The Art of Architecture

The Art of Architecture The Brisbane architect Lange Leopold Powell (1886-1938) and his work by John W. East Perspective drawing of the proposed St Martin's War Memorial Hospital, Ann Street, Brisbane, by Lange L. Powell, 1919. 2017 CONTENTS 1. Introduction . 1 2. Origins . 4 3. Early Years . 10 4. Chambers and Powell, 1910-1919 . 15 5. 1920-1927 . 30 6. Atkinson, Powell and Conrad, 1927-1931 . 55 7. 1931-1938 . 70 8. Conclusion . 84 Appendix: Selected Projects (in chronological order) . 85 1: Introduction Many architects like to think of themselves as artists (and, in some cases, with very good reason), but art and architecture do not always travel happily together. As the Sydney architect, Jack F. Hennessy junior, wrote in 1932, Many commercial men look upon architects as being unpractical and day-dreamers without any knowledge of business, but such is not the case, and it is up to us to prove it by our work and the advice we give. After all, in many cases a commercial building from the client's point of view is primarily a business investment, and he has every right to expect a good return from it, as well as a place to house him, his staff, and his goods. The artistic treatment of it is the architect's work, as is also the designing of it to obtain a good return.1 Jack Hennessy's artistic gifts were not negligible, but he never let them get in the way of a good business proposition, and he built an Australia-wide practice on the basis of this hard- headed formula. For the Brisbane architect, Lange Leopold Powell (1886-1938), the distinction between art and architecture was not so clear-cut. After Powell's death, one of his former articled pupils, Bruce Lucas, said of Powell that he "was endowed with rare art and architectural ability."2 That artistic gift was a motive force in Powell's life and work, and he nurtured it with a fine private art collection. Like Hennessy, although on a smaller scale, Powell was a successful commercial architect. Yet there is an aesthetic imperative that pervades all of Powell's work and, if the end-product is not always successful, it is rarely uninteresting. Powell's aesthetics were backward-looking and conservative, but they were neither conventional nor uninspired, and this is why his work remains interesting almost eighty years after his death. Powell grew up in a strongly religious environment, but it was only later in life that he had the opportunity to indulge his passion for ecclesiastical architecture, and especially the delights of church decoration and furnishing. The bread-and-butter of his professional career was commercial architecture (warehouses, retail premises, banks) and hospitals, but even these utilitarian buildings show evidence of a mind trying to express the beautiful in the everyday. Lange Powell's professional work was both extensive and varied, and it is the aim of this study to help us better understand and appreciate those buildings. They occupy a unique and significant place in the history of Queensland's inter-war architecture and certainly deserve much closer study. 1 J. F. Hennessy, "Some Aspects of Recent Architecture," Architecture (Sydney) 21, no. 9 (1932): 203. 2 Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 November 1938, city final edition, p.12. 1 Methodology Many of Powell's buildings have sadly disappeared, and those which survive are widely scattered around Queensland, so the primary sources on which this study is based are not so much the buildings themselves as tender notices and descriptive articles in contemporary newspapers and trade magazines. For the Brisbane buildings, the building registers of the Brisbane City Council have also been a useful source, but those registers are unfortunately incomplete, and before 1925 they cover only the inner city area of Brisbane. Additionally there are a small number of architectural plans from Powell's office which survive in libraries in Brisbane. Although Powell preferred to practise independently, he was in partnership for considerable periods throughout his career. When examining the works emanating from those partnerships, it is a challenge for the architectural historian to identify the works for which Powell himself was primarily, or solely, responsible. In this context, a useful guide is the listing of buildings (presumably provided by Powell) which was published in an article on Powell which appeared in the Sydney magazine Building in 1932.3 The indispensable secondary source on Lange Powell is the thesis which Margaret Frances Kerr prepared in the final year of her architectural course at the University of Queensland in 1957.4 Kerr was researching Powell's career less than twenty years after his premature death, and thus had access to family members and former colleagues, who shared their recollections with her. Furthermore, many of Powell's buildings were still standing at that time, before the boom years of the 1960s swept away so much of Brisbane's architectural heritage. Kerr's first-hand observations (and photographs) of those buildings are an invaluable resource for the architectural historian today. In presenting the results of this research, a straightforward chronological approach has been adopted, dividing Powell's career into four periods, each of which is examined separately. An appendix contains data sheets on 130 of his more important buildings. Unfortunately some significant projects have been omitted from the appendix because no images of the buildings in question could be found. Note that when buildings are dated, the date given is the year of construction. Acknowledgements All those who are interested in Powell's architecture will be forever indebted to Margaret Kerr for her pioneering work, and her 1957 thesis has been a constant point of reference 3 "Australian Architects and Their Work. 4, Lange L. Powell and G. Rae," Building (Sydney), 12 February 1932, p.40-43. 4 Margaret F. Kerr, "Langé L. Powell, Architect" (B.Arch. thesis, University of Queensland, 1957). 2 throughout this project. Her photographs of now-vanished buildings are particularly valuable.5 Many other photographers (living and dead) have helped to document Powell's work, and the author is very grateful to all those whose work has been reproduced in this study. Helen Cadzow, of the National Australia Bank's Historical Services, has been extremely helpful in locating photographs of old National Bank of Australasia premises in Queensland. As always, the staff at the John Oxley Library at the State Library of Queensland and the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland have provided willing assistance in accessing their rich collections. 5 For more information on the life and career of Margaret Mayers (née Kerr), see the Digital Archive of Queensland Architecture (online). 3 2: Origins The family background of Lange Powell was unusual. Both his father and his mother came from very religious families, but their religion was not the comfortable Victorian piety of the established Church of England, but rather the militant, evangelical religion of the self- improving artisan class. Those who are interested in Powell's architecture will ask themselves what impact a childhood spent in this milieu had upon his professional career. Powell's father, the Reverend William Powell, was a major figure in the history of the Methodist church in Queensland. He was born in England, on 4 March 1845, near the hamlet of Michaelchurch Escley, in a remote corner of the county of Herefordshire, close to the Welsh border. His father, Thomas Powell, who had been born across the border at Bryngwyn in Radnorshire, was then working a farm of 155 acres and employing two farm-workers, so the family was apparently in comfortable financial circumstances. Thomas's wife, Elizabeth (née Watkins), was born at Clodock in Herefordshire, about 7 km south of Michaelchurch Escley. She had given birth to at least two other children before the arrival of William, and she would bear at least five more.1 In the early 1850s the family moved about 6 km north, to a farm of 125 acres at Snodhill, outside the village of Peterchurch. Newspaper reports indicate that Thomas Powell was active locally as a lay preacher with the Primitive Methodist church.2 The Primitive Methodists were a fundamentalist religious group, drawing their adherents mainly from the artisan and working classes. They had broken away from the more conventional Methodists, in an attempt to return to the simpler, more zealous Christianity which had been proclaimed by John Wesley. Thomas's son, William, also became a lay preacher. He must have impressed his listeners, because in 1865, when not quite twenty, he was called to the ministry. The Primitive Methodists did not establish any system of formal training for the ministry until later in the century, but William was able to undertake studies at the Hampstead Heath Congregational College in London. His first appointment was to Southampton. On 8 July 1869 he married Elizabeth Jones, the daughter of a miller and farmer, in the Providence Primitive Methodist chapel at Ploughfield, near Preston-on-Wye, Herefordshire. By 1871 William Powell was attached to one of the London circuits of the Primitive Methodist church, and he and his wife were living at St Augustine's Road, Kentish Town, in north London, where they were sharing a large house with another minister and his family.3 In that year their first child, Ellen Elizabeth, was born. 1 1851 census of England and Wales. 2 Hereford Times, 8 July 1854, p.8; Hereford Times, 17 October 1857, p.8. 3 1871 census of England and Wales. 4 Providence Primitive Methodist Chapel, Ploughfield, Herefordshire Built 1862. William Powell and his first wife were married here in 1869.

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