Swan St is where deadwooding is needed
Newcastle City Council have announced that work will start on deadwooding the Moreton Bay fig trees lining Maitland Road in Islington this week.The work is expected to take several weeks.
Tonight, bizarrely, this building will be the subject of performance art, or a light show, or something equally depressing. Supervised by one of the architects who designed it.
And then this week it will be chopped up.
Here’s what this does to me:
MEDIA RELEASE
Award-winning structure to be trashed by Newcastle City Council
The development of the Newcastle Regional Gallery is about to begin and the first step in the process is the destruction and waste of a neglected, award-winning structure.
At the rear of the gallery is the ‘Pavillion‘, built in 1996. It was designed by architects Ramsay Awad, Jodie Dixon, and Chris Tucker.
It is about to be chopped up – or, in Council’s words, ‘deconstructed’ under Mr Tucker’s supervision and people are being encouraged to – wait for it – take pieces as souvenirs.
‘There are people in Newcastle who would happily use it as community space,’ said Caity Raschke.
‘Islington Park is one place it could be moved to. One of our local companies made a very generous offer to the community, saying they could have contributed a large portion of the funds needed to move it. The community could have fundraised for the rest but Newcastle City Council failed to support the proposal. The National Trust wrote in support of the recycle and refit to Islington Park.
‘There are funds allocated to demolishing ithe Pavillion which could be used to move and store it but Council refused. Council claimed that the removal of the building had to be started by the beginning of July – here we are a month later and it’s beginning this week. Lost opportunities for fundraising – thanks, NCC.This is just another example of how little regard Council have for the community,’ said Dr Raschke.
‘NCC prides itself on its commitment to public art. Why would you tear this down just to throw it away when it could beautify a community park?
‘I suppose a Council that destroys a beautiful building like the Frederick Ash building, throws out historical material in the process, and fells the Laman Street trees, and is poised to virtually give away other assets like parking centres, Wickham School and daycare centres, is not going to look after a community asset like this.
‘Shame on them.’
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There’s a 15MB document that NCC call their casebook history of tree failures. I call it Fig Porn. There’s a newly discovered failed part for the ‘casebook’. (more…)
Almost every Moreton Bay fig lining the road at the edge of Islington Park was vandalised in council roadworks a few months ago.
I’d like to see the page in the tree care technical manual that says it’s OK to paint on trees like this.
Tasteless beggars, poor leadership.
The picture on the left was taken in a courtyard of the National Museum in Canberra on a hot summer’s day a year or so ago. It was a beautiful stand of funny little native trees (I presumed) all doing their own thing, bending here, there and everywhere while pretending to be the same.
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