The above absolutely brilliant Bruce Petty cartoon was used on the front cover of the CSR Building Ideas June l969 magazine to mark the Australian Architectural Convention in Adelaide .
On a central monument , Colonel William Light , the man who designed Adelaide, is shown asking where he went wrong , pointing at a crazy scene of church spires galore , a Wooomera rocket , a revered footballer with angel wings , pontificating clerics . The God-fearing city offers amazing spectacles daily with 6 O'clock closing of pubs ; a judge wielding a whip warns young people enjoying themselves they will be taught to behave like adults ; a large Arts Festival fountain advertises a genuine Icelandic sock dance troup , drama , opera ; a woman with a pet dog wearing a Union Jack coat tells her knitting friend the Advertiser newspaper proposes Princess Ann grace the muddy Lake Torrens Festival .
And slap bang in the centre of the extraordinary cartoon is a Philistine Tours bus , in which an obviously sozzled passenger , draped in a grapevine, a camera slung about his neck, instructs the driver to head back to the Barossa wineries , as he does not want to see any more Adelaide attractions .
A toffy pastoralist , standing near the Arts Festival fountain , tells his wide brim hatted mate he is opposed to intermarriage with the convict states .
Much more is intertwined in the work , including a squawking bird, possibly a penguin , does not look like a crow , demanding nonsense be put back into culture .
CSR hastened to point out the supplied critical comment about Adelaide and the way it had developed were not necessarily the views of the company .
It said a l962 report on the development of metropolitan Adelaide had raised fears that the existing haphazard growth pattern would continue . It did ...Open spaces which were to be preserved as buffer zones between the metropolitan districts had been whittled away without apparent concern . Public transport had deteriorated. Undesirable land use had even further infiltrated inner suburbs, ideal for high density housing, thus making redevelopment and rehabilitation more difficult .
Shopping centres had been built as a result of research by promoters , following unplanned housing trends . Areas of significant recreational and scenic value had been overrun by subdivisions . It was not " a happy picture ." Individual buildings , however good , could not compensate for lack of planning vision or for the rather inverted sense of values that existed in relation to " progress" and social values as in other Australia cities . Until a better framework was offered for Adelaide's future, individual buildings could be regarded only as interesting , but minor , appendages to a grey , anonymous metropolis .
Right now, in Adelaide, there is uproar over a proposal to demolish a fine old theatre and nearby shops at Thebarton for a superhighway . Seems Philistine Tours is back in business .
