words MARK SCRUBY
photography DIANNA SNAPE
Flinders Lane. Fed Square. Chapel Street. Sydney Road. Smith and Gertrude. These are all possible answers to the question, “What are the places that make Melbourne Melbourne?” Southbank Promenade, however, is not a possible answer. With its tidy pavers, its super-buskers, its Nobus and Pradas and Burberrys, and its pigeons, this riverside walk is as globally generic as Melbourne gets. Not quite a “non-place” – the term coined by French anthropologist Marc Augé to describe the characterless places of transience that have proliferated with globalization, such as airports, malls and corporate hotels – but on a mild, tourist-filled Saturday afternoon in spring, not far off.
The tension, then, where this geo-cultural tangent brushes against the curved facade of Melbourne’s esteemed Hamer Hall, is palpable…