Visionary: Professor Hisham Elkadi says Geelong should look beyond sport to find its place in the world.
Erin Pearson
GEELONG must embrace its future with an iconic landmark to guarantee the city’s prosperity, according to a world-class architecture professor.
Deakin University School of Architecture and Building head Professor Hisham Elkadi said Geelong needed an inspirational tourist attraction with an international profile.
Prof Elkadi has signed on to the city’s Icon for Geelong competition to create a design brief for entrants.
The professor, who has worked on international icons including England’s Angel of the North, said Geelong needed its own landmark.
“If you close your eyes and I say Florence, Paris, Rome, London you always get an image but if I say Geelong you get confused a little bit,” he said.
“We don’t have a visible bite in Geelong and that’s very important for tourism and industry.
“An icon isn’t just a piece of art, it’s a piece of art that represents a vision for the city.”
Prof Elkadi said he had seen other iconic structures resurrect cities.
“The idea for an icon came from the debate about Geelong’s CBD and what we need to do; how to boost people’s confidence in their own city,” he said.
“I’ve seen it before living in Newcastle (in England) when the city was down after Margaret Thatcher took away its industry. There was the illusion Newcastle couldn’t be a big city again.
“By putting the Angel of the North at the city’s entrance it symbolised the way people visualised their future. That’s what Geelong needs.”
Prof Elkadi said competition critics had told him Geelong should focus on basic infrastructure problems such as parking rather than “more artworks”.
But he believed cities like Geelong that relied on sport teams for prosperity risked ruin.
“Sports go up and down. No town can rely on sport for its main dollar revenue,” he said.
“Portsmouth’s football team in the UK was downgraded and the whole city went bankrupt. The population in Geelong gets very attached to sport but as it goes up and down so does the economy.”
Prof Elkadi said his competition brief would go “all around the world”.
A panel of community representatives will select the winner of the six-month icon competition.
Organisers have so far gathered pledges totalling $10,000 for the winner.
The Independent is a supporter of the Icon for Geelong competition.
