Daily Archives: November 12, 2013

Architecture & Awards

architecture, opinions, urban development, URBANITY
Opinion Piece on the state of Australian Architecture Awards

frontNGA-P1020039 It was while standing in front of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), that it occurred to me that the extension, which includes the new entrance, had not figured in awards. I am fully aware of the controversies about how these extensions came about. Should any of that have excluded this architectural addition to the nation’s art gallery from being the recipient of awards.

I intend to write more about the NGA in the near future, but for now I my curiosity has turned to the architecture awards as run by the national professional body, the AIA. These awards are lauded nationally, so why not apply a reality check as to how their award winners really stack up.

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Climate Change

climate change, opinions, politics, random,
“It’s time to stop this madness”
Philippines plea at UN climate talks
click on the image above for the speech whereby the Philippines pleads with the world to get out of their ivory towers and to do something about climate change.
Listening were you Rabbott? Oh that’s right, you had important things to do rather than have Australia properly represented at these climate talks.!

Paul Keating

opinions, politics, random,
Paul Keating: a most appropriate  speech

the Australian War Memorial 11 November 2013

Paul Keating’s Remembrance Day address “Those Australians fought and died not in defence of some old world notion of competing empires and territorial conquests but for the new world – the one they belonged to and hoped to return to.

This is why Australia was never in need of any redemption at Gallipoli, any more than it was in need of one at Kokoda thirty years later.

There was nothing missing in our young nation or our idea of it that required the martial baptism of a European cataclysm to legitimise us.”

full text of his speech at Australian War Memorial