Time to demolish The Great Australian Ugliness

An architect friend once said to me, "Australian architects have a lot to answer for".

Indeed, architects, town planners, shire councillors and builders have disgraced this stunningly beautiful continent. As one example, I give you the returned servicepeople's club building on the north shore of Broken Bay near Sydney. With (even at the shoreline) one of the most spectacular views in the state of New South Wales -- overlooking the glistening, large harbour, and Lion Island, and as far as Palm Beach, Barrenjoey Island and its 19th-Century lighthouse -- they built a four-storey concrete monstrosity with no windows on the water side.

Another example: Mona Vale Hospital, several storeys high, overlooks the beaches and rocky headlands of Mona Vale, near Sydney. But the windows are placed so that patients in bed can't see out. See Google Maps for all of these follies. Check out Dee Why, Nambucca, Urunga and Coffs Harbour as further examples of how sublime topography has been ruined by idiots with clipboards. Welcome to Australia, paradise and breeding ground for idiot architects and shire councillors. It is time to demolish and, with clearer minds, build over the Great Australian Ugliness.

Pictured: Your almanackist on Barrenjoey

Categories: australia, architecture, design, moron