"Rectangular Quay" Just Doesn't Have the Same Ring to It
Written: Dec 28 '02 (Updated Mar 29 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Some pleasures as a civic space. Unavoidable as hub of the ferries.
Cons: Not even remotely circular.
The Bottom Line: Hub of the ferry system, and to this extent unavoidable. Walk along the east side is recommended. Can be experienced either as tourist trap or war zone.
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| Urbanist's Full Review: Circular Quay |
Circular Quay. Such an evocative name if you fondle it. Quays are places of arrival and departure, sites of welcoming. "Circular" is a delicious word for a writer, a small orgy for the tongue. If you don't stray into its uses in bureaucracy ("The Ministry's Circular #44856Bj goes in the Circular File") or in logic ("Your argument is circular!") then "circular" invites us into the the Eastern idea that life and the universe move in circles. Of course, if you prefer Western ideas, "circular" can invite you to meditate on the "music of the spheres" in medieval and Renaissance theology.
Not bad for one word, no? And yet "circular" has an energy to it that seems to transcend these meanings. A circle may be a solid round thing conveying a stability to the universe, but the word "circular" moves. You can hear an artist drawing a circle in the very sound of the word.
Long before I set foot in Sydney, I loved the term "Circular Quay". "Quay" suggested the frisson of arrivals and departures, which usually occur in rectangular places such as train stations and airports, but the name broke that mold with the sweeping whoosh of "circular". I longed to feel this contradiction in person.
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Dear Reader, go to Sydney, but not just for Circular Quay. Important experiences await you here, but circularity is not one of them. Better to savor the term at home, then come prepared for it to be a lie, as so many names are. For it's my sad duty to tell you that Circular Quay is rectangular, verging on square.
When the colony was founded, this was a cove, and like most coves, it was a rough semicircle. This, it seems, was enough to establish the name. However, circularity doesn't really lend itself to an efficient port. If you set out a bunch of piers all sticking out into a circular bay, they tend to run into each other, or at least the boats serving them do.
So for years, Sydney has been gradually "squaring off" Circular Quay, so that today, in a city not known for right angles, this may be the most rectilinear spot. The south (city) side of the former cove is now a straight edge where parallel piers extend north into the water. This is the hub of the Sydney Ferries, as well as of many tour boats, and one can't deny the practicality of parallel piers when so many boats are arriving and departing every hour.
On either side of the quay, the land extends outward in fairly straight lines. On the west side, a major museum looks down on you with right-angled authority. On the east side is a wall of condominium towers, about 10 stories high, marching out toward Bennelong Point and the Opera House. They block your view of the latter, and also blocking the view from the Quay up to the old Government House and the Botanical Gardens.
Behind you, or rather above you, is a double-decker structure that may remind you of an elevated freeway. To its credit, only the top level is a highway, the "controversial" Cahill Expressway, while the middle level is a train station. Still, it is a huge wall separating the city from its harbor -- an architectural crime comparable to San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway (which it tore down in 1992), Seattle's Alaskan Viaduct (soon to be torn down), or Boston's Central Artery (since buried). Among Australian cities, only Brisbane has abused its most important downtown waterfront as badly as Sydney has.
From here, your experience of Circular Quay will depend on who you are. If you're a tourist, or even a traveller, there are some honest pleasures to be had here, and epiphany is not impossible. I'll come back to this point of view in a moment.
If you're an urbanist like myself, you'll also realize at once that this is a war zone -- ground zero in the battle for Sydney's soul. Virtually every structure has been the subject of ferocious debate, endless plans, and career-destroying power-plays -- many orchestrated from Abu Dhabi, Singapore and Hong Kong, if not from wealthy, reclusive suburbs. The Cahill expressway above you, and the wall of condo towars lining the east side of the quay, are both dripping with political blood, and most architects or urban designers would describe them in terms unfit for publication.
But you're a tourist, you say, or at least a peaceful traveller. So can I tell you something nice about Circular Quay?
Many things. Though laced with obvious tourist traps, Circular Quay is still a working transit hub, where ferries, trains, and buses all connect, so you'll see real Sydneysiders coming and going through the day, especially at peak hours when the ferries morph from pleasant tourist excursions into crushes of briefcases throbbing with intention. The double-decker structure does contain a useful train station, and because this is on a middle level, the expressway on top is far enough up in the air that its noise isn't all that troubling. As for the views it blocks -- well, the buildings directly behind the structure include one of Sydney's ugliest (just peeking into the left side of the picture above), so this, too, may mitigate the structure's offense. Finally, the walks along the sides of the rectangular bay are among the nicest urban walks in Sydney. I especially recommend the walk along the east side, where a promenade below street level extends past many surprisingly affordable cafes out to the Opera House, that unforgettable crustacean structure -- circular, one longs to say, but really parabolic -- that must be seen as a piece of sculpture, though it's considerably less impressive as performance space.
Finally, as you take this walk along the eastside, notice the almost circular curves embedded in the pavement. Study them: they show the location of the shoreline at various points in the history of Sydney, indicating its gradual march away from circularity. It's as though someone thought it important to justify the name, as if to say to the curious northern visitor: "We're not completely soused down here; we know a rectangle when we see one."
Recommended:
Yes
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
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Urbanist
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Location: San Francisco
Reviews written: 78
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About Me:
Streetwise, academically credentialed gay renaissance man. For real bio, click "more" in profile.
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