 | RADARBOOKS Noting new books at Architext
| Tall Buildings: Australian Buildings Going Up, 1945-1970
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Jennifer Taylor. Craftsman House, $110.
This book examines the remaking of
Australian cities in the euphoric and optimistic
post-war period. Its focus is a building type –
the office highrise – that has not been taken
seriously in this country’s architectural
history; what counts here is touching the
ground lightly, something big buildings find
hard to do. As principal author, Jennifer Taylor
is responsible for the book’s first section –
with two introductory chapters – and the
second, which offers a densely referenced
chronology of pertinent buildings of the fifties
and sixties, almost a catalogue raisonne. This
will be useful to subsequent researchers. The
third section – co-written by Taylor and Susan
Stewart – examines urban, environmental
and constructional issues. The final part of
the book is a series of essays by other
eminent architects and architectural
historians on notable highrise exemplars.
These essays are engaging. They address
not only different buildings, but also different
themes. Andrew Metcalf’s piece on Bunning
and Madden’s ANZAC House and Liner House
in Sydney is a beautifully written examination
of influence. In her chapter on Woods Bagot’s
Advertiser Building in Adelaide, Judith Brine
considers the role of architecture in the
client’s desire to project an image of
progress. As well as describing a notable
building’s provenance, Geoffrey London’s
chapter on Perth’s Council House traces the
ironies of modernism-become-heritage, and
the fate of modernist idealism in the face of
current market “realism”. Neville Quarry
offers a delightful analysis of the patterns of
sociality sustained in Seidler’s Australia
Square. While he acknowledges the criticisms
of the towers-in-landscape paradigm, Quarry
nevertheless finds merit in the dispersal of a
few fragments of this kind through the
contemporary city. This argument relates to
that put by Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter in
their 1978 book Collage City.
It is a shortcoming of Tall Buildings that,
despite a general introduction, it fails to put
the Australian experience within a wider
discursive context wherein the local situation
could be seen against such critiques
generated elsewhere. Nor is any conclusion
offered that might draw wider lessons from
locally gleaned insights. Tall Buildings is
beautifully produced, illustrated with judicious
drawings and outstanding period
photographs. It is notable for energising an
important line of inquiry that deserves to be
taken further.
Paul Walker
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| Aurora Place: Renzo Piano, Sydney |
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Andrew Metcalf. Watermark Press, $99.
Books and buildings clash head on when
the book wants to celebrate architecture.
Victor Hugo suggested that the invention of
printing would kill the commemorative
dimension of architecture. The reverse is
also true: the spatial and narrative
dimension of a book evaporates when
architecture wants to be textual. I am not
playing with words, but, lets face it, in our
time buildings are experienced mostly
through books. This is perhaps inevitable
when, more than ever, architecture has been
dragged into the commodity world to satisfy
the demands of the culture industry. There
are books that theorise architecture; books
that historicise architecture, and there are
those that – thanks to the techniques of
graphic design – are chic and suitable for
the “coffee table”.
Andrew Metcalf’s Aurora Place,
illustrated with Martin van der Wal’s
photographs, is a book of different kind. This
might be called a “catalogue” book, and a
good one. Just take a look at the contents of
the book and you will see what I mean by
“catalogue”. Metcalf introduces the Aurora
Place building through chapters that weave
technical and product information with
insightful theoretical issues that are
pertinent to current architectural debates,
but that are also relevant to the breadth of
Renzo Piano’s architecture.
Placing the building in the morphology of
Sydney, Metcalf discusses a number of
issues that I would summarise in the
following three points. Firstly, the synergic
dimension of architecture in general, and
Piano’s Workshop operation in particular,
could be associated with the production of
film where the idea is realised through the
cooperation of many industries. Secondly, if
the cut and montage are essential to
cinematography, so too is the tectonic
essential for architecture. Underlining this
last point, Metcalf correctly suggests that
technical drawings “reflect the collaborative
context in which designs are created”.
Technical drawings also demonstrate the
dialogical relationship between the art-form
and the core-form, as discussed by Gottfried
Semper. The import of the tectonic is
peppered throughout Metcalf’s text, showing
the author’s competence in contemporary
architectural debates. Thirdly, architecture,
like movies, is appropriated by the masses –
buildings enter not only into the process of
commodity production, but also into the
world of tourism. This could be the destiny of
architecture in modernity; an important
subject that Metcalf is seemingly aware of
but comes short of discussing in his text.
While the book suffers from minor editorial
glitches, I would recommend it to both
academicians and practitioners.
Gevork Hartoonian
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| The Architecture Of East Australia |
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Bill McMahon. Edition Axel Menges, $75.
The appearance of any guidebook to
Australian architecture is to be welcomed.
As surrogate histories, guidebooks can
perform an important role. Bill McMahon’s
The Architecture of East Australia is a
handsomely produced publication with
excellent photographs by Eric Sierins and
Max Dupain. From the outset, it promises
well. With the ambitious statement in the
preface that “the inclusions in this book will
comprehensively describe (in detailed terms)
the history of Australian architecture”, it
promises even more.
Published in Stuttgart, the book appears
to have been targeted at an international
audience – it is for those who are to fly into
Sydney and dart around the eastern
seaboard – hence the curious (and locally
never used) title, “East Australia”. This is a
place which apparently includes every state
except the Northern Territory and Western
Australia. It is a pity. Little effort would have
been required to include them. However, the
attempt to cover architecture in provincial
Australia is commendable, and country NSW
and Tasmania score well in this regard. Yet
entries for Ballarat and Bendigo are too
modest and there is no mention at all of
regional Queensland, and especially places
like Charters Towers, Gympie, or Normanton.
Again this is curious given the maps which
accompany each chapter, and which imply
tripping across the nation in search of
buildings.
An opportunity exists for a guidebook
that covers all of Australia, and especially its
regional architecture. This is a first and useful
attempt and praise is due. But, as a
selection, it is partial and regrettably careless
with facts. Particularly galling are the spelling
bloopers of important architect’s names like
J. J. Clark and Emil Sodersten and notable
omissions like English architect William
Butterfield’s two largest works in Adelaide
and Melbourne. It also seems pointless to list
country buildings that have no clear address
and are then are listed as having no public
access.
Philip Goad
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| Twentieth Century Architecture In Woollongong |
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Robert Irving, Woollongong City Council, $29.95.
This publication is scholarly and detailed in
every respect. Complete with glossary,
chronology, bibliography and footnotes, it is
a work typical of Irving’s respected and
methodical empirical research. Arranged
chronologically and carefully qualified by
Irving as to the veracity of such a technique,
the text is accompanied by Patrick Grant’s
photographs. The images of industrial
architecture and the lighthouses are the most
compelling, and bring Woollongong to life,
highlighting the city’s association with its
coke works and BHP’s smelting plants at Port
Kembla. There are also surprises for the
architectural enthusiast like the vast Spanish
style Woonona Co-operative Society Bakery
(1928) or Norman McPherson’s St Mark’s
Anglican Church in West Woollongong
(1963), a stunning example of alternative
postwar religious architecture.
Yet for such a detailed study, I wanted to
know more about the architectural and social
personalities that made modern
Woollongong, Australia’s ninth largest city,
and also its place or non-place in Australian
architectural history. I also wanted maps, not
only to pinpoint the scope and shape of
growth of this provincial centre but also to
understand what sort of urbanism these
buildings were located within. Such an
addition would have ameliorated the book’s
taxonomic tendency. Irving has done a great
service to the industrial town. Other regional
centres like Geelong, Broken Hill, Bathurst
and Kalgoorlie should look at his book with
interest. Of any city in Australia, it is Canberra
that deserves a book such as this. Irving’s
important volume proves that publishing the
unknown and forgotten can reap great
rewards. It also proves that the capital cities
should not be regarded as having a monopoly
on our architectural history.
Philip Goad
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| The Modern Movement In Architecture, Selections From The Docomomo Registers |
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Edited by Dennis Sharpe and Catherine Cooke. 010 Publishers, $70.95.
1982: Hubert-Jan Henket and Wessel de
Jonge are invited by the Dutch government to
advise on how to deal with ailing modernist
buildings in the Netherlands. To their great
surprise they discover similar groups
operating in an ad hoc way in other
countries. 1988: DOCOMOMO is formed (it
stands for the DOcumentation and
COnservation of MOdern MOvement
architecture and urbanism).
This book is the result of 30 out of the 40
international DOCOMOMO groups submitting
20 buildings each plus text, a sample of the
register held in Rotterdam. Australia's is the
second entry in this alphabetically ordered
book. The essay, by Jennifer Hill, Noni Boyd,
Scott Robinson and Harry Margalit,
emphasises the presence of many
modernisms in Australia, starting in the mid
1930s, reinventing itself in the 1950s and
again in the 1960s. The buildings themselves
are familiar, but their place in the
international context is not.
Chronological or stylistic classifications,
common in history books, are absent:
regional difference is the key. In an
introductory essay, Dennis Sharp argues this
cannot be viewed as a history book because
it has no editorial agenda, rather it is simply
shedding light. The layout is consistent: small
black and white photographs - teasing,
revealing little – some contemporary, others
taken shortly after construction.
Sharp suggests this is the first book to
cover such a wide range of built examples,
and demonstrates the diaspora of modern
architecture – not a uniform International
Style “but a series of ‘Modern Movements’
occurring in various parts of the world”.
Why preserve modernism? Maristella
Casciato quotes Calvino: “Memory has true
value only if the traces of the past and
projects for the future are held together, if it
makes it possible to do what one wanted to
do without forgetting, becoming while never
ceasing to become.”
Toby Horrocks
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| William Hardy Wilson: Artist, Architect, Orientalist, Visionary |
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Zeny Edwards, Watermark Press, $77.
In the field of Australian architectural history,
William Hardy Wilson (1881-1955) is
principally remembered for pioneering the
study of Australian colonial architecture. The
volume under review offers a comprehensive
view of the life of Hardy Wilson. It is
informative and attractive, and altogether a
welcome addition to the bibliography on
twentieth-century Australian architecture.
Howard Tanner’s “Foreword” sets out the
main features of Hardy Wilson’s work and life
in a compact way. Clive Lucas offers an
account of his own involvement in the
conservation of some of Hardy Wilson’s
buildings. Lachlan Hardy Wilson’s “My
Father” is a series of reminiscences about his
family. Contributions by Catherine Forbes and
John Johnson deal with Hardy Wilson’s work
in terms of garden history and literary output.
The highlights of the volume are probably Ian
Stephenson’s study of Hardy Wilson’s
domestic interiors and Joanna Capon’s essay
on Hardy Wilson’s interest in Chinese art and
architecture. By contrast, Zeny Edwards’s
biography of Hardy Wilson reads like basic
research operating on overdrive – undigested
and tedious.
Notwithstanding the uneven quality of the
various contributions, readers will find much
to engage and stimulate them in this book.
Hardy Wilson’s travels in America, Britain and
China, his relationship with cultural figures
such as Arthur Streeton and Sydney Ure
Smith, and his publication activities emerge
as the main geo-cultural features of an active
life. The cultural agency of Hardy Wilson as a
twentieth-century Australian architect of
private means comes across clearly. The
volume is also admirable in its attempt to
broaden the understanding of Hardy Wilson’s
work by dealing with his architecture in the
context of his interests in art, furniture design
and garden design. By openly presenting
Hardy Wilson as a racist (e.g. page 9), the
book has gained some critical distance from
its subject by avoiding the polite silence that
characterised much previous work on him.
|This is certainly a step in the right direction.
Yet, in the light of recent research on 20th
century architecture by John Macarthur and
Paul Hogben, it might be fairto say that the
cultural critique of Hardy Wilson has barely
begun.
Stanislaus Fung
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| Debating The City: An Anthology |
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Edited by Jennifer Barrett and Caroline
Butler-Bowden. Historic Houses Trust, $77.
This carefully crafted volume presents
heterogenous approaches to thinking about
the city. Contributions from urban theorists,
geographers, architects, developers, artists,
historians, cultural critics, and so on, are
gathered together in three sections “City
Living and Cosmopolitanism”, “Urban Visions
and Public Space” and “Consuming Spaces”.
Despite the diversity, the essays are also
tightly bound together through an intriguing
network of links and tensions. For me, the
most compelling piece was Jane M. Jacob’s
“Hybrid Highrises”. Jacobs points out the
banal absurdity of the highrise = phallus
myth and critiques the broad-based western
investment in the idea of the highrise as a
simplistic sign of monstrous modernist
masterplanning. Jacobs understands the
highrise as a “mass ornament” of modernity.
She teases out the hybrid appropriations and
uses of the highrise by looking at Asian and
Australian examples, and, in doing so, offers
a much richer, more nuanced account of both
modernity and of the highrise. This struck a
particular chord with me, but other readers,
with other interests, will find other essays
equally captivating.
Justine Clark
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