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Sharkbaiting: Beach Culture and Urban Development in Sydney, 1880-1914.
Cameron White, History Department, University of Sydney
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Beach culture did not emerge spontaneously but was the result of the construction of a landscape. The State Government built trams from the centre of the city out to the beach at Bronte, Bondi and Coogee. Municipal councils built changing sheds and swimming pools. Lifesavers erected flags and warning signs and administered rules and regulations. As a result of these developments the beach was interpreted as a place of leisure, pleasure and hedonism. The consequence of this landscape was that the eastern suburbs of Sydney were quickly developed as an urban environment. Private estates and dairy farms were subdivided as property prices increased dramatically. The area known as "Struggle Town" developed into one of Sydney’s most affluent suburbs.
The reason that the beach acted as such a symbolically powerful landscape was because it juxtaposed the city and the ocean, allowing these spaces to be defined in terms of a historically constructed binary opposition between culture and nature. Previously this spatial culture had acted as a powerful force for the cultivation of a western colony in Australia. It had been in evidence in earlier spatial institutions such as the picnic and the verandah. In the case of the beach it acted in the development of Sydney’s eastern suburbs. Therefore the beach illustrates that landscape is a powerful cultural institution that embodies a complex set of values. In theoretical terms the history of beach culture illustrates the commercial value of landscape design and introduces the possibility of designing for a sustainable future.
