Are Jekyll & Hyde Designing our City?

Newcomers and visitors to our city could be forgiven for wondering if Brisbane City Council subscribes to the Jekyll and Hyde school of civic design.

One minute we’re admiring an inviting and creative new streetscape, like that of Graceville’s Honour Avenue retail strip.  The next, we struggle to glimpse the river through endless lengths of cheap and ugly wire fencing.

Honour Avenue, Graceville

Honour Avenue, Graceville

Oh for the days when one-time City Architect James Birrell elevated Brisbane ‘beyond the ugliness’.

 

“Would that the inspiration of his work and life might descend upon
politicians, developers, architects and planners alike.”

James Birrell’s friend and colleague, Nelson Ross

 

These days, Brisbane doesn’t have a City Architect.  Hobart does.  Even the Gold Coast does.  During our recent local government elections, one Labor did propose appointing a Brisbane City Architect, but it hardly ranked as a big issue.

Maybe it should have.  Have you seen the cheap and nasty wire fence lining Radnor Street at Indooroopilly?  It’s one of the few places in our western suburbs, after Coronation Drive, where a river view can be appreciated from your car.  Or, at least it would be, if not for the ghastly ‘weldmesh’.

Radnor Street, Indooroopilly

The fencing at Radnor Street, Indooroopilly

The same unsightly ‘pedestrian control barrier’ fencing blights entrances to our otherwise splendid South Bank Parklands.  Such a shame.  And don’t get me started on the garish signs and billboards that fund the CityCycles, or some of the boxy unit blocks they approve in what should be charming character housing precincts.

Vulture Street, South Brisbane

The fencing at the Vulture Street entrance to South Bank

The point is, Brisbane City Council needs to decide which design personality it favours – the smart, well-to-do Dr. Jekyll or the evil, uncaring Mr Hyde – in discharging its duty as curator and protector of our visual landscape.

I’d like to remind you what great things happen when a city is the beneficiary of architectural guidance by someone who understands that the built environment, even in its finest detail, should inspire and uplift.

James Birrell was appointed City Architect by the Brisbane City Council in 1955, a position he held until 1961, when he moved on to be Staff Architect for the University of Queensland.

Tributes tell of his incredible success in convincing political leaders of the 1950s to bequeath Brisbane “such a rich and successful set of diverse public facilities.”  After the postwar period of material and fiscal shortages, Birrell’s architecture engendered a fresh appreciation of the possibilities for designing public buildings.

It was Birrell who gave us, in 1959, the curvy, almost space-age Centenary Pools complex on Gregory Terrace, where the restaurant seemed to hover over glamorous hillside pool decks.  He designed the Toowong, Annerley and Chermside libraries, described by one admirer as “landmarks with an urbane sophistication in a determinedly suburban city.”

Birrell had an enthusiasm for abstraction, expression and inventive construction.  It is seen in his Wickham Terrace Carpark, with its freeway flyover-style entry, corkscrew ramps, and cantilever stairs.  Even his public toilets, maintenance sheds and manhole covers were carefully considered, innovative contributions.

When Birrell was conferred the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Gold Medal in 2005 for his “spirited and distinguished contribution” to architecture and the community, he was interviewed for Architecture Australia magazine by fellow architect and academic, Dr John MacArthur.

He spoke of his time as Brisbane City Architect and his admiration for the mayor at the time, Reg Groom.

“Brisbane was still in a mess from the war as late as 1954.  Nobody had painted anything; the City Hall leaked like a sieve; you’d get a burst of rain and manholes would jump up with cockroaches crawling out.  Well, Groom got in as mayor and said, ‘Let’s smarten the place up.’  He supported this cultural shift and built Brisbane into this nice place where there were nice things for people.”

In 1961, Groom was succeeded by Clem Jones, for whom Birrell had little time.  With a mission to sewer the city, architectural budgets were slashed.  Clem was a great boon for infrastructure but had no appreciation for design.

“As far as I can see, any buildings Jones built had no architecture,” Birrell opined.  “The whole idea was to denigrate the architecture.  So I took the job as University Architect.”  There, his achievements were many, Union College and the J.D. Story Administration Building among them.

James Birrell (1928- ) was an architect, urban planner and fine arts student, and he wisely saw these disciplines as all interrelated.  He was also a noted author, including co-editing the book ‘Building Queensland’ for the Qld Chapter of the RAIA (1959), which remains one of the few inclusive records of the architecture of the day.

He founded Architecture and Arts magazine and, most recently, penned ‘A Life in Architecture: beyond the ugliness’ (UQ Press, 2013).

Brisbane is fortunate to have had James Birrell in its past.  What it need again is someone with his sensibilities, to lift it ‘beyond the ugliness’, now into the future.

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Are Jekyll & Hyde Designing our City?