Gold Coast welcome signs sledged by residents

ELEVEN-metre-high illuminated signs that cost more than $2 million have been switched on at the Gold Coast, but residents are royally unimpressed.

LIKE many things in life, whether the Gold Coast’s new $2.1 million welcome signs are a good use of public money is a matter of perspective.

The City of Gold Coast said the “gateways” would “bookend” the city and become an iconic “welcome” to visitors and “welcome home” for residents.

But some say you can’t read the two artworks, which spell out “Gold Coast” and “GC”, as you drive past them because of the angle and proximity to the roads they are placed.

As the city gears up for the Commonwealth Games, both artworks have now been switched on in bustling traffic zones — one to the city’s north along the Pacific Highway and the other in the south near the airport on the Gold Coast Highway.

However, confused drivers zipping past the colourful poles are confused and some are angry about the amount of money spent on the public art.

Artist’s impression of the artwork north of the Gold Coast. Picture: Gold Coast Bulletin

View from the road of the northern artwork. Picture: Reddit

“You can’t even read the signs if you’re driving on the highway,” Tamara Williams from Slacks Creek said. “To me it just looked like a whole bunch of lit up poles sitting in a slab of cement in the medium strip.

“I actually had to look up what they were on the internet to find out what they were there for.”

She said the only way you can read the sign is by standing stationary and directly in front of it.

Other residents have complained about the artwork on social media, saying you can’t read the sign even if you are stood in front of it.

“The fact it looks like it is doubling up on letters from that perspective shows the artist went through the thought process of making the sign double sided,” said one commenter on Reddit. “Yet he/she nor anyone else in the approval process seemed to comprehend the fact that the northbound lanes are going to get backwards text.”

An artist impression of the southern sign near the Gold Coast Airport at Bilinga. Picture: Supplied

Other commenters suggested the $2.1 million could have been better spent on hospitals, schools and roads.

However, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said the artwork would reflect the character of the coast, engage with the public and ignite the imagination of locals and visitors.

“The hard work we’ve put into developing the local arts and culture sector, including establishing a robust process to commission public art, is paying dividends. More and more artists want to live and work here,” he said.

READ MORE: Absurd things taxpayers’ money has been spent on

The design selected by an independent panel. Picture: Glenn Hampson

Division 14 Councillor Gail O’Neill, said the artwork was as “stunning” as she imagined when the big “GC” near the Gold Coast Airport at Bilinga was taking shape in December.

She added that the complexity of the design required significant engineering input to ensure the best possible outcome for the city.

The council expects the signs will create a sense of arrival and welcome for locals, visitors and athletes effectively becoming a “bookend” for the city ahead of the Commonwealth Games which starts next month.

A spokeswoman for the council said a worldwide search was conducted to find the right design.

“An independent panel was united in its selection of five finalists out of a local, national and international pool of more than 70 submissions,” the council wrote in a statement.

The finalists — James Angus, architectural design studio LOT-EK, Callum Morton, Scott Redford and Judy Watson — worked together on the design.

Architect and co-founder of New York based art and architecture studio LOT-EK, Giuseppe Lignano said the idea was a “rethinking” of the light poles, cantilever arms, and fixtures found along the highway.

“On the highway to the Gold Coast, you might see the same light fixture hundreds of times, until seeing a hundred such fixtures, uniquely arranged, means you’ll never see them in the same way again,” he said when the council unveiled the plans.