The author of this book, Catherine Bull, is the Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Melbourne. She has a distinguished career as a consultant practitioner and subsequently at Queensland University of Technology, in Brisbane. She holds a masters degree from the University of Melbourne, and a doctorate in design from the GSD at Harvard, USA.For many people, Australia is somewhat of an enigma- seemingly generously endowed with natural resources, enjoying a mild climate and fine cities, yet it is left conspicuously `unpopulated'. When asked about this, my best response is to say that the enticing shots of Sydney Harbor in the tourist brochures are but one aspect of a wondrous and intriguing landscape. I suggest they venture further afield, out west, beyond the package tour sites, and imbibe some of the quotidian landscapes of Australia- the suburbs, the country towns, the surf coasts, the eucalypt forests: these are places of every day landscapes. But exactly where: Australia is such a huge country?
With this book by Professor Bull in your backpack, and with sufficient time and resources, you could make a grand journey of revelation- and find in every corner of the Australian continent, some revealing place to explore. The book shows and discusses a very diverse range of landscape design projects, from Darwin in the north to Launceston in the south (but don't miss out on Hobart- arguably one of the most captivating urban settlements in the world), from Perth in the south-west to Palm Cove in the north-east, and many places in between.
One particular aspect of these projects is that most of them are about public use areas, in the `public realm', that is, free and open to the community. Certainly there are private gardens of merit in Australia, but arguably the projects shown in this book represent a far more important aspect of Australian culture: the quality and amenity of public spaces. This reflects a fundamental attitude and belief, that the ordinary lived -in public places are important, cherished and worth protecting. Despite contemporary pressures for reduced government spending and privatization of public assets, this commitment is generally being maintained. Perhaps for visitors, this is one of the joys of visiting places such as Sydney Cove, illustrating a principle that is not irrelevant to Korean cities.
There are certainly some gaps in the coverage of the book. It under-represents the influence and value of recent immigrant cultures from south-east Asia, which is very apparent in the larger cities. Aboriginal cultural traditions are minimally represented. I doubt that these omissions reflect the overtly retrograde mode, recently seen in contemporary Australian social and political processes! Some of the more remote locations, such as the Kimberley region in the north-west, or the west coast of Tasmania, regions where there are significant landscape projects, would have been valuable additions. But this is a small quibble, there are so many possibilities, and the projects that are included are many and varied.
From this book, it appears that Australia is seemingly and somewhat belatedly finding its bio-social `space'; and this through landscape projects. By this I mean that, in many of the projects, both `natural' space and `social' space can be discerned as melding and complementary. It may even be said that, in many of these projects, landscapes are prompting or initiating a pivotal re-orientation in Australian's cognition of itself.
The quintessential project that illustrates this point is the Riawunna Aboriginal Studies Centre, at the University of Tasmania's Launceston campus (p. 148). This tiny space, as much community facilitation as a design, by Sinatra Murphy and Urban Initiatives, exposes an essential primordial relationship of culture and environment. The design was developed with the Aboriginal community. But, as importantly, it addresses the wider immigrant community. We see a landscape of rocks, stone, shells (middens) and plants. In lesser hands, this may have amounted to a parody, but here it elicits recognition. We understand a representational space about extended time (dreamtime?), adaptation and subsistence with resources, and opportunity for social connections.
On the other hand, at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra, in the Garden of Australian Dreams, there are a plethora of memetic signs, but not much signified. (p. 144). There is a cacophonous assemblage of words and objects- representations of the settlement of other places; the intent however is obscured by reliance on semiology which engages the viewer through metonymy, a trompe-l'oeil of signs, which verge on mere verbiage. The `marking out' of the garden also downplays a pivotal aspect of the process of occupation of land in Australia, then and now, and that is the overt `ethnic cleansing' which was and is a fundamental aspect of the European occupation of Australia. In this context, the naming of places, which is emphasized in the garden, whether using European names or under official policy employing Aboriginal names, is relatively unimportant. I am also drawing a direct analogy between the historic `ethnic cleansing' of Aboriginals and the current incarceration of recent immigrants; both processes directed at ensuring a white (only) occupation of preferred localities. But I guess that's an argument for another day.
For these reasons, Professor Bull's book is far more that an inventory for a tourist, and I really should not suggested that. The fundamental value of the book is the way in which it points toward designed landscapes as a vital aspect of self-cognition for Australians and along the way, it captures the knowledge and innovation, at the hands of landscape practitioners and clients, which make it possible.
This can be seen in the final chapter in particular. Professor Bull concludes the book at a high pitch indeed. Between the lines of the placid prose there is an impassioned plea, for what the author lays out is a challenge. Professor Bull asks for - and seeks positive answers through designed landscapes- a society that understands and enjoys its diversity and capacities, its natural processes and cultural adaptability.