In the last few months, the profession has lost six notable architects; they’re remembered here. Milo Kanangra Dunphy 1929-1996
Architect Milo Dunphy was renowned not for buildings but for his lifelong commitment to preserving our natural resources. After graduating with honours in architecture from the Sydney Technical College in 1953, travelling to London on a Byera Hadley Scholarship, establishing a practice with Bruce Loder and serving on the RAIA’s NSW council from 1962-74, he sacrificed his architectural career to become one of Australia’s first professional environmentalists.  His environmental education began almost in the cradle: father Myles was the visionary behind proposals for national parks in NSW, and Milo became a passionate inspiration for many branches of the state’s burgeoning environmental movement, which has repeatedly demonstrated the power of community groups to prevent the destruction of public reserves. He was a councillor with the fledgling Australian Conservation Foundation-helping to overcome its initial conservatism to become a more active and effective organisation- and held positions with the National Parks Association of NSW and the Nature Conservation Council of NSW. He was also the mastermind behind the Colong committee, formed in 1968, which campaigned for seven years to save from mining the Colong Caves in the Kanangra wilderness. After this success, the committee went on to stop the Forestry Commission from clear-felling the Boyd Plateau for pine forests. The federal government consequently refused to fund further clearing of native forests for pine plantations and the Kanangra Boyd National Park was formed. In 1972, Milo became the founding director of an influential activist organisation in Sydney, the Total Environment Centre (TEC). Over 17 years, until a few months before his death of cancer on April 13, he fought the preservationist cause in hundreds of urban, rural and natural issues: being instrumental in the coalition to save the Franklin River, the protection of much remaining rainforest in northern NSW, cancellation of beachmining leases in national parks and the increase of NSW national parks from one to five percent of the state’s land area. For almost 30 years, Milo fought tirelessly for the survival of ecological integrity and the natural and wilderness areas he loved. To honour his efforts, he was awarded an Australia Medal and an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Sydney. His passing leaves much more work for us all to shoulder—David Baggs.
Barry Davis, 1930-1996Barry Davis, who died on March 8, was the first Professor of Design at the University of Technology, Sydney, and made a significant contribution to the development of design education in Australia.  Born in Sydney on August 5, 1930, and trained as an architect, he was senior lecturer in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney for 11 years until 1973. He was known as one who did not hide behind a cloud of verbiage and did not admire those architects who dealt only with the externals of fashion. He was respected by students for his interest in architecture (which he practised on a small scale), his integrity and straightforward approach. After the student strike of 1972, which stopped the architecture school for several weeks, he made a major contribution to the rewriting of the curriculum. From 1973 to 1976, he was the architect/planner at the University of Armadale, responsible for development of its campus masterplan. In 1976, he was appointed head of the School of Design at the Sydney College of the Arts and took a leading role in negotiating amalgamation with UTS in early 1988. His 1987 paper, The Responsiveness of Tertiary Education to Design Needs of Australian Industry, written with Dr John Broadbent for the Commonwealth Tertiary Education Commission, identified many agendas for design education, particularly in the discipline of industrial design. His views on the need to equip designers with multi-disciplinary skills and a fuller understanding of the processes and implications of technological change were to influence significant decisions by federal and state governments. After his retirement from UTS in 1988, Professor Davis and his wife Judith spent several years developing their rural property, Jarrara, at Bundanoon in the southern highlands of NSW—Swetik Korzeniewski and Geoffrey Caban.
Rhys Evan Hopkins, 1910-1996
When Robin Boyd wrote his first book, Victorian Modern, in 1947, he described the arrival of modern architecture in Melbourne as “the 1934 revolution”. He used as illustration a small house in “poor, narrow Canterbury Road”, Toorak, and described it thus:
“As in many other revolutions, apparently nobody saw who fired the first shot. Several people, including at least two fashionable architects, have since worked changes upon it … but the simple form, the steel windows and the white painted bagged brickwork are all as they appeared originally, circa 1933.”
That historic little house (since destroyed) was designed by a 22-year-old architect, Rhys Evan Hopkins, working from his new office in Collins Street. He never saw fit to mention his moment in history until he was being interviewed 52 years later by two architectural historians researching the Depression years…he was of a generation which gained satisfaction from quietly serving clients.  Hopkins was educated at Caulfield Grammar and studied architecture at Melbourne University; graduating at a time when a third of his profession were unemployed. Yet he somehow managed to win commissions until the war closed down the private building industry. Until 1941, he designed many shops in the Williams the Shoeman chain, a cinema, a clothing factory and, among several houses, the notable Fenton Bowman residence (1938) in Toorak. One of our best and grandest examples of the International Style, it is being considered for registration with the Heritage Council; the highest honour available to any building in this state—Neil Clerehan. | Lloyd Orton, 1918-1996 educated at camberwell grammar and scotch college, he seriously considered becoming a sculptor until his parents persuaded him that this might not be the best way of making a living. in 1936, he enrolled in architecture at the melbourne technical college, graduating 10 years later from the university of melbourne. when the war intervened, he served with the corps of royal australian engineers in the middle east, new guinea and the south west pacific; he was discharged with the rank of captain.After finishing his degree, Orton travelled in Europe and the United States on a Haddon scholarship, and extended his stay to study sculpture in an M.Arch course at Cornell University, New York. Two years after returning to Melbourne in 1951, he co-founded the firm of Armstrong & Orton. In 1957, this office joined with Demaine, Russell and Trundle in an expanded practice which he co-directed until 1984. During that period, he also served as president of the RAIA’s Victorian chapter, president of the Swinburne Technical College and mayor of Hawthorn. After his retirement, he returned to sculpture and rapidly produced pieces in stone, wood and bronze which were exhibited in group displays around Victoria, and was awarded prizes by the Association of Sculptors of Victoria. Over eight visits to Zimbabwe, he worked closely with the Shona sculptors-displaying great humility and perseverance in working on his sculpture while sitting on a hard stump under a tree for many hours in blinding heat. Back in Melbourne, his passionate explanation of a Shona piece could move an audience to tears—Tony Armstrong.
Kevin Joseph Curtin, 1925-1996 Sydney architect Kevin Curtin died on April 13, aged 71. His career as principal of Kevin J. Curtin & Partners spanned four decades and included the design of an extraordinary range of buildings; notably church, civic, school and hospitality architecture. He completed major hotels for the Federal Hotels chain, including the Wrest Point Convention Centre in Hobart and casinos in Darwin, Alice Springs and Launceston: successfully appropriating from the sacred to the profane a theatrical ethos that enlivened his designs. Major civic developments in NSW regional cities, including Broken Hill, Dubbo and Bankstown, displayed a more conservative approach to urban design using building mass, symmetry and formal landscaping to create a civic presence. His final design before retiring was the St Mary’s Cathedral School, Cardinal and Priests’ residence in Sydney.
Born in Murrumburrah, Kevin’s first contact with the profession was as a messenger in an architect’s office in Canberra. The Second World War intervened and he and his twin brother, Patrick, enlisted in the RAAF to become navigators of Lancaster bombers. Patrick had vowed to pursue a career in architecture after the War but was killed in action over Germany. Kevin returned to Australia determined to fulfil his brother’s ambition, despite vocational advice recommending his future as a boilermaker.
In 1953, he established his own architectural practice in Sydney and later a branch in Canberra. His affiliation with the Catholic Church led to commissions for more than 50 new churches and chapels and over 200 school projects. For these contributions, he was awarded a Papal Medal—John Barnard.
Edward Alexander, 1947-1996
Ted Alexander, who died on March 22, excelled in his intellectual grasp of urban design problems and his inspiration and dedication. As well as his recent proposals published in the Sydney City Council’s book Sydney Spaces, he designed notable projects for Jackson Teece Chesterman and Willis, including precinct planning for the UNSW masterplan and the Narimba education precinct. For Conybeare Morrison, he prepared guidelines for the Education Building at the University of Sydney. He also worked with Neville Quarry on the Centennial Park design report. Ted’s most extensive, and potentially most influential, document was the Urban Design Strategy for the Ultimo-Pyrmont Masterplan Areas, written with Jan McCredie of the City West Development Corporation. This is a landmark in Sydney’s planning, as it works from a unified urban concept for the peninsula to detailed site studies. It has potential to shape the peninsula’s form without imposing unnecessary aesthetic controls. While he understood the importance of modesty in shaping urban form, Ted was an able designer of buildings, as exemplified by his third prize (with Ric Fiala) in the RAIA’s Tusculum headquarters competition, first prize (with Betty Kung and Nga Tuan Yap) in the Sydney Showground ideas competition and RAIA commendations for three houses on the central coast. As a student at NSWIT he gained the fifth year prize and first class honours, then won a Byera Hadley scholarship in 1984. In 1990, he received the Marjorie and Lloyd Rees Prize as the top graduate of the University of Sydney’s Master of Urban Design course—Ric Fiala, Russell Olsson and Darlene van der Breggen. |
