A Better Barangaroo

The Barangaroo site: still a chance to get it right. Photo © 2010 Alan Miller

In this town called Sydney there is this crazy idea that wrecking a beautiful city in the name of economic growth somehow makes the city big time, that slippery oxymoron, a 'global' city. Instead of building places which promote beauty, sustainability and public participation we get the kind of 'built profit' which is too witless to even be kitsch. It's the Australian Ugliness on steroids, everywhere, as charmless and unimaginative as it is profitable. Even the greediest New York developer would never expect to build a forty five storey hotel in the East River, let alone the Hudson, and yet exactly such a monstrosity has been approved for construction in Sydney Harbour, at Barangaroo, the ne plus ultra of Sydney urban planning disasters. Now a of over fifty eminent Sydney architects, planners and academics has produced an alternative design for the site. Their scheme, , is a serious contribution because it visualizes an alternative: less greedy, less wasteful, more logical with more public space, smaller buildings, more sunshine and just as much profit as the notorious Lend Lease scheme. The best argument against bad architecture is good architecture, not just a good argument. A Better Barangaroo is not magic; it is a correction rather than a vision, too conservative, too accepting of a flawed premise and yet the scheme's conservatism is part of the point — the fact that this is what is possible following true blue tried and true urban design principles demonstrates how bad the official plan is, and how stupendous a really visionary design could be. Any number of architects, planners, students or architecturally-trained chimpanzees could produce any number of alternative Barangaroos better than the Barangaroo, which is more of an advertising campaign than a neighbourhood. The alternative is for all to see. This is one of the world's great urban sites and we can still get this right. Many smart people have made every conceivable argument against the unfolding travesty of Barangaroo. They have been wilfully mischaracterised at every turn and fobbed off with sham "public consultation" while the real decisions were made behind closed doors by the so-called "experts" which have ruined other parts of this fragile and irreplaceable city.

Is anyone with any power even listening anymore?