SITING THE MUSEUM OF VICTORIA By Tervor Huggard Is it to be Position, Position and Position or is it to be Isolated from Transport, Isolated from the other arts and Isolated from its most important resource - People? A paper on the Strategic Planning of our City and the appropriate position of the Museum of Victoria to benefit the City, the State and the Museum by Trevor Huggard, Former Exhibition Trustee, Lord Mayor of Melbourne and Chairman of Melbourne Strategy Plan Committee. While there is much that could be said about the design and its disrespect for the Great Hall replacing its recently restored Centennial Gardens on Nicholson Street with a car park entrance and ramp, a bus parking station at its main entrance central axis to Rathdowne Street and the obliteration of many fine views of the dome from northern aspects I will not dwell on any of these issues in the limited time available today. Of much greater importance is the key strategic planning issues relating to the city and its host role for the whole of the state and where we place one of the states most important assets, a unique asset, the Museum of Victoria by its nature is a one off, naturally positioned, hopefully, at an accessible, well located venue where regular visitation by all Victorians, especially those without access to cars, school children, overseas, interstate and intrastate visitors can occur. Most importantly it should be in a location where people who never intended to visit the Museum when they set out on their days activities will become conscious of its existence and have their lives enhanced by being drawn into the Museum and discovering its intellectually stimulating and therapeutic benefits to their lives. Let there be no mistake in understanding that the Casino management understand this point with vivid clarity! They have positioned themselves so that they are geographically and psychologically central to our lives and our culture, not peripheral to it. Many people perhaps wish they were not, but that is the subject of a separate debate. We must make sure that the intellectual pursuits are well positioned to make a contribution to all of our lives and we do not have to seek them out. Access for all is crucial, obvious positioning is vital, public debate essenu and a process that ensures that the ultimate decision makers are well informed and fully aware of the issues and concerns before they make their irreversible decision. Q1= of those four criteria is being addressed today, hopefully the other three will follow. In the 1985 Strategy Plan, a plan that is to be regularly reviewed and updated as a blueprint for this city, which I had the good fortune to be chairman of, it became obvious in the detailed research and just over 1000 meetings in 10 months with every diverse interest group in this complex city, that certain aspects of our city are crucial to uphold or your city will suffer and wither irretrievably. The important principle of having a 'strong centred city' not a city with a dead heart was a central platform of the plan. The very reason why the Melbourne City Council has had an adopted policy of fighting hard to retain the large array of government departments in the city rather than allowing them to drift and decentralise to remote locations, even although none of them pay rates, placing a huge financial burden on the council's budget, is that the enormous investment in the underground rail loop and our public transport system can only be justified if the very hub of the system provides access to all those facilities. It is also an economic fact that where government investment locates itself, private investment follows. Conversely where government investment deserts the city, private investment quickly follows. This principle is starkly obvious in our city at this very moment. A recent press article expressing concern about the decline of Russell Street by the Chamber of Commerce and BOMA highlights that when corresponding decisions to vacate the Magistrates Court, Russell Street police headquarters and the Queen Victoria hospital site all occur more or less simultaneously an instant stop to precinct activity occurs leaving the area and its surrounds in serious decline. The Greek precinct, Chinatown and the general retail area suddenly hit the wall and disastrous commercial decay ensues. The Queen Victoria hospital generated enormous activity for the immediate area through extensive rural Victoria numbers demanding accommodation, food and back up services around the clock. The present thinking of possibly turning it into a city park is bizarre to say the least. The ultimate irony is that we are turning our public gardens into building sites and our building site into gardem! Unfortunately this extraordinary 'switch of sites' behaviour costs the tax payer heavily but fills the pockets of a few select individuals handsomely. I do hope the decision makers see the irony and correct the ships course as a matter of considerable urgency. The continuing process of asset stripping of our city has been identified by the 1985 Strategy Plan and its 1990 review and alarm bells sounded about the decline of the city. It is by neglect, or design, not necessity and must be halted- Walter Burley Griffin's design for Canberra with its central spine extending from the war memorial to parliament house seems to be well understood by planners and the public alike. The civic spine from our war memorial past the deliberate placement of our civic assets, the town hall, the city square, St Pauls Cathedral, the National Gallery, Flinders Street Station, the State Library and the Museum of Victoria and leading up to, as Barry Humphries wryly noted in the 1970's "that other book end of our culture, Carlton United Breweries" is not nearly as well understood. Its importance to Melbourne is enormous and major civic decisions over the years have been consistently based on this understanding and recent decisions to close Swanston Street to through traffic as our main processional spine where every event and procession from the Anzac Day march to the Moomba procession occurs acknowledges this. A current decision on the books to build the $100 M plus Federation Square at Princes Bridge consolidates this position. it is extraordinary to me that on 3 sites all worthy of serious consideration Federation Square, Queen Victoria Hospital site and the Carlton United Breweries site all desperately looking for a primary use to arrest the decline of our cities activity and vibrance and all strategically located on our main civic spine and processional way are ignored. It is even more extraordinary to me that the Museum would happily vacate its location of dominance in the city, and in the minds of all Victorians, from its present location where expansion without the disruption of moving could occur. As pointed out it is not only the obvious vacant Queen Victoria Hospital site that surrounds the Museum at present but it abounds with vacated sites in the former legal precinct as well. The opportunities for endless, uncontroversial, publicly welcomed expansion are endless. One of the great museums of the world, the British Museum thrives on retaining its location in London by acquiring neighbouring buildings and sites and adapting them for their use. it is not disadvantaged by this at all, on the contrary, and it reinforces the precinct activity and makes a major contribution to that city. It will be a tragedy for Melbourne and the Museum if it is not put where it will be loved and needed. The British Museum also benefits by having a Museum Station on the underground which firstly constantly reminds visitors of its existence and secondly simplifies the process of finding it by simply travelling to Museum Station. In Melbourne there are 197 stations on our Metropolitan network, only one of them was named after a dedicated use and activity - Museum Station - what a marketing coup! Not even the AFL has an MCG Station - but I bet they would love to see that! Some will hasten to point out that the Showgrounds Station and Flemington Racecourse are dedicated stations but they are once a year stations on a dead end line. The State government wanted $250,000 to extinguish the Museum Station name and sell it to Melbourne Central as Melbourne Central! They understood the marketing advantage! Why anyone would want to abandon such a clear marketing advantage and high profile address is beyond comprehension. This proposed address is remote, difficult , car based and not well served by public transport. The use of either the Queen Victoria Hospital site and other related precinct sites or the CUB site could all retain Museum Station as our only dedicated station. An opportunity to invest in our city with a $250 M public building is a once in a life time opportunity and should be strategically located to make a contribution to the city not located to the detriment of our public gardens. In September, 1986 the M.C.C. commissioned a detailed report by Rex Swanston on the use of its public parks and gardens. The first point, made is that gardens are infinitely more fragile and sensitive to use than parks and fall into a quite different category of public amenity than parkland. The Carlton Gardens are exactly that - a garden, not a parkland and need to be very carefully managed. Secondly it was recommended that major events and activities should be avoided in them. This policy was adopted by M.C.C. at that time. The replacement of our democratically elected council by state government appointed commissioners meant that not only has this policy on management of the gardens been ignored but also the presence of councillors on the Exhibition Trustees to ensure that knowledge and daily dialogue occurred but also the process of planning permit applications and rights to objection lapsed as well. Simply put, the delicate balance of checks and balances that have existed and have been successful in retaining this building and these gardens for posterity for the past 116 years were rudely interrupted and removed. The public alarm and concern about this proposal is well founded not simply for what is proposed but what it commits these gardens to. It is a current fact that in the Melbourne City Council area where a public institution is located in a park land or a garden they currently have objectionable and unwanted expansion proposed or under way alienating parkland at an unprecedented rate! i.e. Princes Park - Carlton Football Club Royal Park RQyal Park Tennis Centre Hard paved car parking and major alienation of park land for the zoo Proposed relocation of the Royal Womens Hospital to the Royal Children's Hospital site Multi-deck car park in Goshs Paddock Carlton Garnd.=- Museum proposed Albert Park, Kings Domain, FairticM, the list goes on and on. The main point is that wherever an institution is placed in the middle of our parkland it remains in conflict forever with that garden as the insatiable demand for expansion, particularly for car parking puts future politicians, governments and communities under constant pressure to accept the current 'quite reasonable' incremental increases of use. Anyone opposing such reasonable requests is constantly painted as being unreasonable or difficult. THE PLACEMENT OF MAJOR INSTITUTIONS IN A PARKLAND CONDEMNS THAT PARKLAND TO CONTINUOUS AND INEXORABLE ALIENATION OF THAT PARKLAND AND REMAINS, IN PLANNING TERMS, FATALLY FLAWED AS A PHILOSOPHY. IT MUST BE COMPREHENSIVELY REJECTED WHEREVER IT IS PROPOSED! This museum proposal clearly is being built with an acknowledged shortfall of car parking. It will immediately be under pressure to cope with that and the proposals for expansion will commence immediately, not in 10 years time. No matter how sincere promises are by the museum or any planner or politician the reality is that history has proven that none of them can provide any guarantees that expansion will not occur, on the contrary we know from logic and experience that it will and must occur just as each and every facility in our parklands is expanding at the current time. The Exhibition Buildings were built before the motor car. The alienation by the motor car since has been appalling and has already commenced again with the parking of vehicles around the Great Hall and installation of a totally offensive ticket box and boom gate at the eastern entrance where the Centennial Gardens were reconstructed for pedestrian access only in the 1980's. I was very proud to be a Trustee in the 1980's and be part of the renaissance of the restoration of this building, the largest Victorian restoration in the world, and the 4 stage restoration of the gardens to ensure we once again saw this building standing in a garden setting. Stage 1. The restoration of the Centennial Gardens to the eastern face on Nicholson Street removing the sea of cars took place. The removal of the high cyclone fence to the north car park was removed to allow public access, the process for reinstatement was well under way. It really incences me to hear the government say they are only taking over an old car park and no trees will be lost. Let there be no mistake they are taking over our gardens! Our gardens are not cheap development sites. This car park long identified by the community and the Trustees was unacceptable and was progressively being reinstated to gardens once again. In concern at the then Hamer governments intention to build a 3000 seat convention centre on this site in 1979 I wrote a detailed report called 'When is a garden, not a garden The points made today were articulated clearly and presented to the government. To his credit Premier Hamer listened and abandoned the proposal. Premier Kennett should do the same now. It is important to note that the government had said then that its decision to proceed with the proposal was far too advanced, irreversible and could not be stopped, but it was stopped. These same points contained in that report are more relevant than ever today. I have also heard the arguernent put by this government that it is too late to change course and it would cost too much to proceed - not bad for a government that stopped Daryl Jacksons prize winning design when it was nearly completed at south bank! It is indeed ironical that right at this moment at huge expense to the tax payer the gas and fuel twin towers are being demolished generally acknowledged as a planning disaster. It was allowed to occur because it is on crown land and no planning permits were needed. Similarly the Metrol building built in Batman Avenue obliterated the all important view from Russell Street to the Botanic Gardens and Government House and contravened the 1974 Strategy Plan and had occured again because no planning permit was applied for. The Premier responded to public outrage and instructed the half built building be demolished - a very gutsy, but correct decision. He instructed all his government departments that they must apply for planning permits whether they were legally needed or not. A similar requirement was placed on the Exhibition Buildings in 1979 and worked extremely well until it was conveniently forgotten for this project! Public scrutiny and planning permits protect politicians from themselves and we the public from planning disasters that should have been foreseen. Remember good proposals have nothing to fear from planning permits, only bad proposals have anything to fear! What an outrage that even the design of a small heritage ticket box to replace a totally disastrous series of unfortunate out buildings in 1987 saw fit to engage public scrutiny and quite rightly apply for a planning permit yet a 12,000 M , $250 M structure does not. What an outrage that the debate has been consciously diverted to architectural design rather than one of strategic planning and siting. It presumes that it is alright to build a Nuclear Reactor in Bourke Street provided it looks alright! I do not want to debate the colour of the doorknobs, I want to see a proper decision made on the correct siting and location of our museum. In Summary:- We do not want another Gas and Fuel twin towers or a Metrol building by ignoring process. We do not want one more institution dropped in the middle of a public gardens where its inevitable expansion will destroy the gardens. We do not want another legacy of a facility that doesn't work because a planning permit considering all the key issues of transport, parking, access, amenity, scale, size, current infrastructure and environmental impact is ignored. We do want - a world class museum in an 'A' grade location. We do want - the appalling neglect by successive governments to the museum at the expense of the other arts, tennis centres and great southern stands, etc to finally be properly balanced with a genuine commitment to the intellectual pursuits and provide a museum which is welcomed by the community. Swanston Walk has . had a 63% increase of pedestrian traffic since its implementation but those that criticise it as a failure don't recognise that it needs the major government investments and community assets to remain or locate along it to guarantee the teeming life we all crave for it. Unless this once in a lifetime opportunity of a $250 M project is invested in the positive development of our city rather than another sad chapter in its decline then our city and the Museum will be the poorer for it,