Does the Chinese Embassy look tacky?

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Jules and Jez here, and every week on Not Stupid, we chat about the news in your feeds.

I like to see when people change their minds because it makes me, just as a normal person, feel like I'm not the only one who exercises a degree of self-doubt every single day.

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This episode of If You're Listening was recorded on the lands of the Ngambri and Ngunnawal people.

G'day, Matt Bevan here.

This is If You're Listening.

I'm standing on the edge of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, next to the Embassy of the People's Republic of China.

The reason I'm here is, you would have heard in our last episode, we were talking about this unique trait that Canberra has, where all of the embassies here are built by the countries they belong to in a way that reflects some aspect of their own culture.

I knew this was the case in Canberra, but what I didn't realize until now is that other world capitals don't do this.

The Chinese embassy in Washington or London or Paris is just a building, a building like any other in that city.

So I was looking for information about this and I stumbled upon a report from the ABC in 2001.

We sent Dr.

Michael Garbert, a design and architecture expert, here to Canberra to review the architecture of these embassies.

Have a listen.

Architecturally speaking, Yara Lumla must be one of Australia's weirdest suburbs.

It's home to Canberra's embassy district and many of the embassies look as if they're just about to go to a costume ball.

Dr.

Garbert has got a very particular opinion about what he found here here in the embassy district.

And I wanted to come and see if I agree with his hot takes.

If you're listening, supervising producer Cara Jensen-McKinnon is here with me.

Hi, Cara.

Hello.

Have you been down to look at the embassies before?

I actually have not.

This is my first time, so I'm very excited for this excursion.

I also haven't been down here to look at the embassies.

It now occurs to me that it is strange that there is a Chinese palace here in Yarralomna.

On this very normal street.

On this very normal suburban street.

Yes.

So we'll describe it.

It's sort of, well, it looks like a Forbidden City sort of temple.

It's got the Chinese flag out front.

It's got stone lions, I think,

guarding the front gate.

But yeah, no, look, it looks like a traditional Chinese building with aluminium windows.

That's right.

Let's have a listen to what Dr.

Garbett said about the exterior design of the embassy and see if you agree.

One of the most florid examples is provided by the People's Republic of China, who've opted for the flying swallow eaves and dragon ridge rooflines of imperial palaces.

Up top, characters from the zodiac, including stylized dragons, are there to ward off evil spirits.

From an architectural point of view, they've been reasonably successful, but down below, the Guardian Lions must have been sleeping on the job.

The main body of the embassy is a pedestrian example of 90s postmodern, the proportions of the openings clashing very unharmoniously with the traditional aesthetic.

Oh!

Yeah, no, he doesn't like it.

He doesn't like it at all.

And I understand where he's coming from.

Yeah.

It's a building that kind of looks like someone's put a Chinese roof on a high school

A-block.

Even the colours, the kind of salmon columns are very reminiscent of a kind of high school gym

situation.

Yeah, yeah.

If someone was to tell me this was Seablock at

Yarralam La High.

I would believe them.

But I do love the roof.

It's beautiful.

The zodiac figures, I can see them there.

They're little, but they're visible and they've gone to a lot of effort, obviously, in order to, you know, make this look...

real.

The thing is though, Michael Garbert was able to go in and have a look at the gardens, which obviously we're not going to be able to do, but let's listen to his opinion of the gardens.

There's the moongate, the covered walkway, the weeping willow by the pond, the stepping stones and small pavilions.

All the basic ingredients, but somehow the details don't work.

The spirits of the place are neglected.

The overall effect a bit like a mini golf course minus the putting greens.

I feel like they did the best they could with what they've got.

Like, yes, there is a very kind of 90s energy to the whole thing.

And it was built in the 90s.

And it was built in the 90s, and it really, it stacks up.

He's so mean, though.

I don't know what he expected.

Like, the budget, what, the budget was probably, what, a million dollars?

How much does a building cost?

How much should a building cost?

I don't know.

Are you Lucille Bluth?

How much could a building possibly cost?

$10, Michael?

In the 90s, what's the going rate for a building that looks like this?

I don't know.

I mean, you know, a reasonably large amount.

I mean, they probably would have paid quite a bit.

I believe they got Chinese labourers in to build it in a kind of a complicated way where they weren't subject to Australian workplace laws.

Working around the clock.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

No, no eight-hour day for the workers on the Chinese embassy.

But what would you rather is the question?

What would you rather than

this not to be this and to be just a normal building?

a normal bureaucratic building or this kind of cute kitsch 90s chinese mini golf course mini golf course

exactly honestly i don't know why there isn't some sort of a mini golf course through the embassy district i think they should all have a mini golf course they should that's also themed maybe each one should have a hole like out the front yes you don't even need to go in through security but it's a themed mini golf course hole and you gradually work your way through the embassy district and then you score yourself at the end.

And you know, I think that'd be good.

Now, Dr.

Garbert managed to-I mean, obviously, he didn't just look at this embassy.

His next stop was the Papua New Guinean Embassy, which is just around the corner.

So, why don't we listen to what he had to say about that while we walk around there?

At the Papua New Guinea High Commission, you get the same mix of traditional and modern, and here again, it's the traditional that goes up to the roof

with shingles, however, replacing the more traditional fronds.

This has got to be the best one.

This is a cool one.

This is a fantastic embassy.

The Papua New Guinean Embassy, it's an East Sepik longhouse.

And at the end of, if you can imagine, sort of, it's a single gable all the way from one end to the other, but each end peaks up and underneath the gable at each end is an incredible mural with warrior faces and beautiful colours.

And the whole thing looks great to me.

Yeah.

But shingles instead of fronds, that's the thing.

It's, yeah, it feels like a strange mix of like a beautiful traditional design with like perhaps like a Swedish cottage house vibe.

Like the actual shingles that they've used are.

They've got a frozen climate sort of look.

Yeah, it's got a very Nordic energy.

We're in Canberra.

I love it.

Now, okay, the next place we need to go to is the Finnish Embassy.

And this, to be clear, this is, well, have a listen to what Dr.

Garbat said about that.

If this kind of folk costume approach to architecture is an almost certain recipe for aesthetic disaster, the newly completed Finnish Embassy shows how it is possible to incorporate references to national identity in much more subtle and satisfying ways.

This is definitely my favourite embassy and it's probably one of my favourite buildings too.

And that's because the young Finnish architect has taken elements from the Finnish tradition but turned them into something really contemporary and poetic.

Okay, so let's walk down to the Finnish Embassy.

Let's go.

We've got a number of other embassies that we can see on the way to the Finnish Embassy though, so we can comment on those as we go.

We should know that we're actually still walking past the China Embassy because it is like a.

Is that their tennis court?

Yes.

That's their traditional tennis court.

Yeah.

And basketball court and traditional basketball court.

He says, well, Canberra's like all the time.

Yeah, of course there is no cars.

No, there's no cars.

But you've got to remember that Canberra was built to be, they were planning for this to be a bigger city than London.

Hasn't quite got there yet.

Yeah.

And probably won't.

I mean, based on this plot here.

Well, this is very exciting.

Do you know what this is?

No, what is this?

Okay, so we're walking past a vacant lot.

Yeah.

There is rubble.

There is a fence that is clearly a special like embassy looking fence.

Yes.

Can you guess what this is?

Think about.

Okay, we'll do this.

I'm going to need a clue because I can guess a lot of things.

So what this is, is this is an abandoned site.

Okay.

A country.

See if you can guess which one.

A country

wanted to build a new embassy.

They got a primo spot.

pretty close.

Parliament house is right there.

Right.

A Primo spot right across the road from Parliament House.

They bought the lot.

Yeah.

They were preparing to build.

And then suddenly they were not allowed to.

Who were they?

Is it the Russian embassy?

It is the Russian embassy.

It absolutely is the Russian embassy.

And

for a while, because there was a whole thing about whether they were going to be allowed to build it or not.

This is, of course, after the invasion of Ukraine.

Yes.

There was a whole thing about whether they're going to be be able to build it and or whether the Australian government would take the land back off them.

Right.

For a number of months there was a dude squatting there.

Well, like a no no when I say a dude I mean like a Russian

official.

A Russian official had like a portable toilet and a tent squatting on the site.

It's crazy when you look at the fence they all of the fence is made out of bricks and then they've got these kind of of granite tiles stuck to the outside of the bricks yep and a lot of them are just falling

it's a facade yeah see a lot of them back there if you look down here are just kind of hanging off

like they haven't been stuck on properly

but so dodgy it's really dodgy

now okay have a look at this building here Does this scream unbelievable architecture to you?

It screams.

I don't even know if it's screaming.

I think it's just

mumbling.

Speaking at just a normal tone that it is definitely a building that is grey.

Yeah.

That's what it's telling me.

Well, welcome to the Finnish Embassy.

This is it.

This is it.

It looks like the medical centre in my parents' house.

Wouldn't you describe it as poetic?

I mean the glass is nice.

and nice kind of brutalist concrete elements which I appreciate.

Yeah.

It just looks like a lot of other buildings in Canberra.

It looks like that is really really accurate.

Now that we're at the front the whole front is made of glass and it does look pretty swish.

It's a fancy building.

But it just looks like any other fancy building in this city.

Now let's listen to Dr.

Gabbitt's take.

It's not obvious at first glance, but the design concept behind this building draws on the figure of Il Marinen, the blacksmith hero of the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic.

Ilmarinen was also the name of a Finnish ship sunk during a naval engagement during World War II.

Here the hull of the ship appears to emerge from the earth, moored to its timber wharf.

Once you know the story, you can see how the details clearly relate to the naval theme, with funnels, quarter decks, gangways, and the suggestion of an underwater world glimpsed from the surface.

You know what it looks like?

It looks like

a town that came into some money built an information center or maybe a museum.

Yeah.

The

nautical theme still, though, I'm not really getting.

No.

Alright, but we've got two more embassies to look at before we sign off.

Then I'll get, I'll see which one your favorite was.

Yes.

But I think we're seeing a pattern here in terms of the countries that are doing the best job at this.

This is the Bosnia-Herzegovina Embassy.

Okay.

It's understated.

It is undoubtedly Balkan, though.

Yes, it is.

It is, and I like it.

I like that too.

I like the yellow stripe running across it.

I like the materials.

I like the little turret.

There's a nice turret here.

Yep.

And here we can finish here at the East Timorese, the Timor-Leste Embassy.

It has this stunning roof that is done like a traditional East Timorese cloth.

And I love it.

I love it.

I think it's really great.

I think it might be my favourite.

I mean the Papua New Guinea one is great, but

they've done an unbelievable job at this embassy, I think.

Yeah, and I think going through the history in the episode that we just put out really makes it even more impressive that it exists and that it's here.

That it exists, that it's here and that it's great.

Exactly.

So good job.

Well done.

We're very proud of you, Timor-Leste.

What's your favourite one?

I'm in a Saudi or Because we're right here.

Maybe they can hear me.

We have a very short memory as well.

You know, I can't remember.

What were we just looking at?

Was it Bulgaria?

I assume all these places are bugged and they're definitely listening to us as we walk past.

So I'm going to say Timor-West is my favourite.

Looks fantastic to me.

He really does.

Thank you, Cara.

Thank you so much.

So I'm back in the basement now and just putting the final touches on our episode about the man Trump has appointed to bring about world peace, Steve Witkoff.

I'll catch you with that episode on Thursday.