I visited the Museum of Sydney in December 2009. It is a relatively new museum (1995) in downtown Sydney on the site of the first Government House. It is architecturally inserted into the base of a large office tower building. I was curious to see how the story of the City of Sydney is portrayed, particularly given the historical similarities between Sydney and my own city, Cape Town.

Entrance to the Museum of Sydney

Edge of the Trees installation

The first installation one is confronted with is at the entrance to the museum – the iconic Edge of the Trees, by Fiona Foley and Janet Laurence. The name of the sculpture comes from an essay by Australian archaeologist Rhys Jones: “…the ‘discoverers’ struggling through the surf were met on the beaches by other people looking at them from the edge of the trees. Thus the same landscape perceived by the newcomers as alien, hostile, or having no coherent form, was to the indigenous people their home, a familiar place, the inspiration of dreams.”

As the plaque outside says: “Edge of the Trees is about contact. It acknowledges the indigenous place and people of Sydney, home of the Eora, and the many layers of occupation since 1788… A place to enter, explore, contest anew; perhaps reconciliation?”

Throughout the museum, there are genuine attempts to come to terms with the impact of ‘first encounters’ – contacts between first Australians, with their 40 000 years of history in the Sydney region, and British colonisers, most of them convicts. For example, in Invasion 1 – an Aboriginal perspective by Gordon Syron, the perspective of Aboriginal Australians towards the newcomers is clearly portrayed.

Gordon Syron, Invasion 1 - an Aboriginal perspective, 1999

Elsewhere in the museum, there was an exhibition of the work of Sydney artist, cartoonist and song-writer Martin Sharp. Sharp, a well-known 1960s counter-culture artist who designed the cover of the Cream albums Disraeli Gears and Wheels of Fire in 1968, also shows his concerns about Aboriginal justice through his painting Australia, which is a reinterpretation of the cartoon A Curiosity in her own Country by Phil May that appeared in 1888, itself an ironic comment on the Centenary celebrations of the time.

Martin Sharp, Australia, 2003-09

Phil May, A Curiosity in her Own Country, 1888

All this brings me to the point of this particular post – where is our own Museum of Cape Town?

To find the story (or stories) of our city, you have to try and piece it together through visits to a range of different museums: Iziko Slave Lodge (slavery), Rust en Vreugd (visual images of life in early Cape Town), Koopmans de Wet (household life), Bertram House (the British period), Groot Constantia (Cape Dutch life), Bo Kaap Museum (Islamic, slave and apartheid history), Castle of Good Hope (artefacts, military history), South African Museum (archaeology, social history), District Six Museum (apartheid forced removals), SA Sendingstigting Museum (missions and slavery), Heart of the City at Groote Schuur Hospital (first heart transplant), Lwandle Museum (migrant labour), SA Maritime Museum (history of Table Bay Harbour), SA Jewish Museum (social history), Robben Island Museum (colonialism and apartheid) and so on.

I’m sure I’ve left some places out, and this is not a comment on the good work done by the museums in our city, but the point I am trying to make is this – our city story is fragmented and largely untold. There is no single place which brings together the histories and memories of our city in a coherent way. This is why for example I believe our own ‘first encounters’ continues to be uncritically and stereotypically depicted on many contemporary Cape Town websites largely through the painting of Charles Bell: Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay in April 1652.

Charles Bell, 1813-1882, Jan van Riebeeck arrives in Table Bay in April 1652. Charles Bell was the Surveyor General at the Cape. He was also an artist and a stamp designer (he designed the famous Cape of Good Hope triangular stamp). The suburb of Bellville is named after him.

In essence, the history of Cape Town, known as the ‘Mother City’ for good reason, is the history of our nation. It is the original place of our own first encounters – the first dispossessions around water and land, the first conquests and subjugations, the first struggles for freedom and justice.

So, do we need a Cape Town Museum? I believe we do, but then where should it be located? What form should it take? Who is going to get the ball rolling?

While in Sydney, I was taken on a fantastic walking tour of some of the laneways that are part of a CBD lane revitalisation strategy. One of the ways in which this is being done is through an innovative urban art installation project called By George! Hidden Networks (George Street being the main street in the Sydney CBD). I particularly enjoyed the following projects:

The Urban Barcode

The Urban Barcode in Abercrombie Lane refers to suspended white fluorescent tubes that represent the bar code to Jan Gehl's influential book on public space 'Life Between Buildings'

Family Unit – Chill Trailer

Family Unit - Chill Trailer in Bond Street is a series of constantly changing performances in the hidden network of Sydney’s laneways. The Chill Trailer is an adaptable mobile unit that accommodates a multitude of uses.

 The Seven Metre Bar

The installation in Underwood Street is a real bar located at the 7m point of the CBD that marks the projected rise in sea-water should the effects of global warming not be mitigated timeously

A picture taken from the By George website showing the bar in action at night. Weather projections that build in ferocity in response to increasing bar patrons flicker across the installation.

Forgotten Songs

Forgotten Songs in Angel Place references the bird species that used to sing in the region before urban growth forced them away, drawing attention to the loss of habitat

See Cities Matter and Christmas Lighting in Sydney for more stories about my trip to Sydney.

I participated in a roundtable discussion on metropolitan governance at the end of last year, hosted by the Ottawa-based Forum of Federations, the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government and the Australian Major Cities Unit.

Delegates to the roundtable on metropolitan governance, Sydney, December 2009

I had an opportunity to engage in very interesting urban policy discussions and visit a number of urban regeneration projects in Sydney. Here are a couple of observations:

Cities in National Government Policy

Traditionally, national (or federal) governments around the world are not clear on city or urban policy. Sometimes, this is because of the strength of the rural or small town lobby. Sometimes, it is as a result of an over-romanticised view of a rural past, and a denial of urban demographic trends. Particularly in federal systems, cities are often regarded as ‘falling under’ provincial or state governments, and treated as subordinate elements of a government hierarchy rather than engines of national economic growth and centres of innovation. Often, federal governments adopt either a ‘hands-off’ or a ‘one size fits all’ approach to cities.

This may be changing in Australia, a strong federal state. Under the Rudd government, there has been a shift in national urban policy, with two significant developments taking place. Firstly, a national infrastructure strategy has been developed to provide a platform for future growth and development. This has been done via Infrastructure Australia, a new body charged with prioritising billions of dollars of investment in infrastructure, on the basis of National Infrastructure Priorities:

1. National broadband network
2. Creation of a true national energy market
3. Competitive international gateways
4. A national rail freight network
5. Transforming our cities
6. Providing essential indigenous infrastructure
7. Adaptable and secure water supplies

North Sydney

As the 5th point indicates, the role of cities has been explicitly recognised: “… the rapid growth and development of major cities in Australia has imposed complex planning and governance challenges on scales never experienced in this country before. What makes our cities more productive, liveable and sustainable has become a matter of national importance. What makes one city more successful or more competitive than another, or how they should be organised to promote social inclusion and environmental sustainability, are now fundamental questions of national productivity and well-being” (A Report to the Council of Australian Governments, page 40).

This is being given effect to in two ways. Firstly, a Major Cities Unit has been established by the government to “identify opportunities where federal leadership can make a difference to the prosperity of our cities and the wellbeing of their residents.”

Secondly, an innovative Capital City Strategic Planning Systems scheme was launched in December 2009. The objective is to ensure Australian cities “are globally competitive, productive, sustainable, liveable and socially inclusive and are well placed to meet future challenges and growth”. The mechanism consists of developing city strategic plans based on national critera by January 2012. These plans will then guide future infrastructure investment decisions. Cities around the world will be watching the Australian experiment with interest!

Sydney City Strategy and fragmented metropolitan governance

Sydney CBD

I had an opportunity to spend time with Alan Cadogan, Strategic Director of the City of Sydney’s 2030 Vision and Strategy. Entitled Green| Global| Connected, it’s an excellent strategic framework based on a thorough public process, easily accessible on the city’s website. However, I was surprised to find out that that the City of Sydney municipality only covers the Sydney inner city area, a total of 26 square km. The 2030 Vision therefore only applies to a small portion of the Sydney metropolitan area, which is home to over 4,5m people and covers a huge geographic area fragmented into 43 local municipalities. The difficulty is that the City of Sydney Vision relies on metropolitan-wide strategies for implementation, particularly with regard to issues such as public transport, climate change mitigation and affordable housing. As Alan put it, in the absence of metropolitan forms of governance, it’s a bit like ‘herding cats’ to get a coordinated approach to development amongst all the local authorities. It will be interesting to see how the Sydney city plan is translated into meaningful action.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Barangaroo Delivery Authority – using state land to leverage urban regeneration

I also visited the Barangaroo urban regeneration project in Central Sydney, a prime 22ha site owned by the New South Wales State Government. There are potential lessons which we can apply to the Western Cape Provincial Government Property Project currently underway here in the Cape Town Central City.

The goals of the project are as follows:

ECONOMY

• Revive the location as a trade gateway
• Refocus attention on Sydney in order to attract new regional and global headquarters
• Leverage the next long term phase of Sydney’s economic growth

 ENVIRONMENT

• Create a new Headland Park providing green space for the CBD and reinstating the archipelago of green headlands of the western harbour
• Provide a leadership example for waterfront urban renewal and the role governments can play in delivering sustainability
• Deliver a Climate Positive precinct that values the wellbeing of people and the planet
• Being water positive, exporting more water than it uses
• Generating zero waste, and potentially recycling waste from the surrounding area, and
• Achieving carbon neutrality by generating more renewable energy than we use – equivalent to taking 36,000 cars off the road each year

 COMMUNITY

• Reconnect and restore Barangaroo to Sydney’s CBD to provide a new foreshore space for Sydneysiders to enjoy
• Restore Barangaroo as a bustling foreshore space, activated by people living, working and playing
• Create new recreational opportunities for diverse age groups and lifestyles
• Complete the Government’s 14 kilometre Foreshore Walk between Woolloomooloo and Anzac Bridge

 In order to develop the site, the NSW State Government has set up the Barangaroo Delivery Authority (BDA). The BDA is governed by a small independent board, which includes the Mayor of the City of Sydney, and has a number of key functions, including:

• to promote, procure, facilitate and manage the orderly and economic development and use of Barangaroo, including the provision and management of infrastructure
• to promote, procure, organise, manage, undertake, secure, provide and conduct cultural, educational, residential, commercial, transport, tourist and recreational activities and facilities at Barangaroo

 The BDA has a CEO but employs no other staff. It must utilise public sector employees from state departments. There is a City of Sydney design advisory team.

Key development debates have included the size of the public realm to be developed, an appropriate housing mix, activation of the sea shore, the level of commercialisation, carbon neutral development, mixed use, and integration with the surrounding parts of the Sydney CBD and waterfront.

Barangaroo site

See Laneways, Sydney: Using Public Art to Revitalise City Spaces and Christmas Lighting in Sydney for more stories about my trip to Sydney.

I’ve got quite a few city development stories from my recent visit to Sydney. However, they are going to have to wait for the New Year because I’m going on holiday, and no-one wants to read serious stuff at this time of the year anyway. So, let me close the year with a two great lighting projects that I came across.

Recycled Christmas Tree

This 8m tall Christmas tree, located in the restored area of Sydney known as The Rocks, is made from more than 7 000 recycled soft drink bottles that were rejected by the packaging company. The tree is lit each night by GreenPower renewable energy. After Christmas, the tree will be recycled back into bottles.

Christmas tree made from recycled bottles, The Rocks, Sydney

Close-up of plastic bottles

A daytime view

Macquarie Night Lights

The New South Wales Government sponsors the impressive Macquarie Street Night Lights, which use computer-aided design to light up historic buildings on Macquarie Street in Sydney city during the month before Christmas.

Computer-generated lighting design

Same building, different design

Design 1

Design 2

St Mary's Cathedral, design 1

St Mary's Cathedral, design 2

The City of Sydney similarly projects Christmas images on the facade of the iconic Sydney Town Hall

Sydney CBD map

I’m heading off for Sydney on Friday to take part in an International Roundtable on Metropolitan Governance. It will be hosted by the Forum of Federations (based in Ottawa), the Australian Centre of Excellence for Local Government and their new Major Cities Unit, in preparation for 5th World Urban Forum to be held in Rio de Janeiro in March 2010. Case studies from Canada, USA, South Africa, India, New Zealand and Australia will be presented.

I hope to also meet up with some old mates, including Peter Cranko, a colleague from Planact days, and to have a look at some of the City of Sydney’s urban regeneration and public space projects. I won’t be blogging en route as my trusty Sony Vaio is going in for a few repairs, but you’ll get my impressions of Sydney and the conference shortly after I return next Friday.