Julie Willis

A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural History

The written architectural history of Australia is limited: its foundation relies particularly on a series of publications written after the second world war that examined broad trends in Australian architecture, namely Boyd (1947; 1952), Freeland (1968) and Johnson (1980). More recent efforts have examined Australian architecture in focused ways, including Taylor (1990), Howells and Nicholson (eds., 1989) and Apperly, Irving and Reynolds (1989). The earlier publications, mostly stemming from a strongly modernist base, were at pains to demonstrate appropriate international connections and pedigree for Australian architecture, particularly favouring that which could be considered proto-modernist. Later publications, while still making international connections where appropriate, have tended to develop a more regional focus, documenting and demonstrating movements of influence and relevance to the development of architecture within Australia. Such a regional focus is also extended by a multitude of conference, symposium and journal papers that offer close examination of particular areas or aspects of Australias architectural history. The results of such a range of publications is a history that is somewhat piecemeal and uneven in its intensity of focus: much remains under-researched, including indigenous architecture. Correspondingly, broad issues affecting the national or major regions over different eras have received scant attention. The dilemma in contemplating a new history of Australian architecture lies in the need to consider and balance factors both internal and external to its development over the last two hundred years. This paper sets out a rationale for framing a new critical history of Australian architecture, centred on a series of themes that plots a path between the many influences on its development.

Invention from War: a circumstantial modernism for Australian architecture

Between 1942 and 1945, Australian architects and engineers within the Allied Works Council and the US Army Corps of Engineers undertook a vast programme of building works to assist the campaign to drive Japanese forces northward through the Southwest Pacific and avoid invasion.1 Huge distances, lack of time and the need to wage a campaign from the air lay behind US General Douglas Macarthur’s phrase that it would be an ‘engineer’s war’. By necessity, buildings such as airfields, hospitals, camps, warehouses, and other structures had to be light weight, constructed quickly, and inevitably dropped in by air as easily handled pre-cut packages. With the lack of American and European softwoods in the Australasian region, an unlikely local material was pressed into war service – unseasoned or ‘green’ Australian hardwood. It was a material choice that would have profound implications for two reasons. First, in the years of conflict, circumstances dictated the unprecedented innovation and experiment in light-weight timber structures. Second, in an echo of Lewis Mumford’s poignant maxim that ‘war is the health of the machine’2, the systematisation and ruthless economy inherent in wartime timber buildings would influence the development and practice of a particular form of modern architecture in Australia in the late 1940s and the 1950s.

INVISIBLE CONTRIBUTIONS: The Problem of History and Women Architects

The known history of women architects has never sat comfortably within or in parallel with mainstream architectural history. Research into the history of women architects is usually broadened to consider die contribution to and consideration of women in architecture and conceived as a separate history. What is it about mainstream architectural history that makes the inclusion of professional women architects so difficult? This paper explores the nature of architectural history and how its concerns and construction obscure die contributions of women architects.

From home to civic: designing the Australian school

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the design of state school buildings in Australia from the 1880s to the 1980s to establish common threads or similar concerns evident in their architecture at a national level. Design/methodology/approach – The researcher compiled a significant data set of hundreds of state schools, derived from government, professional and other publications, archival searches and site visits. Standard analytical methods in architectural research are employed, including stylistic and morphological analysis, to read the designs for meaning and intent. Findings – The data set was interrogated to draw out major themes in school design, the identification of which form the basis of the papers argument. Four major themes, identifiable at a national level, are identified: school as house; school as civic; school as factory; and school as town. Each theme reflects a different chronological period, being approximately 1900-1920, 1920-1940, 1940-1960 and 1960-1980. The themes ref...

Aptitude and Capacity: Published Views of the Australian Woman Architect

The paper examines the evolving portrayal of women architects, or the possibility thereof, in the popular and professional press in Australia from their earliest consideration in 1888 to a particular moment in 1970. In doing so, it reveals some of the assumptions that underscored the experience of women architects in the profession. It also reveals a number of barriers, outside of the profession, that women faced in architectural careers. In doing so, it raises questions as to the assumptions and hidden barriers to womens full engagement in the Australian architecture profession today.

Reading Images of School Buildings and Spaces: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Visual Research in Histories of Progressive Education

School space is not merely a backdrop to the ‘proper’ work of schooling. The classroom or the school itself is much more than a simple container in which learning and educational experiences happen, as if indifferent to the spatial and material environment (Burke and Grosvenor 2008, p. 8). The design of schools, from classrooms and school buildings, to play areas and outdoor zones, has been integral to the history of educational provision and in conveying ideas about the purposes and ambitions of schooling. In this sense, the architecture of school buildings and the organisation of school space mediate the experience and aspirations of schooling. They shape — both hinder and enable — pedagogies and classroom dynamics as well as interactions and learning, even in the seemingly unstructured space surrounding school buildings. Acknowledging the significance of space, however, calls for more than attention to the instructional efficacy of learning environments (Leander et al. 2010). It also calls for an account of the kind of student subjectivities and dispositions the space of schooling invites and makes possible (Burke and Grosvenor 2008; Gutman and de Coninck-Smith 2008). In addition, the very look and feel of schools feed into the symbolic and reputational meaning they have in their local communities and beyond. A focus on the design of school environments underscores the significance of the visual and representational dimensions of schooling, across public and community settings as well as in the lived experience of being in school spaces — built, natural, inside, outside — for teachers, students and families.

Architectural Movements: Journeys of an Inter-colonial Profession

Abstract Migrations and movements of architects are central to understanding the architectural development of the colonial world. These journeys are usually framed as a question of where the architect originated, to determine the knowledge they brought to a place, but without understanding that their professional journey might also encompass significant intermediate points and further destinations that, likewise, fuelled knowledge and experience. Through a lens of continental Australia as a point of connection, this paper examines the professional journeys of a number of individual architects between English-speaking settlements in the British Imperial century (c.1815–1915). Their careers are traced across various colonies of the British Empire and British concessions in Asia. This research demonstrates that numerous architects made these professional lateral movements. The paper establishes this as a phenomenon of significance in Antipodean architectural history, exploring factors that prompted such movement, and, to a limited extent, the relative impact of their presence in local architectural cultures. It shows, for the first time, a set of architectural connections that transcend colonial borders, where architects moved with relative professional ease across substantial distances. It suggests there is a significant, complex and interwoven collective architectural history – an “entwined history” – across British colonies and concessions, which deserves greater consideration and attention.

Building Salvation: The Architecture of the Salvation Army in Australia

The architectural history of religious buildings in Australia has mainly concentrated on prominent churches from the major Christian denominations: non-conformist denominations, as well as the buildings of non-Christian religions, have received relatively little attention to date. This paper seeks to partly address that elision, by examining the architecture of the Salvation Army, in particular its spaces of worship, in the first forty years of its existence in Australia. The paper establishes connections between the structure and ethos of the Salvation Army with the stylistic choices they made for their buildings, examining the development of a distinct architectural hall type that became as synonymous with the Salvation Army as its uniform. The paper unveils the architects behind the Army buildings and demonstrates the persistence of the architectural type, despite regional variations in materials. It also discusses the significance of the hall sites and co-location of multiple halls on a single site to both serve their religious beliefs and support their welfare and social works.

In Australia, between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification: The Melbourne University Architectural Atelier, 1919–1947

Abstract The role of architectural education in facilitating the international flow of ideas and developing the local profession during the interwar period is relatively underexplored. In Australia, the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier (1919–1947) was instrumental in introducing foreign methodologies while promoting a locally inflected paradigm of modern architecture. Based initially on the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the ateliers emphasis on composition and form, rather than a single accepted architectural style, fostered a culture of experimentation among Australian architects. But its focus on scholarship instead of professional qualification led to its eventual demise, highlighting the complex relationship between global design culture and local architectural practice.

Conscious design: the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier 1919–1947

In antipodean Australia, there is always an assumption that trends in architecture arrive late, are invariably not ‘done right’ and that local variation is a corruption of the true thing. This is most strongly evident in the consideration of the introduction and evolution of modernism in Australia. Physical isolation meant Australian architects rarely experienced the new ideas in architecture firsthand, instead relying on exhibitions, publications, the migration of architects and education. Yet the role of architectural education in considering the development of modernism in Australia in the 1920s and 1930s is relatively under-explored.