THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING by Gregory Young MA (Syd), Dip Urb Studs (Macq), MPHA, MPIA A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of the Built Environment University of New South Wales THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Abstract THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Culture is expanding and has greater weight and explanatory potential in our culturalised age. Following the earlier literature of the ‘cultural turn’, culture is now perceived as ubiquitous in society, the economy, and theory, and with the capacity to intervene on itself. Further, it may be seen to characterise both the nature and the progressive potential of a range of contemporary social and intellectual technologies such as planning, education, health, and organisational development. While this general process of ‘culturalisation’ proceeds apace, the capacity of culture to act as an organising idea and category for sectors such as planning is still largely underdeveloped, most particularly in planning itself. A new Culturised Model for planning that is reflexive and ethical is proposed. Differentiated from the trend to culturalisation and its association with commodification, ‘culturisation’ has true sustainable and transformational potential. The thesis consists of three main parts – each of three chapters - with a substantial scene- setting Introduction and a Conclusion. Part One examines culture and planning, Part Two develops a new Culturised Model for planning, and Part Three illustrates the Model. In Part One the grounds of culturisation are prepared by: 1) describing our culturalised age; 2) developing a new positionality for planning; 3) presenting a critical analysis of neomodern and postmodern planning theory; and 4) outlining an original history of culture and planning in the 20 th and 21 st centuries. In Part Two a practical Culturised Model for planning is developed, based on the three elements of 1) principles for culture; 2) a planner’s ‘literacy trinity’; and 3) a methodology. i THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING The Model employs an integrated concept of culture and an integrated approach to research, and is applicable to the full spectrum of planning forms, scales and purposes. In Part Three the Culturised Model is illustrated in principle through a range of global examples, and in specific terms, for two major Australian places. The first study illustrates culture and urban and regional planning for metropolitan Sydney, NSW, at four nested geographical scales. The second illustrates strategic planning in its aspatial form for the Port Arthur Historic Site, in Tasmania, a major international convict heritage site proposed for UNESCO World Heritage listing. The thesis represents an original multi-dimensional synthesis on culture and planning. It also presents a ‘breakthrough’ paradigm for the sustainable integration of culture in planning, previously only foreshadowed in the planning literature, and developed in randomised practices internationally. ii THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract i Acknowledgements v Abbreviations vi Tables viii Figures ix Preface xi INTRODUCTION 1. Framing Culture: Framing Planning 1 PART ONE CULTURE AND PLANNING Preamble 39 2. A Culturalised Age 40 3. Planning Theory and Culture 55 4. Planning History and Cultural Concepts 75 iii THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING PART TWO A CULTURISED MODEL FOR PLANNING Preamble 107 5. Developing the Culturised Model 108 6. Planning Literacies for Culture 137 7. The Model’s Methodology 153 PART THREE ILLUSTRATING THE MODEL Preamble 165 8. The Culturised Model in Principle 166 9. Urban and Regional Planning in Sydney 196 10. Strategic Planning and the Port Arthur Historic Site 242 CONCLUSION 11. Drawing Together 271 Bibliography 278 iv THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Acknowledgements I should like to thank my supervisors, Associate Professor Susan Thompson and Associate Professor Robert Freestone of the Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE), University of New South Wales. Their intellectual and academic rigour, and advice on knowledge issues and discourse were important to my work at every stage, as was their cheerful support. I also put on record the initial encouragement I received to undertake the thesis from four individuals: Ms Amanda Lohrey, Dr. Glen Searle, Emeritus Professor Helen Armstrong, and the late Dr Kay Daniels. During the three-year preparation and writing of the thesis the seminars and events organised by Dr Kevin Dunn, as Convenor of the Urban and Regional Studies Research Group, proved useful to my research. Dr Catherine de Lorenzo was unstinting in her assistance as Director of Postgraduate Students, FBE. Lastly, the camaraderie of a culturally diverse group of fellow postgraduate students was a memorable and enlivening ingredient during the period of my research. This was so, even as events such as the Bali Bombing and the War in Iraq drew close to home, particularly for a number of international colleagues. v THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Abbreviations ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics AHC Australian Heritage Commission AIF Australian Infantry Force AML and F Australian Mutual Life and Finance ANC African National Congress ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations ATC Australian Tourism Commission BLF Builders Labourers’ Federation CBD Central Business District CES Commonwealth Employment Service CSR Colonial Sugar Refinery DASETT Department of Arts, Sport, Environment, Tourism and Territories DCP Development Control Plan DOCA Department of Communications and the Arts EU European Union FBE Faculty of the Built Environment GIS Geographical Information System GML Godden Mackay Logan GPO General Post Office ICOMOS International Council on Monuments and Sites IDC Inter-Departmental Committee LEP Local Environmental Plan NGOs Non Government Organisations NPWS National Parks and Wildlife Service NSW New South Wales OECD Organisation for Economic and Cultural Development PAHS Port Arthur Historic Site PAHSMA Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority vi THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING RAHS Royal Australian Historical Society RAIA Royal Australian Institute of Architects REP Regional Environmental Plan SBS Special Broandcasting Service SHFA Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority SHFT Sydney Harbour Federation Trust UNCED United Nations Conference on Environment and Development UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation WCC World Commission on Culture vii THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Tables Table 1. Lefebvre’s ‘Trialectics of Being’ – An Ontology of Culture. Source: Author following Lefebvre. 23 Table 2. Integrated Culture in Philosophy, Disciplines and the Everyday. Source: Author. 25 Table 3. Inputs to Culturised Model. Source: Author. 126 Table 4. Principles for Culture. Source: Author. 135 Table 5. A Planner’s Literacy Trinity. Source: Author. 144 Table 6. Structure of the Culturised Model. Source: Author. 154 Table 7. Integrated Culture. Source: Author. 157 Table 8. Integrated Research. Source: Author. 161 Table 9. Planning Scales and Types. Source: Author. 193 Table 10. Sydney Areas, Geographical Scales, and Planning Types. Source: Author. 198 viii THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Figures Figure 1. Culture and Urban and Regional Planning. Source: Author. 20 Figure 2. Culture and Strategic Planning. Source: Author. 21 Figure 3. Culturisation Methodology. Source: Author. 163 Figure 4. Metropolis by Rosalie Gascoigne. Source: Edwards, D. (1997) Rosalie Gascoigne. Material as Landscape, Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney. 201 Figure 5. Installation Concept for Mosaic or Mural in Apartment Block at Bullecourt Place. Source: Godden Mackay Logan. (2003). Bullecourt Place, Ultimo. Interpretation Strategy and Implementation Plan, Sydney: GML. 202 Figure 6. ‘Migrants Arriving in Sydney, 1966’. Photo by David Moore. Source: Moore, D. (1993). Sydney Harbour, Chapter and Verse, Sydney. 203 Figure 7. Map of Sydney Showing the Harbour, Pyrmont-Ultimo and Bullecourt Place, 2005. Source: Jack Barton, Sydney. 209 Figure 8. ‘Sydney Harbour from 20,00 feet, 1992’. Photo by David Moore. Source: Moore, D. (1993). Sydney Harbour, Chapter and Verse, Sydney. 211 ix THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Figure 9. Sketch from Pyrmont Pieces Cultural Mapping Project, 1992. Source: Fitzgerald, S. and Golder, H. (1994). Pyrmont and Ultimo under Siege, Sydney: Hale and Iremonger. 223 Figure 10. An Archaeological Palimpsest. Remains of former yard structures preserved beneath the concrete floors of the 1925 Woolstore, Ultimo. Source: Godden Mackay Logan. (2003). Bullecourt Place, Ultimo. Interpretation Strategy and Implementation Plan, Sydney: GML. 224 Figure 11. AIF near Bullecourt. Source: Godden Mackay Logan. (2003). Bullecourt Place, Ultimo. Interpretation Strategy and Implementation Plan, Sydney: GML. 226 Figure 12. Map showing Port Arthur and the Tasman Peninsula. Source: PAHSMA. 245 Figure 13. Filming For the Term of his Natural Life at Port Arthur. Source: Archives Office of Tasmania. 257 Figure 14. Photo of separate booth for worship, Port Arthur Church. Source: Archives Office of NSW. 264 Figure 15. The ‘Convict Sublime’ - Port Arthur Landscape. Source: PAHSMA. 266 x THE CULTURAL REINVENTION OF PLANNING Preface FRAMING SELF This doctorate is the result of two cumulative aspects of my experience as a professional planner in Australia, through the 1980s and 1990s. These were firstly, a sense of frustration with the inability of planning