To continue the World Youth Day theme… let‘s turn our gaze upon St Patrick‘s Cathedral in Melbourne. People come to Melbourne for many reasons — business, the shopping, for a grey experience (per Ruby Wax), the culture, the lane ways, the bar scene, the markets and AFL (especially to see the Tigers soar — lately to a depressing end).

In 1999 when Andrew came to Melbourne from Sydney (to start up a new Precinct office), many locals pointed out a selection of local sights — the graffiti in Richmond, Leo‘s restaurant building type, the Butterfly Club, having a drink in the Melbourne Wine Room on a late spring afternoon, the West St Kilda RSL, the Yellow Peril when it used to be opposite the Casino, the Goth Bars at the bottom of King Street, the Labor In Vain bar and its tiny drinkers hallmarks, Fabio‘s odd appearance in a Richmond vodka bar, the Long Room in the old MCG Members stand, the Public Office, ARM‘s Story Hall, the Wood Marsh Pod on top of an Art Deco flat off Acland St in St Kilda, an old Four and Twenty Pies advertising mural that briefly appeared on the corner of Barkley and Blessington Street, Elwood‘s building lettering, the western sunset in early summer, and the Jeff Kennett gargoyle.

Jeff Kennett was Victoria‘s Premier from 1992 to 1999, for the Liberal Party (conservative). Kennett had a background in the military, advertising and as a career politician. Kennett was no fool to spin, and his style made for an unpredictable, colourful and out spoken public figure. Kennett‘s tenure was instrumental in privatising many Victorian public assets and services. He was either loved, or loathed by the electorate and his exit from office, was as cut and dry as his style of leadership. One minute Kennett was campaigning for a confident re-election, the next he was out of a job, when served a surprising public backlash at the polling both.

The Kennett gargoyle is located around the eastern transept of the Cathedral, it was finished in 1992. The gargoyle was carved by master stonemason Tom Carson and for ten years it was rumoured that the sculpture was of Kennett, yet this rumour was unconfirmed until 2002.

In an article from The Age in 2002, Carson sited his influences as the cartoonist Spooner and the Gothic masons from the 12th century. He sited that these masons were cartoonists of sorts, as well as fine crafts people. Often Gothic masons exercised their musings via their gargoyle creations — a stone spout that directed rain run off from built structures. It was popular to embellish and decorate these features with caricatures of animals, mythical and public figures.

Kennett‘s outspoken presence in Victorian public life during the 1990s inspired Carson to continue this tradition for this Cathedral maintenance project. It is uncommon to find this practice in modern times, as the city‘s older buildings are robust and scarce. Also it likely that the practice of parodying local figure heads via structural details, such as gargoyles, has been lost, or made inappropriate, due to the clean lines and forms of contemporary architecture.