MUSEUM FOR THE AUSTRALIAN BORDER
ANDREAS SIVITOS S3270294
Preface The essay presents a major project work about the Museum for the Australian border. Initialy, an introduction of the chosen site is given and then key elements of the Australian border control are discussed. Subsequently, follows the presentation of the way the museum is laid out.
Intro Due to the fact that Australia does not share borders with other countries a desire to control and defend the shore has been maintained, governed by an indifferent political mentality. The past and present measures have controlled the flow of people arriving to the country and regulated the behaviour of the foreign and local population. Through an external point of view, the English government regulated its population’s behaviour by warning it about the consequences of engaging in criminal activities by sending its convicts to the ill reputed Australian land. In the succeeding years, the flow of the incoming population was controlled with the white Australian policy, during which the vast majority of humanity was excluded from the newly formed white utopia. Paradoxically, today the country has become one of the most multicultural places of the world. However, it maintains a strict control of entry into the country.
The site The museum is situated at Point Nepean, a geographical location significant to Melbourne, were important historic events were held. Point Nepean is a thin stretch of land opposite Queenscliff. This key site location is significant for its topographical qualities, as it is situated on the periphery of the continent, significant to Melbourne over the years and often described as the Gibraltar of the South, as it used to be the heaviest defendant harbour of the Southern hemisphere. Until recent years, the site had been utilized for the surveillance and control of entry to Port Phillip Bay and to Melbourne. It has been strategically chosen as the historic events which were held there, have crucial significance to the project. The Quarantine station operated there till 1999 and the site’s military infrastructure was where the first responses during World War I and II were launched from. Today the site is a national park where one can visit the remaining heritage structures.
The bunkers The Victorian bunkers fortification at Point Nepean dealing with the coastal defence, are monuments of the past which also communicate through their architecture the Australian policies of control. Due to their elevated location on the land, the bunkers operate in the same principle as the panopticon. Therefore, they generate a psychological impact due to their unconditional function of surveillance of their subjects without them being aware when they were being watched. A pure architectural and optical system which is a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use. (Foucault, 1991: p. 205) The embodied potential of this mechanism can lead to tyrannic regimes. However, today this panoptic system of the bunkers has become democratic as visitors have access to them and experience the panoptic view. The bunkers’ enclosed universe, emerge the visitor into the climate of assault these structures were prepared for through their architectural form, engaging with the tension at a personal level and therefore relating to the role of the actual occupier of the time they were operational. The thick concrete structures eco the notion of protection and safety against the intruder. Similar to armour they act as a protective skin which would render impossible their penetration in the instant of assault. The bunkers anachronistic idea is read as a survival machine during the current peacetime. Similar to archaeological relics these monuments’ are left behind, colourless in their grey cement finish. They are silent witnesses of a war atmosphere marking the continental limit, while communicating an attitude of insecurity of their time. The elaborate system of bunkers and subterranean corridors remain abandoned serving as a ghostly reminder of destruction, power, dominance and oppression as they embody the intensity of the scenario of a possible attack. On the other hand, the power and beauty of the bunkers can be appreciated as they become an integral component, due to their historic relevance, of the unique location while standing lonely waiting against the infinite oceanic expanse with its distant views to the horizon. The bunkers were the house of the soldiers, surveilling the surrounding territory and controlling the circulation through the entry to Port Phillip Bay. The heavy grey masses together with the sharp angles and the minimal openings expose the language of the military architecture of the war period. The tightness of the reinforced concrete and the steel envelope of some of the structures set the visitor to an awkward situation constraining the flexibility of physical movement to an extent of semi – paralysis. The impact of the controlled slow, physical movement within these spaces emerges the visitor into the resurrected atmosphere of the perilous space and therefore experiences the significance of the structure’s purpose of protection. Alike Giedion’s poetic relationship of the city which becomes an extension to the human body, these defence mechanisms, which were not meant for dwelling, are similar to clothes and become extensions of the human body and therefore gain an anthropomorphic character. According to Teyssot, skin and clothes refer to codifications of social order such as fashion or social status. Therefore, the bunkers by following the military architecture, dominated by bold, concrete mass architectural gestures, instantly reveals the function of the building and the institution they serve. They share characteristics to other military machines, such as the closeness of the submarine and the mass and artillery of the tank. The purpose of this form of defensive architecture is not as much as an independent existence as a response to the altering surrounding conditions during which the bunker waits, watches, and reacts.
The bunkers endure today similar to a myth, as they are no longer of any use but solely a reminder of the past. The new forms of fortification take new dimensions in the institutional forms of the detention centres, a modernized and diplomatic technique of dealing with the foreign. The manner of controlling the border over the years has shifted in terms of the mechanisms in operation; however the core idea remains the same.
The detention centre A reflection of the country’s defensive policies revealing the inherent quality of thinking, behind the control of the Australian border can be encountered today in the conditions of the detention centres all across Australia, where asylum seekers are unconditionally detained. This form of control is relevant to Point Nepean, as a quarantine station was in use there for several years, which operated in a similar way that detention centres operate today. Referring to Foucault, the detention centre is a heterotopic space as it can potentially exist anywhere. A physical presence is provided within the Australian context, but as it functions as a transitional space and due to the remote setting, for instance Woomera’s detention centre in the outback away from any form of civilization, the context of the facilities becomes blurred and generic. Therefore, this reality renders unworthy the thought of escape. Detention centres are aimed to temporary control the arriving flow of the asylum seekers, but in addition they regulate the attitude of the detainees and as a counter effect the staff engaged within these institutions is also affected by the experiences encountered within these places. The centres’ temporary and fast construction communicates the spirit of the minimal attention and quality of shelter the detainees are offered. The previously operating detention centre of Woomera was situated in an area used as a testing ground for nuclear weapons, further highlighting the quality of treatment these people were exposed to. One of the fundamental materials employed in these settings, the barb wire, introduces an atmosphere similar to a prison’s, raising a psychology of illegal activity. These fences are occasionally used for self-torture by the detainees who reach a level of significant frustration and impatience. Stitching lips, hunger strikes, self-torture or even suicide are only some of the scenarios which occur due to the rising frustration levels.
Poin Nepean bunker
The Museum
Specific location The particular placement of the proposal is an extension of the physical border which creates a new dimension, through an architecture of coexistence and peace, which gives to the park’s marine environment the protagonist role amongst the rest of the attractions, a place of thought and reflection, distorting the previously established program of power, dominance and conflict that the bunkers and the quarantine station situated on the land communicate. The unique setting within which the building is situated further extends the visitor’s current experience of the site.
The building The project addresses the quality of thinking behind the control of the Australian frontier over the last century. The museum consists of a memorial space, the core of knowledge and human thought, an auditorium of future prosperity and evolution a restaurant, a marina and a beach. Its symbolic spaces are laid out in a story telling sequence regarding the past and present policies. The aim is to trigger a self-reflective process and discussion amongst the visitors, regarding issues of ethical progression.
Immigration memorial The first section of the design is the immigration memorial. It refers to the consequence of the historic white Australian policy and the asylum seekers manipulation. The harsh environmental conditions of the Bate Straits region have led to a series of historic ship wrecks and are metaphorically represented by the memorial’s underwater placement referencing the lives which were lost by the harsh political atmosphere on immigration. The exposed views to the marine life symbolically refer to the dream of the asylum seekers for a harmonious life. The memorial’s space spills out in three directions echoing the journeys these people were about to follow. The entry route leading back to the place they came from and another one leading to the depths of the ocean, the fatal end. Only one route leads to an open air space, the Australian country, where fresh air and a deep breath of achievement is provided. Here, a native dead gum tree is symbolically placed referring to the past radical Australian policies which remain as a memory for their harshness upon the population which they affected but also the spirit of which survives today. On the memorial’s floor are etched passages from the fifty word dictation test which were enforced as part of the white Australian policy keeping out anyone who was not white. Screening rooms are arranged along the sides of the memorial space, for the projection of documentaries and interviews from the past and ongoing struggle of the asylum seekers. The sitting within these spaces is rendered white referring to the white Australian policy, as an indication for which once the place was reserved for. One route of the space branches out touching on the jelly fish aquarium, the symbol of danger, as a reflection of the realities laying within the detention centres and the way the immigrants were separated from their families. The views exposed to the structure of the island present the flip side of the experience above. The asylum seekers spirit remains down below, enclosed, imprisoned behind the barred views. It is the country’s stain upon its reputation which secretly lays beyond; these are the foundations of social discrimination up on which this nation was established.
Immigration memorial plan
Immigration memorial view
Dead gum tree
Core of knowledge The second section of the project consists of a towering structure, which embodies the core of knowledge. Within lays a playground, a marine research centre, a lecture space and reading areas. This space is dominated by an enormous aquarium of jelly fish relating to the proximity of danger embodied within the human thought when employed unethically. Even though the jelly fish have been vital for the discovery of medical treatments, their sting is painful and often dangerous. Knowledge and human thought also embody danger. For example, when utilized in unethical manners such as the construction of mechanisms which manipulate the life of the asylum seekers. Separate from this building, is situated a library wing which encloses all of the archive material about Point Nepean’s history, the marine life of Port Phillip Heads, renewable technologies and the area’s immigration history. The library’s transparent skin communicates the notion of the accessibility to the information contrasting the rigid skin of the building behind it, which resembles the human thought, a space which can only be experienced internally. The canyon separating the two buildings is carved by the prevailing southwest – northeast wind which further suggests the unpredictability and power of the human thought. The building’s sail form indicates the power which lays within these spaces which is the driving force of evolution, similar to the way wind is the natural crucial factor for the navigation of a sailing boat. The towers placement upon the island casts its shadow onto the past, the memorial space. The central atrium exposes views from all levels to the playground, highlighting the purity of the children’s brain, but in the reverse way the sophistication of knowledge as you progress through the building in a vertical manner. The level of the reading area and the marine research centre, extend on the east side of the building towards different directions and merge on the second level where the lecture theatre is situated, suggesting the way thought and evolution is stirred by scientific and independent thought.
Auditorium The northern and western part of the island is flooded with light the notion of hope for the future. A floating auditorium is positioned on the western end, orientated towards the open sea, facing the horizon. Foucault, describes boats as the great reserve of the imagination for every civilization due to the fact that they are timeless and spaceless, floating independently in the endlessness of the sea constantly moving forward. The space, apart from being utilized for educational lectures around marine culture and technology, will be utilized for music concerts. This program is chosen as music embodies the powerful ingredient of unification under which the crowd becomes one entity. It is the melting pot for the multicultural backgrounds of the audience. The tidal devices producing energy viewed from the auditorium further suggest the human sophistication of the twenty first century in an ethical and efficient operation.
Auditorium view towards the horizon
Site plan
Core of knowledge’s atrium view
Museum’s view towards Bass Strait
The restaurant spills out in two directions, one facing the amphitheatre, the future of hope and the other one moving away and breaking apart, on its own selfish route. The colourful tiled landscape wrapping around the buildings’ further celebrates the Australian cultural diversity and the potential embodied within collective environments. Plazas open up in between the buildings, to accommodate external areas of the restaurant and to create spaces for self-reflection, thought and discussion. The artificial bays face the past, Point Nepean, and operate similar to the ritual of baptism as people become conscious and prepared for this internal change and awakening. The pier route which connects to the land operates as a functional access point to the island. In a reverse view from the island to the land it suggests the type of thinking that the experience has triggered and the ethical vs. the unethical interior world of the individual, always considering the moment of change.
Conclusion The discussed unhuman measures endure due to the lack of critical but also ethical comprehension of the past, the country’s physical size and the treatment of the asylum seekers issue by the government and the media, promoting an attitude of ignorance which reaches the levels of acceptance. Douglas Crimp’s describes the museum as being similar to a mausoleum, where objects are in the process of dying, whose relevance to the present is not as significant as their historic value. However, the museum for the Australian border embodies a diachronic significance, as it aims to communicate the information displayed to its visitors in order to awaken them in regard of their future actions by being aware of the past and present policies of control.
View from Point Nepean
Bibliography
Paul Virilio, (1975), Bunker Archeology, Princeton Architectural Press Georges Teyssot, (1994), Flesh: The Mutant Body of Architecture, Princeton Architectural Press Michel Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces’ in Diacritics, vol. 16, no. 1, Spring, 1986, pp. 22-27 Douglas Crimp, ‘On the Museum’s Ruins’ in Hal Foster, ed., Postmodern Culture, London: Pluto Press, 1985, pp. 43-56 Michel Foucault, ‘Panopticism’ in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, London: Penguin, 1991 Reinhold Martin, The Organisational Complex: Architecture, Media, and Corporate Space, Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2003.