Sunday 4 May 2008

Brisbane Eyesores

I just spent the weekend up in Brisbane, and you know, my original hometown is a beautiful place. You do forget how tropical and verdant it is when you live elsewhere. Not to mention the wonderful riverine suburbs, and the unparalleled views of the CBD.

But I have a complaint. A major complaint, actually. Now, dont get me wrong, I support high density in the inner city, for sustainability reasons. But why, o why is EVERY NEW UNIT COMPLEX IN QLD AS UGLY AS SIN?

Here's my theory on what happened.

In 1982 some 4th year Architecture student at the Gold Coast half-completed the most pedestrian, shitty beige/ off cream box drawings, for an satirical honours project entitled "Yuppie suicide watch house", then lapsed into a coma shortly before submission.

Enter some hideous white shoe fossils of the Surfers era. Taking the unfinished drawings of our averagely talented and now comatose satirical hack, the entire developer class of the QLD chipped in $48 and patented the satirical box plans as 'Quinceland standard issue yuppie slum dwelling', aka the 'Smart state people's unit' , and then proceeded to repeat the one housing design ad nauseum, Poland under Soviet jackboot style.

Sadly, there's no money for improvements on these - the worst designed units in all Christendom - because any extra funds must of course go to the Council in bribes. There's simply no other possible explanation as to how these to egregious assaults against taste keep springing up with council approval.

And here's the final condemnation on you, QLD developer, and alleged QLD 'architect' (and I use the term ironically). The only decent modern architecture in the whole freakin state is Housing Commission. Wow, they even have a few simple nods to the vernacular QLDer style. How hard was that?

Brisbane is a beautiful place. Please stop screwing it up.

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