Dialogue: Bridge blushes in a funny hat

By JOHN ROUGHAN

One of the delightful things about Auckland is an indifference to urban design. It comes, I suppose, from sprawling around two harbours and a coastline so lovely it can seem very hard to hurt the landscape.

And a climate so warm and wet that practically anything grows, luxuriantly. Plant something in Auckland and nature will do the rest. Erect almost anything and it looks okay as far as most citizens are concerned.

Consequently, the city has developed in a vigorous, mindless, unplanned way that is more appealing on the whole than, say, carefully cultivated Christchurch or the strenuous self-affirming confusion of Wellington's recent civic architecture.

But the flipside of Auckland's indifference is an insensitivity to destruction. Where else would so many residents react to the vandalism of a landmark as accidentally and irreplaceably picturesque as One Tree Hill's misshapen pine, with the attitude that "it's only a tree"?

Damage was done more innocently to another of the city's under-appreciated landmarks, the Harbour Bridge, last Christmas. A team of maintenance contractors, seized by an urge to contribute something to the city from such a vantage point, put a pole up there at their own expense to fly the national flag.

Transit New Zealand, manager of the national highways, sounded dubious but what could it say? It agreed to fly the flag at least for the duration of the America's Cup and let the public decide. No doubt Transit, still bruised from the idea of advertising on the structure, confidently expected an outcry.

But amid the millennium preparations and the mounting excitement of the Cup challenge there was scarcely a murmur. A few days after New Year, the Herald solicited some views.

"Fabulous," said Auckland mayor Christine Fletcher. "The first time I saw it I was driving across the bridge and I thought it was fabulous. I would love to see it continue to dominate the skyline."

"Great," said her counterpart on North Shore, George Wood: "It gives the bridge an extra dimension. It's a great landmark."

What is it with mayors? Their role requires a certain relentless positivism, but do they have to suppress their critical faculties entirely?

The majority view was probably better represented by Buck Shelford: "It doesn't bother me," he said. "I'd rather Transit put some lights in for me down in Silverdale."

Apart from a flap from purists for protocol when the Italian flag was flown beneath New Zealand's straight after Prada became the challenger, not a critical word has been heard. By the end of the America's Cup Transit had received 65 letters in support of the flag and just one against. Well, at least there are two of us.

It's nothing to do with the flag. I wish it didn't have another country's flag in the corner of it, and didn't look like a duller version of Australia's, but I'm all for flying it. I wish there were more around. When Fay, Richwhite owned a central Auckland office block they did us proud. These days the flagpole on that building, and many other towers around town, are too often bare.

But to fly the flag from an incongruous structure does not do us proud. It looks simply crass.

The Harbour Bridge has a long, sweeping elegance that manages to emphasise the expanse of the Waitemata even as it spans its narrowest point. A second crossing, anywhere within sight of it, would be criminal. It is staggering that an Auckland transport strategy suggests another alongside it.

Aucklanders effect a certain disdain for their "coathanger," but they glow when visitors first glimpse it and thrill to the way the structure becomes suddenly more imposing as they turn onto it. Why, then, do they not see that a flag flying oddly from the superstructure ruins its lines?

It really is reduced to a coathanger with that prong on top. And should the flagpole be moved to the top of the arch, as Transit threatens if it becomes permanent, the visual destruction will be complete.

Any day now Transit is likely to take Auckland's indifference at face value and make the wrong decision. Its national commercial manager, Daniel Thompson, is already seeking sponsors for a permanent fixture - or even two. He believes twin flags up there would "get the symmetry right." Imagine it.

There is ample room at the harbour edge of the northern approach to the bridge for a tall, stand-alone flagstaff, visible from the city and the port, if somebody wants to sponsor it.

That bridge maintenance crew made a contribution to a wonderful millennium summer of Black Magic, and more than a little madness. Now that winter is closing in and we're packing away the sun furniture, Transit could quietly lower the flag and restore the bridge to its sleek and proper lines.

Auckland doesn't much care really.