The death of one of Australia’s forgotten modernists has been reported in the Sydney Morning Herald and the Canberra Times. Alex Jelinek, whose only fully realised architectural work is the Round House, at 10 Gawler Crescent, Deakin, died on 12 February 2007 aged 81.

Jelinek joined the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in 1946, where he studied architecture. The 1948 Communist coup in Czechoslovakia banned private architectural practice and Jelinek, who saw no future living under such a regime, fled the country only weeks before he was due to graduate. He emigrated to Australia in 1950 and worked on the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme.

Jelinek gained his first architectural commission from Oxford-trained philosopher Bruce Benjamin, the second-cousin of Jelinek’s partner, landscape painter Lina Bryans: the remarkable Round House was the result.

Dr Roger Benjamin has written a fine obituary in the SMH.

• Alex Jelinek obituary
• View a profile of the Round House on this site

Development of these self-guided tours is now underway. As each one is completed, it will be made available here as a pdf. The tours will be self-contained, one-page guides covering residential architecture, buildings and public art, free for you to download and enjoy. The first is a walking tour:

• #1: Modernist houses of Canberra’s inner south (pdf, 459k)

This walking tour of approximately 90 minutes duration winds its way through the suburbs of Deakin, Forrest and Red Hill. Starting from the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s Headquarters on Mugga Way, it passes by nine of Canberra’s most important modernist houses, including examples of functionalist architecture from the 1930s and post-war Melbourne regional and post-war international houses from the 1950s.

Update: all internal links now working. Images and slideshows now being added.