SPORTRITE - Grass is always greener ...on stadium-gallery roof

With Tim Eves
SO, it turns out, that new Mayor Stan Semenoff is a fan of fine art, or at least weird architecture, and has plans to plonk a gigantic version of the Kawakawa public toilets in the Whangarei Town Basin.
Well, probably not in the Town Basin, but presumably very close to it.
If successful, Mayor Semenoff's dream of reviving a 15-year old plan to commission Austrian artist Friedrich Hundertwasser to build an art gallery in Whangarei will surely be a crowning glory of a long and distinguished career in local politics.
Largely because Hundertwasser died eight years ago. Luckily, Hundertwasser scribbled a few drawings of his vision for an arts centre in Whangarei. These should suffice for planning consent hearings, one hopes.
There is, however, a sense of almost benedictory happenstance about all of this.
Most significantly for the fact that, just a week ago, the chairman of the Stadium Trust, Bill Shepherd, announced that they were forging ahead with plans for a new sports stadium in Whangarei costing around $14 million, a project that they hoped would satiate the need for a decent venue at which major sports events could be staged.
Yes, we can sense you thinking along the same lines.
Imagine, if you dare, an international sports-cum-arts venue designed in the Hundertwasser style. A magnificent edifice of which the likes has never been contemplated, yet alone seen, on the face of planet Earth before?
Yes, yes, we admit, the project does have some failings, the biggest being the prospect of a stadium where the playing field is on the roof and the toilets are a work of art.
But it seems to be a massive opportunity too good to ignore. The mere thought of swilling back watered down beer while watching another Northland rugby team self destruct then stumbling through an art exhibition enroute to the urinals, which are themselves an ornate depiction of Maui hauling up the North Island, is simply too mind boggling to contemplate.
Just consider for a moment the inter-mingling of art and sport. Imagine the sheer magic of such a venue and what the collision of artisan and sportsman could create for the Northland community.
Clearly, powerbrokers at Whangarei District Council headquarters have been contemplating this. Why else would they send Mark Simpson, the WDC general manager and a fine arts fan, and deputy mayor Kahu Sutherland, a former provincial front row prop no less, all the way to Austria?
Obviously because the scope of this project could have a global impact. The sheer audacity of it is almost overwhelming.
Just how it will go down with Joanne McNeill, an obscure artist who (we feel obligated to point out) has been a vehement opposer of any major district council development of any kind through a weekly column in this very publication, is murky at best. Especially as McNeill seems to loathe anything remotely to do with sport or anything that resembles activity beyond pondering life with a paint brush or pen.
The good news is that the anger and repugnance that frothed on contact with the initial possibility of a sports stadium did not resurface when Chairman Shepherd announced his plan last week. Here's hoping it won't when the truth is revealed about Semenoff's plans for Hundertwasser's designs.
McNeill is the former chairwoman of the Hundertwasser Art Gallery Trust. She was chairwoman when the idea of the art gallery was first mooted, unsuccessfully, 15 years ago.
Surely even McNeill can see the public good in something as radical as the "Hundertwasser Sparts (sports and art) Stallery (Stadium and Gallery)" though. Hell, we have even come up with a name for her.
What more could you ask for.