Choose the Roos
St George's Terrace is a cold, intimidating, soulless modern street that could be plunked as is into almost any major boring city in the western world.
It used to have delightfully ornate Victorian and Federation low-rise office buildings, stately residences, quirky friendly shops, and people milling about.
No one mills on the Terrace now. You are there to work. No one stands about chatting, sharing jokes or gossiping about the neighbours. No one knows their neighbour.
The buildings are tall, dark, stark, and sharp-edged. Huge structures towering over us as we rush from doorway to doorway through wind, rain, heat and traffic.
The Terrace streetscape is not a people place. It is a do business place. Functional, prosaic, pragmatic, sterile. Soulless.
Developers are slowly discovering a better way to build. To include the human dynamic, the softness, the diversity, and the respect for good design that all of us want around us, when given the choice.
Suddenly, up at the top end of the Terrace, is a very special event.
Huge flat metal kangaroos carrying briefcases. Wow - who had the courage, the boldness, the vision, the energy, and the incredible risk-taking nerve to make these happen ?
Suddenly we have a moment of surprise, of whimsy, of warm humour, of shared humanness, of feeling good rather than merely functioning.
In the next decade or so more of Perth will begin to see that the greatest business for Perth is not mining, oil, wheat, fish or wool, but the people. The people in all occupations who choose to be in Perth, in this great, globalising, but mostly soulless city. With more global people, we need more humanness.
The City Councillors responsible for getting these wondrous roos hopping on the Terrace deserve immense praise for their understanding that a city's main street should be a people place first and a business place second.
Bring on more roos.
Business News 21 June 1996
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