A blot on Sydney's landscape

Illustration: Kerrie Leishman.

The Sydney Botanic Gardens and Domain, while a gift from governors Phillip and Macquarie to the people of Sydney, is of its essence, a gift of nature.

Its attractive deep cove, with its two long tongues of green reaching down to the harbour at Bennelong Point and at Mrs Macquaries Chair, is essentially the landform shaped down the aeons. It is broadly as it was before European settlement. That is what is so wonderful about it a place defined by naturalism. But even more than that, a garden space made richer by its developed horticultural heritage.

The Sydney Botanic Gardens is one of the great gardens of its kind in the world. We therefore have a duty of care to maintain and protect it.

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The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trusthas outlined a plan which fundamentally commercialises this historic garden place. The plan seeks to give the gardens a railway station, a ferry wharf, a hotel, a permanent sound stage and, as inappropriate as these things are, worse than that, three clumsily placed buildings. According to the draft plan, a 100- to 200-seat cafe and function places in each of the very points that the two green tongues touch the harbour Bennelong Point at the foot of the Opera House and Mrs Macquaries Chair and a separate extension of the Art Gallery of NSW jumping the expressway to land in the gardens themselves.

Jorn Utzonset his Opera House and the steps to its podium against the immediate rolling green hill rising from the Man OWar steps reaching to Government House. It is a poetic picture of nature juxtaposed with major architecture. Where that rolling hill meets Utzons steps, the gardens trust wants to erect a building. And a big one. The insensitivity of it is breathtaking. And to what purpose? The draft plan tells us "an orientation centre, associated retail, 200-seat cafe, 100-seat outdoor dining area and public toilets". In other words a mini-mall.

But not happy with that detraction against the site, the trust seeks to repeat it at Mrs Macquaries Point. Here, on what is probably Sydneys most natural and sacred site, with panoramic views from the Opera House and Harbour Bridge to Bradleys Head, the trust intends to construct another building. And that building, according to the draft plan, is another cafe, retail and function space with a terrace under a glass canopy. In other words, a blot on the landscape. But in this case, the most sensitive bit of landscape in the city.

One can only imagine the growth in the tourist bus traffic that will tear Mrs Macquaries Point to pieces as tourism operators pour their clients into the cafe and function space. These tourism operators want to sell the nature that Sydney offers while reserving the right to trash it wherever they think they can make a faster and more convenient buck.

One can understand the greedy and crass tourism industry wanting to build these things, but having them done at the behest of the gardens trust the supposed trustee of this natural domain is what is truly disturbing.

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A blot on Sydney's landscape