TRAVEL TALK with Richard Weller
Winthrop Professor, UWA
Director, Urban Design Centre of WA
Favourite holiday destination?
Cadaques – a small town north of Barcelona where Salvador Dali lived and where, in a surreal twist, Australians used to play cricket in the piazza.
Favourite place in WA to take a short break?
My backyard.
Destination you would never tire of visiting?
The rooftop of the Intercontinental in Sydney from where I can see the landscapes of my childhood.
What has been your biggest travel disaster and what did you learn from it?
Upsetting my mum (who hadn’t seen me for four years) because I slept in after a leaving party in Berlin and missed the flight home. I learned to stop partying before flying home.
How often do you travel? Is it usually for business or pleasure?
Since flying became a bus service, as infrequently as possible, but when I do it’s always a mixture of the two because I genuinely think my work is pleasurable.
You wish Perth could be more like?
Paris under Napoleon III; politically incorrect I know, but that’s the Paris everyone now loves. Seriously, Perth needs to become more like Perth.
What was the last book you read?
Ecological Urbanism – a catalogue of new designs for 21st century cities.
