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”, as they’re colloquially known, will be almost entirely demolished to make way for a large scale high density redevelopment. A concept master plan has been commissioned by the ACT Department of Disability, Housing and Community Services and prepared by architects and planners Cox, Humphries, Moss.

Currong and Allawah flats will go, while 5 buildings from the Bega Flats will be kept. In their place will be 1200 high density dwellings including townhouses on the northern side and high-rise apartments on the southern side facing the Canberra Centre.

Currong Flats were decommissioned as public housing in 2004-2005 and are now occupied by students from the ANU, University of Canberra and CIT. It’s being hyped as a ‘new dawn’ for public housing in the ACT, although only 10% of the new development will be set aside for public housing. Those public housing residents occupying the 228 units on Bega and Allawah Flats will mostly be relocated.

The flats are valued by the Australian Institute of Architects as good examples of the post-war international style. Although nominated for listing on the ACT Heritage Register, a study carried out last year found that the they were only of ‘slight to moderate heritage significance’ because of their social and historical values. The study also noted that while the buildings were difficult to maintain and made for inhospitable dwellings, the courtyard layout and landscape of the Allawah flats was worth preserving.

There are 63 million reasons why the heritage value of these flats won’t be talked about too much, so before we say goodbye to another chapter in Canberra’s postwar planning and architectural history, it’s worth briefly noting why they are important and of interest.

The flats were designed in 1954 by Richard Ure and Ian Slater in the Canberra office of the Commonwealth Department of Works. They were Canberra’s first medium density public housing. These post-war international style flats are significant examples of that style of architecture and are also of value for the way they demonstrate the planning and design of Canberra’s first medium density public housing, which was built to cope with the housing shortage as the city emerged from the austerity of the period after World War II.

It’s a rare example of architects and planners being influenced by the designs of English new towns, in the decade prior to the National Capital Development Commission becoming responsible for Canberra’s planning and development. Somewhat ironic, then, that they were built to increase the density of housing near Civic and will be demolished partly for the same reason—to allow for increased housing density near the city.

You can read more on the origins and significance of the Bega and Allawah Flats in this house profile.

In July we wrote about the then-imminent sale of the Robin Boyd House II in South Yarra: the auction scheduled for 21 July was postponed when the Victorian Government, the Robin Boyd Foundation and the RAIA Victorian chapter set about finding a way to raise funds to pay the mortgage and deal with the Boyd Foundation’s debt to the National Trust. Those good intentions came to nought and the property was to be auctioned by agents Bennison Mackinnon on Saturday, 22 September at 1:00 PM.

However, at the eleventh hour the auction was postponed again as the State Government and Architects Registration Board of Victoria (ARBV) pledged enough money to keep it in public hands—for now.

The ARBV has contributed $460,000 and the State Government probably somewhere in the region of $2m to the Boyd House, but with a very important condition: within six months the Robin Boyd Foundation has to submit a business plan and find enough financial support to secure the long term financial viability of the house. It won’t be easy. Not only will the Foundation need to figure out how to make the house pay its way, significant remedial work is required. Friends who have visited the house recently tell me that it’s in a relatively poor state of repair—the draped catenary roof in particular will need considerable attention.

This situation – a significant real asset that’s been placed in respectful hands, but needing income streams and business-focused management to stay viable – is a common picture in Australia—Bundanon being another notable example. You can have all the well-meaning ‘friends’ in the world, but when outgoings far outstrip the takings from annual fundraising activities it rapidly becomes unsustainable.

Nevertheless, there’s some cause for optimism. As The Age reports, Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden said:

This funding will assist the Robin Boyd Foundation in preserving this significant 20th-century building and maintaining the legacy of Robin Boyd, who made such a significant contribution to Australian architectural design.

— Victorian Planning Minister Justin Madden

Have Canberra’s modernist houses been protected?

Although a number of houses and buildings are listed on the ACT Heritage Places Register, to what extent does this ensure preservation and prevent demolition?

The answer is, sadly, not much. In fact, it’s hard to recall a single occasion where demolition has been blocked or the genuine protection and preservation of a significant modernist house or building has been secured by the ACT Government or its Heritage Council.

A number of Canberra’s important mid-twentieth century houses and buildings have been extensively modified or demolished in recent years and as land values continue to rise the pace of urban redevelopment—and hence the pressure on mid-twentieth century modernist houses—will only increase.

As experience has shown elsewhere, the only thing that guarantees the protection of a significant house is the goodwill of the owner.

Some demolished houses and buildings

• The Civic Theatre, Mort Street, Braddon. Malcolm Moir, 1935. Demolished in 1970.
• Functionalist house at Hann Street, Griffith. Kenneth Oliphant, 1940s. Demolished in 1981.
• Garran Group Housing, Gilmore Crescent, Garran. Harry Seidler, 1964-68. Demolished in 1999.
• 73 National Circuit, Deakin. E J Scollay, 1958. Demolished in May 2001.

Extensively modified houses

• Whitley Houses in Griffith and Braddon. Cuthbert Whitley, 1939. Modified in 2003-2005.
• 15 Furphy Place, Garran. Anthony Pegrum, 1967. Modified in 2000.
• 24 Cobby Street, Campbell. Roy Grounds, 1963-1964. Modified in 2005.

Inter-war functionalism

Among the houses and buildings that have suffered most are the inter-war functionalist style houses and buildings from the 1930s. Examples of functionalist architecture in Canberra were never large in number to begin with: the ideas of mainstream modernism were relatively slow to reach Australia and Canberra experienced limited growth prior to 1960. Two of Canberra’s most notable inter-war functionalist buildings are the Forrest Fire Station and precinct designed by Government architects Edwin Henderson and Cuthbert Whitley in 1938 and the Civic Theatre in Braddon, designed by Malcolm Moir in 1935. The Forrest Fire Station precinct remains and is included in the ACT Heritage Places Register. However, the Civic Theatre was demolished in the early 1970s.

Perhaps less than twenty inter-war functionalist houses were built in total. About half of these were designed by Cuthbert Whitley in the Works Branch of the Commonwealth Department of the Interior and the remainder by Kenneth Oliphant, and the partnership of Malcolm Moir and Heather Sutherland. While some of these houses are included in the ACT Heritage Places Register, each demolition and botched addition can have a considerable impact on the number of remaining examples.

Kenneth Oliphant

Take the case of local architect Kenneth Oliphant. In 1981 an Oliphant designed inter-war functionalist house on the corner of Hann Street and Evans Crescent in Griffith was demolished. Oliphant designed the house in the 1940s and it was one of about four he designed in that style; the others being 13 Evans Crescent, Griffith, 24 Arthur Circle, Forrest and a house in Dampier Crescent, Forrest. The Evans Crescent, Arthur Circle and Dampier Crescent houses have been extensively modified, meaning that no original, well preserved examples of functionalist residential architecture in Canberra by Ken Oliphant survive.

Legislative protection

The ACT has in place a framework of identification and legislative protection for heritage properties. The ACT Heritage Places List and the RAIA’s Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture endorse the heritage significance of certain identified properties. However, by themselves they don’t ensure the conservation or preservation of heritage places and inclusion on one or both of these lists is not a guarantee against demolition. Not all important modernist houses are listed on the ACT Heritage Places Register.

The Whitley Houses

The Whitley houses (one is pictured above) in Griffith and Braddon are a good example. The houses were designed by Government architect Cuthbert Whitley in 1939 and represented the only surviving examples of functionalist style government housing in Canberra. The houses were the subject of a heritage assessment requested by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and were nominated for protection by the RAIA. The houses were gazetted to the ACT Interim Heritage Places Register on 26 October 2002.

Development applications for multi-storey additions to all the houses were approved and all houses have since been extensively modified. They are either overshadowed by or have unit developments attached to them: inexplicably the Heritage Council saw these additions as not adversely impacting on the heritage value of the houses.

As reported in the Sydney Morning Herald (23 October, 2006), a house in Lurline Bay, Sydney, designed by Harry Seidler in 1963, is under threat of demolition. The listing agent says that the new owner will probably demolish the house, since it’s a modest place sited on a magnificent block of land. The Heritage Committee of the New South Wales Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects is up in arms.

Penelope Seidler has also commented on the issue, saying that it’s not one of Harry’s best and she’s more concerned about the last of his houses in Canberra—the Bowden House, at 11 Northcote Crescent, Deakin.

The Bowden House

It’s reported that this house, again a modest one on a large parcel of land, is likely to be demolished if and when it’s sold. The only other freestanding house in Canberra designed by Seidler, at 12 Yapunyah Street, O’Connor, was recently demolished. Penelope Seidler:

That really upsets me because it is a really good house, and original. But the land is very valuable.

— Penelope Seidler

On 23 October the Canberra Times reported further on the issue, noting the owner’s dismay at the prospect of his house value declining with a possible heritage listing.

When we sell or die, whoever looks to take over the block of land would expect, quite reasonably, to have a larger building, better able to cope with a family than this, if he is going to have to pay high rates.

— Owner of the Bowden House

Nominated, but not listed

The article’s author, John Thistleton, contacted a colleague and I beforehand. We made the point that the ACT RAIA Chapter Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture Committee considers this house to be one of the two most important post-war international style houses in Canberra and nominated it for heritage listing at least nine years ago. The ACT Heritage Council has still not considered the nomination—why not?

In response to the article, a Letter to the Editor of the Canberra Times from Penleigh Boyd appeared on 30 October 2006. He wrote:

It is indeed a bizarre situation when members of the public can effectively say ‘I love your house so much I don’t want you or anyone else to change it—and have that wish enshrined in law. I cannot think of any other socially acceptable behaviour like it.

— Penleigh Boyd

Our letter to the Canberra Times

Our response to that letter was published on 2 November 2006, but a few key points were omitted. Here’s the letter in full:

Penleigh Boyd finds it bizarre that a member of the public can call for a significant ACT house to be heritage-listed (‘Heritage laws can penalise owners’, 30 October, p 10).

Protecting cultural heritage involves striking a balance between the individual’s right to do as they please with their own property and the community’s right to preserve and enjoy that heritage.

Heritage listing is an important measure of a building’s significance. Some nine years after nomination of Harry Seidler’s Bowden House by an expert body—the ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects—the ACT Heritage Council still has not considered it.

However, a building’s heritage listing is no guarantee that it will be preserved. The late twentieth century structuralist Guardian House in Woden, a highly awarded building designed by Ian McKay for the NCDC in 1968, was listed on the ACT Interim Heritage Places Register but demolished in 2003. The functionalist style Whitley Houses in Griffith and Braddon, designed by Government architect Cuthbert Whitley in 1939, have recently been subjected to heavy development—yet they’re also listed on the register.

Boyd is therefore incorrect to suggest that heritage listing automatically protects a building from demolition, or denies the owner the right to alter it. He cites no proof for the claim that listing devalues a house. And he ignores the fact that many owners seek heritage protection for their houses and are active in preserving them.

Nevertheless, a balance plainly is not being achieved under the present system if owners are unhappy with potential restrictions, but buildings are still being pulled down.

Boyd is right to call for creative thinking, but misguided in suggesting that the ACT Heritage Council purchase all listed houses for renting out. Rather, it can look to the approach of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW with grants and incentives for heritage conservation and partnerships between government and the private sector.

With Calthorpes’ House and Manning Clark House as models, it could restore some key houses as cultural/research centres that increase the community’s appreciation of architecture, design and broader culture.

Then, mere members of the public may be encouraged to play a role in conserving their cultural heritage.

73 National Circuit, Deakin was designed by E J Scollay for Mr and Mrs P Bailey in 1958. Construction was completed in 1959. John Scollay was a prominent local architect who formed the partnership of Scollay, Bischoff and Pegrum in the 1960s. The house was an example of the post-war Melbourne regional style of architecture with its low pitched gable roof, widely projecting eaves, long unbroken roofline, glass walls with regularly spaced timber mullions and narrow edge of roof.

Significance

73 National Circuit was listed on the ACT Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture and was regarded by the RAIA as being a good example of the post-war Melbourne regional style.

Here one minute, gone the next. 73 National Circuit shortly after demolition in May 2001.

Description

The house was originally an ‘L’ shaped split-level design with the living areas along the south wing and the bedrooms down three steps along an east wing. An extension in 1967 added a main bedroom to the west, making the house a ‘C’ form.

The house was set centrally on the 1511 square metre block. It was constructed of cavity brickwork, timber framed floors with concrete slabs to the bathrooms, timber roof framing and galvanised steel roofing. The ceilings mostly followed the slope of the block.

A porch and four circular steel posts delineated the entry, which was to the west facing the street. These posts were set close together and echoed the spacing of the dining room glazing mullions in the same facade. The living room west wall was angled towards the entry. The front door was set between two glazed panels and opened into an entry lobby.

The 1967 extension increased the size of the living room, making it a large split-level space with full height glazing opening out on to the rear garden. In the centre of the west living room wall was a fireplace designed by Scollay which allowed outside air to be piped across the fire and into the room through side vents. The brick chimney, expressed as a single block, was a significant element of the building. The ceiling was canite sheeting.

Access to the lower bedroom level was through the kitchen, which overlooked the rear garden. The first space entered at this level was originally a large playroom, bedroom and study area for three children with built in wardrobes and desks. The room was about 35 square metres and this early post-war design feature allowed the maximum use of limited space for the area. Each bedroom recess space had its own east facing window and glass doors that opened out into the north facing rear garden. However, this room was later modified and the northern third of the room closed off to form another bedroom.

Sources and further reading

• Royal Australian Institute of Architects RSTCA Citation No. R113
• The post-war Melbourne regional style