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Brisbane’s Interwar House Styles and Who was Responsible?

Judy Rechner, Historian, Brisbane

This paper discusses changes in styles of Brisbane’s vernacular housing during the interwar period. It is based on research into Queensland’s state housing, the Workers’ Dwelling scheme. Workers’ Dwellings were not rows and rows of identical houses. Nor were they built from a limited number of stock plans. State housing did not signify shabby little homes for those of low socio-economic means. Workers’ Dwellings were designed by public service architects to suit the block of land and applicants needs.

The main thrust of my paper is who was responsible for designs and why changes occurred and during the interwar period. While the initial 1910s designs were very simple, the Workers’ Dwellings architects were aware of architectural trends and these influenced their designs. The 1920s fresh-air fad resulted on sleeping verandahs; promotion of the Californian Bungalow in the 1920s created new styles and saw adaptation of its features to older styles while architectural concepts of modernity and the austerity of the 1930s produced radical new designs and the elimination of decorative features.

Formes Nouvelles and the Communication of Modern Domestic Ideals in Postwar Belgium

Fredie Floré & Mil De Kooning, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning
Ghent University

In many Western countries the postwar period was characterised by a broad social, political and cultural debate about 'good' modern living. This debate had its roots in the interbellum period, but developed extensively after the war, due to the enormous housing need and the expanding industrialisation. The concept of 'good living' was based on the conviction that better housing is a prerequisite for cultural and social emancipation. The domestic interior, the decoration of the house and the way in which objects, furniture and occupants relate to each other, were considered issues of utmost importance.

This paper focuses on the communication of modern domestic interior models in postwar Belgium: a virtually unexplored territory. It presents a critical reading of the activities of Formes Nouvelles, an important actor in the national debate on 'good living' and the first crystallisation of the postwar revival of taste education in the form of a Belgian association. Echoing domestic reform movements abroad, this group of critics, designers, architects and producers aimed to promote 'good living' to a wider public and to encourage the communication between young designers and production firms. Although Formes Nouvelles had a substantial number of members and some of its exhibitions obtained a large public interest, the importance of the organisation mainly existed, not in educating, but in creating temporary model interiors as exhibition places for the furniture experiments of a select group of young Belgian designers.

Material Culture in the Relocation of Timber Framed Housing in South-East Queensland

Jo Case, Curtin University of Technology

Once seen as representational of the pioneering spirit, the practice of relocation of predominantly ‘timber and tin’ dwellings in South East Queensland between the mid-nineteenth century and current time has evolved, now accommodating the complexities of a range of contemporary concerns.

This proposal, in part, reviews the rationales for this common practice in historical and cultural contexts. Sources for historical studies include work by Donald Watson (1981) and Ian Evans (1994) for information directly related to the Queensland house. A broader historical study on portability and prefabrication reviews work by Gilbert Herbert (1974) and Robert Kronenburg (1998). The continuing popularity of house relocation, partly attributed to cultural value, is examined in the context of cultural identity as reviewed by Rod Fisher (1994) and material culture by Glassie (2000).

The paper also identifies the deliberations of the modern house mover discussing issues of persuasion including the romance of age (of the Queensland timber framed house), economic benefits, reuse in relation to environmental sustainability and architectural potential. Case studies, supported by quantitative data suggesting the significance of this housing option, include evaluations of the Guthrie Residence (Steve Guthrie Architect) and the Borgelt/ Butcher Residence (Julie Borgelt Architect) to illustrate these points.

Modernism and the Games Village: suburban experimentation at the VIIth British Empire and Commonwealth Games, Perth 1962

Lee Stickells, University of Western Australia

Bearing the influence of the English Garden City movement, the Garden Suburb was translated to Perth in the early 20th century. The subsequent verdant landscape and detached, single-family homes, realized in the antipodean villas of the early twentieth century garden suburbs, were understood to influence the way people conducted their lives. As an affective mechanism, the form and arrangement of the dwelling, and its position within the landscape could help foster ideal models of private behaviour, familial relations, and their extension into the wider community.

In the design of the Athletes’ Village for the 1962 Empire Games, this predominantly 19th century conception of suburban form intersected with the local strain of post-WWII modernism. Altered approaches to architecture and planning, along with wider changes in the notions of citizenship and domesticity, gained expression in the form of the Village.

This paper will examine the process of planning and designing the Athletes’ Village, particularly addressing the manner in which Modernist planning and architectural ideas interacted with contemporary cultural shifts in Australia, and the dominance of the Garden Suburb form in Perth. It will be argued that the Village became the site for an incomplete experiment where the residential landscape was projected as the means to structure new concepts of community.

The Self-Build Housing of Men and Others: researching gender and vernacular architecture in Australia

Caroline Denigan, The University of Adelaide

This paper highlights questions of women’s roles in the creation of vernacular architecture and applies that emergent critique to women’s self-build housing research in Australia. The paper draws on preliminary results from the author’s own research.

Holland’s 1979 research into Registered Owner-builders in the Sydney area, which used a sample that was 99% male, allows comparison to be drawn with a sample of male and female owner-builders from across Australia. The preliminary results of the author’s research showed substantial differences in levels of education of males and females, other differences in the amount of construction undertaken and time taken for completion and small differences in the range of ages and average age at the time of construction. When women build, they do so in a range of circumstances and their experiences are different from those of men.

Preliminary analysis also shows the contingent nature of people’s self definition as a ‘builder’. Men more readily identify with this description. For women the picture was more complex and framing by the researcher would seem to be at least as important as the individual’s own attitudes.

The New Suburban Dream: the marketing of Pettit & Sevitt project houses 1961-1978

Judith O’Callaghan, Faculty of the Built Environment University of New South Wales

During the late 1940s and early 1950s the Australian suburban environment was shaped by owner-builders, small contract builders and speculative development. By the late 1950s and early 1960s, that situation was changing and an affluent and selective market for housing was emerging. Pettit & Sevitt, established in Sydney in 1961, was one of the first building companies to successfully tap this new market. It offered home-buyers the option of a customised, project home designed by an Australian architect such as Ken Woolley, Michael Dysart, Harry Seidler, Russell Jack or Neil Clerehan. While the significance of Pettit & Sevitt’s architect-designed project homes has been acknowledged in a number of studies of Australian architecture, beginning with Robin Boyd’s Australia’s Home (1968), no attempt has been made to analyse the basis of its success in marketing itself and its product. Drawing on original research, the paper examines Pettit & Sevitt’s promotional strategies in the context of its identified market. The paper argues that while Pettit & Sevitt may not have invented the idea of architect-designed project housing, it contributed significantly to the shaping of its identity within the popular consciousness.

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