Fancy a confection of big 'Smarties', an enormous desiring machine or a hotel that isn't? Sculpturally, it's all in a day's drive, says KEN SCARLETT

Is my assumption correct? I think so. Something unique has been happening in Melbourne over the last decade. While the ubiquitous freeways and tollways have been spreading their tentacles around the city, a dramatic program of public sculpture linked with this new road construction has also been occurring. Ambitious in scale and imaginative in concept, this use of contemporary sculpture is certainly a first in Australia and may be worthy of note worldwide. Freeways, symbols of our reliance on the petrol-driven vehicle and our successive governments’ neglect of adequate public transport, are frequently visually boring expanses of asphalt and not conducive to driver concentration. Several initiatives, however, have been explored over the years in order to overcome the dulling impact of this endless bitumen.

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