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 for the Australian Federal Police but found it was too small, so it sits empty. The AFP now plans to spend $115 million fitting out the heritage listed Edmund Barton building.

Penelope Seidler and Peter Hirst (Seidler and Associates) have written to the Parliamentary Public Works Committee seeking more information about the protection of the building’s heritage values, voicing their concern about how the proposed security measures and changes to the ground level will affect the external appearance of the building. Seidler and Associates were initially advised by Stocklands that they would cooperate to ensure that the integrity and heritage values of the building were not compromised.

We have made various suggestions on preliminary designs for this work but have not seen any drawings for some time.

Why is it important? The post-war international Edmund Barton building is one of Seidler’s most important public buildings and arguably his best non-tower office block. The contrast between rectilinear and curved forms was an important and recurring theme throughout Seidler’s career and is fundamental to the idea of this building. The open ground floor accommodates quadrant shaped glass lobbies for the three entries, while the circular cores form the corner of the building and conceal the vertical services.

To viewers in the offices above, the quadrant shaped conference hall expresses its theatre seating and acoustic form and the cafeteria shows its long span shell-shaped roof elements. This theme of visual tension and contrast between the rectilinear and curved elements is reinforced by the courtyard paving pattern and in the two sculptures by Norman Carlberg, one in each courtyard. A fountain had the same effect, but it was filled in some years ago and replaced by landscaping. Underpinning this is the clearly expressed resolution of the two major parts of the structural system: 22.5m I-shaped spandrel beams and 15.8m T-beams of the spanning floor systems.

The building is also a rare example of Seidler’s work in Canberra, being the most significant of the two intact Seidler office buildings here. A quick overview of Seidler’s Canberra work:

• 12 Yapunyah Street O’Connor (1956): demolished
• Garran Group Housing (1968): demolished in the late 1990s
• 11 Northcote Crescent, Deakin (1951-52): extended twice, no heritage protection
• Canberra South Bowling Club (1959): extensively modified
• Campbell Group Housing (1964): intact, but no heritage protection
• Ethos House (1970): intact
• Macgregor townhouses (1980): intact
• Lakeview townhouses in Yarralumla (1982): intact
• The Edmund Barton building (1973): intact—for now

I think that statements being made by the AFP about the nature of the modifications (reported in the Sydney Morning Herald) are of concern.

Mr Keelty told the committee security measures would include a ‘transparent perimeter barrier’ to control pedestrian access to internal courtyards and bollards to stop unauthorised vehicles from approaching the building. Federal police executives said heritage values would be enhanced by reintroducing some of Mr Seidler’s original concepts by making the internal courtyards more welcoming for staff.

The idea that it was Seidler’s intention to close off the courtyards so as to make them more accessible for staff simply doesn’t ring true. These courtyards were designed as spaces for staff and pedestrians, with the fountain (long since filled in), works of public art, a cafeteria and a theatrette. The building bears all the hallmarks of a Seidler building—maximizing public open space at the ground floor. The sculptures and the buildings in the courtyard are positioned to control the open areas and make them more intelligible to the pedestrian as well as office workers who look down into the courtyards from the windows above. Closing this courtyard off to the public contradicts this aim and will not enhance the heritage values of the building.

A related concern, but thus far not mentioned, is future public access to the works of art. Closing the area off for security reasons and restricting access will deprive the city of two important works of public art by Norman Carlberg, the internationally acclaimed American sculptor who worked in the modular constructivist style and studied under Joseph Albers at Yale in the late 1950s. Black Widow is the free standing black painted steel form standing 4.8m high in the west courtyard. Concrete Form is the 7.3m high precast concrete sculpture in the east courtyard. These two important works were installed in 1975.

While unrestricted access to public art can be a grey area when such works are located inside commercial buildings and schools, for example, I would be interested to see some kind of statement about how these sculptures will remain accessible to the public once and if these alterations are made.

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 collaboration initiated by Dan Hill using Google Maps now attempts to do just that.

Modern Times at the Powerhouse looks at the impact of modernism on all aspects of Australian culture—from art, design and architecture to advertising, photography, film and fashion. The exhibition also explores those parts of the city where modernism profoundly reshaped Australian life—its skyscrapers, milk bars and swimming pools. To extend the reach of the exhibition, the Powerhouse set up a group on Flickr where members can post their personal interpretations of modernism—whether architectural, spaces, furniture, interiors, fashion or design. While the Flickr pool invites participation from a wider audience, it also leaves open the possibility for something location-based, which would extend the reach and potential use of the idea even further.

Enter Dan Hill, at Cityofsound. Dan pondered the possibilities offered by the built environment:

…imagine temporary plaques outside the MLC, Rose Seidler, NGV etc., which give a little note about the building and state they’re part of an exhibition around Modernism in Australia…these simple analogue interventions would be interesting, discreet and more widely accessible. It kind of threads the exhibition through the cities rather than keeping it in glass cases.

On the other hand, Dan suggested, why not build a Google Map indicating places of interest to the theme? The content could potentially be delivered in a variety of ways—to phones from the exhibition or its website, or from transmitters embedded in signage at selected sites. Besides, it could become a neat content-based collaborative project able to be made into something good without a huge amount of work, since the collaborators were all starting from a position of having the material at hand.

And that’s how the Google Map Modernism in Australia started. Within a few days, Dan, Rory, Marcus and I tagged buildings, houses and other examples of built modernism around Australia—mostly in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne, but with some additions in Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart. It is, of course, an ongoing project, with significant areas of the map still to be populated with content. Go ahead and check it out. If anyone is interested in becoming a collaborator on this project please get in touch with Dan at Cityofsound or email me here.

UPDATE: Dan, Marcus and now Seb Chan at the Powerhouse Museum have now posted about this.

Over at my Flickr photostream I’ve put together an image set called Canberra’s Top Twenty—a list of Canberra’s most important modernist houses. The images are geo-tagged, and I’ve created a KML file for you to play in Google Earth.

While some may argue that the list is arbitrary, it is substantially based on significance according to the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s Register of Significant Twentieth Century Architecture and nomination to or listing on the ACT Heritage Register. It is open to debate, of course, and a colleague has already taken me to task for initially including Robin Boyd’s last Canberra house at 12 Marawa Place ahead of Noel Potter’s house at 3 Arkana Street, Yarralumla.

Looking at the tour, it’s interesting to see the geographic spread of the houses around Canberra. While many are located in the inner south and date from the 1930s to the 1960s—modernism’s golden age if you like—there are examples in some of the newer suburbs, or areas developed since the late 1960s. It finishes around the mid 1970s, in line with the general feeling that heritage has to be older than 30 years to qualify as such.

It also highlights how few of Canberra’s houses are of heritage significance. When one talks about heritage listing (and more importantly) preserving houses, it’s not as though we’re talking about locking away vast tracts of valuable land from developers. Of Canberra’s total housing stock we’re only talking about protecting and conserving a tiny handful of houses from the mid twentieth century. And if we’re unable to do that it reflects badly on us as a community.

So, download this KML file and view Canberra’s Top Twenty in Google Earth. Let me know what you think.

Independent content publishers deserve all the help and support they can get. Issue 2 of the excellent Brisbane Modern: mid 20th century design magazine was released in June. It’s a recently established publication which examines that city’s architecture, art and design from the mid twentieth century. What’s also interesting, to me, is that it’s an independently published and financed venture from a person with a passion for mid-century design.

The magazine is the work of publisher and creative director Chris Osborne, who aims to enlighten readers about the talented and overlooked champions of design in Brisbane create awareness of this era of design.

I hope these articles will lead to a greater understanding of Brisbane’s history and cultural heritage, dispelling the notion that good design can only originate from the southern states.

For issue 2 Chris has prepared a self-guided architectural walk through the Brisbane City centre. After trying to find a way to highlight architecture and how to promote it, Chris selected the city area for a self-guided tour for its accessibility and concentration of buildings, rather than a scattered selection around the suburbs. Issue 2 also looks at a modernistic landscape pioneer and the evolution of the La Boite theatre.

Chris has managed to enlist contributions from local architects, writers, collectors and designers—the most difficult part of any content-based enterprise. As an avid mid 20th century objects collector himself, Chris says there is a wider appreciation of this era of design, with much creativity to be admired and enjoyed.

This may be one of the few opportunities to read interviews with individual designers and artists of the era, complete with examples of their work.

Are there any similar publications covering mid-century design in Canberra? Not really, although the short-lived Walter from a couple of years ago aimed, in some ways, to fill such a gap.