Giant Wheel for Brisbane
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 9:25 pm
THE revolution is complete. Premier Anna Bligh has taken over from her predecessor as the king of spin.
And her crowning glory is a 60m-high monument she has planned for the South Bank Parklands. Our own eye in the sky.
"Roll up! Roll up! Come and see the amazing Brisbane city skyline from a big cage thingy on a giant ferris wheel – just like the London Eye only sort of smaller and tackier."
"See the amazing brown waters of the Brisbane River . . . marvel at the gridlock on the South East Freeway . . . watch in awe as the steam billows from the smokestacks of the Milton brewery . . . and gasp in wonder at the architecture of the Parliamentary Annexe."
They'll be flocking from Amsterdam, Tokyo and New York to see this latest spectacle – queuing hundreds deep to spend $20 a head to rise high above the parklands to look at a mass of steel, concrete and glass set against a foreground of muddy tidal water and a background of Brisbane smog.
Pure genius.
I still vividly remember as a young child being taken up to the observation area of the clock tower of Brisbane City Hall when the then SGIO building was nearing completion in the early '70s.
At that time the City Hall clock tower was, at some 92m, just about the tallest building in town. You truly felt as if you were on top of the world.
And if Bligh wanted to sell $20 tickets for a view of Brisbane, perhaps someone should remind her that City Hall (built in the 1920s) still literally towers over her planned ferris wheel.
But let's be fair for a minute here. The London Eye has been a huge success, and apparently attracts squillions of tourists.
The Eye stands at 130m, and it looks over a city which is not dominated by high-rise buildings.
So rather than getting a side-on view of Brisbane Square (that monolithic art deco monstrosity posing as architecture), the poor saps who pay perfectly good money to ride the London Eye have to endure views of boring stuff like Big Ben and the British Houses of Parliament.
They miss out on getting to the top of our 60m arc and seeing the roof of Suncorp stadium or looking up another 140m or so towards the top of the Riparian Plaza building – a lot of history in that joint, let me tell you.
Apparently the Brisbane Eye, or The Wheel or whatever it will be called, is to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Expo 88 . . . and then hang around another year or so for Queensland's 150th birthday in 2009.
Or as one eloquent blogger suggested on our website over the weekend: maybe Anna can get on for a spin and not stop until the next election.
Anyway, isn't there something of an irony here?
I'm happy to commemorate this city's coming of age with Expo. It was – for those of us who grew up in the darkness of the Joh era – the beginning of the end of the big country town syndrome – the stage when we started to grow up and develop our own identity as a modern and vibrant city.
So why celebrate the anniversary with an act of cultural cringe?
Why are we trying to replicate – on a smaller scale and with a less enticing vista – something the mother country's capital did some years ago?
At least it won't cost us a cent, Anna says.
The wheel – with 42 airconditioned gondolas accommodating 336 people – is being brought over from Britain (obviously we couldn't engineer something so complex ourselves given the skills shortage and our need for fiscal restraint) and will be operated by its Pommy owners on land leased to them.
If a (low-flying) bird's eye view of the arse end of the CBD proves popular then it may become a permanent attraction.
Personally I think Brisbane also needs its own Eiffel Tower (built for the 1889 World Expo in Paris) or perhaps we should also replicate New York's Empire State Building. The views are good from up there.
At that sort of height you could truly look down on the city and on grandstanding politicians and their bread and circuses . . . and Anna's Wheel of Misfortune.
Source: www.news.com.au
And her crowning glory is a 60m-high monument she has planned for the South Bank Parklands. Our own eye in the sky.
"Roll up! Roll up! Come and see the amazing Brisbane city skyline from a big cage thingy on a giant ferris wheel – just like the London Eye only sort of smaller and tackier."
"See the amazing brown waters of the Brisbane River . . . marvel at the gridlock on the South East Freeway . . . watch in awe as the steam billows from the smokestacks of the Milton brewery . . . and gasp in wonder at the architecture of the Parliamentary Annexe."
They'll be flocking from Amsterdam, Tokyo and New York to see this latest spectacle – queuing hundreds deep to spend $20 a head to rise high above the parklands to look at a mass of steel, concrete and glass set against a foreground of muddy tidal water and a background of Brisbane smog.
Pure genius.
I still vividly remember as a young child being taken up to the observation area of the clock tower of Brisbane City Hall when the then SGIO building was nearing completion in the early '70s.
At that time the City Hall clock tower was, at some 92m, just about the tallest building in town. You truly felt as if you were on top of the world.
And if Bligh wanted to sell $20 tickets for a view of Brisbane, perhaps someone should remind her that City Hall (built in the 1920s) still literally towers over her planned ferris wheel.
But let's be fair for a minute here. The London Eye has been a huge success, and apparently attracts squillions of tourists.
The Eye stands at 130m, and it looks over a city which is not dominated by high-rise buildings.
So rather than getting a side-on view of Brisbane Square (that monolithic art deco monstrosity posing as architecture), the poor saps who pay perfectly good money to ride the London Eye have to endure views of boring stuff like Big Ben and the British Houses of Parliament.
They miss out on getting to the top of our 60m arc and seeing the roof of Suncorp stadium or looking up another 140m or so towards the top of the Riparian Plaza building – a lot of history in that joint, let me tell you.
Apparently the Brisbane Eye, or The Wheel or whatever it will be called, is to help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Expo 88 . . . and then hang around another year or so for Queensland's 150th birthday in 2009.
Or as one eloquent blogger suggested on our website over the weekend: maybe Anna can get on for a spin and not stop until the next election.
Anyway, isn't there something of an irony here?
I'm happy to commemorate this city's coming of age with Expo. It was – for those of us who grew up in the darkness of the Joh era – the beginning of the end of the big country town syndrome – the stage when we started to grow up and develop our own identity as a modern and vibrant city.
So why celebrate the anniversary with an act of cultural cringe?
Why are we trying to replicate – on a smaller scale and with a less enticing vista – something the mother country's capital did some years ago?
At least it won't cost us a cent, Anna says.
The wheel – with 42 airconditioned gondolas accommodating 336 people – is being brought over from Britain (obviously we couldn't engineer something so complex ourselves given the skills shortage and our need for fiscal restraint) and will be operated by its Pommy owners on land leased to them.
If a (low-flying) bird's eye view of the arse end of the CBD proves popular then it may become a permanent attraction.
Personally I think Brisbane also needs its own Eiffel Tower (built for the 1889 World Expo in Paris) or perhaps we should also replicate New York's Empire State Building. The views are good from up there.
At that sort of height you could truly look down on the city and on grandstanding politicians and their bread and circuses . . . and Anna's Wheel of Misfortune.
Source: www.news.com.au
I've been wondering about the Expo celebrations for some time and whether they'll have a carnival there. Obviously it won't be on the site of the original Expo Park because the Convention Centre is now there but there is enough room in the parklands for a few good rides to relive Expo 88 which was a great event.
