Victoria Square Visions

[Prince George]

Why, thank you jk1237, we are touched *sniff*. We are going to come back, but our time over here has been rather galvanizing. Apart from the times that you see something here and think "Oh no, don't let that happen to Adelaide", there are things that you will find here that are really good. And when you do, you find that they almost always have the same story behind them - a bunch of people said to themselves "We're going to have to do something about this ourselves - let's take matters into our own hands".

So the park around the corner has a good new play area because some locals spent five years gathering support and organising fundraising. The school can offer field trips, school camps, and art and music classes that many others don't because the parents volunteer hours (many!) of help each week. People go out and organise petitions or plans or events or food-drives because they know they can't rely on governments to do it for them.

Australia's government systems are more to my taste than America's, but they have made us all a little complacent. The Queen and I are planning to step up more where we can - for now, it's just pestering people through email.

[Queen Anne]

Hi all,

Just a note to say I have learnt that PPS won't be a part of the Vic Square redevelopment. It was always a long shot, since the planning for the project is already so far along.

It does bother me a bit that Adelaide is an "odd man out" in not consulting PPS for this project. Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and the Sunshine Coast are all having a visit (right now) from the man I was in contact with at PPS - where Adelaide has no real relationship with them at all, from what I can gather. I don't know the extent of the work that PPS will be doing in most of those other cities, but at least there is clearly an active dialogue there. It strikes me as odd that Adelaide would seek a square that has echoes of PPS's work but won't take the next step and get PPS's help in realising that square. I guess they have their reasons..

It's not that I think every city should be running to the same experts all the time, in a "keeping up with the Jones's" type thing, it's just that PPS are world recognised for their specific work in creating special, successful public places. Other Oz cities are gaining from PPS's expertise while we are not - and they could have been a most useful inclusion in the Vic Square project.

In particular, their approach to deep community consultation would, imo, bring far greater benefits than any "community ideas competition" can. Personally, I feel the competition paid lip-service to the idea of community consultation, and I'm a bit sick of the "going through the paces" style of community consultation that we seem to get at times.

Anyway, enough of my grumbling. I have been assured that those in charge have engaged some of the best people for Vic Square, and that the process is really sound and geared towards a superior result.

So, I guess it's a waiting game to see what they come up with for the square. It seems that the greatest issue facing the project, right now, is the effect the global financial crisis could have on it. Hopefully, we'll hear more as the year unfolds.

[joshzxzx]

How loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong is it going to take for this bloody square to start development.

There always seems to be excuses for this development going ahead...

[Wayno]

thanks so much Queenie for your efforts and keeping us in the loop. I suppose it's simply a waiting game now...

[SRW]

Just came across this, seems a useful and informed background to the current (or never-ending) debate:

Wasteland or Dreamland?
James Potter
The Adelaide Review, 1 December 2008

The long, long story of Victoria Square.

‘An inhospitable wasteland’ is how the Institute of Architects describes Victoria Square. ‘A people’s plaza’, wishes the Lord Mayor, where workers, visitors and students can mingle, as he announces a competition for ideas of renewal. ‘Here we go again’ grunts most of Adelaide’s population as they think back over endless years of stifled and forgotten plans. So, for how long has Victoria Square been a problem? – 20 years, 50 years? Try 170 years, because whatever these problems may be, they began in 1836 with the first European settlers.

Colonel William Light laid out five squares in the city area south of the River Torrens. His idea served both aesthetic and practical purposes. They would relieve the eye of a grid system of intersecting straight roads, and would lessen the effect of dust storms that raged for six months of the year. However, with hindsight, there were two major faults with Victoria Square, the area planned to be the central hub of the city. He allowed no north-south road to continue through the Square (Light’s squares were to be used for the health and recreation of Adelaide’s citizens and so traffic had to be diverted around the square), and it was too far to bring water by hand or cart from the River Torrens – the only immediate source of supply.

So as to be near water, Adelaide developed along its northern boundary. The early village centre was the intersection of North Terrace and Morphett Street, and the commercial heart was Hindley Street which slowly extended into Rundle Street – where it remains today. Victoria Square was ignored as development occurred elsewhere. As the 1870s progressed , it became increasingly clear that a roadway was needed. Mail coaches were travelling too rapidly around the corners of the Square and, after a series of accidents, they were forced to slow down to walking pace. Visitors were confused into believing that King William Street ended at the Post Office and did not continue further south beyond the Square. The story was told of a traveller from Horsham in Victoria who had returned home without an important parcel because he could not find a King William Street address that lay in this southern section. However, a central road would mean removing most of the trees still surviving and businesses along the sides of the Square were fearful of losing customers, and so still nothing happened.

After 1873 a railway line extension became the big issue. In this year the Glenelg and Suburban Railway Company opened their line to the growing seaside suburb – a line that now carries trams. In an act to be repeated 130 years later with the current tramline, there were calls to extend the railway through the Square to North Terrace. And just like 130 years later there were many who opposed this extension. There were fears of damage to buildings from the locomotive’s vibrations and concerns that frightened horses would be a danger to the public. The extension never happened and by 1913 the King William Street section of the railway had been closed.

The constant push for a north-south corridor through the Square finally led to the first Big, but simple, Idea – move the square one block to the west. By turning the area that is now occupied by the likes of the Hilton and SGIC buildings into the western half of the square, the current eastern side could then be used to locate a new Parliament House, a museum and Adelaide’s first university. This plan by Thomas Worsnop, the town clerk, would then permit King William Street to become a through road on the eastern side of the square, thus turning it into ‘the finest street in the southern hemisphere’. When this plan proved too radical it was modified to allow the Square to be simply halved in size – the western side remaining and the eastern half used to build public buildings. The evidence of today tells us that this Big Idea amounted to nothing. It was argued that moving the square would distress the citizens, reduce the area available for children to play, and hardly make any difference to traffic movement. Calculations showed that a horse and cart travelling at a normal speed of 10 kph would save less than one minute by not having to travel around the Square.

Arguments for and against a continuous north-south road continued until 1883 when at last a wide thoroughfare was created, resulting in the division of the Square into separate quarters, all neatly fenced with smart new railings. The year 1932 saw some action when the Square was remodeled into a formal design of the French medieval style. Paths of red quarry sand were geometrically placed amongst ornamental flower beds. Citizens would need to be trained to keep to the paths and not take short cuts across cultivated areas. At this time Queen Victoria’s statue stood in the centre of the intersection of King William, Wakefield and Grote Streets, and it was suggested she be moved to North Terrace. The intersection was no place for a Queen, where she was brushed by trams passing her on four sides and buffeted by motor traffic. However, no such sanctuary eventuated. The World War II years that followed took their toll on the Square. The Government, believing a Japanese air attack was a real possibility, demanded air raid trenches be dug, and a series of long ditches soon destroyed the formality of a French garden. Post-war development, and the overwhelming need for fresh starts, saw the entire Square ploughed and levelled with every existing tree removed (over 70 elms, kurrajongs and moreton bay fig trees disappeared) and new lawns planted.

In June 1965 a new design was proposed. The Glenelg tram was to terminate within the Square (by now it was the city’s only tram route), a new fountain would emerge in the northern area, and a diamond-shaped one way road system created. A further proposal to link the tram terminus with the fountain by a pedestrian underpass was abandoned. Apart from the recent relocation of the tramlines, this layout, which results in a six piece fragmentation of the Square, remains today.

However in January 1980, with thoughts of South Australia’s sesqui-centenary arriving in six years, another Big Idea hit the headlines. Lord Mayor Bowen proposed a beautification plan that would ‘tear up the sea of black bitumen’, replacing it with lawns, trees and ground cover, and send all traffic around the four sides of the square. The area would become a unified whole – a miniature New York Central Park. Two weeks later John Lawrie, the Housing Trust architect, suggested the mother of all plans. All roads would be relocated to underground level 1, with a new railway system to go even further below at underground level 2.

And so we come to the future. With the Central Market area becoming one of Adelaide’s major drawcards, there is no doubt that the centre of gravity of the city is drifting towards Victoria Square. One direction would be to identify themes indigenous to the area that engage the public’s attention and interest. History can tell us something of where Victoria Square has been, but it can also help suggest these themes.

[Omicron]

A nice little article, that.