PS30 Opposite/Apposite: Exchanges between Australasia and Ibero- America 11:00am - 1:10pm Friday, 1st May, 2020 Location Municipal, B Level Track Track 5 Session Chair Brett Tippey, Macarena de la Vega de León All session times are in US PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME (PDT). Sponsored by Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ) 11:05 - 11:25am PS30 Learning from the Opposite: Iberian journals glance at Australia Ana Esteban-Maluenda Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Abstract In 1933, Antonio Salazar established the so-called Estado Novo in Portugal. Six years later, Francisco Franco set up a right-wing totalitarian regime in Spain. The strong traditionalism of both regimes and their rejection by western democracies after WWII, kept them not only politically isolated, but also intensely invested in the revival of past national symbols. In architecture, such authoritarianism was evident in the return to traditional styles and vernacular models. However, within a decade, interest in international architecture expanded. Initially Iberia looked at more proximate countries in Europe and the Americas, but soon thereafter they began to look towards the Pacific, particularly Japan and Australia. The interest of Iberian architects in the antipodes was less than that shown towards other countries that were nearer geographically or culturally, such as Brazil or Mexico. Nevertheless, the number of articles about Australian architecture published in local magazines was not negligible, nor was the influence certain Australian works exercised over the career of some young architects, particularly among Spaniards. Rafael Moneo was a draftsman of the Sydney Opera House’s shells while working for Jørn Utzon. Mariano Bayón vigorously defended this project while the rest of Europe criticized it. Josep María Fargas and Enric Tous cited Harry Seidler as one of their greatest influences. Following the storyline of articles published in Portuguese and Spanish magazines (Binário.Revista mensal Arquitectura, Construção; Arquitectura. Revista de Arte e Construção; Arquitectura COAM; Hogar y Arquitectura; Nueva Forma; Informes de la Construcción...), this paper will present Iberia’s evolving interest in Australian architecture. Which aspects most interested them, and how did they translate these into the Iberian context? Did the vast distance separating Iberia from Australia play some role? If so, it may be argued that the geographic opposition was, indeed, apposition. 11:25 - 11:45am PS30 New World: Harry Seidler, South America and the Australian City Philip Goad University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Abstract In 1948, en-route to Australia from the United States, young Viennese-born architect Harry Seidler spent three months in Brazil. There, he worked briefly for Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro and visited numerous examples of contemporary Brazilian modernism. Settling in Sydney, Seidler’s career blossomed as one of Australia’s champions of modernism. Yet, while a critic like Paul Rudolph described Seidler’s first house (1948-50) there as the ‘Harvard house incarnate’, Seidler’s output quickly shifted, from deference to the work of mentor Walter Gropius and former employer Marcel Breuer to a richer palette of formal experiment determined by the peculiarities of Australian geography and climate. While Seidler would, over the years, acknowledge a debt to Josef Albers, who had taught him at Black Mountain College, there was also increasingly in his work the adoption of elements that can be seen to mirror responses in South America. Most significantly, however, as Seidler’s practice gained larger commissions, his engagement with the idea of the Australian city was also affected by those South American experiences. In a country that lacked an urban ideology, Seidler’s urbanism - as it developed - ran counter to the Australian city’s Anglo-American trajectory that had shaped its form and character since the 1850s. This paper places Seidler’s interests in South America within the Australian context, where knowledge and familiarity with the forms and ideas of Iberico-American modernism were known and understood but appeared only in isolated examples and with little or no reference to the city. Seidler, instead, proposed a new vision for the Australian city, one that extended Giedion, Sert and Leger’s wartime calls for a new monumentality and an urbanism that combined architecture, art and landscape in a unified response: it was his answer to an architecture for the New World. 11:45am - 12:05pm PS30 Glenn Murcutt’s look at the architecture of José Antonio Coderch EMMA LOPEZ-BAHUT School of Architecture. University of A Coruña, A Coruña, Spain Abstract In 1973, Glenn Murcutt traveled through the United States and Europe, and this journey was a watershed moment in his professional career. In Spain, he met José Antonio Coderch (1913-1984), one of the most internationally celebrated Spanish architects of the twentieth century. About this meeting, Murcutt stated that “José Antonio Coderch was fundamental in my professional life.” He visited Coderch’s own house in Cadaqués (1956), on Catalonia’s Costa Brava, which perfectly reveals the synthesis of tradition and modernity that epitomizes Coderch’s work. As Philip Drew has pointed out, on seeing this house Murcutt could appreciate “how it was possible to respect the past without demeaning the present.” This paper will establish that, from Coderch, Murcutt learned how to connect present architecture with the tradition of the place, both physically and symbolically, and that this lesson was a turning point in his career. It will analyze the ways in which this meeting changed his thinking about place by comparing two Murcutt houses: the Laurie Short House (Sydney, 1974), designed immediately before visiting Coderch, and the Marie Short House (Kempsey, 1975), designed and built upon his return to Australia. It will investigate parallels between these two houses by Murcutt and those designed by Coderch, including the Cadaqués house and others. It will consult Murcutt’s publications and conference transcripts held in different archives to determine the significance of this meeting for Murcutt, and it will cross-reference these findings with an analysis of Coderch’s impressions of the meeting by consulting his archive in Madrid. By focusing on one of the most crucial links between Spain and Australia, this research will reveal the lessons that Murcutt learned from Coderch about harmonizing the new with the old, and about connecting architecture with the spirit of the place..