Canberra House

Mid-century modern houses and buildings are always vulnerable when they’re located on valuable land—whether heritage listed or not. And so it is with the Allawah, Bega and Currong flats in Braddon (1954), which sit on land close to Civic estimated to be worth $63 million.
The Canberra Times of 11 April, 2010 reports that the “ABC Flats”, [...]

I’ve prepared a new house profile for another little known late twentieth century organic style house, this time in Aranda. The Andrews House was the first designed in Canberra by Laurie Virr in 1969 and is based on a triangular module.
The image here shows the kitchen module of the house, a sticking point during the [...]

Back in August I posted about a little known late twentieth century organic style house in Kambah. The house is a fine example of that style of architecture. Along with its massing, use of geometric forms, deep roof overhang for shade and energy efficient design, it is also a successful implementation of a complex geometric [...]

Disturbing news report from the Sydney Morning Herald about the fitout of Harry Seidler’s heritage listed Edmund Barton building on Kings Avenue. It seems like the consultation with Seidler and Associates promised by the owners of the building, Stocklands, isn’t working out so well. The Federal Government spent over $40 million refitting Anzac Park West [...]

The exhibition Modern Times, currently at the Powerhouse Museum, reveals how modernism transformed life in Australia across five decades from 1917 to 1967. Given that a major outlet for modernism has been the built environment, there exists an opportunity to extend the reach of this exhibition out of the museum and into Australian cities. A [...]

I’ve developed a new profile for the house designed (and substantially built) by architect Laurie Virr at 17 Meredith Circuit, Kambah. The house is an energy efficient, complex geometric design from the mid 1970s and an outstanding example of the late twentieth century organic style of architecture.
While the house has been published in the United [...]

More recent activity at the ACT Heritage Unit, as several places have been provisionally registered under the Heritage Act 2004. Among buildings included in the latest batch are works by Frederick Romberg, Enrico Taglietti, Ken Woolley and John Andrews.
The latest provisional registrations are for:

Ken Woolley’s Woden Library and Phillip Health Centre (1977)
Frederick Romberg’s Lutheran Church [...]