Canberra has been described to me as variously: 'that soulless city', a 'shuddering vaccuum of Australian ennui' and, more succinctly, 'the Hole'. My expectations, therefore, were understandably high for my first trip to Our Nation's Capital.
Strictly speaking, I have been to Canberra before: I've driven through many times on the way to and from the snow. Canberra at 3am bears up remarkably well, when compared to Cooma at 2am. I also attended a protest outside parliament last year, but never penetrated the surrounding city any further than the wall of Federal police.
Canberra's location is the outcome of a bad bet: that Australians simply wouldn't countenance an inland city. They didn't count on Canberra's central planners (motto: Non es Non Pussies). Before you could spell; Queanbeyan, Canberra was on paper.
Canberra's location also answered the enduring tug of war between Sydney and Melbourne. As the new capital, it was supposed to be situated halfway between both. Unfortunately, the original planners set out from Sydney, in a wobbly Model T Ford with no air conditioning. Canberra is located at precisely the point where a Family Bag of Minties runs dry. Canberra's eventual position was harbinged by a momentous discussion that went something like this:
"Awwww, Plimmers farted again, and he's totally hogging the abacus!"
"Don't make me come back there."
"OW! He hit me!"
"I WILL TURN THIS THING AROUND.....alright, that's it! Everyone OUT!"
And so, Canberra was born.
Canberra is utterly dictated by its climate. At almost 1000 meters above sea level, and far from the coast, Canberra is hot and dry. That is, when it's not cold and dry. It's not unusual for temperatures to reach into the high 30's in summer and minus ten in the winter. In most places, this sort of climate begets a tundra, but Australian trees are wonderful things, surviving on the scientific equivalent of Bugger All water (this is why their leaves are oily, instead of watery).
"Awwww, Plimmers farted again, and he's totally hogging the abacus!"
"Don't make me come back there."
"OW! He hit me!"
"I WILL TURN THIS THING AROUND.....alright, that's it! Everyone OUT!"
And so, Canberra was born.
Canberra is utterly dictated by its climate. At almost 1000 meters above sea level, and far from the coast, Canberra is hot and dry. That is, when it's not cold and dry. It's not unusual for temperatures to reach into the high 30's in summer and minus ten in the winter. In most places, this sort of climate begets a tundra, but Australian trees are wonderful things, surviving on the scientific equivalent of Bugger All water (this is why their leaves are oily, instead of watery).
It's the trees that give Canberra its unusual feeling. Most cities are built and planned around the car and therefore, experienced as a flattened sequence of fast moving images. The car simply inverts the perceptive processes of that other ubiquitous suburban technology: the television. It's a well-used idea, but I like it.
Canberra however, was designed to be different. By the time Australians decided they needed a new capital city, many Western cities were already in th early throes of suburban hell. Canberra's planners didn't want to priviledge the car as the main form of experiencing yet another Australian city. And so, when you drive around Canberra, you see nothing but wide verges of trees and grassland. The car-world is kept separate from the city-world.
And it's disconcerting. In most "normal" cities you get an intuitive sense of topography. Without noticing it, subtle cues tell you how to get around; clusters of shops, bus stops, traffic jams, parks, Greenfield housing, rubbish bins spilling onto cluttered footpaths. terrace housing and overhead wires. Turning left will lead to an increasingly dense urban area, turning right, increasingly disparate suburbia. This topography makes sense because most cities build up over time, they are iterative, roughly radiating outwards along main arterial roads.
Canberra's development was about as iterative as the Big Bang. It was designed, planned and built between tea breaks. As such, it doesn't feel like other cities. This is why you can't find a petrol station.The topographical clues are all missing. Fortunately, a plethora of signs guides you (Blade of Grass, 300 metres). To top it all off Canberra has cycle ways instead of millions of clogged up roads and back streets, an eminently sensible option for a flat place (albeit one whose climate see-saws between freezing cold and an inferno).
Canberra's comprehensive planning is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it celebrates and accounts for beautiful spaces. The Australian bush is the centrepiece of many of the city scapes and some of the most beautiful Eucalypts I have ever seen line the streets. On the other hand, it is alienating: the suburbia is completely homogenous, the interstices of urban space and place; the changing perspectives of size, shape and congruity, are missing. If it weren't for the bush, Canberra would be Lego-land.
Canberra is also a caricature of itself. Designed by planners, social scientists and bureacrats as a kind of civic Eldorado, most of them now find themselves living there. This forces many Canberrans to spend up to two years living in a caravan in the pissing rain on the South Coast, going bankrupt and wondering how come wet wool can smell so bad.
But, for all that, Canberra is kind of cool. There are serious lefty nutjobs dressed up as regular humans running community housing co-operatives, armies of furiously cycling Freegans, and just enough bogans seeping through from 'the Bush' to keep the dangley-earringed public servants honest.
Canberra however, was designed to be different. By the time Australians decided they needed a new capital city, many Western cities were already in th early throes of suburban hell. Canberra's planners didn't want to priviledge the car as the main form of experiencing yet another Australian city. And so, when you drive around Canberra, you see nothing but wide verges of trees and grassland. The car-world is kept separate from the city-world.
And it's disconcerting. In most "normal" cities you get an intuitive sense of topography. Without noticing it, subtle cues tell you how to get around; clusters of shops, bus stops, traffic jams, parks, Greenfield housing, rubbish bins spilling onto cluttered footpaths. terrace housing and overhead wires. Turning left will lead to an increasingly dense urban area, turning right, increasingly disparate suburbia. This topography makes sense because most cities build up over time, they are iterative, roughly radiating outwards along main arterial roads.
Canberra's development was about as iterative as the Big Bang. It was designed, planned and built between tea breaks. As such, it doesn't feel like other cities. This is why you can't find a petrol station.The topographical clues are all missing. Fortunately, a plethora of signs guides you (Blade of Grass, 300 metres). To top it all off Canberra has cycle ways instead of millions of clogged up roads and back streets, an eminently sensible option for a flat place (albeit one whose climate see-saws between freezing cold and an inferno).
Canberra's comprehensive planning is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it celebrates and accounts for beautiful spaces. The Australian bush is the centrepiece of many of the city scapes and some of the most beautiful Eucalypts I have ever seen line the streets. On the other hand, it is alienating: the suburbia is completely homogenous, the interstices of urban space and place; the changing perspectives of size, shape and congruity, are missing. If it weren't for the bush, Canberra would be Lego-land.
Canberra is also a caricature of itself. Designed by planners, social scientists and bureacrats as a kind of civic Eldorado, most of them now find themselves living there. This forces many Canberrans to spend up to two years living in a caravan in the pissing rain on the South Coast, going bankrupt and wondering how come wet wool can smell so bad.
But, for all that, Canberra is kind of cool. There are serious lefty nutjobs dressed up as regular humans running community housing co-operatives, armies of furiously cycling Freegans, and just enough bogans seeping through from 'the Bush' to keep the dangley-earringed public servants honest.
Canberra is also a wealthy place - the government and universities are the main employers. Wealthy places are a good place to be homeless, and Canberra has a healthy homeless community (also, most Birkenstocks fly straight off before you can land a kick). The "Guvvy flats" housing many of the city's junkies are some of the most genteel I have seen in the world. One had a bent up push-bike wheel on the lawn. They're not even trying.
I've heard Canberra described as a big country town, which in some ways, it is, with all the naffness that entails. Take for instance, these plastic flower pots that festoon poles in parts of the central city.
Fark. Walter Burley Griffen was no match for the CWA.
Canberra is also home to some good old fashioned "give them all a ball each" democratic experiments in architecture. Some of this country's most important institutions are enshrined in eye-wateringly ugly concrete bunkers.
Being the national capital, Canberra is also home to some of the most shockingly ugly monuments ever conceived. Hurtling around one of Canberra's four thousand roundabouts (an afternoon driving around Canberra is akin to three hours in a centrifuge. Not recommended, although it does make your hair pleasingly glossy) the American Eagle monument comes into view. The government hired the Mario Brothers (before they moved into the lucrative Nintendo market) to design and build this:
The monument's brief was that it should be in keeping with "the wide (flat) horizons of the Canberra landscape". Almost 100 meters straight up, and with distinct Nazi overtones, this thing could not be more American if it had a fingernail on the top of it instead of an eagle. It is a shocker.
I could go on, but I won't. Here's a summary of the rest of the trip. I went to the museum, with my black armband. I ate yummy pastry things from Silo bakery, I walked around the echoing, empty streets of north Canberra, stole apples from someone's front yard, marvelled at English trees dropping acorns and other weird looking things into the gutters, I drank ten million litres of water to stop from turning into dust, and...it rained.
I've heard Canberra described as a big country town, which in some ways, it is, with all the naffness that entails. Take for instance, these plastic flower pots that festoon poles in parts of the central city.
Fark. Walter Burley Griffen was no match for the CWA.
Canberra is also home to some good old fashioned "give them all a ball each" democratic experiments in architecture. Some of this country's most important institutions are enshrined in eye-wateringly ugly concrete bunkers.
Being the national capital, Canberra is also home to some of the most shockingly ugly monuments ever conceived. Hurtling around one of Canberra's four thousand roundabouts (an afternoon driving around Canberra is akin to three hours in a centrifuge. Not recommended, although it does make your hair pleasingly glossy) the American Eagle monument comes into view. The government hired the Mario Brothers (before they moved into the lucrative Nintendo market) to design and build this:
The monument's brief was that it should be in keeping with "the wide (flat) horizons of the Canberra landscape". Almost 100 meters straight up, and with distinct Nazi overtones, this thing could not be more American if it had a fingernail on the top of it instead of an eagle. It is a shocker.
I could go on, but I won't. Here's a summary of the rest of the trip. I went to the museum, with my black armband. I ate yummy pastry things from Silo bakery, I walked around the echoing, empty streets of north Canberra, stole apples from someone's front yard, marvelled at English trees dropping acorns and other weird looking things into the gutters, I drank ten million litres of water to stop from turning into dust, and...it rained.
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1 comments:
I'd like to point out that Sydney's Oxford St also has those naff flowerpots attached to light poles - not sure whether they're a special feature to brighten up the street for Mardi Gras or if they're a regular feature.
anyway, as a former Canberran I say thanks for your frank and fair assessment of a town that seems to carry the unofficial motto: "Canberra - it's not that bad, really!"
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