There was celebration of Sydney’s great achievements in recent years especially in the public space realm such as George Street and the Metro but alongside came hard questions about what had been lost.
At the launch last week of the new edition of Public Sydney: Drawing the City there was a host of observations on stage that delighted a packed auditorium at the State Library of NSW – but also challenged them.
Jess Scully, a former Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney, had arrived quite late and, gliding all the way down the steep auditorium steps to take her place on stage (to generous applause) tackled the issue of vibrancy and creativity in the city.
Here was a city replete with grand architectural and urban gestures, the sort that lifts a place and inspires its citizens, yet so much had been lost, she said, in her forthright but somehow diplomatic style.
The recent period had been one of “retreat and advance”, “loss and gain”.
There’s was the amazing new Central Station that your (desk bound) correspondent discovered pretty much by accident and agrees is indeed awesome.
And now the fabulous new Metro that can quickly whizz people in and out to many western Sydney hubs of culture, food and diversity. And which looks like it’s on the way to a cult following: people taking rides just to check out all the stations along the routes and proudly donning promotional badges.
Architect and co-author of the book Peter John Cantrill urged people to catch the Metro to Bankstown, listen to poetry, grab some fabulous food and then jump back to work.
The Metro had some of the “most beautiful stations in the world” he said. It was one of his favourite things in Sydney, along with the opening of George Street, recently turned over to pedestrians and trams, traffic-free.
“George Street is extraordinary. It is packed with people in the morning, from lunchtime, afternoon, at night, all through the night. There are people partying in that street, moving up and down.”
Co-author and fellow architect Philip Thalis said Sydney’s public spaces were to be celebrated. He rejected the notion of a CBD as separate to public space.
“Public space isn’t space in the city, it is the city and I think George Street and the Metro absolutely reinforce that. And of course, that’s why everyone wants to be here, including business and the like.”
He cited the Lord Mayor Clover Moore had said 1 million people use the city every day. “We need space for it. We need dignified space for them. We need generous space for them.”
But “how did all the good things come about?”
And who was at the table now asking about Sydney’s future?
Jess Scully pointed out the recent period had been one of “retreat and advance”, “loss and gain”.
“We’re sitting in a beautiful space that is a gain for public Sydney, but we’ve also experienced tremendous loss of public Sydney in the last couple of decades. And when I think about those battles that we’ve experienced over the last decades, we’ve seen people fighting over the right to the city and the right to be at that table.”
The lockout laws, for instance, brought Sydney to a low ebb and emptied its streets at night.
“You could see that young people, people in culture, people in entertainment, people in music were being pushed back from having a seat at the table.”
There had been a fightback and reclamation of political power but many people and vibrant characters were no longer in the mix – a “tremendous loss of creative space and place where work is made”. And fewer younger people. And few opportunities to hold “cool” events in places such as the Strand Arcade for instance.
Thalis agreed and said that while the positives were important, it was also worth pointing out that there were “certain people just down the street who don’t believe in civil liberties and don’t believe in the free use of public space, and don’t believe in our right to free assembly in the city.
“And remember that a lot of the free assembly actually draws the young people into the city, and actually gives them their sense of ownership of the city. So I think that generational aspect is very important. And you know, the right to dissent in the city is absolutely fundamental.”
In fact, he said, you could say that “public space is in fact the physical representation of democratic society itself.”
“So it’s about rights. It’s not just about being nice or looking pretty or all of that stuff, which is okay as well. That is not fundamental.”
In George Street he said, anyone can sit on a bench next to anybody else. Same for the Metro.
Since the launch of the first edition of the book 12 years ago there had been some “really horrific privatisation” of sites that had been “sold or leased by government; you’d be shocked how much public land has been divested, and of course we’ve lost a lot of diversity and inclusion through that process”.
And advances have been hard won, noted Cantrill.
Twelve years ago the opening of George Street was far from certain.
“The city council were keen. The state government was less than keen. Private property owners were not keen at all.”
But private property today was now worth a lot more because of George Street changing, and we’ve seen a lot of fantastic private development regather on George Street. It’s driven the city forward, and we’ve also seen in George Street the city and the local government come together to produce something, collaborating on that, each doing what they do best.”
Bring on less regulation and more adventure
Panellist Daniele Hromek of Djinjama said much could be gained by providing more creative freedom.
“I feel like we’re incredibly regulated, and great ideas are being pushed aside on the basis of we can’t do it because of X, Y, Z reason. That we are stuck in a very formalised way of working that doesn’t necessarily allow for the great ideas to come out, and things where we could be including, more understandings of place, more diversity of voices, but also more diversity of non-humans and other than humans who don’t belong, who do belong rather, but aren’t given voice and don’t have voice in our city spaces.
“It would be in much richer space for us if we just had a little bit more adventure.”
Out in the lobby a long line of people were queuing up to buy the $199 book.
Among them Estelle Gretchen from Committee for Sydney. We asked what she thought of Jess Scully’s questions about the creatives and young people no longer at the table for Sydney’s future.
“Maybe young and creative people are no longer at the table of Sydny because they’re making their own tables in the communities they come from. They’re in places like Parramatta, Blacktown, Fairfield or Camden.
“And while we need to make sure they can be in the City of Sydney too, it’s wonderful that it’s easier to make and share art in the suburbs where young people and artists are coming from.”
The book is published by Thames & Hudson
