Postcards from the edge: A critical reading of representations of the interior in Australian landscape architecture

Abstract

The arid interior of Australia has been conceptualized as the site of a barren wasteland in need of ‘improvement’, a place of symbolic sacrifice by European-Australian culture to the archetypal interior, a powerful symbol of the ‘other’, and a source of Australian authenticity. Since 2001, a number of key public projects located in Australia’s capital cities have sought to represent and refer to the landscape of the interior through landscape design. This paper explores two such projects for how the profession of landscape architecture has applied the narratives of the Australian interior. These projects openly reflect the fact that European-Australian culture remains typically estranged from the landscapes of Australia’s interior_a situation that has implications for the way landscape architecture deals with the drying of Australia’s fertile fringes and engages with indigenous culture.