- MELBOURNE, Australia (AFP) - Government-backed plans by an Australian developer
to construct the world's tallest building in Melbourne were ridiculed here
Tuesday as proposals for a giant phallic symbol.
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- Melbourne University professor of architecture
and urban design Kim Dovey likened the 120-storey skyscraper planned by
builder Bruno Grollo to "a giant erection".
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- "I think it's a sort of boys own
game that we really should have grown out of," he added.
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- Grollo's 1.5-billion dollar (930-million
US) plan for a 560-metre (1,850-foot) tower was approved Monday as a key
element of the Victorian state government's redevelopment plans for Melboure
docklands.
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- It will include a 320-bed luxury hotel,
450 apartments, shops and offices.
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- If completed according to current plans,
Grollo's obelisk-shaped tower would be more than 100 metres (330-feet)
taller than the current holder of the world's tallest title, the 452-metre
Petronas Towers in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
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- Toronto's CN Tower stands at 554 metres,
but that includes a communications antenna.
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- Before construction can begin, however,
Grollo has to prove he has the necessary financing and persuade Australia's
federal government to change a sporadically-used flightpath over the proposed
building site.
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- Grollo, who has been pushing the highly
controversial plan for four years, said he was confident he could get over
both hurdles, predicting construction could start within a year and be
completed in a further five.
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- "My gut feeling is that it is going
to be the tallest building in the world for a long time," Grollo said
on Monday.
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- "But then again it doesn't matter.
For a moment of time it will be the tallest building on this planet and
for Victorians and for Melburnians I think that is a good thing."
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- Dovey said that while the skyscrapers
of the early 20th century were pioneering architecture it was now "the
architecture of arrogance."
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- "I think it's become a kind of architecture
of power which is really about domination and intimidation and to some
extent a kind of a quest for immortality.
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- "They are phallic symbols too. I
don't think you can separate from that -- they're sort of giant erections.
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- Heritage Victoria chairwoman Catherine
Heggen complained that the development would destroy most of the heritage
buildings on the site.
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