Universal ideals/underexplored /one building case study /connections to Modernism worldwide /ecological and sustainable design /social justice and common good/ Australian and New Zealand Case Studies 

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Modernism in Australia and New Zealand has too often been portrayed as peripheral to practice elsewhere because of our remote location in the world. Yet the world has been well connected for centuries rendering the idea of centre and periphery, as well as one-directional flows of ideas, not only outdated, but incorrect. Recent historical scholarship led by figures such as anthropologist Arjun Apparadurai that explores transnational exchange has clearly demonstrated that most cultural concepts result from a dynamic exchange of ideas across national and international boundaries. New concepts arise because of this dialogue so that unsurprisingly, ideas are often probed in many different locations worldwide simultaneously.  In recent scholarship, Karen Burns, Philip Goad, Julie Willis, and Katti Williams, to name just a few, have demonstrated the relevance of transnational cultural exchange to the Antipodean context. The third symposium hosted by the Modernism Collaborative seeks to explore planetary trajectories of modernism expressed in architectural projects in Australia and New Zealand whose innovations reflected aspects of universal ecological ideals. 

 

Not only have Indigenous peoples in Australia and New Zealand had a highly developed ecologically sensitive approach to design for thousands of years, but the ecological turn in Australia and New Zealand predates 1960s and 1970s alternative architecture movements by decades. Colonists soon learned that they needed to adapt their architectural designs to local climate in order to ensure that their buildings would withstand the weather, to improve indoor comfort, and to take advantage of the specific conditions they encountered.  The wrap-around verandah and sleep-out are two examples of such early design adaptations. Already by the 1920s, architects like William Hardy Wilson were convinced that building performance had to be tied to sensitive design responses to local climate and geography.  Leslie Wilkinson’s promotion of Mediterranean design features as ideal for Australia followed similar logics.  House forms like the Queenslander clearly responded to the heat and humidity while work by architects like Nell McCredie demonstrate the synthesis of British styles like Georgian Revival with local conditions.  Furthermore, a national housing shortage and poor-quality housing with substandard sanitary provision, had already been topics of concern.  By the interwar period, many recognised the importance of good housing, access to healthcare, and educational attainment to social wellbeing and social cohesion.   In architectural terms, concern for social good translated into projects for public transport, hospitals, schools, and affordable housing estates. After the Second World War, heightened sensitivity to the importance of place brought these issues back to the forefront in works by well-studied architects like Ruth and Bill Lucas in New South Wales, Karl Langer, Edwin Hayes and Campbell Scott in Queensland, and Ian Athfield and Graeme North in New Zealand.    Today, ecologically sensitive design and design that considers Indigenous perspectives are considered best practice. From the beginning, modern architects were concerned with a series of issues they perceived to be universally important – design for social good, design for climate and place, design for resource economy – which found productive points of intersection with prevailing conditions and building traditions of Australasia and the Pacific region. 

 

As a collection, the symposium papers present nuanced readings of the circumstances of cultural transfer and encounter revealed through case studies in the making of architecture across Australia and New Zealand. Their significance is to show how the lessons of history might usefully point to issues and ideals in ecological thinking today and the productive yet surprising continuity of past ambitions with agendas of the present moment.​