for a cab. Outside, after weaving through the empty chicane, we arrived into the hands of the uniformed taxi organiser who directed us to a small sedan, in spite of the quantity of our luggage. Three items fitted awkwardly into the boot; the remaining four had to be squeezed uncomfortably between us on the back seat: we had arrived in Brisbane.

The tower is the centre of government in Queensland.

It was erected to provide new government office space to allow other buildings to be demolished for a new casino.

Freeway views for car watching

“Which way do you want to go?” After giving specific instructions to the driver, the taxi moved off in a direction of its own choice, weaving through areas not seen for years. There was no delight at our return. The grim spaces surrounding the airport now included a somewhat intimidating Federal Police building; many storage service areas; a discount shopping centre; and a complex road system that seemed to try to match the worst of any American city. Driving along this uninviting, interweaving of highways, one finally gets to traffic lights that mark the transition into suburbia: the toll tunnel was avoided by most vehicles. It was truly a depressing beginning; we passed a shambles of six-packs, newer units, a scattering of shops, individual post-war houses, and a few Queenslanders that had been ‘fixed up.’

The suburbs are growing up

There was no joy in this muddled mess of sundry infrastructure that provided nothing for simple, comfortable, ordinary, pleasant living. It all looked like an effort; a struggle to be there. Units overlooked other units and houses; homes overlooked other houses; industrial developments and commercial developments seemed to pop up in between willy-nilly. The self-conscious, inventively ad hoc adaptation of the ‘screen’ seemed to be the main theme of this urban clutter where everyone appeared to seek out some ingenious way to get a little privacy and shelter, protection from other people and the elements: but why was there no delight at being back in the home of the unique, traditional Queenslander? Even passing the few of these traditional buildings that remained, left one shuddering with awkward embarrassment, either because of the transformation or the context.

The revamped 'Queenslander' in its new suburban mix

In the distance one could see the set of pencils that has become the CDB, the stabbed ‘heart’ of Brisbane: there was no joy here either. One wondered why one was was so depressed. The place looked like a shanty town trying to grow up. David Malouf spoke of the town as a shanty town in his novel Johnno, but this referred to a naive, poetic quality that the place had in the innocence of the 1950s. There was nothing poetic in this confusing, self-conscious bedlam. One thought that the mess of Dubai was preferable to this ad hoc ‘civic’ muddle that appeared to have no guiding principles or plans.^

The suburbs are the streets; the streets are the suburbs

A shopping node

At least Dubai was permeated with references to its decorative past. Even if these might be crass and crude, they did offer some continuity, touch on some idea of coherence, place: then there was the call to prayer that enriched things rude and ordinary, adding the Merciful to the everyday, reminding people of another world of things subtle and rich. Brisbane looked like a botched havoc in a silent void of traffic noise that lacked any apparent coherence; it stood as a bits-and-pieces accumulation of whatever. It was lacking in inspiration; just bland. It was sad to see that even the old homes were so transformed, deformed by their tarting up, their careless additions, their ill-considered contexts, that they no longer became the identity of this place that loves to select parts of images of these structures as its graphic logos, to illustrate the ‘subtropical Brisbane,’ ‘River City,’ ‘Most Liveable City,’ as the jargon goes, whatever this means. Actually, Brisbane is ranked fourth in Australia, and eighteenth in the world, when it comes to ‘liveability.’ How on earth is this measured?

NOTE:

All of the images above have been taken from Google Street View and illustrate, in the same sequential order, the route taken on the trip into the city and its suburbs from the airport.

Plainland

Crowley Vale

The house

The highway

A day after our return, we had to drive to Sugarloaf Mountain just west of Toowoomba. The country is dust-dry with only a few patches of green where irrigation or home sprinklers encourage growth, but it is still impressive with fuzzed, distant mountain views and fluffy clouds gleaming and beaming in the warmth of the low afternoon sunlight. It was just after The Big Orange, on the cleverly-named Darren Lockyer Way, (Darren Lockyer was a footballer; this is the Lockyer Valley!), on the highway a little beyond the turn off to Laidley, that faith was restored. Standing assured but neglected next to a large, shady tree was an empty shell of a cottage, a typical Queenslander. It looked delicately beautiful. One passed it again on the return trip, looked, and admired it some more. Might the magic come from its derelict state, its indifference? Could it be accruing an attractiveness, its romance, as a lost ruin, a ghosted folly? It really seemed to be in unusually reasonable condition.

Travelling east along the A2

The house appears in the distance

The little house held a wonderful identity, a clarity and beauty in its classic simplicity – its truncated hip shaped the western wall and dipped down over the northeast corner verandah, with French doors in a patterned braced wall, opening onto an open edge finely framed with a grid of slim white posts. It was extremely elegant, ‘pure’ might be the best word. There was no gentrification here; no pretence. Its presence highlighted how prettified the Brisbane suburban Queenslander had become with its decorated ‘restorations.’ These presented a faux identity of slick smartness, a re-invention that was not evident in the little humble, honest building just beyond Plainland at Crowley Vale. Indeed, this name, Plainland, seemed to say it all; ‘plain,’ but still astonishing; perhaps because of this? One regained faith in being back in Australia, in Queensland, by admiring the raw heritage of this place after glimpsing this ordinary delight on the edge of its field. Sadly it is a heritage that, in the suburbs, has become suave allure rather than simple wonder. We need to study this little ‘plain’ structure to learn what architecture can be: how it can charm place in nature, and vice versa.

The house and the trees

That this little gem stands alone says something too – that our planning is in a chaotic state. We no longer know how to put things together. I have in other texts argued that planning is a profession that needs to be abolished if it is unable to become more rigorous, and be concerned with real outcomes rather than the perfection of paper procedures. Brisbane is a prime example of this. This urban/civic mess has been planned! What better example might one have for the argument that serious change is required in the planning profession? One could also make a case for change in the architectural profession too, but it seems that planning is far more critically in need of transformation than anything architectural, as planners hold the power, and are defining our places with verbal concepts, written rules, and cliché ambitions, offering nothing for coherence or meaning; seemingly knowing nothing of these qualities, and caring nothing for them, for what has become known as ‘the sense of place.’ Ironically it is this quality that sees tourists flock to old cities across the world; to other places that do have some rigour, integrity, identity, and coherence.

An array of simple geometries

The concern is that planners give no thought to results. We need plans that are more than broad outlines that begin negotiations to fabricate one-off deals and ad hoc trade-offs again and again. Of course, one must care personally and professionally about things subtle and otherwise, in their wholeness, if feelings are to be considered at all. Anyone who has dealt with planners will soon discover their priorities; they are what has given us Brisbane today! Planners appear to thrive on words and ticked boxes alone: they seem to view the world through clauses, and look to be dismissive of simple logic. The effort to point out any inconsistency to a planner is usually just a waste of time, such is their stubbornness, their commitment to process alone. One seems to be talking a language that planners know nothing about. It is an approach that can only give the ‘Brisbane’ outcome, the ‘self-important, shanty-town-shambles’ identity.^

Touching the ground slightly

While we might admire the stand-alone beauty of the little shack, even in its state of neglect, the task is to try to understand how habitation can become a gathering, a collective, that can be experienced likewise, but on a different scale and density. The question is: ‘where can one commence given our starting point has been so fumbled?’ One response is to begin; to start by doing little things well; then again, and again, responsively and responsibly, consistently, with rigour, doing the same so that eventually we might get one tiny gathering, a minute assemblage, then another, and another; the future possibility is that these wondrous accumulations might join into one to become an enriched and enriching complexity that we can love and look forward to returning too. Does anyone’s heart yearn for Brisbane as it is, a bespoke clutter, apart from cliché nostalgia, in the same way as one’s feelings for the deserted place past Plainland linger with a longing and love? - if only.

A glimpse of a delicate lightness and transparency

A fine precision of patterns; a pattern of precision

The hoped-for excitement experienced in the return to Lerwick so many years ago dissipated into disappointment on our return to Brisbane. Sadly, one knows the local response; it is the usual brash and bullish, blind Aussie, “Oi! Oi! Oi!”; the careless indifference to things subtle and meaningful:

“Listen mate. If ya ’renhappy with tha place as ’tis, then bugger orf ’n go elsewhere.”

“There’s nothin’ wrong with Brisbaine, ya whingin poofter bastard.”

“D’ya wanna notha beer Jack?”

“I gotta karton; lets go!”

“Dya rekon a c… like that ‘oud no betta, eh?”

“Smart-arse f’n arketexs!”#

Friends

The trees like the house, just as the house likes the trees

One can only dream of a city as committed to an idea in the same way as the little house near Plainland is rooted in its ideals of ordinary, effortless beauty, at which one can merely marvel.

Trees and house as one

Floating effortlessly in the dappled shade

^

The planning mess seems to be a problem for other cities: see the recent ABC News article on Gold Coast planning - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-18/gold-coast-lost-mojo-development-throws-character-into-question/11594642 . The statements by Philip Follent are puzzling; perhaps nostalgic? He was once the Gold Coast city architect who reportedly pushed for the approval of one of the tallest city structures. His subsequent role as the inaugural professor of architecture at the Abedian School of Architecture at Bond University, gave him a position in which he could start changing attitudes; but . . .

Identity and place mysteriously defined as a habitation beside the raw and racy A2

NOTE:

All of the images of the highway and the house above have been taken from Google Street View and illustrate the experience of the drive through Crowley Vale east along the A2.

P.S.

It's as if they care,+ when so much else is ignored:

Telstra and city councils head to court over new 3m-tall phone - see: boothshttps://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/oct/20/telstra-and-city-councils-head-to-court-over-new-3m-tall-phone-booths
+ c.f. Eric Bogle's As If He Knows

#
NOTE
30th October 2019

The dilemma of the architect in society today can, in one way, be suggestively sensed in the words of Humphrey Spender in Jon Lys Turner’s The Visitors’ Book In Francis Bacon’s Shadow: The Lives of Richard Chopping and Denis Wirth-Miller Constable 2017, page 133:

It is only too easy to allow distractions to erode determination eroding ‘one more new botched beginning’, to quote my brother Stephen. I think our predicament is to do with the validity of our occupation in a society which seems to shout that the energies should be used to heal the wounds of the human race (World War 2) rather than to indulge our own creative urges. Certainly our society doesn’t very clearly define roles for creative people.

One might say that the wounds today relate to the practical problems of culture and society, and economics, rather than the inherent emotional matters.