PLANNING CITY CULTURE

An opinion piece in today's Dominon Post entitled 'Lack of Planning hurting Wellington' is an interesting read, providing some thoughtful, grounded consideration of where Wellington City is going. The author's focus on public events, activities and use of space seems to highlight the lack of discussion of people we usually hear in planning conversations.

However, the piece got me thinking, and I had a few queries. I noted down the following, intending to post in reponse to the piece. However, my thoughts got out of hand, and before long I had well exceeded the maximum character limit. So, I thought I'd post it here instead.

'I am somewhat concerned that your suggestions for change focus on new buildings primarily located on the waterfront. This response echoes two urban issues Wellington encountered in the 1970s and the 1990s. In the 70s, a large amount of the building stock was demolished to pave the way for the new with the dream that this would fix the urban issues of the time. The learnings from that were that new was not neccessarily better, and that in establishing the new, much of what was held dear as quintessentially Wellington was lost. In developing culture, we have to take care not to abolish culture.


Members of the public seem to understand that new doesn't solve everything: in the 1990s, there was much public outcry about council plans for doing exactly what you suggest: building large facilities (some public, some private) on the Waterfront. The result of years of public dissent was Waitangi Park - a lively, variable terrain which acts as a connective tissue between the cultural institution of Te Papa (which, sadly, turns its back to the Waterfront) and the leisure precinct of Oriental Bay.

If you look at Wellington more broadly, you'll notice that it's not so much places, but the linkages between them which we struggle with. While our compactness lends us the title of a 'pedestrian friendly city', wide vehicular streets, large block sizes, and few direct accessways from the city to the waterfront limit pedestrian exploration and engagement. (In this sense, to praise Jervois quay as a necessary 'strong boundary' seems ill-considered.) If I could walk the short distance from Courtney Place up Taranki St to the Film Archive without getting drenched, having my skirt blow above my knees, my ears blown out by four lanes of traffic and nothing to look at but a blank facade than perhaps I might be more inclined to spend more time - and money - there. Why confine your conceptions of 'performance' and 'culture' within four-walls, or outdoor amphitheatres? The city as a whole deserves to be considered as a site of our cultural endevours.

The suggestion is that 'our planning needs to bring them together'. Close, but not quite. Rather, I suggest, our planning needs to promote active, connected, and accessible cultural institutions which are not neccessarily 'together' geogaphically, but which, through consideration of wider urban planning issues such as Jervois Quay and Taranki St, are accessible as a group, and indicate their individuals roles within the broader cultural climate you wish to promote.The distribution of cultural institutions throughout Wellington allows a broader range of individuals to come into contact with them everyday; rather than relegating them to the role of weekend or tourist fare that is the waterfront.

The answers are not as simple as : but then, our creativity should make Wellington well placed to develop innovative, long-term propositions. Wellington 2040 - and the creative public marketing of this vision - was surely a good start. '

THE DITCH

Having spent a week in Auckland recently, I have once again been musing on what it is that so captivates me about my city of Wellington, and (not to be too harsh to Auckland) thinking about some of the great urban change that has been happening there in the last five years. Amid all this urban-dreaming two city-specific Aussie blogs have caught my eye in the past week. 

• The Melbourne Urbanist,which interestingly enough is written by Dr Alan Davies who is neither Architect or Urban Planner by profession, but  a principal of Melbourne-based economic and planning consultancy, Pollard Davies Pty Ltd. While this means that the blog has significantly more numbers, graphs and analytics than a typical urban commentary, it is also refreshing to get a more holistic and -dare I say it - less dreamy perspective on how a city grows and breathes.
• Canberra Lab, then, might fit somewhere at the other end of the scale, collecting pieces under such labels as 'unbuilt work', 'street critique' and 'half a thought', but provides some great light commentary on what has traditionally been a rather sombre urban scene. 

WALKING WITH SENNETT

'The impulse is much more to really make the inside and the outside of buildings more interactive, ambiguous…'

PIGEON PARK

Always interesting to see how defunct public spaces were dreamed up.

Always interesting to see what people you have been reading look and speak like.

PLAZA DEL TORICO

An old favourite of mine has caught my eye again; the Plaza del Torico by B720. The project uses large 'cobbles' with a pattern of embedded luminescent strips to create a delicate atmosphere while avoiding an excessively dominant illumination. The light, understood as a fluid element, spreads throughout the square but with variations: around the Torico fountain (encircled by luminous lines), the Fondero and Somero cisterns, and the Arca Secreta (where the density of the lines is reduced by half, to stress the archaeological value of these points).
The square is organised longitudinally by lines that accentuate the perspective, constructed with linear lighting systems in the porticos and facades, two conduits for installations on the exterior of the porticos, to eliminate the cables that until now have been attached to the facades.
The lighting project is completed by the installation of lights concealed within the Torico fountain (which can change colour on special occasions). Thus, the existing lighting, essentially vertical, gives way to a more horizontal arrangement.

And then there is the underside...

CULTURE CLASS

1. Henri Lefebvre

2. Manfredo Tafuri

3. Sharon Zukin

   4. Paul Fussell

5. C. Wright Mills
+ The Sociological Imagination

 

6. George Yudice

7. Daniel Bell

 

8. Jane Jacobs

9. Sharon Zukin

Martha Rosler, over at e-flux journal, has been publishing a series of papers under the heading Culture Class: Art, Creativity, Urbanism which references each of these books, and a whole heap more. Part One is a discussion on Art and Urbanism, Part Two is entitled Creativity and its Discontents. Eagerly awaitng Part Three.