Based in Sydney, Australia, Foundry is a blog by Rebecca Thao. Her posts explore modern architecture through photos and quotes by influential architects, engineers, and artists.
There’s a path, in Brisbane, that takes you through Spring Hill, along the Queen Street tangle and down to the riverfront.
Sadly, Brisbane hasn’t been able to escape the curse of metropolitan river fronts around Australia — the monuments to unclean windows and overpriced menus known as riverside precincts.
But if you look carefully, there’s a footpath next to one of the 1980s-styled palazzos that leads you to a set of stairs. Follow these and you find yourself on the City Reach Boardwalk.
Do this, like I did, early in the morning, at the tail-end of an Australian summer, and you are in for a real treat.
Wide, winding and windswept, it’s everything a riverside path should be.
It follows the river, naturally, beneath the commercial districts, roads, bridges and houses of Brisbane.
The section I was able to see takes you out into the river too, on a pontoon bridge. The sun over your shoulder, you can stop — step to the side though, don’t be that person — and gaze around.
There’s the underside of the Story Bridge.
Over there, the ferry terminal across the river.
A large park over there, a smaller one up here.
The walls climb up from the water, sandstone perhaps, reinforced by concrete and force to support the development above.
It’s Queensland, so you’ll probably have the sun out, warming the air and the water.
I’ve found the climate in Brisbane oppressive before, swimming as one is in the humidity of the sub-tropics.
But here, on the river, a breeze blows along and the sun warms your shoulders while the wind cools your face.
Follow the path along, past the cliffs and old wharves, out into the river and back, back to the coast and then up the stairs to, abruptly, the end of a street.
There’s a bench to sit on and rest, but I recommend pushing onward, ever onward.
* * *
I don’t live in Brisbane — I live in Melbourne — but in early 2018, my business partner and I decided to expand our comfort zone and start working with Baz Gardner, a business growth and development expert.
His approach starts with you, why you do what you do, what value you get from it and — crucially — what meaning do you obtain from what you’re doing.
The course he offers starts with a three-day intensive session, in a small group, called Ignite.
And it’s an intense period, long days and discussions that leave your brain running well into the evening.
I’ve never participated in any dedicated personal development work before.
Scrap that — I’ve always been a cynical person, and I figured that sort of noise, nonsense and bunkum was simply not for me.
I know what I’m about, so I thought, I don’t need to worry about any of that stuff.
Well, just to show how little I actually know — those three days in Brisbane changed the direction of my life.
* * *
When you’ve climbed away from the river, you can sit on the bench at the end of the street. But I recommend turning left here, and keep going up the hill.
The commuters will probably be coming out now, walking and running and riding.
(Perhaps you’ll spot what — to me anyway — is the peculiarly Brisbane way of getting your shirt to work if you’re exercising on the way in. This method — hooking your clothes hanger into your backpack and having your shirt fly behind you, like a corporate cape — seems to me both risky, and ingenious given the unavoidable Brisbane Sweats)
At the top of this hill — past the 1970s apartment buildings and along the fence line — there’s another park. I suggest stopping here and taking in the view. You have the whole city laid out in front of you, or so it seems.
There’s the Story Bridge again, from a different angle. The river has some boats on it, ferries mainly, but they’re moving in a steady, meandering way.
The sun’s rising, bathing the city in the can’t-believe-it’s-already-this-warm glow of an Australian summer.
The breeze barely makes it up here, so the heat might start getting to you, especially if you’re like me and forget to bring any water with you.
Yet there I was, atop a hill, looking out over a river and a city.
With my headphones in. Always with my headphones in.
And — by design, I’m going to admit — I’d managed to time the climb so I had Streets of Your Town by the Go-Between’s playing.
Standing there, at the same time for a few days in a row, with my head reeling from what I’d learnt in the previous day’s session, has had a real impact on my feelings about this song.
I’ve always loved it, I mean why wouldn’t you? It’s all jangly guitars, great melodies and smooth harmonies.
It is, to me, the sound of the Australian inner city in summer. It had been playing in the background of my life for years, and I’d never really paid attention to it.
There’s a raft of 1980s Australian songs in that category, songs that I’ll come back to at some stage.
But now that song is inextricably linked to those three days I had, where I examined who I was, what I was doing, why I was doing it, and what was holding me back.
Three days that made me realise that perhaps endemic cynicism can be a positive thing, when its force is translated into critical skepticism — which I use to protect the people around me.
Three days that showed me why I have such little patience for nonsense and bullshit.
That what I’m looking for in my life and my work is having genuine conversations with interesting people.
That what I really value in my work is having people trust me.
And that having people understand the minutiae of what I’m discussing isn’t as meaningful as having them trust me.
Which means that being the smartest person in the room isn’t important to me.
But talking with the most interesting person in the room really is.
And finally that personal independence, the inner voice that compels you to do things your own way, is integral to how I look at the world.
Even now, writing these things triggers that Australian, self-deprecating, self-poppy-cutting instinct at the back of my head.
But they’re all true.
And I wouldn’t have discovered these things about myself had I not have taken the time to work with Baz Gardner and his Resonance team.
So every time I hear this song now, I’m rushed back to that sunny morning, in the park on the hill, with its view of the city and the river.
