NOT like site - Post #2, documenting the site

Today I went back and took the second round of photos of my "don't like" site. The conditions today were different as the weather is very sunny and warm. It is also a week day so activity in the area was different to that of a Saturday.

I spent quite a bit of time documenting the surfaces and materials and a long time just "listening" to the site so I can start formulating what elements make up the soundscape of the site.

I have also started digging into the historical significance and role of the site but I am only at the very early stages of that exploration.

The site, which I have yet to determine the exact measurements is made up of two tiers of activity.

The first tier is an elevated "grassed hill" on the northern site which features a bronze sculpture of a dog in the middle of it and one tree. The first tier is boarded by a low bluestone fence to the north, a brick wall covered in bougainvillea to the west, steps and yellow brick reinforcements to the south and a footpath that separates if from the road to the west.

The second tier is partially enclosed by red brick walls to the north and east. The walls are partly covered by creeper plants and also feature decorative steel wall sculptures with green painted park benches beneath them. The rest of the space is landscaped in asphalt and concrete which form "wavey" steps. There are some liquid amber trees which are embedded into the concrete. The space is boarded on the south side by an integrated footpath the separates the space from Bridge Road.

Between the two tiers boarded by yellow brick is a mound of "grassed area".

Below are some photos taken from a number of different angles to give a "feel" for the site.

Looking South East onto the site from Hoddle street through the traffic.

NB: It is worth noting that I took this photo at about 9:00am on a Saturday morning when the traffic is considered to be "very light."

Looking North from Bridge Street up to Hoddle onto the first tier of the site.



Looking South from the back of the first tier of the site onto the intersection of Bridge Street and Punt Road


Looking North West from the second tier of the site.


Looking from Bridge Road into the Second Tier of the site

Looking East from Punt Road/Hoddle Street onto Bridge Road

LIKE Site - Morell Bridge Post #1

I have selected my "Like" site for my Place and Space assignment.

The Morell Bridge (formerly known as the Anderson Street Bridge) crosses the Yarra River between the Punt Road and Swan Street Bridges in South Yarra and Richmond and linking the Royal Botanical Gardens to the Olympic Park precinct.

The bridge is located a short walk or even shorter bike ride away from where I live.

I selected the site not only because the bridge is very attractive and has an interesting history but also due to the incredibly high levels of mixed use the site accommodates.

NOT like site - Post #1

I have selected my "Don't Like" site to examine for my Place and Space assignment.

It is situated on the North West corner of the intersection of Wellington Parade, Bridge Road, Punt Road and Hoddle Street.

I took some preliminary contextual photos this morning to commence my analysis and documentation process.

I live two minutes walk away so I am already very familiar with the site and when I mentioned to two friends, who also live nearby, I had selected it they agreed that it was an excellent location to choose to "Not Like."

As a "Not Like" site it offers a great deal of material to examine due to its location, the impact of the surrounding usages and the "art work" currently occupying the space.

Federation Square

Federation Square, boarded by the corners of Swanston and Flinders Streets and the Yarra River has had a incredibly varied history of use, particularly over the past 200 years.


The site was traditionally owned by the Wurundjeri aboriginal people.


In the 1800s the site housed the Coroner's Office, Registration Office and Morgue. The lithograph shows Melbourne in 1862, the morgue can be seen in the right-hand foreground, in front of St Paul's Cathedral.


The advancement of the railways saw the development of the Jolimont Rail Yard, in the late 1800s where trains were stored and repaired. Plans to improve and develop the site went through various phases from as early as the 1925 "Cathedral Square" proposal by James Smith selected by the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects.


The Gas and Fuel buildings, Princes Gate Towers, were built in the 1960s over part of the Jolimont Rail Yard in the minimalist "international style" of the time. They were demolished floor by floor in 1996 to make way for Federation Square.


Federation Square, as the site is currently known, was the result of an international design competition held in 1997 won by Don Bates and Peter Davidson of Lab Architecture Studio. It was opened on 26 October 2002 and cost $440 million to construct.

The location houses shops, bars, cafés and restaurants and a number of significant cultural facilities including the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) and the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia.







Public spaces include the Attrium, that holds regular events such as the Fed Square Book Market, the giant fixed screen the broadcasting major sporting and other event and the BMW Edge Auditorium that hosts a mixture of free and festival events.



The main square is paved in 470,000 ochre-coloured sandstone blocks from Western Australia, designed as a huge urban artwork called 'Nearamnew', by Paul Carter.

Federation Square with its mixed use and distinctive design has become the State's second most popular tourist attraction.



References:
Brown-May, A. (2001) Federation Square... a place in history, Federation Square Management Pty Ltd

Brown-May, A. & Cooke, S. Death, Decency and the Dead-House: The City Morgue in Colonial Melbourne,

The flâneur... Melbourne... Project A

I have been spending quite a bit of time trying to identify the sites for Place and Space assignment, Project "A".

The project description is I Know What I Like: Select 2 spaces for analysis; one that you like and one that you don't. Formally document the features of these sites recording dimensions, light, usages, surfaces etc and develop a work that could be located in either of these spaces. This will be combined with a an examination of an artist work or a relevant critical theory.

I still haven't decided on either of my locations, especially as many of the sites I have actively disliked for years pro-active local councils have already fixed before I could get to them for my project.

For the moment I am considering the task within the framework of critical theory. Last week I read a great deal about Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project and the flâneur.



French poet Charles Charles Baudelaire developed a meaning of flâneur that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it".

Walter Benjamin took the concept of the flâneur as part of that of the urban observer and product of modern life and the Industrial Revolution. For the flâneur to exist, he requires the presence of the crowd and arcades with which to stroll, both of which are metropolitan phenomena.

"Empathy is the nature of the intoxication to which the flâneur abandons himself in the crowd. He . . . enjoys the incomparable privilege of being himself and someone else as he sees fit. Like a roving soul in search of a body, he enters another person whenever he wishes."

Hence, when considering a site with which to examine through a relevant critical theory I am drawn to the concept of determining the conditions and behaviours of the contemporary flâneur in Melbourne.

My immediate thought is to examine Chapel Street, South Yarra and the "flâneurs" I used to observe on a Saturday nights. However I'm sure I can think of something more sophisticated, in every sense of the word, than that.




References:
Gilloch, G.(1997). Myth and Metropolis - Walter Benjamin and the City, Polity Press

Piazza Italia

Piazza Italia was the result of a $3.5 million addition to Argyle Square on Lygon Street in 2006. Argyle Square is situation off Lygon Street in the suburb of Carlton between Gratton and Queensberry Streets.

Lygon Street, Carlton has long been associated with Italian migration to Melbourne, still evident through the number of Italian restaurants present there today. Italian migration to the area commenced at the turn of the last century and peaked in the post WW2 period.


The work consciously sought site-specific inspiration through its referencing to the Italian influence to the area and was was developed by artists Andrea Tomaselli and Diane Beevers.




The work is a 45 square metre solar clock made up of porphyry stone paving.

The work is interesting not only for its aesthetic qualities but that its creation involved collaboration between specialist Italian stone-masons who came to Australia to undertake the work with Australian stone-masons. Australian stone-masons also traveled to Italy as part of the same artistic-exchange.

References:
City of Melbourne website
History of Carlton web resource

Scoping Melbourne: Lincoln Square

Lincoln Square is situated off Swanston Street in the the City of Melbourne between Queensberry and Gratton Streets, Carlton. The location is close to Melbourne's CBD, University of Melbourne and Carlton cultural district.

The square's $800,000 refurbishment in 2004 included landscaping of the gardens, new lighting and a childrens' playground.



The Victorian State Government contributed more than $120,00 towards the Bali Bombing victim memorial to be situated on the Lincoln Square site at the same time as the planned refurbishment. The site was selected by the Bali Bombing survivors and victims' families. The site was specifically selected because it is near youth precincts (e.g. University of Melbourne campus) and not near any War Memorials.


The design was intended to reflect things that the survivors and victims’ families thought were important including water, sunshine and brightness; the full names of those who lost their lives; a factual account of the bombing, and an acknowledgment of others affected by the tragedy.



The memorial is an excellent example of a "counter-monument" that focuses on a pluralistic culture of remembrance, devoid of political or social dimensions, focused on victims that has evolved since the 1970s as opposed to previous patriotic and heroic memorial monuments.

This is demonstrated through the underpinning intentions of the monument but also the design itself which is low to the ground and devoid of any traditionally "monumental" edifices through decoration or literal placements on pedestals.


Like many contemporary monuments it focuses on the shadowy side of history and the use of hardy but sombre materials such as concrete and granite reinforce this.


We visited the site on a Sunday and the only people really in the area were a group of young skateboarders who were using the memorial to practice their tricks. Even though there were signs prohibiting skateboarding given the emphasis of the survivors and victims' families on "youth" being an element of the memorial their presence and use of the site somehow didn't seem inappropriate.



References:
Melbourne City Council, Media Release, 30th September 2004
Van Vree, Frank Open 2004,#7, (No) Memory, NAI Publishers, Rotterdam