| In this town called Sydney there is this crazy idea that wrecking a
beautiful city in the name of economic growth somehow makes the city big
time, that slippery oxymoron, a 'global' city. Instead of building
places which promotes beauty, sustainability and public participation we
get the kind of 'built profit' which is too witless to even be kitsch.
It's the Australian Ugliness
on steroids, everywhere, as charmless and unimaginative as it is
profitable. Even the greediest New York developer would never expect to
build a forty five storey hotel in the East River, let alone the Hudson,
and yet exactly such a monstrosity has been approved for construction
in Sydney Harbour, at Barangaroo, the ne plus ultra of Sydney urban planning disasters. Now a group of over fifty eminent Sydney architects, planners and academics has produced an alternative design for the site. Their scheme, A Better Barangaroo,
is a serious contribution because it visualizes an alternative: less
greedy, less wasteful, more logical with more public space, smaller
buildings, more sunshine and just as much profit as the notorious Lend
Lease scheme. The best argument against bad architecture is good
architecture, not just a good argument. A Better Barangaroo is not
magic, one could quibble that it is too conservative, too accepting of a
flawed premise and yet that part of the point — the fact that this is
what is possible following true blue tried and true urban design
principles demonstrates how bad the official plan is, and how stupendous
a really visionary design could be. Any number of architects, planners,
students or architecturally-trained chimpanzees could produce any
number of alternative Barangaroos better than the official Barangaroo, which is more of an advertising campaign than a neighbourhood. The alternative is here
for all to see. We can still get this right. Many smart people have
made every conceivable argument against the unfolding travesty of
Barangaroo. They have been wilfully mischaracterised at every turn. Is
anyone with any power even listening anymore?
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