DAVID BARTLETT:
The answer came back with some venom: “From you!” I wondered to myself if he meant from me, specifically or from the Labor Government more generally. If he meant the Labor Government, he should be aware of some local history before pinning that on us. It has actually been Labor that has made some of the most strategically important and beneficial decisions on the waterfront.
Pitfalls, Problems & Process
Last year I attended a very informative presentation by an expert in waterfront developments hosted by the Property Council of Tasmania.
While the presentation was very educative and there is much to learn from the pitfalls, problems and processes of the development of other waterfront precincts around the world, the session lacked something for me.
Our waterfront is unique and while the lessons of developers and planners are very important, the debate so far has been focused on those things. We have debated the mechanisms, the structures and the processes for moving forward.
The outcome of this debate has been the establishment of the Waterfront Authority and the wresting of responsibility for planning from the Hobart City Council. While these new arrangements have been contentious in some circles, the time for debating them is over.
The time for a debate about ideas has arrived.
Ideas for Our Waterfront
On the day the legislation to establish the new Authority went through the House of Assembly, I stepped out for lunch at Salamanca to be greeted by a motley handful of protestors waving the now obligatory “Save Our Waterfront” banner.
“Save it from what?” I asked politely as I walked by.
The answer came back with some venom: “From you!”
I wondered to myself if he meant from me, specifically or from the Labor Government more generally. If he meant the Labor Government, he should be aware of some local history before pinning that on us. It has actually been Labor that has made some of the most strategically important and beneficial decisions on the waterfront.
Bill Nielson’s Premiership is a good example.
If Neilson’s contribution to economic policy was on the lighter side, his lasting contribution to education and the arts in Tasmania was immeasurable. Neilson gave seven warehouses, which were formerly Education department stores and before that apple packing sheds, to the arts community. This became the Salamanca Arts Centre. His vision was contrary to many in the community at the time who wanted the area demolished and redeveloped.
This move started the Salamanca Market and the rest is history, as in one visionary move Neilson created a heart and centre for the emerging art and craft industries that continue to thrive today.
So if the protestor’s slur was aimed at me, my retort, following some weeks of consideration is as follows…
It is time for a debate about ideas on the waterfront. Most reasonable thinking Tasmanians know that the waterfront precinct could be so much more.
I don’t believe anyone has a mortgage on good ideas. If we are to be a progressive, learning community we need to first create an environment in which ideas grow and then we need to harvest those ideas for the benefit of all. I would like to think that the glib “Save Our Waterfront” banner might metamorphose into “Ideas for Our Waterfront”.
A Meeting Place
My idea is that the waterfront is a place where the Old Tasmania meets the New Tasmania. A place where all that we have been meets all that we aspire to. The past meets the future where the water meets the land.
The recent, highly successful Australian Wooden Boat Festival that saw 450 wonderful wooden boats and their equally colourful owners crammed in the waterfront precinct highlighted this idea for me.
When we mix the names of Tasman, Cook, Bligh and D’Entrecasteaux with the Mure family, the Cliffords and Young’s of the Franklin Wooden Boat School, we have a heady mix of maritime culture that blends innovation, beauty, technology and taste. When piners, whalers and windjammers are juxtaposed with Richardson Devine, Fiomarine, Stormy Seas and Liferaft Systems we know we have been and continue to be the among the world’s greatest sea faring people.
But it’s not just maritime culture that can be hosted at this Waterfront meeting place for the old and new Tasmania.
Waterfront Architecture
Tasmania has a rich history of talents in architecture that collectively punch well above their weight. The works of colonial architect and engineer John Lee Archer populate the waterfront today: Parliament House is of course an excellent example.
But our more contemporary architects also need to have a prominent place on our Waterfront. In his informative book Architecture from the Edge, award winning Tasmanian practitioner Barry McNeill profiles many of the century’s leading architects and reveals Tasmania’s architectural wealth.
McNeill’s book reveals the special ‘Tasmanian-ness’ of the state’s 20th Century architecture. And we don’t require a deep insight to understand that the collective contribution of names like Woolley, Rees, Heffernan and McNeill himself to our built environment should be recognised alongside Archers.
Add to this, of course, the work of emerging talents like Jonathon Pyefinch, Cath Hall and last year’s winner of the Tasmanian RAIA’s first prize for residential architecture Brad Wheeler. We clearly have the talent to celebrate our creativity in the built form. To consider the waterfront as a blank canvass is wrong. But to consider it a tapestry into which our world class and emerging architects can weave works alongside Archer’s formidable contribution is something we should aspire to.
I am sure that architects I admire would say that the planning profile for this area for too long has been about form, shape and colour and not about diversity, pluralism and juxtaposition. Perhaps the reason that most new work on the waterfront is unsatisfying is because it is constricted in its physicality by planning codes to a dumbed-down referencing of the older buildings rather than a more imaginative and thoughtful look at the basic principals. In my opinion, one thing is certain: both kitsch copies and dumb references are ultimately unsatisfying.
The Creative Economy
The Creative Economy, defined by John Howkins as including architecture, art, craft, digital media, script writing, music, furniture design, and media production amongst others, is globally outstripping growth in the rest of the economy five fold. (I much prefer Howkin’s 1999 book The Creative Economy to the more recent and more fashionable The Creative Class by Richard Florida because it presumes we have the ingredients within ourselves to be creative rather than the notion that we need to import a whole separate “class” of people.)
I strongly believe that we need to unlock the creative and productive spirit inherent in all Tasmanians and an environment such as the waterfront can provide a platform, in part, to achieve this.
As a place of commerce and industry the waterfront has seen a number of key historical phases. But the prospect of an innovation, science, technology
and creativity precinct being housed in the industrial jam, apple and produce factories of the past is irresistible. With location of CSIRO and the Salamanca Arts Centre the foundations of such a precinct are already in place.
By providing more space for these endeavours and actively encouraging the location of businesses like Adrian Bold’s Bold Impressions and Dave Gurney’s Blue Rocket Productions in this precinct we can build a uniquely Tasmania response to the rapidly growing creative economy sector.
In order to strengthen creative commercial operations public institutions such as the State Archives, Allport Library and the Tasmaniana Library also need to be considered as high priority tenants for the Waterfront area.
David Bartlett is a Labor MHA for Denison
