Mammon v culture

phill Parsons

Burnie City Council were shocked recently when a site favoured for demolition and redevelopment, the Portside Building was listed on the Tasmanian Heritage Register.

General Manager Paul Arnold and Mayor Allwyn Boyd have both opined in favour of mammon over culture, the prized view of a business from the bypass making this site an attraction to one retail developer.

Burnie has a small but significant collection of Art Deco buildings and like some of the seaside towns west of Ulverstone, the slow pace of life has meant the preserving of an architectural heritage.

Now with modernity looking to make everything over in bland in the interests of lower costs the mouthpieces for small thinking have come out to demand that locals control local development.

All well and good if you wish to see the built past pass before your eyes.

However, what has Art Deco got to offer Burnie if it takes the opportunity.

In its first 10 days the Art Deco 1910 – 1939 exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria attracted 26,000 visitors, each one of them now more aware of the period as they peruse the more than 300 display items in the collection that has so far toured the US, Canada and Japan.

The Art Deco Society conducts guided tours of Melbourne’s art deco buildings. A month long Art Deco Regional Festival is due to begin in August with tours displays and film screenings in towns as far apart as Mildura and Bendigo.

Instead of removing the things that make Burnie unique, and thus an attraction in itself, especially for those interested in architecture, the City would do well to adopt the attitude of one instead of pretending that just having a certain population a city makes.

Building on a market that has already been schooled through exhibitions, festivals and tours to take in the particular art deco works in Burnie, a special collection of the one builder, would be a step forward in using the cultural heritage we have to build onto tourism.

Turning heritage into rubble, whilst it may appear to be a move to modernity, closes off the opportunity only one place has and turns it into everywhere and therefore nowhere. As the mistakes of many places teach us.

The Burnie Art Deco Trail may be found at http://www.artdecotasmania.com.au

phill Parsons has an interest in the heritage; built, cultural or natural but is not associated with any particular organization.