Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 9 : Construction of the cultural centre, 1977-1981

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1980 What shall we call our Cultural Centre? niltees, should decide what such c placn should be called. is is especially so, when, although State Government is creating 1he • at a probable final cost or about ,000,000, the taxpaying - and the I ling - public shall really be 111g out the shekels. Jlrcsume most or us know that the ··s annual Gold~n Casket profits, unting to more than S5,000,000, d y have been channelled from the 1,anal cause or helping our hospitals 1c cause of culture. myself happen to know, and the· k has the right to know, that the •rnmcnt-appninted Queensland 11ral Centre Trust (a secretive lot) toying wit h the idea of a name– .1\C as ir it were a hot potato - ·d up, passed, and drorpcd. ware! The pmsibility or a pcrman– nme-changc for 1he unique. centre clinitely in the air of statutory ,!ors. By reviewer DAVID ROWBOTHAM The centre is unique, at least to Australia, btcause it shall contain the Queensland Art Gallery, a Performing Arts Complex, the Queensland Museum, and the Queensland Public Library, 'f'f'f'f'f'f't'HHM'f'f'f'f'f'f'fff'f'f'f'f' What do YOU think? WRITE to The Courier-Mall with your Ideas for a name for the Queensland Cultural Centre, and for the Performln1 Arts Complex. •••••••••••••••••••••••••4 besides open-air promenade– and-entertainment areas, and rcstaur• anls and car-parks. We may well exclaim oh! or no! at the awful sound or "complex" being applied to the performing-arts part, which will include a Concert Hall and a Lyric Theatre, each designed to house a maximum or 2000 people. Nevertheless the whole show will be quite a place indeed: a place which the Sydney Opera House, the Victorian Arts Centre, the Adelaide Festival Centre, and most cultural centres overseas, shall not match so largely, or with such variety. Meanwhile, one or the name-changes which (I understand) members or the Queensland Cultural Centre Trust are trying to handle, is a change to (hush, hush) the Bjelke-Petmcn Centre. The centre, In my opinion, should not be called 1f1cr any lhin& person, no • mailer bow creat tbat person ii - actually or ostensibly. ' And, in fact, I firmly believe that Mr Bjelke-Pctersen, whose name seems to be worrying the Trust's collective mind, would not be mortally offended anyway ir the Trust diplomatically whispered in his car a home truth. The truth is that the Premier's name is - like mine! - neither euphonious nor fetching enough. It would not make the title or the centre trip easily on the tongue. Neither would it swiftly take one's fancy on letterheads that shall have to become immediately familiar and compelling in this State, and inlerstate, and abroad - from where exhibitions, entrepreneurs and customers must come. Plain commonsense has to be excr• ciscd. Any re-selected and permanent name (or names) shall have to mark - with an appropriate sound - the centre with eminence and simplicity. I concede that there could be no more accurate name for the centre than the. Queensland Cultural Centre, regardless of the point that this sounds and looks cumbersome. And, ir vou want the Government to stick to the present name, then stick 10: ·your guns. You might have to, ir the Trust goes mad with alternatives, and tries to foist something crazy on us. I repeat: We could hardly do better, and we would do proper justice to ourselves and posterity, if we used the name Flinders Place - which would incorporate a "complex" infinitely better dubbed the Moncrieff Centre. Why Flinders! Why Moncrieff? Their names are letloii; •• auU coatlaue to be IO, great navigator and uplorer, maker, oC, maps, describer or fauna, flora, tribel · and•territory. , Thesubject or Ernestine Hill's ramous historical novel "My Love Must Wait," Flinders followed, in 1799, in his ship the Norfolk, in the wake of Captain Cook. To the land called Terra A111trali1, he gave the name Australia. In meticulously-kept logbooks, and ill the book he compiled from his voyage-. he wrote the vast region that wu to,be called Queensland into the annals of tho world. , As for the Performing Arts Compl~x (ugh!), why not name it after "Qur Glad," our "Queen or Song," the ·Australian "nightingale" - Gladys Moncrieff, who spent her last years, ~ retirement, on the Gold Coast? • She will always be remembered; her name is beautifully suitable. Neither she, nor that great adventurer Flinders, bi.I been adequately memorialised in thla State. Now is 9ur chance - I hope!·