WalkShop - Group 2: Walk and Loop Bus

City Loop bus stop - George Street

Began from D Block at QUT, which could be regarded as a Node by Lynch and continued on to the City Loop bus stop in George Street, which could also be considered one of Lynch's nodes.

QUT D Block

WalkShop path and significant stops.

Kevin Lynch described 'nodes' to be points of focus on the journey through the city, such as where you leave from, in our case, D Block in QUT.

 

The 'path' according to Lynch, are the channels along which we travel, now and in the future. For our particular WalkShop, our path encompassed both a bus ride and walks.

This path allowed us to observe and experience the city as we moved through it in a way to what Cullen described as 'Serial Vision'; to move through a city seeing the views as 'what you see now' and 'what lies around the corner'.

While moving along the path, from the node, the city view unfolds. From one street to the next, from one corner to another, I saw the city with different eyes; the serial vision of Cullen, as each new view opened up when you emerge from one street to another or even when moving from one side of a street to the other.

Eagle Street Fig Trees

Eagle Street is a good example; crossing the street towards the river, the view is of majestic high rise buildings; when crossing towards the city, the view is vastly different, that of trees and arching leafy branches, with buildings further away.

I feel it shows that serial vision is not necessarily linear in nature, you can travel over the same part of the city, taking different paths each time, each current view and emerging view will be different, giving an altered experience each time.

James Mooney Memorial Drinking Fountain

Further up Eagle Street, going outbound, there is a memorial drinking fountain that lists names of the Aldermen in the 1879 Council, the City Engineer, the Town Clerk, and William Webster, the sculptor, but it does not show why it was built! Always thought that was a bit silly, but after a bit of research, I found it was for a volunteer fireman by the name of James Mooney. A plaque was added later in 1988, when the fountain was restored, naming James Mooney and finally, putting things right.

Along the path, the 'edges' related to by Lynch, became noticeable, such as the river, a linear element that is not a path in itself, but delineates one side of the city from the other; in our case, north from south.

Another of Lynch's forms is the 'district', an area that is designated such as a suburb like Fortitude Valley or the Brisbane Central Business District.

We walked through such a district called Petrie Bight, near the Story Bridge.

Story Bridge & HSW approach

We arrived at the site of the Howard Smith Wharves, which I felt could be a 'place' as described by Cullen or a 'node' of Lynch and that both these descriptions were relevant to the the site because 1) we ended our walk at this site, a node; 2) the site created the feeling of awe, being below the Story Bridge, a place.

It was a shame we could not walk through the site and experience the bridge, the buildings and the cliffs. It will be something amazing when the Council has completed the planned work to restore the wharf buildings and the surrounds.