The Buried Capital
Written: Oct 15 '00 (Updated Apr 20 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Grace and humility of design
Cons: To navigate, learn to think in circles
The Bottom Line: See pros and cons ...
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| Urbanist's Full Review: Canberra |
If the desperation of long Australian drives forces you to turn on the radio, you may well hear a song in which two drunks – one from Sydney, the other from Melbourne – argue the relative merits of their cities with escalating fervor. It is a standard pre-barroom-brawl sort of argument, expressive of the endless rivalry between the nation’s largest cities. At the last moment, when in reality the first beer stein would be hurled, the two drunks join together in concluding that there’s at least one thing they can agree on: "Canberra’s the pits."
Canberra, for the record, is not the pits, in the sense that these fine gentlemen intend the term. Their statement is true in a more literal sense, though: Canberra is one of the most buried, concealed, unobtrusive capitals in the world. If you thought of the phallic skylines of Sydney and Melbourne as normal, you might think Canberra was indeed cowering in "the pits," for the city is not just relentlessly horizontal, but carefully tucked away behind well-preserved hills, impossible to experience as a totality except by the air.
Like Brasilia and Islamabad, Canberra is a master-planned Federal capital for a nation whose rivalries made it impossible to locate the capital in the largest city. A more organically grown nation – like almost all the nations of Europe – would have evolved an unquestionably pre-eminent city and located the capital there. Like the USA, though, Australia was a collection of states before it was a nation. The formation of nationhood was fraught with anxiety about putting the capital in any state, especially given the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne. Thus the resolution that gave rise to Canberra: A new capital would be established, at least 100 miles from either Sydney or Melbourne, but reasonably convenient to both.
Canberra began, then, with the deck stacked against it in public opinion. Like Brasilia, Islamabad, and Washington, the city exists only to be the Federal capital, so it is an inescapable symbol of government. While other cities are happy to symbolize Australia’s positive features to the world, Canberra is left to be the symbol of bureaucracy, quarrelling politicians, taxation, etc., much as Washington and Ottawa are perceived. One can grouse about Canberra and clearly be speaking of the Federal government, as a Frenchman can not so easily do by referring to Paris. Canberra’s name, then, will always be taken in vain, and many of the city’s qualities and moods are adaptations to this reality.
Today, Canberra has achieved a monumentalism worthy of the 21st century, and it will age better than more phallic capitals of the north. There is no single overpowering structure, but rather a stately arrangement of important buildings floating in a vast expanse of lake and parkland. The grandest building in the city is in many ways the humblest. The famous Parliament House, completed only in the 1980s, is half-buried in hilltop, hugging the earth, its plazas rich in Aboriginal design. Pedestrians can walk up a hillside right to its summit and feel their government churning beneath their feet.
Central Canberra is a sonata of lines and circles. A central equilateral triangle unites the federal monuments, each point surrounded by large concentric roundabouts. As the city grew, the patterns became more intricate, but curvature is the prevailing theme. Straight lines are controlled, kept short. Few streets run straight more than a mile without some curve or interruption. The unofficial message of Canberra, imparted at the unconscious level of daily life, is "keep turning ...".
If there is an unusually dazed look in the eyes of Canberrans, perhaps it is the vertigo from a lifetime spent following gentle curves – not just the geometrically perfect roundabouts, but also the more meandering roadways of the carefully planned suburbs that are carefully tucked in the surrounding hills. Geography loses its severity in such a place, and directions become more poetic, more metaphorical. Wandering the civic center looking for an appointed cafe, I found that each time I asked for directions, I got advice that was good for, at most, another 100 feet or so. Then it was best to ask again. "Oh yes, I know that cafe. Just down this way, then along the wall there, then up."
Up?
Our whole system of prepositions is meant for navigating in an implicit three-dimensional grid. There is a left and right, a forward and backward, and an up and down. Central Canberra, however, is a series of concentric hexagons, pierced at various angles by assorted streets, alleys, and pedestrian ways, so that despite the apparent order from the air, its ground-level complexity is as dizzying as that of Venice. Life in such a place makes people abandon the Cartesian grid altogether, and instead inhabit their city as a chain of metaphors. In this most gentle and tolerant of capitals – ruling a land where profoundly different senses of place uneasily coexist -- wherever you are going is up for you.
Recommended:
Yes
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Urbanist
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Location: San Francisco
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