Books: Architecture Australia, September 2001

Noting new books at Architext

This is an article from the Architecture Australia archives and may use outdated formatting

World Architecture 1900-2000: A Critical Mosaic, Vol 10.

Edited by William S. W. Lim and Jennifer Taylor. Springer-Verlag, $195.

This book surveys key architecture in the regions of Southeast Asia and Oceania (including Australia and New Zealand). It is the tenth and final volume of an ambitious project that attempts, in the words of general editor Kenneth Frampton, to “assemble an anthology of canonical work on a global basis”. Frampton himself is understandably wary about this undertaking, describing it as “quixotic”, “injudicious” and “presumptuous”.

Surprisingly, this wariness is cast aside as he moves on quickly to introduce the “nomination method” by which the various featured buildings were selected. It is a method that involves dividing the globe into ten “continental sectors” (one sector per volume), and asking local architectural critics and historians to “nominate” and “cast votes” for their favourite buildings of the past century within each sector. It is a method that has neither the rigour of an academic work, nor the provocative quality of a speculative survey – a kind of Eurovision Song Contest without the camp.

Within this rather sloppy framework the volume editors for Southeast Asia and Oceania (William Lim and Jennifer Taylor respectively) have worked hard to assemble an account that might speak meaningfully to the particular conditions under which architecture is produced in the region. Both write thorough introductory essays that draw on source material that is not always widely available. Much of the architectural material from Australia and New Zealand, although covered in other more comprehensive sources, is usefully summarised and contextualised here. The volume is particularly valuable for its treatment of the architectures of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, regions where relatively little basic documentary work has been done.

This volume is to be welcomed for the rich architectural material it documents. But the question remains: how might this rich material be framed in a more sophisticated way? In an era when information, ideas, expertise and technology circulate with increasing autonomy from regional and national boundaries, the idea of the region is no longer sustainable as an organising term – Frampton himself acknowledges this. A more useful tack would be to take those trans-local affiliations that have always intersected in this part of the world seriously.

Stephen Cairns.

The Queensland House: History and Conservation

Ian Evans and the National Trust of Queensland. Flannel Flower Press, $49.95.

Ian Evans has produced a series of valuable handbooks for conservationists – The Australian Home, The Federation House: A Restoration Guide, and so on – mostly through his own publishing firm, Flannel Flower Press.

This one is different, devoted to the houses of a single state, and produced in association with the National Trust of Queensland. Indeed, and rather strangely, the personified Trust is credited as the joint author of this book.

The explanation for this is that the second section is based upon a series of brochures published by the Trust, and it appears that the principal author these is in fact Jinx Miles.

The book thus falls into two parts: a historical section by Evans, and a conservation section compiled from the works of Miles and others.

Queensland is the one state that can genuinely claim a distinctive domestic architecture, and Evans’s account is as engrossing and as well illustrated as one has come to expect, though with one or two slips, such as the incorrect identification of a barn at Grantham, Tasmania, as being at Brickendon.

This barn is discussed because of its use of steddles, the antecedent of the antcap, a fact first pointed out by this reviewer (and not acknowledged by Evans).

The second part, dealing with conservation, is in sections devoted to issues such as restumping, roofs and gutters, the verandah, and so on. One effect of compiling this from earlier publications is that some advice, such as that on white ants, reappears under different headings. But it is all good, sensible stuff, with only a few errors and deficiencies, notably in the treatment of nail types.

An irritating aspect, although one with no real bearing on conservation issues, is the perpetuation of the myth of the Hills Hoist – here said to have been an element of the garden since the 1920s. In fact the Hills Hoist patent dates from 1946, and it was only the last of many rotary clothes hoists developed in Australia over the preceding three decades, Toyne’s being the most prominent. The myth doubtless stems from the coincidence that one of the earliest American hoists had been produced by a Hills company, totally unconnected with that in Australia.

This is a book that works as an amalgam of interesting history and useful conservation guidelines. It will probably also work at a higher level, further raising the profile of Queensland’s distinctive domestic architecture.

Miles Lewis.

Australian Gothic: The Gothic Revival In Australian Architecture From The 1840s To The 1950s

Brian Andrews. Miegunyah Press, $89.95.

The centre of almost every Australian settler community was founded by churches and pubs, and it would be difficult to find such a settlement without a church in the Neo-Gothic style. Yet the Gothic Revival period is still difficult to judge, with most Australian historians limiting their research to detailed studies of individual architects and their works. In contrast, Brian Andrews presents the reader with a general framework for assessing the Australian Gothic Revival – a regional response to an international movement that dominated ecclesiastical architecture for almost a century.

The chapter titled “Impressiveness and Association” explores Australian ambivalence towards European cultural traditions – the “repugnance coupled with a nostalgia for the familiar sights and sounds of England far away”. “A Far Distant Country” follows with a discussion about the impact of isolation on Australian Gothic and the nature and extent of the association with England. “Continental Gothic” outlines the impact of German Gothic on pre-war Lutheran architecture, furnishings and fittings. The final chapter asks whether there is an identifiably Australian Gothic. This chapter is not as convincingly argued. Apart from recognising Australian nationalism at the turn of the century, and the individual genius of architects such as Horbury Hunt, Andrews leaves this question open to further speculation.

The late date of the 1950s in the sub-title might puzzle some readers. Although the fire had gone out of the Gothic movement by the 1860s, the style dominated ecclesiastical architecture in Britain until the 1890s and survived a decade or two longer in Australia.

Andrews includes buildings designed in the nineteenth century, but completed later, among the twentieth century works. (The west front of Brisbane’s anglican cathedral, designed during 1885-1901 by John Loughborough and Frank Pearson, is being completed even today.) The book also includes later ecclesiastical works, by architects such as Robin Dods, that other scholars might categorise as Arts and Crafts – a movement with roots deep in the Gothic Revival – and other later buildings with Gothic motifs that might better be termed post-Gothic.

Australian Gothic is generously illustrated with full-page colour illustrations and black and white photographs and drawings that are carefully related to the text. It will appeal to architectural scholars, but also offers highly readable essays to all students of Australian architectural history.

Brit Andresen.

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Published online: 1 Sep 2001

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Architecture Australia, September 2001

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