Brian Rudman: Vision likely to bring a square camel

Auckland Museum has a display of 50 fantastical machines Leonardo da Vinci never built, but would have liked to.

Down the hill at the Auckland Town Hall today, Mayor "Leonardo" Hubbard unveils artist impressions of things he'd like to see happen around Aotea Square.

One suspects that, like Leonardo of old, Mayor Hubbard will still be waiting in 500 years for many of his proposals to get past the model stage.

Still, it is approaching Christmas, the season to write to Santa and sit back and hope.

From the whispers leaking out of city hall in recent days, Santa is going to need a supercharged team of reindeer to deliver even a few of the items on the mayor's shopping list. The packages are so eye-wateringly expensive that price tags have been discreetly left off. Instead there's talk of it being "economically viable" and "sustainable over 20 years".

If Mr Hubbard's masterplan was to create a smokescreen to obscure the embarrassing $73.2 million cost of repairing the leaky Civic underground carpark roof, he's surely succeeded. As sold to "stakeholders" over the last week or so, is a mix-and-match package, throwing up various proposals that can be adopted in part or full.

As a concert-goer, my first interest was in the future of the main theatre space, and whether part of the plan was to improve the awful acoustics. Unfortunately, according to the stakeholders I've spoken to, the issue didn't come up.

Apparently the cast of thousands involved in this "Outside the Square" exercise, were fixated by the so-called "bigger picture". And by that, they mean enlarging the existing structure by at least three times to create an - you guessed it - "iconic" building.

It will be so iconic that it will loom over the city centre like a newly erupted volcano. But not higher than 60m, I hope, or it will encroach on one of the sacred volcanic sightlines that criss-cross the isthmus, protecting views to important natural volcanoes. In the case of Aotea Centre, we're talking a sightline from the Shore to Mt Eden.

What will reside in this bloated new structure? A convention centre perhaps, and/or an exhibition centre, and/or the central public library. Moving the library is apparently the brainchild of Wellington architect Ian Athfield, who sees libraries as enlivening places during the day.

This comes as a surprise given that Mr Athfield is the architect behind the present $2 million upgrade of the library building.

Expanding the existing underground carpark from 930 cars to 2500 spaces seems sensible future-proofing, though it does throw into stark relief the muddled thinking within the bureaucracy that sees the need for parking for one entertainment precinct, but ideologically opposed to similar facilities for the patrons of the new 12,000-seater Quay Park arena.

Back at Aotea, I'm a fan of the proposal to provide vehicular access to the centre via an underground road linking the two existing underground carpark entrances. This is a steal from Sydney Opera House, allowing buses and taxis to stop alongside the main entrances, and corrects a major short-coming in the present set-up.

In addition, there's a large commercial building proposed, facing Mayoral Drive behind the City Administration Building, and a "pavilion" between the Town Hall and the administration building.

There's also a giant canopy over the square, which can be revolved to create a giant screen, and to the south, the creation of a swamp in Myers Park to drain into a waterway running into the square.

There's more, but those seem to be the main points. Not forgetting, of course, existing plans for a new collection of theatre spaces behind the Town Hall.

A verdict? Well, we've all heard the one about a camel being a horse designed by a committee.

In this case, the mayor decided to solve the problem of the leaky carpark by assembling architects, business leaders, engineers, councillors and council staff to think of solutions "outside the square".

What's being unveiled today will certainly deal to the leaky roof - by the simple process of disappearing it into obscurity. But will the camel we've been offered instead solve anything? Or is it just a wondrous concept that, like Leonardo's dream machines, will remain on paper, filed away for future generations to gawp at - leaving us back at square one with that leaky roof.