Crown casino in Sydney or Dubai? Who can tell?

Crown’s new casino building (did we vote for another casino?) planned for Barangaroo is a placeless monolith that looks like it could have been been transplanted from Dubai – it reflects nothing of where it sits on the shores of Sydney Harbour.

Crown casino building – in Sydney or Dubai?

Place responsive design is usually lost in global cities like Sydney. Over the years modernism, and more recently the new internationalism, have created cities that by and large have no discreet character. Paul Kelly gets it right when he sings “Every f*#@*%n city looks the same.” There are exceptions of course, and Spain seems to have more of these than anywhere else.

The Opera House has come to define Sydney, but Utzon conceived it in response to what he saw in the Harbour – a built response to the nature and natural dynamic of the vast estuary, that does not pretend it is not a building, but celebrates the context in which it sits.

Does the vast glass tower at Barangaroo do the same? I think not. It is placeless, a pretentious orphan sitting loud and proud piercing a jewels that humbly does not shout back. The jewel will continue to do its thing, with no real interaction with the tower. Much like Blues Point Tower, nearly opposite: a dull cubist monolith that looks exactly like it was lifted from some dreary estate in Manchester. Sorry, Harry, I have never been a fan, but rest in peace – we can always change it.

Trevor King, a building designer, heritage consultant and thinker, and I have done a fair bit of work on place based design: we call it ‘localness’. It is what has hitherto made the world such an interesting place. Well, to be fair, Trevor has done nine tenths of the work, or more. I present his work as often as I can. Together we wrote a definitive paper on the subject, with a specific emphasis on how real localness assists in producing more sustainable buildings. The text can be found here, and although there no pics on that page, a book is coming that will expand on the theme, with oodles of photos showing exactly what we mean!

There is another article here, among many more on the topic, at Architecture & Design.