Lost Highways: Photographs of Geelong's Vanishing Roadside Culture

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Foreword

This book celebrates the quirky roadside Post-War buildings and structures around Geelong that are rapidly vanishing due to demolition, neglect or redevelopment.

Here you'll find many images of Petrol Stations, small roadside stores and many of the objects, ephemera, signage and bric-a-brac that surround them.

Does every Australian town or city have places like these?  I'm not sure.  But I've often thought the reason Geelong had so many of them, is because of the presence of the Ford Motor Company & Shell Refinery, but I can’t be sure.

Regardless of why, since 1987, (and intensively since 1996), I have been photographing & recording the glory, decline and abandonment of many fine specimens of this Post-War architecture in Geelong and in the surrounding districts.

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(A confession: I have long had a personal fascination with the amazing landscapes, architecture, and deserted places in the American South West, through photographic books, music video clips and movies. And then I began to realise that these kind of places existed on the fringes of my own home town.) 

In my photographs I have tried to capture images of these buildings and structures which are rapidly becoming extinct.

Petrol Stations, Petrol Bowsers, Milk Bars, Coca Cola signs, hand written advertising signs, deserted locations. All beautiful in their own dilapidated way, waiting patiently for their inevitable demolition or redevelopment.

This genre of roadside architecture has long been neglected in Australia.  Its architectural merits, historic significance, and its impact on our day to day lives, is rarely recognized.

I guess, if any of this subject matter strikes you as familiar, you'll probably think of it as being American. Which is where many of the styles derive from.

(In fact, if I had a dime for how many times, I have shown my photographs and heard people say, "Where's this, America?".)

The look is personified, famously, by America's 'Route 66', which is also nicknamed 'The Mother Road' which starts in Chicago, and then winds its banana-shaped path, 1200 miles, right across America until it finishes in California.  Even this legendary road has become a "Lost Highway" - bypassed by multi-lane highways.  But in its hey-day, 'Route 66' was the great cross-country conduit for Americans going West, looking for a better life.

Now, beside the crumbling bitumen and cement lanes of '66', the Petrol Stations, the Motels, the Drive-ins and corner stores, all are falling into disrepair or, worse, disappearing.  And a similar fate is falling upon the roadside structures around Geelong.

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But in America, you will find Preservation Societies in each Route 66 State, slowly restoring or valiantly fighting to save these unique buildings.

In Geelong these buildings vanish, without a murmur.

For instance, an excellent example of the fabulous 'Googie Architecture', popular in Southern California in the 1950s and the 1960s  was the 'XL' Petrol Station on Melbourne Road, North Geelong.  This magnificent expressive and dynamic 10 metre high, metallic-beamed 'starburst' structure, was demolished in late 1994, to make the way for a 'camping store' extension.  What an absolute tragedy!

I hope these photographs help preserve these visual treasures we have lost from our suburban landscape as well as suggest the pure visual excitement of these buildings.

The confidence of design - expressed through dynamic lines, bold colours: Red, blue, green, cool whites, skyward pointing beams. 

The eccentric shapes: 'Flying saucer' roofs, 'starburst' metallic/beams of sculpture, slanted rooflines and angled canopies.

The extroverted textures of  red concrete with embedded 'sparkles'. This could be the description of a SINGLE petrol station!

Wow!

Now these Petrol Stations, some, nothing more than an empty concrete shell, or a skeletal framework, stand for my camera to record, stand alone, devoid of people, cars, noise.... life.

These ruins also point to a changed world.

The Post-war Petrol Station and Milk Bar has become obsolete, being not "big-enough" or attractive enough for the consumer, with no passing traffic, no money, they have become shabby and neglected and have finally closed.

These Petrol Stations are from an older world that moved at bustling but still social pace.

For in the not too distant past, drivers would be greeted by the friendly Petrol Station attendant, dressed spiffily, in his crisp company uniform, complete with bowtie and hat, checking the oil, tyre pressure, topping up the radiator, wiping the windscreen clean of bugs, and filling 'er up!

All with a smile to go.

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Suburban Petrol Stations are being demolished while Brave New Highways siphoning off customers, to the new Mega-Petrol Station.

It is a similar, sad story with the small corner store, the 'Milk Bar' or 'Deli'.

The corner Milk-bar, is fast disappearing from our lives, crushed by consumer demand for the 24-hour Convenience Store, the banal, impersonal, fluorescent-lit Supermarkets and the self-service Mini-mart / Petrol Stations.

The quaint corner Milk Bar, offering friendly personal service and character, unfortunately cannot compete.

It is certainly the passing of an era. And its departure is as rapid as the cars that obliviously speed by.

In Geelong, Petrol Station demolition, occurred quite heavily between 1996 and 1999. Due to structural changes in the Australian economy, the GST and downturn in the economic fortunes of the Geelong locals, many Milk Bars closed in 2000 and 2001.

The race is on to record these buildings before they vanish, unmourned, under the tread of the bulldozer.

Ironically, these businesses closing made my task of photographing them easier.

I could then plot the best time of day and the best angle to photograph them without fear of interruption.

By preference and often necessity, I would sometimes wait, six or more months, to get the most dynamic visual impact or appropriate light, such as; summer or winter light, morning or late evening light. Being very conscious of the use of shadow in bringing out the architectural form, I would rarely photograph with an overcast sky as this light would "flatten" the image.

By design I have achieved "a look" that is reminiscent of  the South West U.S.A... a dry, desolate, dusty, hot, late evening light shining on many of these abandoned locations.

Ultimately, I wanted to give the impression, that every image you see was recorded "on the same day".

Of course, I would still have to balance these aesthetic aim for the "right photograph" with the buildings inevitable demolition on some unknown (and unpredictable) date.  It was often a gamble.  Often I would win, and get the image I wanted, and sometimes I would return and find a mound of the building had been replaced by a mound of broken concrete and metal.

I regret I could not physically save these decaying Petrol Stations, Milk Bars, signs... but at least I have saved them in photographic form.

It is somewhat bitter-sweet feeling to have captured these images before the onset of demolition. It is also a tragedy to see them gone for all time from our streets and our lives. I hope this book will spur you to remember and appreciate them.

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The City of Geelong

Geelong, 75 km South West from Melbourne, Victoria, the Southern Mainland State of Australia.  Geelong is the State's industrial heartland, home to international companies such as: Ford Australia, Alcoa Aluminium, Shell Australia.  Population is approximately 185,000 people.

Technical Details

*The photographic films used to record these images have been: Kodak Ektachrome 50 & 100, Kodak Kodachrome 25 and Fujichrome Velvia 50 & Fujichrome Provia 100.

I found the use of a Polarizing filter with its ability to accentuate the colour of a blue sky, and its darkening and removal of reflections, heightened the dynamics and emotional intensity of the photographic image.

Book Thanks

Having been given the brief to develop a Research Project, for the Gordon TAFE EDIM1 Course Module, ‘Research Specialisation1”, out of the following three of; Multimedia, Electronic Design and Visual Art, I choose Electronic Design.  This would encompass the exploration of computer software for my design familiarity. 

This would then cover the use of scanning, photo enhancement through Adobe Photoshop, and the page layout software of Adobe Quark. 

As part of this project, the timeline of delivery was 48 hours “work-time”.  I felt that this opportunity would be most ideal in combining my interest in photography into the production of a book.

”Lost Highways”, records the vanishing roadside architecture and culture, through my photographs taken in my home town of  Geelong  between 1987 and 2001 inclusive.

Special thanks to Simon Kirby, Director of “Digital Zoo”, for his kind assistance and enthusiasm, in re-editing my “introduction” thoughts in “Lost Highways”.

Geelong 2002

Richard's book can be purchased from his web site.