TRANSFORMING CANBERRA

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Already, after WWI, these influences were evident. As Berlin-based Professor of Planning History Karl Fischer notes in his seminal history of Canberra 1 , the increased civic importance attached to military rank became quickly apparent. In a sorry tale that seems now like a harbinger of the Sydney Opera House tale, ex-WWI officers would consistently mock Griffin and disparage his ideas. The Sulman Committee, emboldened by this philosophical shift, then set about reducing the Griffins’ plan. With ruthless efficiency they cut the City Beautiful town centre down to a more modest practicality and transformed its residential hinterland from a low-rise but urban concept to a conventional garden suburb. Twenty years later, when construction recommenced after WWII, the influence of both militarism and instrumentalism (in the form of cost-cutting and traffic engineering) became even more pronounced. Streets that had been envisioned as dense but low-rise local high streets, busy with pedestrian life and public transit, were transformed into four and six-lane vehicular highways. The surrounding residential areas became even more dispersed, forming a suburban diaspora of far-flung satellite towns islanded by remnant “bush” and linked by high-speed roads. Proposals to make public service positions and land releases exclusive to ex-servicemen increased the military’s influence throughout the Federal capital. Not surprisingly, this militarism has continued, over ensuing decades, to shape the plan in tangible ways. The site at the bottom of Mt Ainslie that the Griffins had designated “casino” – meaning a lively Tivoli-esque pleasure garden - became the War Memorial. Leading to it, the Griffins’ great green boulevard became a red marching-ground aligning the War Memorial with the parliament itself. And the third, eastern point of the Federal triangle – which the Griffins designed “market centre” – became instead the military base of Duntroon. Clearly, then, the Canberra we have is not the Canberra the Griffins intended, but rather the Canberra preferred by a cut-and-paste committee-based administration dominated by traffic engineers and military men. But the question remains. What should happen next? What city form will best deliver the desired urban intensity without destroying what is good about Canberra? Will the ACT government’s current headlong push for high-rise development help that transformation or hinder it? Already much has changed. At first, some fifteen years ago, this seemed welcome. When New Acton appeared, with its signature combination of funky high-rise and narrow coffee-lanes, it seemed just what the doctor ordered. Suddenly, thanks to Melbourne architects Fender Katsalidas, Canberra had moments of explorability. It had narrow walkable lanes and Melbourne-type cafes, nooks and crannies, streets to be in, not just rampage through. Next off the rank, Kingston Foreshore also brought welcome change. Large but low-rise, it brought walkable streets and paths, interesting cafes and bars, a new relationship with the water. These two neighbourhoods seemed to continue what Civic and Manuka had begun, decades earlier. Braddon, with its busy brunch strip, started to do something similar at heights somewhat between NewActon’s 17 storeys and Kingston’s 2-4. Of course, you still had to drive on motorways between these pockets of civilisation but, pockets there were. This push to urban density, somewhat along Griffin lines, was further reinforced by the construction of the North Canberra light rail from Gungahlin to Civic (and now funded for Stage 2, across the lake to Woden). In parallel, though, a number of less enchanting developments occurred, including the appalling mallsprawl at Majura Park. This vast big-box shopping centre – which claims to be “conveniently located at the airport” but still entails a significant drive from the shops to plane and even, in fact, between the 1 K.F. Fischer, Canberra: Myths and Models; forces at work in the formation of the Australian capital (Institute of Asian Affairs, Hamburg) 1984 2
shops (the Bunnings to the Woollies is half a kilometre) – entrenches automobile dependence and directly contradicts all moves towards densification. The militarism, too, continues apace – with the post 9/11 repositioning of the immense ASIO building on Parkes Drive, the strewing of Anzac Parade with ever more war-sculptures (Tobruk, Korea, Vietnam) and the half-billion-dollar knockdown-rebuild of the Denton Corker Marshall War Memorial museum, currently proposed. A small but significant detail, also noted by Prof Fischer, is the extraordinary exercise in what can only be called official fraud 2 that saw the NCA commission and hang a foyer tapestry that, although designed by architect Daryl Jackson, purports to be the Griffin plan. And so it is, identical – excepting one key alteration. The eastern point of the Federal triangle has been changed from “market”, as the Griffins had it, to “military.” There is no acknowledgement of this amendment and the lettering is carefully selected to seem original. A further factor was the 1988 withdrawal by the Federal government from funding responsibility for much of the ACT. This has meant that the light rail is funded by “value capture” from selling off public land – in particular the sites of often well-designed but badly maintained public housing - on Northbourne Avenue and elsewhere. Two ill effects have resulted. First, public tenants have been exiled to the back of beyond, far beyond the reach of services or decent public transport. And second, Northbourne Avenue, the city’s primary approach road, with a new crop of high-rise buildings that are neither blocks nor towers, but something in between like bungalows grown tall. You might wonder what is wrong with this. If sprawl is the problem, surely density is the answer? Well no. Density alone is not enough. Of all the core urban qualities that Canberra lacks – surprise, spatial drama, mystery – the key is the capacity to delight and seduce the pedestrian. Pedestrians engage with cities in a slow and intimate manner that enhances curiosity and engagement and in turn encourages in the city’s fabric a textured quality I have called pokability. This is a word that does not exist, but should, because it is the key quality of cities – Rome, Venice, London – that we love to walk around, just for the sake of it. This is all about scale and shape at ground level – the bumps and crevices, innies and outies, that offer glimpses and enticement to the pedestrian without every quite satisfying the curiosity. It involves streets that are sufficiently narrow and comfortable, but also interesting and enriching, to make the pedestrian want to dwell, to explore, to poke about. It requires comfort. A little sunshine, not too much wind, a deal of intimacy and visual and spatial stimulus. Shops, laneways, cafes, galleries – small things that reward the spirit of exploration. True, New Acton, Braddon and Kingston Foreshore have a little of this. Civic has the odd underground bar. But there’s almost nowhere else. Kingston is low rise and largely pedestrianised. Acton is high rise, but the streets are carefully crooked and narrow; rooms as much as thoroughfares. What is happening elsewhere has none of these qualities. No effort is made to enrich pedestrian experience or choreograph it in interesting ways. Almost everything is evident and predictable. Streets have little definition and therefore no sense of containment, no drama, no surprise. Much of Canberra’s fine mid-century architecture is being destroyed for an urban fabric that still offers no real sense of city. What can be done? 2 3
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TRANSFORMING CANBERRA

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