Architecture Claire Williams

Final Report: Associate Professor Phillip McIntyre Hunter Creative Industries Professor Mark Balnaves Associate Professor Susan Kerrigan Evelyn King Architecture Claire Williams NtwCUllt THE UNl<flSITY Of �--... "' The University of Newcastle I April 2019, ARC Grant LP 130100348 .,. NEWCASTLE -:-\m·\·�-:-.b"•_ &,...,on• ...un11 .. u1. $l Imo,,_,,. o\UDC'fl,O,, 16. ARCHITECTURE 16.1 Introduction According to Hays (2017) architects can no longer be conceived as simply designers of function and beauty. He suggests that ‘today’s architect is also a designer of sustainability who must comply with increased legislation and codes, experiment with new materials and continuously advance their skills in the latest technology, all of which advances rapidly’ (Hays 2017, p. 1). For Philip Cox architecture can be divided into two broad categories: The first, the product of the literate or professional, where architecture is a conscious, deliberate and intellectual process, usually practised by people of skill; the second category being popular architecture built relatively unconsciously by the public generally and within the building industry as a whole. For my purpose this latter area is called vernacular architecture. The former architecture is called High style and, throughout history these two streams have reacted and interacted with each other (Cox 1984, online). In those interactions architects are the creative, innovative and skilled professionals who sit ‘at the centre of Australia’s built environment industry, a $100 billion sector employing over a million people’. As such architecture, like visual arts, music, dance, publishing, television and radio, is a ‘mature’ exemplar of the creative industries. Perhaps, more than with most of the other forms, it had an ‘industry’ link early in that it, or its ancestral forebears, fulfilled an instrumental function from pre-historic times. 16.2 A Brief History of ArChiteCture in Australia There were villages and towns in Australia long before the Europeans arrived. These communities were possessed of sturdy dwellings designed to accommodate the climate and the geography of the regions they existed in. As Bruce Pascoe asserts, ‘design features had been developed to make harsh environments habitable’ (2014, p. 78). These buildings were strong, aesthetically pleasing and comfortable (ibid). ‘Building types varied according to the material available’ (Pascoe 2014, p. 88) and as a consequence there were open cane-roofed dwellings in the north, thatched-roof permanent dwellings further south, as well as strong houses in the south east and in the alps where stone was used as a basic building material. Some buildings were dome shaped with a consistent style and orientation of quite large buildings which also included smaller buildings attached to these to store food, where ‘yards attached to these storehouses were used as animal holding pens’ (Pascoe 2014, p. 79). Some of the domed constructions also had verandahs appended for shade. Gardens and wells were also part of these establishments and ‘about these areas glades and grasslands had been cultivated after water had been assured by industry ad innovation’ (ibid). In fact: Large populations of Aboriginal people were manipulating the Australian environment and husbanding plants to produce surplus food of such great quantities that populations could lead more or less sedentary lives in the vicinity of their crops (Pascoe 2014, p. 78). Much of their architecture was documented by explorers and surveyors and later ‘protectors’ but this evidence has not been given the cultural weight it deserves. The Europeans, largely ignorant of the conditions they were sailing into, bought their own architectural designs with them. 463 When the First Fleet arrived in January 1788, there were two prefabricated buildings on board, destined to become Government House and the Government Store. They were timber and canvas constructions and fell apart almost immediately. As Governor Phillip complained in letters to his superiors, the roof of his ‘home’ leaked, vermin had free reign and it was excruciatingly hot in summer and freezing in winter. After a few weeks, he ordered one of the convicts, a man called James Bloodsworth, to start building a more permanent structure (van Teeseling 2018, online). Bloodsworth worked with what he had to hand. He was by profession a master bricklayer and builder but the tools available to him were not quality ones. There also were no nails as there were no transported blacksmiths. Pressing on, Bloodsworth took some months with the help of convict labour to build a permanent European style building, one of the first to exist in the colony. It did not last too long. The bricks were made using an inferior process and the mortar was mud ‘or lime made by burning oyster shells’ (ibid). This latter resource was to prove important in opening up settlements on the Coal River, later to be renamed the Hunter. The buildings Bloodsworth was imitating and building were Georgian which was fortunate as this architectural style ‘paid close attention to the human scale. It preferred simplicity and control as opposed to elaboration and decoration which came in with the Regency Style influences’ (Rappoport 2011, online). This no-frills simplicity and symmetry ‘made it relatively easy to build’ (van Teeseling 2018, online). Many others in the colony observed what Bloodsworth was doing and convicts, soldiers and settlers all emulated him, if they had the money to do so. ‘Brick was expensive and difficult to make, so most people opted for timber, and the wattle- and-daub construction’ (ibid). Four corner posts were put in the ground, with timber stakes to hold them together. Long rods of wattle (really Acacia, the floral emblem of Australia) were then interwoven and made more-or-less weatherproof with a mortar made of clay or loam with grass or horsehair. The roof was generally constructed of grass, reeds or bark, with a chimney of stones and turf and an earthen floor. If people had money and time (or access to convict labour), they would whitewash the outside and line the inside walls with painted hessian or newspaper. Because only very rich people could afford glass, most houses had small windows, with blinds made of oiled calico (van Teeseling 2018, online). These first European buildings in Australia were related to the immediate needs of the colonies – prisons, hospitals, public buildings, lighthouses, forts, barracks and churches. Wealthy colonists such as John and Elizabeth Macarthur who were familiar with the British military building style that had been established in India, ‘adapted that building style to the local circumstances’ (ibid). Their buildings, which came to exemplify the colonial style, were comparatively large, single story with verandahs to cool the house in the summer heat and were made from sandstone which ‘had to be quarried and then moved to site, which made it expensive’ (ibid). When Lachlan Macquarie arrived in 1810 he was insistent on ordering what had been perceived as an unruly colony and ‘he set up a program of public works, consisting of building and widening roads and commissioning and constructing hospitals, banks, schools and churches’ (ibid). He also left his mark in sandstone. Macquarie was fortunate to have at his disposal a bankrupt architect who had been transported as a forger. Francis Greenway built ‘the lighthouse at South Head, Hyde Park Barracks, St. James’ Church, the Parramatta Female Factory and a new and improved version of Government House’ (ibid). Macquarie also instituted stringent building regulations with dwellings now to be made of brick or timber. Of course the wealthy 464 used the former and the latter became the architectural province of the poor. Weatherboard cottages soon became a staple of the Australian landscape. The standard for everybody but the most affluent, was the weatherboard cottage. It was half the price of brick and most people could make it themselves. It had a simple design, with two rooms at the front, a door in the middle, a central hallway and two rooms at the back. Most weatherboard houses had a respectable, neat front garden and a working garden at the back, with a vegetable patch, a kitchen and a dunny (toilet). Over time, weatherboards would be extended and made more luxurious, but from halfway into the 19th century most of them had moulded skirtings and architraves inside, were clad with timber lining boards and had a veranda at the front and/or the back, to protect the walls from rain and sunshine (ibid). Once corrugated and galvanised iron sheeting became readily available in 1837 most weatherboard cottages had their shingle rooves replaced with this durable and easily transported material. In 1830, British builder John Manning constructed a portable wooden house for his son, who was getting ready to migrate to the Swan River (Perth). It was a simple timber-and-iron construction, packed in a crate and delivered at the docks. Soon Manning decided to market the idea as Manning’s Portable Colonial Cottages, which was a great success. The building could be put on a bullock dray, taken to its site and erected in mere hours or days. Especially after mining started in the early 1840s, these prefab places caught on. In the 1850s, Manning got a competitor in Samuel Hemming, who even offered prefab churches, completely fashioned out of corrugated iron. Hemming’s buildings were much cheaper and lighter than wood, and even easier to erect, but they were not very well insulated. Extremely cold in winter, almost unbearably hot in summer, the squatters, selectors, miners and farmers who ended up in them paid a high price for having a roof over their heads. But corrugated iron would remain the quintessential Australian building material (van Heeseling 2018, online). With the Gold Rushes, and the influx of those from a diverse set of cultures seeking their fortune in Australia, came another form of architecture which began to dominate major urban areas.

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