Back street bounty

“The laneways play a wonderful role in the city. When you step into them, it’s totally quiet and the city disappears. We used to think they were dangerous but now we are intrigued by them,” says Dr Steffen Lehmann, world renowned urban designer and curator of the upcoming By George! Hidden Laneways project.

“It’s not about making the CBD more beautiful. We’re not glossing it over, like Brisbane has done, but looking to develop distinct cultural spaces. Disregarded and abandoned spaces have a huge potential,” says Lehmann, who holds the UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific, and has worked as an urban designer in Berlin, Newcastle, London and Tokyo before turning his attention to Sydney’s hidden laneways.

As part of the Art &About festival this October, the By George! Hidden Laneways Project will see sixteen CBD laneways transformed by temporary art installations from creative Sydneysiders.

Up to twelve teams will be interviewed, and up to eight proposals will be selected and given $25,000 for design development and implementation. The installations will be unveiled on October 1, and will stay in place until January 2010.

“Because the installations are not permanent, it gives us the option to do some really radical things with them, to look at new ways of how artists and architects work, and the benefits of collaboration,” said Lehmann, who is expecting a multi-disciplinary approach to the competition, with entries from filmmakers, architects, sound engineers, artists and designers.

While bigger projects, like the transformation of the CBD into a pedestrian zone, and the upgrade of Pitt St mall, attract the most attention, Lehmann maintains that all urban design schemes are equally important.

“Small-scale projects like this help re-think public space, and re-model it, away from commercial activity. We need immediate actions, small-scale, fine-grain projects that contribute to the bigger framework,” says Lehmann.

Melbourne is famed for its unique laneways, and has been promoting them as cultural spaces since 2001. The Laneway Commissions program selects up to six artistic proposals a year, to be scattered throughout the city’s laneways for six to eighteen months.

“It provides ongoing opportunities for artists to contribute to the development and re-interpretation of the urban environment. It also introduces the audience into previously neglected laneways by encouraging people to actively seek out their city and experience something new,” says Robert Doyle, Lord Mayor of Melbourne.