SULLIVAN'S COVE: Authentic Place or Theme Park?
Julian Barraclough
School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania , Hobart , Australia
Abstract
The development of tourism is usually code for the development of tourist facilities or a tourism industry. However, tourism can be a rich dialogue between locals and visitors in places where diversity and differences in meaning are celebrated. On the other hand, places that are tourist-focused can take on a homogeneous, globalised banality. Qualities that are local—qualities that often initiated tourism in the first place—are replaced by conventional tourist architecture, synthetic landscapes and pseudo-places.
The ‘authentic' place could be said to be unique. It has qualities that are special. The concept of authenticity however is problematic. For some, a place has universal meaning, sense of place or genius loci . This fails to acknowledge that places can be variously interpreted and are constructed subjectively and inter-subjectively. A way of approaching the sometimes nebulous concept of authentic place is to assess whether a place is ‘insider'- or ‘outsider'-focused; whether it is a synthetic construction for outsiders; a theme park, or if it reflects meaning imbued by locals.
Sullivan's Cove, Hobart, is examined as a study of place construction and destruction. A case is made for understanding place as an amalgam of essential and socially-constructed qualities. Sullivan's Cove is seen as a stage upon which political power plays and micro-practices of institutional power are enacted. The interests of the powerful are expressed in the spatial and visual form of Sullivan's Cove. The place has been fetishised and commodified. Salamanca Place and Salamanca Square demonstrate the spatial syntax and auto(car)-orientation of a shopping mall.
Many recent developments in Sullivan's Cove demonstrate the outsider-focused ‘roadside attraction' or Disneyfied quality that is comparable, visually and functionally, to Las Vegas . The commodification, or museumisation, of local history is demonstrated by the proliferation of exhibits, from replicas of old ships to double-decker buses, with the whole pseudo-experience mediated through interpretive signage. The recent hotel and apartment developments reflect, representationally, a neo-conservative agenda. Neo-conservative postmodern architecture, with its use of pastiche, kitsch, façadism, replication and motifs derived from the vernacular, are used to placate potential resistance.
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