AUSSIEMANDIUS- "THE LAST CABLES"
(BEST VIEWED MONOLITHICALLY)
The City's nervous system was strung through an intricate spiderweb of overhead and underground cables. Light. Power. Information. Mechanical support.
After the Fall the aerial wires failed first. Kept taught by tensioners they thrummed once too often in the forever winds and collapsed into disorganised tangles as their mounting brackets snapped, connectors corroded and woven strands parted.
Stolid buildings anchored the cables but in turn the activities that gave purpose to once thronging halls were only made possible by the more fragile wires.
The last handful of cables fell long before the empty, silently enduring buildings.
The City was unstrung.
Undone.
After the Fall.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took this picture one afternoon and was quite surprised at how much the sky washed out. It's almost as if it's been turned off and limbo is showing through! Which is, fine of course for the Aussimandius photoset!
I like the complex 'pile-on-pile' structure of the building; so much embellished masonry! Imposing ruffles and flourishes play a whimsical counternote against the bureaucratic self-importance of it being a Very Grand Public Institution.
Still, against the clean sky it's the cables that draw my eye as they arrow neatly into the building.
Without them and their subterranean like this mighty edifice would revert to its 19th Century utility, if that.
The building technically serves as the Melbourne City Centre from which all directions are measured. It's the old GPO (General Post Office), though it stopped filling that role in 1992 and is now a renovated shopping mall.
This picture was taken from the pavement at the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets (right next to the pedestrian crossing) and portrays the main clock tower without confusing the issue by showing the actual clock face.
Construction started on the GPO in 1859 and was designed by A. E Johnson in the Renaissance Revival style with later additions being made in the Second Empire style.
Ironically, in a 'Post-holocaust' context, the GPO served as Admiralty Headquarters in the Stanley Kramer directed 1959 movie "On The Beach" (based on Nevil Shute's superb novel), where Australia is one of the last bastions of fading civilization as the radiation from a nuclear war that's already killed the Northern hemisphere inevitably creeps southwards.....
And just look at the way the sunlight picks out just the top floors of the tower!
AUSSIEMANDIUS- "THE LAST CABLES"
(BEST VIEWED MONOLITHICALLY)
The City's nervous system was strung through an intricate spiderweb of overhead and underground cables. Light. Power. Information. Mechanical support.
After the Fall the aerial wires failed first. Kept taught by tensioners they thrummed once too often in the forever winds and collapsed into disorganised tangles as their mounting brackets snapped, connectors corroded and woven strands parted.
Stolid buildings anchored the cables but in turn the activities that gave purpose to once thronging halls were only made possible by the more fragile wires.
The last handful of cables fell long before the empty, silently enduring buildings.
The City was unstrung.
Undone.
After the Fall.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I took this picture one afternoon and was quite surprised at how much the sky washed out. It's almost as if it's been turned off and limbo is showing through! Which is, fine of course for the Aussimandius photoset!
I like the complex 'pile-on-pile' structure of the building; so much embellished masonry! Imposing ruffles and flourishes play a whimsical counternote against the bureaucratic self-importance of it being a Very Grand Public Institution.
Still, against the clean sky it's the cables that draw my eye as they arrow neatly into the building.
Without them and their subterranean like this mighty edifice would revert to its 19th Century utility, if that.
The building technically serves as the Melbourne City Centre from which all directions are measured. It's the old GPO (General Post Office), though it stopped filling that role in 1992 and is now a renovated shopping mall.
This picture was taken from the pavement at the corner of Bourke and Elizabeth Streets (right next to the pedestrian crossing) and portrays the main clock tower without confusing the issue by showing the actual clock face.
Construction started on the GPO in 1859 and was designed by A. E Johnson in the Renaissance Revival style with later additions being made in the Second Empire style.
Ironically, in a 'Post-holocaust' context, the GPO served as Admiralty Headquarters in the Stanley Kramer directed 1959 movie "On The Beach" (based on Nevil Shute's superb novel), where Australia is one of the last bastions of fading civilization as the radiation from a nuclear war that's already killed the Northern hemisphere inevitably creeps southwards.....
And just look at the way the sunlight picks out just the top floors of the tower!