RMIT DESIGN ARCHIVES JOURNAL | VOL 9 Nº 2 | | VOL JOURNAL RMIT DESIGN ARCHIVES 9 Nº 2 RMIT DESIGN ARCHIVES JOURNAL VOL 9 Nº 2 | 2019 ROBIN BOYD REDUX ROBIN BOYD REDUX BOYD ROBIN RDA_Journal_21_9.2_Cover.indd 1 27/11/19 4:58 pm Contributors Dr Karen Burns is an architectural historian and theorist in the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne. Harriet Edquist is professor in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University and Director of RMIT Design Archives. Dr Rory Hyde is the curator of contemporary architecture and urbanism at the Victoria & Albert Museum, adjunct senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, and design advocate for the Mayor of London. John Macarthur is professor at the University of Queensland in the School of Architecture where his research focuses on the intellectual history of architecture, the aesthetics of architecture and its relation to the visual arts. Philip Goad is Chair of Architecture and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is currently Gough Whitlam Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University for the 2019-2020 academic year. Virginia Mannering is a Melbourne-based designer, researcher and tutor in architectural design and history Dr Christine Phillips is an architect, researcher and academic within the architecture program in the School of Architecture and Urban Design at RMIT University. Dr Peter Raisbeck is an architect, researcher and academic at the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne. RDA_Journal_21_9.2_Cover.indd 2 27/11/19 4:58 pm RMIT DESIGN ARCHIVES JOURNAL VOL 9 Nº2 2019 ROBIN BOYD REDUX VOL 9 Nº 2 ROBIN BOYD Journal Editors Assistant Editorial Board Contact We acknowledge the people of Cover Inside Cover Jacket Karen Burns and Editor Suzie Attiwill rmit University [email protected] the eastern Kulin Nations on Royal Victorian Institute The Denheld Family’s Robin Boyd, Aerogramme 2019 REDUX whose unceded lands we conduct of Architects and the T320 home under letter to Roy Grounds and Harriet Edquist Ann Carew Michael Bogle Sydney, nsw www.rmit.edu.au/designarchives our business and we respectfully Small Homes Service, construction in East Frederick Romberg, 14 Mauro Baracco rmit University acknowledge their Ancestors and The Age, ‘20 plans brick Burwood. Courtesy the November ’56, donated Design Nanette Carter Swinburne University Elders, past and present. veneer: Selected from the Denheld Family through the Australian letterbox.net.au Liam Fennessy rmit University full range of 300 modern Government’s Cultural issn 1838-7314 | Published by rmit designs, Small Homes Below Gift Program in memory Christine Garnaut University of South Australia Design Archives, rmit University. Service’, Small Homes Mark Strizic, Portrait of Frederick Romberg and Philip Goad University of Melbourne Text © rmit Design Archives, rmit Service, no. 18, Melbourne: of Robin Boyd, 1970, Robin Boyd, 2008. Brad Haylock rmit University University and individual authors. The Service, (1959) © 2019 Estate of Mark © 2019 Estate of This Journal is copyright. Apart Strizic, courtesy National Robyn Healy rmit University courtesy State Library Robin Boyd, courtesy from fair dealing for the purposes of Victoria Rare Books Portrait Gallery Robin Boyd Foundation. Andrew Leach University of Sydney of research, criticism or review as Collection. © 2019 Diane Masters Catherine Moriarty Brighton, uk permitted under the Copyright Act Michael Spooner rmit University 1968, no part may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or Laurene Vaughan rmit University transmitted by any means without the prior permission of the publisher. This issue was CONTENTS 04 08 18 26 40 50 58 78 96 generously supported Editorial Utopia Weekly: Grand Plans: Robin Boyd, Meanjin Robin Boyd and Robin Boyd’s The Robin Boyd: Anatomy of a practice: Robin Boyd and by the Isaacson Davis Harriet Edquist Robin Boyd and the Robin Boyd and the and the problem of the Vernacular Australian Ugliness, The Wizard of Oz The Gromboyd Peter Corrigan: Foundation and Karen Burns Small Homes Service Small Homes Service culture, 1948–1961 Philip Goad ugliness, and liberal Christine Phillips correspondence, archival traces Rory Hyde Virginia Mannering Karen Burns education and Peter Raisbeck 1956–57 Harriet Edquist John Macarthur Harriet Edquist EDITORIAL ROBIN BOYD: 2019 marks the centenary of the birth of Melbourne THE MEDIA AND THE MASSES 1947–1970 architect and writer Robin Boyd, and the thirty-year anniversary of a two-day event comprising a public symposium, exhibition, publications and building tour dedicated to Robin Boyd. It was titled “Robin Boyd: The Architect as Critic”. The As both Hyde and Mannering observe, the newspaper and 1 The Small Homes Service in its established 1989 inquiries into Boyd as a writer and Australian public shop-front bureaux were crucial tools in building a mass format effectively ceased intellectual resulted in a lengthy special issue of Transition audience. Hyde notes, that what set the Small Homes operation in March 1968. magazine that subsequently remained the standard Service apart from its predecessors, and a key factor However, in April 1968 the project evolved into reference work on Boyd, his buildings and his writings. determining its success, was its connection to the media: an advisory housing This issue of the RMIT Design Archives Journal reunites “Boyd had a natural sense for communication through service that continued the original curatorial team behind the 1989 festival of Boyd. word and image, taking technical drawings and reframing across the 1970s before folding in 1979. In so doing it continues the line of inquiry initiated at the them in an accessible manner” and “To capture attention, end of the 1980s into Robin Boyd’s place within a broader he would spin sensational headlines”. In her essay Virginia Australian cultural landscape. The public production and Mannering notes the “outsized contribution” of the Small reception of Boyd’s writing, criticism and commentary Homes Service to a larger architectural discussion, and to was made possible by mid- twentieth century media and the lives of their occupants. In a time of ongoing discussions media networks. His work circulated through books, about material shortages, labour politics and a distrust of little magazines, broadsheet newspapers, broadcast radio, socialism, she observes that the Small Homes Service had television, exhibitions and international expositions. to position itself around these contested topics, seemingly For these reasons this issue is focussed on Robin Boyd and avoiding larger, heated and dangerous discourse. the media, a lens that allows us to examine two themes. From the start the Small Homes Service set up an emphasis Opposite Firstly, Boyd’s work was shaped by the notion of a mass on dialogue, its role as a service, rather than an object Robin Boyd, Victorian public audience and problems of culture in an era of new imposed on people. Audiences were actively encouraged to Modern: One Hundred and Eleven Years of Modern mass cultural forms. Secondly, by tracing Boyd’s place post questions and responses to columns, and occasionally Architecture in Victoria, within media networks researchers are able to pinpoint newly built homes were revisited as proto-post occupancy Australia (Melbourne: and understand some of the sources and interlocutors studies. Potential home builders could discuss their favourite Architectural Students’ Society of the Royal that formed the basis for his own position. plan and have it modified according to their particular needs Victorian Institute of Mass public audience. and wishes. A photograph of one family who purchased Architects, 1947), the Service’s plan records their tent pitched across planks RMIT University Library The implied presence of an audience informed media Special Collection, formats. Boyd’s work in varied media helped construct on the joists of their incomplete house. Mannering argues Peter Corrigan Collection. readers and viewers for his writings and architecture. that this key image reinforces the agency, participation © 2019 Estate of and accessibility of the audience in this project. As both Robin Boyd, courtesy Writing for or making media raised new questions about Robin Boyd Foundation the role of architecture, design and urbanism in mass Hyde and Mannering argue, the columns, reader questions, market culture. His early columns and opinion pieces for photographs and oral histories are critical pieces of evidence the newspapers first brought his work to a large public for constructing the role of audience and reception. audience, as the post-war problem of housing shortages As Philip Goad’s essay demonstrates, Boyd’s desire to sparked a bigger debate on mass housing. A Small Homes reach and influence a mass audience, was propelled by his Service (SHS) staffed by architects was first proposed advocacy of the architectural profession. Using the prism of by the New South Wales Institute of Architects, but the vernacular building Goad examines Boyd’s insistent focus Victorian division was the first to open shop. It operated on the ordinary home over a long period from 1947–1962, from 1947–1968.1 In both states the service was publicised a focus that allowed him to promote the superiority of and promoted through an alliance of newspapers, architects the architect-designed house. His advocacy however, and department stores. Department stores invested in was founded