It’s a rare day you’ll read a bigger pile of gash than Elizabeth Farrely’s ode to the musical values of the contested Fitters’ Workshop in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning.
But in amongst the towering piles of fluff there are some nuggets.
For example I hadn’t realised that the distinctive early Canberra architecture had a common creator in the form of one John Smith Murdoch.
But this quote right down the bottom is where it gets interesting for those who’ve been following the tale:
Colin Stewart, the architect for the original Kingston Foreshore masterplan, envisioned a dozen or more arts uses, each supported by a concomitant private use.
He suspects the slow whittling away of the proposed ”arts precinct” to a couple of ALP-favoured users reflects government desire to flog the remaining sites for development. At which point it all starts to sound depressingly Sydney.
Here in the Eagle’s nest we’ve always been suspicious of trying to create “Arts Precincts”, which historically occur where real estate is cheap enough for artists (not just favoured luvvies of the ruling elite) to live and create their own studios.