Shakespeare on Sydney Harbour

Last week I attended the Sydney Shakespeare Festival. (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday until 12 February 2012). Performances of Hamlet and The Taming of the Shrew are on the same outdoor stage in Bicentennial Park (West) on the Sydney foreshore. The stage set is minimal, with the skyline of Sydney providing the backdrop. The players walk out from the stage and to the audience for a theater in the round experience. Pick a seat close to the stage; it can be hard to hear, with the actors having to compete with traffic and aircraft (on the night I went a thunderstorm added to the atmosphere of Hamlet). Bring a picnic rung as you site on the grass and something warm to wrap up in (it gets chilly with the breeze off Sydney harbor). Bring something to eat and drink. The easiest way to arrive is on the Sydney Light Rail (get off at the Jubilee Park Station, walk down to the canal, alongside north towards the harbor and then across the bridge to the gazebo where the performances are held.

Sydney Harbour Youth Hostel

The Sydney Harbour Youth Hostel at the Rocks opened last week. I visited yesterday and was given a tour by John Bowles, YHA NSW director and met Yin Chen, General Secretary of China YHA . Do not be put off by the label "Youth Hostel"; this is accommodation to a similar standard to the best budget hotels, but with million dollar views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House from its rooftop terrace. If visiting Sydney you should check if there is a room at the hostel.

The hostel is a project with the Sydney Harbour Foreshores authority and incorporates the Big Dig Archaeology Education Centre. The hostel building is on high columns over the remains of historical convict era building. This arrangement resembles the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. However, the YHA was built on time and mostly on budget, unlike the Athens museum which was years late and billions over budget.

The YHA building has a steel frame and ribbed steel sheeting on some surfaces. The outer walls are clad in terracotta coloured panels, which give it an up market look. There are hard wearing by but stylish materials used, such as cork for the floors in the reception area and stainless steel kitehens. The design philosophy of the building was featured on ABC Radio "New 21st century youth hostel accommodation" (2 December 2009). The architects are Tzannes Associates. Unfortunately, like many architects, they have a very poor quality web site and I was unable to find any details of the building.

The archaeology below and next to the building is protected by a perforated metal screen. The claim is that this has been sized and decorated to echo the terrace buildings which were on the site. To me they looked oversize and intrusive. It would be too late to change the design, but the screens could be repainted from white to a less conspicuous colour, perhaps with a photo mural of terrace houses on them.

The ground floor of the building is open to the archaeology site, with walkways from the street and to the education centre, which has an exellent small meeting room which can be hired. Walking up a flight of stairs you reach the reception desk of the YHA, which also looks out onto a cyber cafe and the DIY kitchen and eating area. This is a much more open and comfortable arrangement than YHAs in converted buildings, where the kitchen is usually hidden in the basement. One wall of the reception area is glass, looking out onto the atrium. You can order an espresso from reception (or make your own coffee in the kitchen) and then sit down and watch people go past, up and down the stairs.

The walkways for the rooms around the atrium are open to the air, which gives the building a seaside feeling. However, this is a little too open for me and I would have liked to see chest height glass partitions to give more of a sense of security. All share and double rooms have their own bathrooms, as well as extra common bathrooms. The rooftop terrace is accessed via a card swipe lock.

The terrace is the highlight of the building. This reminded me very much of the rooftop cafes of the hostels of Istanbul. To one side is the Sydney Harbour Bridge, directly out is the Sydney Opera House (feeling so close you could reach out and touch it) and to the other side the sykline of the Sydney CBD. Below are the historic buildings of the Rocks. At present the terrace looks a little bare and exposed. There is a BBQ at one end and a few sun lounges. But it needs to accumulate some more furniture and perhaps a cafe. It was a little windy during my visit and a glass chest high screen around the outside would be a welcome addition. At present the terrace must be closed at 9:30pm most nights, due to possible noise for the neighbours. A glass screen would block most of the noise and should allow later access, as well as making it more comfortable.

YHA should build more of these style hostels. They might like to talk to Quicksmart Homes, who have built student apartment buildings from shipping container modules at the Austrlaian National Unviertsity and Sydney University. This would suit sites with limited access for building. Simple steel foundations could be placed and then the modules dropped in by crane (or in difficult locations by helicopter).

Sydney Opera House light sculptures

The sales of the Sydney Opera House are illuminated with light sculptures
until 14 June 2009, as part of the Vivid Festival. Another free part of the festival is a Light Walk. This is a series of illuminated sculptures, at Sydney Observatory, The Rocks, Circular Quay and the Sydney Opera House. There are guided tours and also a pamphlet for a self guided walk.

The cleverest of the sculptures is a bicycle powered set of LED circles opposite the Overseas Passenger Terminal. This provided an environmental message, with the public invited to pedal a generator to light the work. Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the festival web site, I am not sure which sculpture this was, or what it was called.

The guided tour runs through the sequence of sculptures in reverse order to that obviously intended by the curator. The tour starts at the Opera House, past Circular Quay through the The Rocks and ending at Sydney Observatory. The result is an anti-climax, starting with the best work, the Luminous by Eno lighting of Sydney Opera House sails in the exciting opera house precinct and ending in the remote cold dark of observatory hill.

The tour is too long and would benefit from being divided in half: on each side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The lighting systems of several of the works were not operating correctly and these should be removed from the festival.

There are Bluetooh equipped kiosks beside several sculptures which are supposed to transmit a short video about the work, but I was unable to get any of these to work.

The tour guides are dressed in black, which is impractical and unsafe for a night-time tour. It is hard for the tour group to see the guides and it is dangerous for the guides when negotiating poorly lit roadways. The guides should be issued with high visibility safety jackets.

The Light Walk is a clever idea, but overly ambitious. Limiting the extent of the exhibition would improve the artistic impact as well as making it safer and more convenient for the patrons and staff.

Smart Light Sydney will showcase beautiful and dynamic light art sculptures using innovative, smart technology on a free Light Walk around Sydney’s iconic harbour front precinct. The self-guided walk will start from Sydney Observatory and lead visitors through The Rocks, around Circular Quay to Sydney Opera House.

The Light Walk will feature sculpture, interactive and performance-based art displays, with Brian Eno's light treatment of Sydney Opera House's sails acting as the showpiece for the route. Eno's innovative work will appear alongside light art displays from talented local and international artists at the cutting edge of smart design, including Warren Langley, Ruth McDermott and Tom Barker.

Smart Light Sydney’s Light walk will offer the largest live Blue Zone for a festival event in Australia. Bring your mobile phone to the Light Walk to download FREE intelligent event content and video. All information on the Light Walk sculptures will be available on your phone via mobile site internet access for smart phones and 8 Blue Zones for mobile bluetooth. ...

From: Light Walk, Vivid, 2009

Historic home Open in Sydney

The contents of "The Abbey", Johnston Street, Annandale, Sydney are being auctioned this weekend. This is the collection of Dr Geoffrey Davis, physician. The rambling house is crammed with bookcases, chests, display cabinets and desks, with their original contents in place.

There is an interesting collection of musical instruments, a Broadwood grand piano and harp. There are rooms full of wax cylinder recordings, early disk records and Edison players. There are views of the Sydney Harbour brodge and the Sydney CBD including Centre point tower from the upper floors of the house. There is a garret with comfortable chair at the back. Unfortunately the toweris not open for inspection, as it has 260 degree views of inner west Sydney.

The auction for the contents is 23 and 24 May 2009, from 11am each day. There are thousands of items for sale. The Abbey is at 272 Johnston Street, Annandale 2038. There is a fully illustrated catalogue. Some items:

	22	Taxidermy of a parrot in glass domed case
	28	Set of three early toy cars
	34	Pair of model Train locomotive engines
	41	Leather cased Siemens 16mm movie camera with accessories
	58	Cased magnifying glass
	167	C19th Sebastian Erard Patent Harp
	168	John Broadwood & Sons London walnut cased parlour Grand Piano
	648	HMV Gramophone with built in speaker in cabinet
	649	The Walking Machine Co
	650	Oak veneered music cabinet with two doors and a fitted interior
	651	Edison Amberola in oak case serial no
	652	R Klitz and Son Boxed music saloon gramophone
	653	Edison Amberola player serial 633979
	654	Old phonograph housing including contents (records)
	655	Pair of amplfying horns
	656	Three speaker boxes
	657	Edison Amberola player in oak casing serial number 487748
	658	Three reference books on Edison
	659	Large Phillips Radio Player
	660	German projector in case plus a Siemans early amplifier
	661	Phillips gramophone
	662	Decca Portable phonograph
	663	Edison Disc phonograph C19-SM173603 in fitted oak cabinet with fretwork decoration
	664	Collection of four signed photographs of Opera stars
	665	Shelf lot of tins containing gramophone needles
	666	AWA Bakelite Radiola
	759	Edison Amberola Phonograph SN 3710 in cabinet
	760	Edison dictaphone type B
	761	Three various phonograph related metal signs plus a tin
	762	Box of Amberols in a leather case
	763	Eight drawers of Amberols including ballad, opera, comedic, jazz etc chest of drawers included in the lot
	764	Three shelves of books on Gramophones, opera and the record guide
	765	Cascade Mark II Bond & Sons gramophone player with external horn
	1085	Book press
	1335	External electrical lantern - ex-harbour bridge

Camping in the Middle of Sydney Harbour

The worlds greatest tourist bargain is available until early September in Sydney. The Biennale of Sydney is an art festival held at venues around the city. One venue is Cockatoo Island, in Sydney harbour.

The vintage ferry "RADAR" (which looks like something out of "Thomas The Tank Engine") takes you on a free harbour cruse past the Sydney Opera House, to the island for the free art display. The art is in the historic former convict settlement and Australian Navy shipyards. There are also camping facilities on the island, with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The art on display is not that good, overwhelmed by the craft art of the buildings and their machinery. However, the site is worth a visit if only to see the harbour from a new vantage point.

For the first time, this year the Biennale takes over Cockatoo Island – the largest island in Sydney Harbour and Australia’s most unusual urban park. A former prison and shipyard, Cockatoo retains many remnants of its past. Its prison buildings have been nominated for World Heritage listing, along with other convict sites around Australia. For this year’s Biennale, 35 artists are utilising buildings and sites across the island. Spend a few hours exploring the exhibition at this wonderful location. A free ferry service leaves hourly every day between 9.45 am and 4.45 pm from the Commissioners Steps outside the Museum of Contemporary Art and from Pier 2/3, Walsh Bay. This shuttle service will also return from the island. Last departure 5.15 pm. ...

Hitech Spanish Warship in Sydney for Bridge Anniversary

The Spanish warship Alvaro de Bazan (F101) is on a sales visit to Australia. It is at the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Fleet Base East, HMAS Kuttabul, Garden Island (accompanied by the F111). This is in the Sydney suburb of Woolloomooloo. In many countries the main naval base would be cloaked in secrecy and security. In contrast the ships of the RAN base can be photographed from luxury apartments of the Finger wharf hotel and the Pool Side Cafe, at the Andrew "boy" Charlton Public Swimming Pool. next to the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens.

Despite considerable military air traffic overhead things are quiet on the ship. It happened to be the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Part of the festivities were fly pasts by a Catalina flying boat and paratroops descending from a RAAF C-130 Hercules, plus the Holden "blimp". My last visit to Garden Island was when I organized a meeting of the Australian Computer Society on board the Flagship of the US 7th Fleet.

The F101, is one of two designs in competition for the RAN "Air Warfare Destroyer". One confusing point is that the ship is described as "F100 class", but is the "F101", which is the lead ship of the new class.

The F101 is equipped with the Aegis combat system. It is smaller than US ships with this equipment. The Australian ships will use the locally developed radar antenna designed by CEA Technologies in Canberra.

The small size of the ship makes it less expensive, but not because less material is needed to build it but because it has a smaller crew. An Australian version will likely be larger due to the need to cover larger distances without replenishment. The worry for the Finance Department is that the RAN may be tempted to fill the extra space with expensive equipment and crew, rather than extra supplies.

The F101 is from the same Spanish shipbuilder who is one of the two designers shortlisted to build two "Landing Helicopter Dock" (LHD) ships.

If you would like to visit the Andrew "boy" Charlton Public Swimming Pool, take the 441 bus from the City.

By the way, thanks to the State Library of NSW for wireless internet access to post this item.