The proposed Darwin civic centre should convey a powerful sense of place, honour its surroundings, with a design that evokes the memories of one of Australia’s most significant – even if now intangible – places in which it will sit, but what Darwin Council is offering does none of that, writes Dr Peter Forrest.

So we are thinking about a new civic centre for Darwin Council?

A good idea perhaps. Provided that the new centre is something that we can all feel proud of. Provided that it says ‘Darwin’ and speaks of what makes us all feel good about being Darwinites. And provided it is useful and not an eyesore.

Throughout the world, the best civic centres achieve their distinction because their design speaks of their home town. Their design conveys a powerful sense of place, and adds special value to a functional building by encouraging the viewer to think about where they are.

I am afraid that what is being proposed as a new civic centre for Darwin achieves none of those things.

It will be an eyesore, not an ornament. Drawings produced in support of the proposed building clearly show a featureless, tall and massive new structure that will actually be more a car park than a civic centre.

It will be a building that will waste every opportunity to enhance Darwin, and present it as a distinctive place with personality and character.

It will utterly fail to be building we can be proud of.

Let’s not do that, let’s do better, much better. And we can – at less cost to the community but with many more benefits. All we need to do is think harder and longer – and surely we should be doing that anyway when a budget of over $150 million is involved.

The first stage in the thought process should be to consider the site and what surrounds it.

The site extends from The Esplanade between the frontages of what was once Cavenagh Street and Harry Chan Avenue, toward the central business district.

It is the area which, from 1880 to the end of 1942, was Darwin’s Chinatown – a place of enormous consequence to all Darwin residents, not only the three or four hundred Chinese people who generally lived there.

Most of Chinatown was destroyed during World War II, not by Japanese bombs but by the Australian Army in late 1942, acting on directions from the Australian government that this disgraceful denial of the White Australia policy should be erased forever.

READ: Cost of council’s proposed new civic centre, ‘sweetheart deal’ with developer questioned

READ: New Darwin council office tower development approval deferred

Today there are memories; memories of one of Australia’s most significant, even if now intangible, places.

There is the Tree of Knowledge, and Brown’s Mart not far away.

And at The Esplanade end there are special memories of special people and special places – like Chin Toy, Yam Yan’s and Fang Cheong Loong, of cafes and tailors, lolly shops and betting shops, squash shops and bakers shops, herbalists and home brew shops, grocery shops and residences.

If the new civic centre is built, it should acknowledge and tell stories of these people and places; its design should evoke their memories.

Unhappily, the proposed building makes no acknowledgment of this community heritage; no acknowledgment that ‘this is Darwin’, not even a nod to history.

Instead, the proposal foists upon us a 21-storey building that could be located in any place unfortunate enough to host it.

Instead of a building that honours its surroundings, defers to them, and invites curiosity about them, we are offered a structure that would be equally intrusive and unsuitable wherever it is built.

There is the opportunity to achieve a far better relationship with the surroundings by designing ‘active’ interfaces along street frontages.

However, the proponents say that this opportunity cannot be considered because these frontages must be bare concrete walls because services, normally installed below ground basement, must in this case be above ground and within those walls.

The proponents say the excavation of a basement is not possible because historic naval oil storage tunnels are underground at this point.

The proponents had the responsibility of investigating and resolving this question before proceeding with design work but did not do this. Perhaps they preferred to leave open the possible existence of oil tunnels so as to have a reason to avoid the considerable cost of a basement.

The question must be resolved before the project goes any further. I do not believe that there are any oil tunnels beneath the site, but it is up to the proponents to resolve the matter. A few hours research will clarify the point.

The failure of the proposed building’s design to consider and respond to the site’s surroundings is evidenced in another quite fundamental way.

The proposed building is to be of 21-storeys above ground. This will result in a conspicuous and totally inappropriate intrusion into a part of our city where existing buildings, east of Bennett Street, are low scale.

This single characteristic gives a pleasing unity to the whole area that extends from Parliament House and the Supreme Court, across to Harry Chan Avenue.

This area is a precinct quite separate and distinct from the CBD beyond Bennett Street. Do we really want an isolated and conspicuously unattractive tall building in this part of our town?

I don’t want to sound like a NIMBY, and I know that we would all like to see some cranes at work in our city. But surely our civic fathers should look harder at our dollars before they spend them.

I will conclude with some reference to the biggest question of all – do we even need this costly structure?

Certainly the toilets and the air conditioning in the existing civic centre may need upgrading, as our Lord Mayor says.

The existing buildings are indeed fifty years old, but they are substantial structures with many years of life left in them.

Certainly there may be a need for some more space for new facilities. But surely those needs could be met by decentralising some of the council’s activities into some of the vacant commercial space elsewhere in Darwin. There are many landlords who would welcome that.

So, let’s think hard and carefully about it.

Let’s not drift into disaster as the Darwin Council did with the lamented and embarrassing Cyclone Tracy memorial that cost far more than it should have.

The new civic centre, as presently proposed, will be like that memorial, unloved by the disappointed community. But the proposed building would be far, far more costly.

Happily, we have time to think again before we pay the price.

Dr Peter Forrest is a Darwin-based historian, who since 1983 has written and published 35 books, often in collaboration with his wife Sheila, and predominantly focused on northern Australian history.

He has been a freelance writer and heritage consultant. He presented broadcasts on the ABC as a ‘resident historian’ for twenty-five years and was the author of a long running weekly series of history features for the NT News that focused on the lives of Territorians.

Last year he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Charles Darwin University for his work.