Robin Boyd (architect)

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Robin Boyd

Domain Park Flats
  • Baker House
  • Featherston House
    • DesignInternational Modern Movement

    Robin Gerard Penleigh Boyd

    suburbia
    and its lack of a uniform architectural goal.

    Like his American contemporary John Lautner, Boyd had relatively few opportunities to design major buildings and his best known and most influential works as an architect are his numerous and innovative small house designs.[2]

    Background and early life

    Robin Boyd was a scion of the

    Murrumbeena. A further cousin was Joan à Beckett Weigall, Lady Lindsay (author of Picnic at Hanging Rock). She married Sir Daryl Lindsay, director of the National Gallery of Victoria, brother to artists Norman Lindsay and Sir Lionel Lindsay
    .

    Robin Boyd's

    Edith, was herself a skilled painter who also came from a prominent family. Her father, John Gerard Anderson, had been director of the Queensland Department of Public Instruction, her brother Arthur was a well-known physician, and her eldest sister Maud was of one of the first women to graduate with an Arts degree from the University of Sydney and is thought to have been Queensland's first female university graduate.[3]
    : 10 

    Robin Boyd and his elder brother Pat spent their early childhood at 'The Robins', the family home and studio that his father had built on land he purchased at

    Warrandyte, near Melbourne but in 1922 Penleigh sold 'The Robins' and moved his family to Sydney. Soon after arriving, he was enlisted by Sydney Ure Smith as one of the organisers of a major exhibition of contemporary European art. Penleigh took his family with him to England
    late in the year to pick paintings; he returned to Sydney without them in June 1923 to set up the exhibition, which was staged in Sydney and Melbourne during July–August. During his wife's absence Penleigh had a brief affair with another woman but shortly before his family returned from England he bought back 'The Robins' and purchased a new car.

    Edith, Pat and Robin returned to Australia on 23 November 1923, but Penleigh and Edith had a heated argument soon after the homecoming. A few days later, for reasons unknown, Penleigh left Melbourne to drive to Sydney in the company of another person, but he lost control of the vehicle on a sharp bend near Warragul and it overturned. The passenger survived but Penleigh suffered terrible injuries and died at the scene within minutes.[3]: 19–20  The proceeds of Penleigh's estate—including the sale of 'The Robins', the repaired car and about 40 paintings, plus an annual allowance from Penleigh's father, and a small inheritance from her own father—enabled Edith Boyd to support her sons without needing to work, even during the depths of the Depression.[3]: 21 

    After Penleigh's death Edith and the boys lived for a time in rented premises in upperclass

    Leaving Certificate in 1934 and although he failed one subject (Commercial Principles) at the first attempt, he passed that the following year. He had evidently decided quite early on architecture as his chosen career so his mother arranged for him to be articled to leading Melbourne architect Kingsley Henderson.[3]: 21–34  He served in Papua New Guinea
    during World War II and resumed his architectural career in 1945.

    Architectural career

    John Batman Motor Inn, Melbourne

    Boyd first came to notice in the late 1940s for his promotion of inexpensive, functional, partially prefabricated homes incorporating modernist aesthetics. Most of his architectural output was residential, although he also designed some larger buildings including the

    Winston Churchill Memorial Trust in Canberra
    , on which he was working at the time of his death.

    Boyd was the first Director of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Small Homes Service from 1947 to 1953 and for many years from 1948 he was the editor of this service for The Age newspaper, for which he also wrote weekly articles. The Small Homes Service provided designs of inexpensive houses, which attempted to incorporate modern architectural aesthetics and functional planning and were sold to the public for a small fee, and through this work Boyd became a household name in Victoria.[4]

    In 1948 Boyd was the recipient of the RVIA Robert and Ada Haddon Travelling Scholarship.[5] The scholarship gave Boyd his first opportunity to travel through Europe which would have a profound influence on his later work.[6]

    In 1953 he formed a partnership with Frederick Romberg (1910–1992) and Roy Grounds (1905–1981); their influential Melbourne firm became a significant force in Australian architecture and through the 1950s and 1960s Boyd developed a number of important houses in the regional style, including a 1952 Canberra house for Australian historian Manning Clark.

    North Adelaide
    , South Australia

    Boyd was a prolific architect, with over 200 designs to his credit in his relatively short career.[7] He was the sole designer of most of these projects although a number of early commissions were jointly designed with his unofficial partners Kevin Pethebridge and Frank Bell (1945–47) and others were jointly designed with his partners Grounds and Romberg (1953–62). After the acrimonious departure of Grounds from the practice in 1962, Romberg continued in partnership with Boyd until the latter's death.

    Boyd was equally prolific and influential as a writer, commentator, educator and public speaker, vehemently supporting modernism in his The Australian Ugliness (1960) with a condemnation of visual pollution and vulgar 'featurism'. His work was documented and promoted by photographers Mark Strizic[2] and Wolfgang Sievers, then the most prominent in their field. For many years from 1947 he was director of The Age Small Homes Service and influenced many people with his popular weekly articles on the subject. He was also lecturer in architecture at the University of Melbourne, and in 1956-57 he took up a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston offered by Walter Gropius, a friend of Boyd's and a director at MIT.

    In 1958 Boyd wrote the liner notes for satirist Barry Humphries' first commercial recording, a 7-inch EP, Wild Life in Suburbia (1958).

    Boyd wrote nine books. His groundbreaking Australia's Home (1952) was the first substantial historical survey of Australian domestic architecture, and his best-known and most influential work, The Australian Ugliness (1960) was a popular and outspoken criticism of prevailing establishment tastes in architecture and in popular culture.[8] Boyd was a dogged critic of the decorative tendency that he dubbed "Featurism", which he described as:

    ... not simply a decorative technique, it starts in concepts and extends upwards through the parts of the numerous trimmings. It may be defined as the subordination of the essential whole and the accentuation of selected separate features.[9]

    In 1967 Boyd presented the Boyer Lectures, which were broadcast nationally on ABC Radio. He delivered five lectures on a variety of topics and issues relating to Australia, architecture and design and prevailing cultural values of the time, under the series title Artificial Australia.[10]

    Mitchellstown
    , Victoria

    He was awarded the

    Gold Medal in 1969.[5]

    Death and legacy

    Boyd travelled overseas in April–May 1971, when he contracted an infection and on his return to Australia his doctor detected a

    interstitial pneumonia, told that the infection had settled in one of his heart valves and administered massive six-hourly doses of ampicillin. He recovered somewhat and struggled on through August–September, maintaining his usual heavy work schedule, but in early October his condition deteriorated again and he was admitted to the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Doctors puzzled over a diagnosis but eventually decided to extract all his teeth under full anaesthetic, believing the infection had settled there. He suffered a stroke while recovering from the operation, and although he briefly rallied enough to recognise his wife Patricia, he died three days later on 16 October 1971, aged 52.[3]
    : 316–319 

    In 2005, the not-for-profit Robin Boyd Foundation was established by a group including Boyd's family, the

    RMIT University, and others with expertise, interest and commitment to the advancement of design. Their website lists the Foundation's aims, which are to deepen understanding of the benefits of design through design awareness, design literacy and design advocacy. The Hon. Gough Whitlam was the founding patron of the foundation. From 17 August to 2 October 2011, the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery displayed all of the houses that Boyd had created for the Mornington Peninsula
    region.

    2019 marked the centenary of Boyd's birth, and "the thirty-year anniversary of a two-day event comprising a public symposium, exhibition, publications and building tour dedicated to Robin Boyd."[11] A special issue of the RMIT Design Archives Journal was produced to mark these two anniversaries entitled: Robin Boyd Redux.[12]

    Major completed projects

    Project name Image Year completed Location State Notes
    Arthur Boyd Studio 1938 8 Wahroonga Cres, Murrumbeena
    VIC
    		 Pulled down in 1964 when Boyd family property sold for urban development.[13]
    Edith Boyd House 1939 Burwood VIC
    Boyd House I 1947 158 Riversdale Rd, Camberwell VIC
    J. H. White House 1948 31 Mundy St, Mentone VIC
    Alan Brown House I 1949 Toorak Rd, Malvern VIC
    Dustan House 1949 17 Yandilla St,
    Balwyn
    		 VIC
    Manning Clark House 1952 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest ACT [14][15]
    Gillison House 1952 Balwyn VIC
    Fenner House 1953 8 Monaro Cres, Red Hill ACT
    Hilary Roche House 1954 4 Bedford St, Deakin ACT [16]
    Richardson House 1954 10 Blackfriars Close, Toorak VIC Heritage listed locally by City of Stonnington.[17] Largely rebuilt maintaining exterior appearance c2000.
    Date House 1956 Studley Park, Kew VIC
    Walkley House 1956 26-27 Palmer Place, North Adelaide SA
    Haughton James House 1957 82 Molesworth Street, Kew VIC Listed by National Trust (Victoria)[18]
    Winter-Irving House 1957 Lake Colac VIC
    Walsh Street House 1959 290 Walsh St,
    South Yarra
    		 VIC
    Clemson House 1960 24 Milfay Ave, Kew VIC Listed by Heritage Victoria[19]
    Handfield House 1960 Eltham VIC
    Black Dolphin Motel 1961
    Merimbula
    		 NSW
    Holy Trinity Lutheran National Memorial Church
    (now Finnish Lutheran Church)     		1961 22 Watson Street, Turner ACT with Roy Grounds & Frederick Romberg, heritage listed 14 October 2008[20]
    St George's Anglican Church 1962
    Melbourne
    		 VIC with Romberg
    Domain Park Flats 1962 Melbourne VIC
    Verge House 1964 204 Monaro Cres, Red Hill ACT [21][22]
    Baker House 1966
    Bacchus Marsh
    		 VIC [23]
    Lawrence House and Flats 1966 13 Studley Avenue, Kew VIC Listed by National Trust (Victoria)[24]
    Lyons House[25] 1967 733 Port Hacking Rd, Dolans Bay NSW [26][27]
    John Batman Motor Inn 1968 Melbourne VIC
    Baker Dower House 1968 Bacchus Marsh VIC
    Eltringham House 1969 12 Marawa Pl, Aranda ACT
    McClune House 1969 Marcus Rd, Frankston VIC
    Featherston House 1969 Ivanhoe VIC
    Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Headquarters 1972 Braddon ACT with Romberg; completed by Neil Clerehan

    See also

    References

    1. ^ An appreciation, Penleigh Boyd
    2. ^ a b "Canberra House website - Robin Boyd biography". Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
    3. ^
      ISBN 0-522-84669-6
      .
    4. ^ "Canberra House - Robin Boyd". Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
    5. ^
      ISBN 978-1-921166-20-4
      .
    6. ISBN 0-522-85384-6
      .
    7. RMIT University. Archived from the original
      on 22 March 2012. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
    8. ISBN 978-1-921656-22-4
      .
    9. ^ "Boyd's Featurism". Post War Australia.
    10. ^ Boyd, Robin. The Boyer Lectures 1967 – Artificial Australia. Ambassador Press 22403. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
    11. ^ "ROBIN BOYD REDUX: VOL 9 No 2.2019" (PDF). RMIT Design Archives Journal. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
    12. ^ "ROBIN BOYD REDUX: VOL 9 No 2.2019" (PDF). RMIT Design Archives Journal. Retrieved 2 January 2020.
    13. ^ Bundanon Trust archives. [1]
    14. ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 27 December 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
    15. ^ "Canberra House | 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest (1952)". Archived from the original on 11 July 2010. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
    16. ^ "Canberra House | 4 Bedford Street, Deakin (1954)". Archived from the original on 11 July 2010. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
    17. ^ "Richardson House". Victorian Heritage Database.
    18. ^ "Houghton James House". Victorian Heritage Database.
    19. ^ "Clemson House". Victorian Heritage Database.
    20. ^ "Heritage (Decision about Registration of HolyTrinity Lutheran Church, Turner) Notice 2008 (No 1)" (PDF). ACT Heritage Council. 14 October 2008. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
    21. ^ "The Verge House Robin Boyd in Canberra". Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 27 December 2010.
    22. ^ "Canberra House | 204 Monaro Crescent, Red Hill (1963)". Archived from the original on 11 July 2010. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
    23. ^ "Home". boydbakerhouse.com.au.
    24. ^ "R G Lawrence House and Flats". Victorian Heritage Database.
    25. ^ "Lyons House, Dolans Bay, NSW 1967". DOCOMOMO Australia. Retrieved 6 February 2024.
    26. ^ "Lyons House, Robin Boyd, Sydney".
    27. ^ Dolans Bay, aussieheritage.com. Accessed 9 September 2022.

    Further reading

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robin Boyd.
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