REVIEW: David Beynon, Brandon Gardiner, Ursula de Jong, Mirjana Lozanovska, Flavia Marcello, “An issues paper: the roots/routes of Australian Architecture: Elements f Alternative Architectural History,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 31, Translation
REVIEW:
David Beynon, Brandon Gardiner, Ursula de Jong, Mirjana Lozanovska, Flavia Marcello, “An issues paper: the roots/routes of Australian Architecture: Elements f Alternative Architectural History,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 31, Translation
Covering three major areas of the development of Australian architecture, and with an attempt to define the ‘Britishness’ of the Australian psyche, through the difficulty of Migrant, and émigré architects to be included in the formulation of the Australian society. In writing that, there is scope to suggest that the émigré architects that were nominated or who through their own prowess obtained high rank in the countries institutions that developed the built environment, there appears to be a reluctance by the authors to support the notion that these weren’t exceptional, nor was there any formal empirical discussion of demographics, looking at the actual population levels.
This means that on the surface it appears that one or two noted immigrants achieving places such as university professors and heads of school, or high places in state planning scheme, including engineers, being viewed through the scope of non-British or American architectural degrees not being recognized by the RAIA who, imported their ideology and institution from England, there is no real indication of what this may have statistically meant.
For example: If I said: ‘out of the large amount of immigrants, architects found it difficult to obtain jobs in architecture due to language problems, even with this barrier Mr. Tolstoy managed to acquire the position of secretary to the Victorian state planning department, yet his colleagues Mr. Stalin, and Mr. Trotsky were reduced to working as ‘building designers’ as their degrees weren’t recognised within the country due to the association with RIBA...
This sounds as though there was a glut in Australia of emigre architects that couldn’t find jobs.
If i choose to explore the topic more, there may be a slightly different result:
Within the bulk of Architects trained in the country, many went overseas as the industry had no place for them within Australia itself. Indeed, in WWI the population of the country was approximately 5’000’000 people, and it was 100’000 migrants who came into the country in the few years after the war. Of the locally trained architects, mainly within Sydney and Melbourne statistics show that of the 20’000 only 10’000 were employed. Architects within the migrating groups held a surplus of numbers, representing nearly 10% of migrants. As such 50% of Australian architects were found employed by other industries, and the issue of architectural employment was compounded by an influx of 10’000 architects that entered the colony.
In an industry already flooded with an overabundance of skilled workers, the influx of trained migrants found that, like many Australians of the era, work as an architect was very difficult to find. This was compounded by the reluctance of institution to recognize training from the continent, though work in England didn’t suffer the same issues.
All of a sudden, the picture is vastly different, our three case studies of professionals in Architecture, and their positions are exceptional, even for locals to obtain. This means that the language of British-Australian racism shifts to British – Australian acceptance. As, even though they had plenty of ‘their own’ to employ, and they did. They still made way to incorporate continental Europeans.
If you look at this article through the eyes of understanding that you are not being given the full empirical picture of what was occurring during the history of Australia, and, you ignore the large asian populations, and most specifically: you see the development of the building of Australia through the hood of the white Australia policy, and not through the eyes of where is evidently was a failed policy that spanned a small period: that it was a policy that was developed due to the influx of non-British-whites, and it fell apart, and do not see it as a policy that defined the entirety of Australia’s history, then the kind of view of the development of “modernism, moderne, modern, etc” away from a the birth of a building industry that constituted the empirical stamp of colonisation, or, rather: was in-sync with the architectural school of the world, which although modernism was built, suffers from academia and most architects that, anywhere but here it was ushered in with celebration. (‘here’ in this article being Australia) which is simply not the truth.
The introduction to the proceedings excerpt suggests that there is a substantial hole within the literature regarding Australian architecture that there is a bulk of knowledge of colonial architecture, and as such there is far less on the value of architecture since. With a strong pressing that Australia was reluctant to accept the new ideas of Modernism, as such displayed less of these buildings, it doesn’t touch on the vernacular developing at the time, and where at a domestic scale migrants were influencing the construction of homes via the inclusions of motif and emblem, and this is troubling if one looks at many of the period housing that displays a bulk of ethnic detailing (lions, heads of Athene, laurel and olive wreaths etc)
As such the first two inclusions deal solely with Monumental architecture within the development of Australia, and do not approach the bulk of the construction product. This gives us a lopsided view of migrant architects, and the inclusion of migrant cultures and their consequence on the built environment, the examples of their own stamp on the urban fabric, and the architectural dialect of multicultural Australia.
Turning a blind eye to the Secret Migrant History of the Australian Domum.
The final section by Beynon, briefly covers the requirement of the importation of Singaporean kit houses for miners, and briefly covers the creation of the ‘Queenslander’ which, formalized in 1930, was derived from construction projects of The East India Company. Which goes against the suggested origin of Paul Oliver in Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World. (p.1069-1072) which suggests that the origin of the Queenslander came from Chinese settlements in the region.
The Conference proceedings are excellent reading and supply a good reference highlighting émigré architects, and the development of modernism in relation to the institution that is architecture within Australia, however it does not divulge a completely wholeistic overview, as it shows parts of the truth of the subject matter that most directly speaks of the personal arguments of the writers.
Whilst each of the authors are respected and celebrated professionals in the field, and the research fields are all relatively ‘new’ research fields, one hopes that the development of the research does not forgo self appraisal and fall into the easy trap of being insular, ignoring wider social concerns for the sake of bringing to the for a narrative of difficulty, and as such encouraging social schism.
Review by: Thomas J. Barker. Arch.Angle.Studios
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
David Beynon, Brandon Gardiner, Ursula de Jong, Mirjana Lozanovska, Flavia Marcello, “An issues paper: the roots/routes of Australian Architecture: Elements f Alternative Architectural History,” in Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand: 31, Translation
Covering three major areas of the development of Australian architecture, and with an attempt to define the ‘Britishness’ of the Australian psyche, through the difficulty of Migrant, and émigré architects to be included in the formulation of the Australian society. In writing that, there is scope to suggest that the émigré architects that were nominated or who through their own prowess obtained high rank in the countries institutions that developed the built environment, there appears to be a reluctance by the authors to support the notion that these weren’t exceptional, nor was there any formal empirical discussion of demographics, looking at the actual population levels.
This means that on the surface it appears that one or two noted immigrants achieving places such as university professors and heads of school, or high places in state planning scheme, including engineers, being viewed through the scope of non-British or American architectural degrees not being recognized by the RAIA who, imported their ideology and institution from England, there is no real indication of what this may have statistically meant.
For example: If I said: ‘out of the large amount of immigrants, architects found it difficult to obtain jobs in architecture due to language problems, even with this barrier Mr. Tolstoy managed to acquire the position of secretary to the Victorian state planning department, yet his colleagues Mr. Stalin, and Mr. Trotsky were reduced to working as ‘building designers’ as their degrees weren’t recognised within the country due to the association with RIBA...
This sounds as though there was a glut in Australia of emigre architects that couldn’t find jobs.
If i choose to explore the topic more, there may be a slightly different result:
Within the bulk of Architects trained in the country, many went overseas as the industry had no place for them within Australia itself. Indeed, in WWI the population of the country was approximately 5’000’000 people, and it was 100’000 migrants who came into the country in the few years after the war. Of the locally trained architects, mainly within Sydney and Melbourne statistics show that of the 20’000 only 10’000 were employed. Architects within the migrating groups held a surplus of numbers, representing nearly 10% of migrants. As such 50% of Australian architects were found employed by other industries, and the issue of architectural employment was compounded by an influx of 10’000 architects that entered the colony.
In an industry already flooded with an overabundance of skilled workers, the influx of trained migrants found that, like many Australians of the era, work as an architect was very difficult to find. This was compounded by the reluctance of institution to recognize training from the continent, though work in England didn’t suffer the same issues.
All of a sudden, the picture is vastly different, our three case studies of professionals in Architecture, and their positions are exceptional, even for locals to obtain. This means that the language of British-Australian racism shifts to British – Australian acceptance. As, even though they had plenty of ‘their own’ to employ, and they did. They still made way to incorporate continental Europeans.
If you look at this article through the eyes of understanding that you are not being given the full empirical picture of what was occurring during the history of Australia, and, you ignore the large asian populations, and most specifically: you see the development of the building of Australia through the hood of the white Australia policy, and not through the eyes of where is evidently was a failed policy that spanned a small period: that it was a policy that was developed due to the influx of non-British-whites, and it fell apart, and do not see it as a policy that defined the entirety of Australia’s history, then the kind of view of the development of “modernism, moderne, modern, etc” away from a the birth of a building industry that constituted the empirical stamp of colonisation, or, rather: was in-sync with the architectural school of the world, which although modernism was built, suffers from academia and most architects that, anywhere but here it was ushered in with celebration. (‘here’ in this article being Australia) which is simply not the truth.
The introduction to the proceedings excerpt suggests that there is a substantial hole within the literature regarding Australian architecture that there is a bulk of knowledge of colonial architecture, and as such there is far less on the value of architecture since. With a strong pressing that Australia was reluctant to accept the new ideas of Modernism, as such displayed less of these buildings, it doesn’t touch on the vernacular developing at the time, and where at a domestic scale migrants were influencing the construction of homes via the inclusions of motif and emblem, and this is troubling if one looks at many of the period housing that displays a bulk of ethnic detailing (lions, heads of Athene, laurel and olive wreaths etc)
As such the first two inclusions deal solely with Monumental architecture within the development of Australia, and do not approach the bulk of the construction product. This gives us a lopsided view of migrant architects, and the inclusion of migrant cultures and their consequence on the built environment, the examples of their own stamp on the urban fabric, and the architectural dialect of multicultural Australia.
Turning a blind eye to the Secret Migrant History of the Australian Domum.
The final section by Beynon, briefly covers the requirement of the importation of Singaporean kit houses for miners, and briefly covers the creation of the ‘Queenslander’ which, formalized in 1930, was derived from construction projects of The East India Company. Which goes against the suggested origin of Paul Oliver in Encyclopaedia of Vernacular Architecture of the World. (p.1069-1072) which suggests that the origin of the Queenslander came from Chinese settlements in the region.
The Conference proceedings are excellent reading and supply a good reference highlighting émigré architects, and the development of modernism in relation to the institution that is architecture within Australia, however it does not divulge a completely wholeistic overview, as it shows parts of the truth of the subject matter that most directly speaks of the personal arguments of the writers.
Whilst each of the authors are respected and celebrated professionals in the field, and the research fields are all relatively ‘new’ research fields, one hopes that the development of the research does not forgo self appraisal and fall into the easy trap of being insular, ignoring wider social concerns for the sake of bringing to the for a narrative of difficulty, and as such encouraging social schism.
Review by: Thomas J. Barker. Arch.Angle.Studios
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
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