Muse: Hooray for Wellywood (Really!)
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Bit of a slap with a wet rag really.
So, what do you feel about graffitti, Craig? Art or vandalism?
I'd still like to see the proposed sign burning, sort of a bit like those Ed Ruscha 1966 service-stations,,,*
Would work for me.
You'd get an iconic photo with that snap.
That's what its about, innit?
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I actually like the Asteron Building. There's nothing uniquely NZ or Wellington about it, but it has a lightness of form that deserves to be commended. I like Te Papa, at least on its south approach, for opposite reasons. It imposes and announces its presence. Its spaces work reasonably well (at least when I compare it to every other museum and gallery I've been to on either side of the Tasman). It is starting to date, but that happens. It could be the Auckland Museum...
Auckland has a number of monstrous acts in play - the Newmarket railway square being one, the uncertain futures of the St James and Mercury theatres being another.
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But there's an essential truth in the notion that good fences make good neighbours, and so does minding your own god-damed business.
This proposed sign is hardly a fence or something hidden behind a fence. It's not actually something people can ignore because it's specifically designed to be ENORMOUS (much bigger than the District Plan actually permits) and IN YOUR FACE. In fact "shouting" is how the sign's main proponent describes it. Now that's just not good-neighbourly, and I applaud the people of Wellington for NOT just putting up with bastard neighbours like a bunch of meek and mild sheep. I say good luck to them for sticking up for themselves as a civic-minded community, and certainly if iPredict is anything to go by, the sign is now probably not going to happen.
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3 words Craig: twee. Plaigeristic. Culturalcringeful.*
(*OK, may have cheated a bit on that last one.)
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As long as my neighbour conform to the law, they don’t have to give a rodent’s rectum what I think about their gardens. Hell, I’m warming to the idea of a Robert Mapplethorpe tribute water feature just to freak the commuters. As far as I’m aware, the Wellington Airport has resource consent (though on principle, I’ve issues with it being non-notified) they’re building the damn thing on their land…
I don’t buy the “it’s their land” argument in this case. If your neighbour demonstrates bad taste with his garden decor it reflects only on him. It doesn’t represent you, or the rest of the suburb, let alone the city. The airport Wellywood sign is specifically intended to represent the city – or at least, it won’t be seen as just an airport thing.
I hate the exterior design of the new international terminal too, but that really is their prerogative. If the Wellywood sign was more obviously within the airport perimeter I’d feel differently. But sign isn’t purely an airport-associated logo like “Wild at Heart”; it’s to be presented, and will be perceived, as a general city logo. And as long as they’re doing that, I think it’s fair to tell them to fuck off.
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James Butler, in reply to
I like Te Papa, at least on its south approach, for opposite reasons. It imposes and announces its presence. Its spaces work reasonably well
I have to disagree about Te Papa's interior spaces - the place is full of enormous, awkward voids which can neither accommodate more pieces nor add to the effect of the ones that are there. I don't know in real terms how it stacks up, but it always feels tremendously inefficient in its use of space.
I agree re. the external aspect though. I have problems with the overly fussy-yet generic (and dated) detailing, but I suspect that given the passing of time and fashions it will grow into its place. Any number of older "iconic" buildings earn the affection people feel for them not by being groundbreaking or virtuosic, but just by representing the gestalt of the time and place that produced them. Te Papa sure as hell does that.
Craig:
wishing it would quietly slide into the harbour
IIRC (my father was involved in building some of the architectural models of it when I was a child, and used to chew my ear off about such things) it would probably float around the harbour unscathed.
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Islander, in reply to
I hate the established kawa of Te Papa's "maori' space - which is why I've never entered it-
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Just to echo Conal; the proposed WELLYWOOD sign is not a annoying garden gnome, nor a brightly coloured fence. Nor even an annoying billboard this blocks your line of sight.
It is a huge thing, sited on the Miramar cutting to look out over Evans Bay, always in sight of suburbs like Roseneath and much of Kilbernie and Haitaitai, immediately in view as you head around the pretty drive around the bays, or as you head onto the road to the airport - and past it, if you live in Miramar / Seatoun.
This is not a minor thing, a mild annoyance. It is an unfunny dad joke in plain sight, unavoidable, unwanted, for large numbers of the city's inhabitants every day - and for the rest quite a few times a year if not more often.
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Islander, in reply to
Yup. And it's unoriginal as well. And really really ugly (phuquing great white letters stuck into bush? O, how inclusive-)
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Sacha, in reply to
monstrous acts in play - the Newmarket railway square
For those unfamiliar with the ugliness of this urban design failure, the AucklandTrains blog has pictures.
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bmk,
Yeah there always have to be limits to property rights. For example even if I owned the house I lived in this wouldn't give me the right to cover the external walls with pornography.
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Sacha, in reply to
it’s to be presented, and will be perceived, as a general city logo. And as long as they’re doing that, I think it’s fair to tell them to fuck off.
Same. It's representing itself as comment on the whole city, not the airport. In fact why is the airport company dabbling so amateurishly in tourism promotion anyway? Isn't that someone else's job?
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Yeah, all seconded re the ridiculously-sized scale and lack of any redeeming uniqueness whatsoever. Wonderful work with their brand analysts distastefully morphing a cute nickname into a leg-humping ugly "marketing" ploy.
Let's not be disingenuous about why Jackson can get big movies there - cheap skilled labour. Somehow, I don't think a sign saying "The Bangalore of the South Pacific" would have quite the same cachet.
And Craig, leaving aside the incitement to commit a crime (which I think can be legally actionable without said crime being committed), I am horrified by that homophobic Moa Beer ad! They're never going to see any of my frigging money. (Was considering checking the beer out on my next jaunt home.)
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Bastard. Bastard. Bastardbastardbastard.
You know why I don't notice that... thing?
Because upon seeing it I immediately go into denial or suffer hysterical blindness. I think that that this is the next level of stealth and the USAF should take notice: design something to awful, so banal, so ill-proportioned, so ugly, so cynically crass, so unimaginative that the enemy, seeing only a blip on a radar screen will immediately suffer a kind of cognitive crash so that they remain utterly unaware of it.
Clapton/Cthulhu/Leto II/You-know-it-hates-being-called-that knows what sort of havoc this will play with pilots attempting landings at Welli... ngton airport. Oh the huge manatee!
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Steve Barnes, in reply to
In fact why is the airport company dabbling so amateurishly in tourism promotion anyway? Isn’t that someone else’s job?
Yes we have a Minister of Tourism, John Key if I remember correctly. His amateurism is astounding.
A more apt sign regarding our film industry would be "Cheaper than Mexicans, but we speak English"
So. I suppose WELLYWOOD would be cheaper. -
Kracklite, in reply to
Proof, inverting Hannah Arendt, that banality is evil.
Since its quotarama on Hard news, here's Arthur Conan Doyle: "Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself." Hence Steve Fitzgerald imagines that he's a creative genius and has absolutely no idea why anyone should think that he's just a dick.
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Islander, in reply to
et’s not be disingenuous about why Jackson can get big movies there – cheap skilled labour. Somehow, I don’t think a sign saying “The Bangalore of the South Pacific” would have quite the same cache
That man, in a future era, will be acknowledged as a deadhand and killer of a potentially rich ANZ film culture. HOWEVER, Taika Waititi, Gaylene Preston, Marian Evans, and others will be acknowledged as people who kept real ANZ film-life going...
I truly think that films will go on for many many decades yet, however they are delivered to viewers' eyes-
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Also, what is it about trivial things like this (and yes, as much as I think the sign is a fucking stupid idea, it's still trivial) that makes people so pissed off? When was the last time 100+ people bothered to get off their arses to protest against the actions of a business around here?
I wonder if, precisely because no-one * disagrees that it's a stupid idea, the energy we would normally expend arguing the point with someone is all directed towards the WIAL, and each finds his/her anger amplified by others rather than absorbed.
* Except WIAL itself and, it seems, Stephen Franks, who last I knew lived on the city side of Mt Vic and thus doesn't have to look at the stupid thing. At least if DPF liked it I'd have the satisfaction of seething at someone who's worth the effort.
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Islander, in reply to
Or, if we agree it’s a bloody awful idea and, maybe, we can possibly ’suade idiots in charge of the moneybox to actually HEAR….a lot of us?
IF NOT - well, we can do other things. Refuse - as I have done- to view their bloody nasty & crude films? Dont visit (and make sure whanau dont visit) their unlovely sites? And - most positively - support other truly inventive creative film-makers-
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Islander, can you tell us more about what offends you about the kawa of the museum or point me to where I might find out more?
Please -
Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to
A more apt sign regarding our film industry would be “Cheaper than Mexicans, but we speak English”
So. I suppose WELLYWOOD would be cheaper.Ah grass hopper (that kid kung fu movie quote)
This Mexican speaking English, thinks it's more of a WOOLLYWELD at the mo what with techies catching fire in the studio. -
I'm kinda with George on the Asteron building. It's far from a great work of architecture, but it doesn't deserve the amount of ire it's getting from some. I guess I could understand a position like "they had the opportunity to create something notable, but instead we got meh". But it isn't awful.
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Sacha, in reply to
their bloody nasty & crude films
The airport company does not make movies.
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jessica scott, in reply to
I think another reason the sign has caused so much outrage is the process of it being announced in advance, yet the public being told that it's a done deal. If it had suddenly popped up over night, people still would have been upset, but I think would have come around to it, or grumbled but not made too much fuss.
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Sacha, in reply to
Arthur Conan Doyle
What did you make of that new Sherlock show?
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