{"id":2179,"date":"2017-08-16T13:37:19","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T03:07:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=2179"},"modified":"2017-08-16T13:37:20","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T03:07:20","slug":"great-big-book-great-small-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2017\/08\/great-big-book-great-small-city\/","title":{"rendered":"A great big book about a great small city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday marked the celebration and re-launch of <\/em>City Streets<\/a>, a chronicled answer to the past 75 years of Adelaide\u2019s architecture. As author Lance Campbell says, it’s a great big book about a great small city.<\/em><\/p>\n

We were hosted at the beautiful Living Choice Fullarton and joined by many of our Wakefield Press authors and friends, including the event’s emcee, Keith Conlon. And to top it all off, we had some fantastic Coriole sparkling!<\/em><\/p>\n

The new edition includes\u00a0a foreword and by the SA Premier, Jay Weatherill \u2013 here we present some highlights of the Premier’s kind words and insights from\u00a0his launch address.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is not merely a beautiful book. In its detail and its scale, it\u2019s also an invaluable record of the growth and evolution of our city\u2019s \u201csquare mile\u201d.<\/p>\n

City Streets<\/em> is the work of two gifted people. The photographs, by the late Mick Bradley, are superb \u2013 precise and expansive, capturing Adelaide\u2019s special quality of light. Though they\u2019re ostensibly of buildings, the images are rich with people and movement and energy \u2013 just like those taken by Baring back in the 1930s. As for the writing, who better to sneak behind the facades and tell the stories of our town than Lance Campbell. Lance is an outstanding reporter and writer. Whether the topic is sport or the arts or, from time to time, politics, his prose is elegant and insightful \u2013 revealing and describing things many of us would otherwise not have noticed<\/p>\n

As I suggest in the foreword to the new edition, City Streets<\/em> is likely to generate mixed feelings in some readers. More than most comparable cities, Adelaide has managed to retain a large number of attractive buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries. But \u2013 along the way \u2013 we\u2019ve probably allowed some special ones to slip through our fingers.<\/p>\n

One of those was the gracious Grand Central Hotel \u2013 which later housed Foy\u2019s department store \u2013 and used to sit on what we now call \u201cHungry Jack\u2019s corner\u201d. For some reason, it was decided to demolish that lovely pile in 1976. To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, we pulled down \u201cparadise\u201d and put up a parking lot!<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve said publicly before, I think we should see cities as \u2013 first and foremost \u2013 communities, rather than just collections of buildings and houses and roads. In line with the fact, one of the prevailing and very welcome things about our current city centre that can\u2019t be fully captured in words or pictures is its vibrancy.<\/p>\n

The tale of this city will go on and on. And the buildings we love today and are part of our collective consciousness will \u2013 in time \u2013 go the way of the old ones featured in City Streets<\/em>. I hope and suspect that, one day, others will follow in the footsteps of Mick Bradley and Lance Campbell. And the Adelaideans of, say, the 2080s or 2090s will reminisce about \u2013 who knows? \u2013 the Adelaide Convention Centre or the Federal Courts building in Victoria Square. For now, however, we have this new edition of City Streets<\/em> \u2013 and we\u2019re very happy and appreciative, indeed.<\/p>\n

On behalf of the State Government, I commend Wakefield Press for its initiative, for continuing to tell great stories and \u2013 through this book \u2013 for helping to chart the history of our built environment.<\/p>\n

\"\" \"\" \"\"\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Photographs by Brad Griffin.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learn more about\u00a0<\/em>City Streets\u00a0.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last Thursday marked the celebration and re-launch of City Streets, a chronicled answer to the past 75 years of Adelaide\u2019s architecture. As author Lance Campbell says, it’s a great big book about a great small city. We were hosted at … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553,77],"tags":[377,40,746,741,745,740,743,742,79,744,739],"class_list":["post-2179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adelaide","category-launches","tag-adelaide","tag-book-launch","tag-celebration","tag-city-streets","tag-coriole","tag-jay-weatherill","tag-keith-conlon","tag-lance-campbell","tag-launch-2","tag-living-choice","tag-premier"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-z9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2184,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2179\/revisions\/2184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}