New South WalesOlympic contradictions: After receiving letters from 14 practices, RAIA CEO Michael Peck has criticised the Olympic Co-ordination Authority‘s method of selecting architects for the showgrounds as Homebush. He told The Australian that in order to win on price, “they’ve gone to the cheapest sub-consultants rather than the best”. This announcement may diminish concern in the NSW RAIA that councillors with conflicts of interest have restrained the Institute from public involvement in the Olympic debate; a scenario supported by a recent reshuffle of its Olympic committe to have young Nick Murcutt replaced as chair by UTS Sub-Dean Winston Barnett, following Murcutt’s complaints to the media about the government’s disregard of good design. Yet his claims look consistent with John Denton‘s suggestion that the conflict between fee bidding and quality quickly cut DCM (and others?) out of Olympic tenders. Meanwhile UNSW‘s Professor Paul Reid, an occasional consultant to the OCA, has criticised its “secrecy”, “real lack of leadership” and “fear of criticism”. More positively, the authority has announced a design review panel for Olympic projects: it’s Government Architect Chris Johnson (chair), Leo Schofield, Wendy McCarthy, Leon Paroissien, Lawrence Nield and Michael Keniger, with Paul Reid as alternate. And the OCA has been considering a string of non-Homebush improvements along the corridor from Parramatta to Circular Quay. On environmental issues, David Jackson has noted that the [previous] government did not make it easy when pledging a green olympics while promising taxpayers that private enterprise would pay, but believes there are commercial advantages for Australia in setting world standards >> Heritage groups are trying to save an Arthur Baldwinson-designed modernist house at Point Piper which has approval for demolition >> High-rise architect Dino Burratini plans to build a $51 million polo centre in the southern highlands >> In London, Harry Seidler has received from HM the Queen the near-ultimate RIBA Gold Medal. Back in Sydney, he has launched a new apartment tower at King’s Cross, and the Sydney Morning Herald has named him The Greatest Architect in the Known Universe (GAITKU) >> Peddle Thorp’s Andrew Andersons has been celebrated in the Herald as “the least knwon of our big three architects” >> Critic Elizabeth Farrelly has noted that on-axis placements of planter boxes, plaques and platforms “prevent anyone ever being able to see Martin Place top-to-bottom, as a whole” >> Architect Henry Pollack has sold his 35% shareholding in Mirvac to Lend Lease for $55 million >> USydney‘s Lawrence Nield was among luminaries contributing to a festschrift-inspired symposium in Pennsylvania to celebrate the 70th birthday and latest book of Classical historian and Alberti translator Joseph Rykwert >> Following the residential property boom near Bondi Beach, the Bondi Junction commercial zone is set for a renaissance >> The Sydney City Council is hoping to save up to $10 million per year, in efficiencies and outsourcing, to fund up to $50 million worth of pre-Olympic “beautifications” >> Chris Johnson has called for reason on the vexed issue of overshadowing: “if we have parks in a city, they will inevitably have buildings related to them and shadowing will occur” >> Central Sydney office rents are due to boom in 1999, claims property consultant Landmark White >> All bets are off re potential Deans for USydney‘s Faculty of Architecture; new vice-chancellor Gavin Brown has foreshadowed amalgamation.
Northern TerritoryWith the Territory government refusing heritage protection, four Darwin landmarks—the Stella Maris Building, old nurses’ quarters, Supreme Court and former Darwin Primary School—seem sure to go.
Australian Capital TerritoryPlanner Ian Morison has highlighted differences between urban design theories and realities in a letter to the National Capital Planning Authority. He urges the NCPA to move jobs out from Canberra’s centre and to require (politically incorrect) parking in new office developments. He also claims Canberrans are not ready to live in town >> Plans have been mooted to bulldoze obsolete buildings (including the old Government Printing Office) along Wentworth Avenue at Kingston, to improve views from the shopping centre towards Lake Burley Griffin. However, these sightlines could be blocked unless the Kingston Foreshore Development Authority interrupts an agreed sale of a prime lakefront site to speculators planning an office complex >> Entries are in for retiree Judith Brine‘s Deanship at UCanberra >> Sydney’s Keys Young has been studying potential impacts on nearby shopping centres from a proposed extension to the Woden Plaza >> Civic’s future was batted about at a recent Urban Design Forum workshop chaired by Sydeny University Professor Peter Droege >> Canberra will have an older, poorer population and become stagnant after the anticipated end of preferential Commonwealth funding, claimed speakers at a recent Building Owners and Managers Association forum on the ACT’s “growth” strategy.
| QueenslandFlak is flying over a ‘private’ delegation (unknown to the RAIA) in which the Institute’s then-National President Peter Gargett, with Robin Gibson, Noel Robinson and Eddie Codd, are said to have commplained to the new Minister of Public Works and Housing, Ray Connor, about his department’s recent tendency to overlook ‘local’ architects when allocating major projects. After hearing from outraged bureaucrats, leaders of the Brisbane chapter have distanced the RAIA from this attempt to introduce a hometown mentality—and it’s been noted that the idea seems inconsistent with these practitioners’ involvement in away games interstate and offshore. Noel Robinson, for instance, set up shop in Sydney and Canberra long before the recent wave of ‘southerners’ arrived in Brisbane >> New Trade and Economic Development Minister Doug Slack says there’s a sense of urgency in getting on with overdue infrastructure projects—yet his government has put on hold or cancelled several major projects. Also, some privately funded developments are being held up by a moratorium on land rezonings >> The RAIA‘s annual Winter School this year introduced a statewide, one-day video conference with Philip Cox, John Bilmon, Michael Keniger and Chris Johnson regaling dispersed delegates about the joys of partnering and the perils of competitions. Later, Brisbane solicitor Matthew Hall reminded architects that they have copyright on their design; clients can use a scheme only for the purpose for which it was commissioned >> No architects are on the eight-member board of inquiry into the state’s building industry.
Western AustraliaJohn Denton, Bob Nation, Alice Hampson and Duncan Richards were key speakers for Architecture Week from June 29
VictoriaRMIT’s Storey Hall is both a local and international curiosity, with Ashton Raggatt McDougall emerging as the proverbial ‘overnight’ sensations. During a week-long launch, large audiences fronted to hear iconic personae such as Charles Jencks (“Australia finally at the cutting edge of world architecture”) and Governor General Sir William Deane laying on kudos. Meanwhile, in London, a surprisingly similar ‘complexity’ infill has been proposed by Daniel Liebeskind for the Victoria and Albert Museum >> South Carlton residents, led by UMelbourne‘s Peter Lewis, want the Museum of Victoria to be moved form Carlton Gardens to Federation Square. They say the Denton Corker Marshall design will obscure the dome of the Exhibition Building and encroach into the park >> UMelbourne‘s Kim Dovey says there’s no visionary strategy for Federation Square and has called for bold imagery to celebrate multicultural meanings of federation >> Premier Jeff Kennett plans to spend $80 million on finishing the 1856 design for Parliament House >> Alan Nelson, former associate of Roy Grounds, damns the government’s plans to destroy the water wall of the Grounds-designed National Gallery of Victoria >> Take a breath before reading these complexities: The Age has claimed that architect Peter McIntyre, while chair of the Victorian Casino Authority’s design review committee, designed a Dinner Plain ski lodge for Crown Casino chairman Lloyd Williams on land purchased from a company part-owned by McIntyre, shortly before the authority (responding to its review panel) advised the state government to contradict its earlier stance and approve an extra 1000-room hotel in the Crown scheme >> Melbourne lawyer Paula Gerber-Jones, founder president of the rapidly expanding Australian wing of the National Association of Women in Construction, has earned a Crystal Vision Award from NAWIC North America for her initiatives to reconstruct the antipodean building industry >> New futures for old Russell St landmarks: the former police headquarters is likely to become a hotel and apartments while RMIT wants to transform the Magistrates Court into a research centre and police garage into a park >> Crews have begun demolishing the Gas and Fuel Buildings in Flinders St >> Planning Minister Rob Maclellan is being attacked by residents of the Dandenongs and Yarra Valley for approving subdivisions contrary to a planning bill which he announced in 1994 but still has not proclaimed >> Monash University has celebrated its best campus architecture in a stylish document. 
Familiar Melburnians get the Photoshop treatment in this ARM-produced postcard of Storey Hall.
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NationalArchitects consider architecture an art but the nation’s key arts funding body, the Australia Council, disagrees. It has refused to contribute to the $170,000 budget for a Harry Seidler/Neville Quarry-arranged, RAIA-supported, Australian exhibit at the next ‘biennale’ of architecture in Venice (yet it allocates almost twice that budget for each Oz art display there). Disappointingly, the Australian pavilion will be closed to the world’s archi-buffs, or occupied by another nation. (Bhutan?) >> Architecture Australia is investigating with CHASA (the Committee of Heads of Architecture Schools of Australasia) and the RAIA ways to publish scholarly architectural papers via an online publication linked to our Web site >> RAIA CEO Michael Peck has been on the media counter-attack against shameless claims by the Building Designers Association of Australia that its members are “qualified to provide building design and specification documentation to the public >> Australian Construction Services has been trimmed and renamed Works Australia >> Staff numbers in architectural offices declined by 1% in the six months to March but slightly more employment is expected by now >> Former Cox Richardson employee Stephen Collins, Sydney, has won the Society of Interior Designers’ first Young Designer of the Year Award. Runner-up was Brisbane’s Kirsti Simpson (now at Hassells after several years with Bligh Voller) >> House prices in Sydney, Hobart and Darwin rose last year but fell in other state capitals, says the Australian Bureau of Statistics >> Staff changes at RAIA HQ: Kathy Harman is Manager Environment and Judy Vulker, back from the States, is helping to revive the architecture in schools (BEE) program.
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