Harold Desbrowe-Annear, an Australian Arts and Crafts architect
This post is a series of notes designed mainly for my own record, but others with an interest in the Arts and Crafts movement may be interested.
This past weekend, M. and I went to an open day organised by the Robin Boyd Foundation, celebrating the work of the Arts and Crafts architect Harold Desbrowe-Annear. The day was organised as a self-touring itinerary of six eastern suburbs houses designed by Desbrowe-Annear, most of which are privately owned.
Here's a picture to tempt you to read on:
Having previously visited buildings by British Arts and Crafts architects (e.g. Baillie Scott, Voysey) I was very interested to compare Desbrowe-Annear's design approach. Basically, D-A's buildings use a lot more timber--including Australian cedar and imported American sequoia; they are committed to an open plan (circulation paths are built into the plan, and corridors reduced to a minimum); they tend to have square rooms, grouped around a central great hall or living area; they feature built-in furniture, timber panelling, art glass, stone hearths, and window seats; and they often incorporate rooms designed specifically to accommodate the owners' activities or professions. Many of these features are common to most Arts and Crafts houses. However, D-A's use of timber for both construction and interior detailing brings them much closer to American Arts and Crafts buildings like Greene & Greene's.
Local architect Peter Crone bought one of the houses (pictured above) and has painstakingly restored it, personally rebuilding much of the building fabric, and teaching himself old craftsmanship techniques so that he could do so authentically. He even imported new panels of sequoia, all the way from California! (I hope they were from a managed plantation). Crone's is a purist approach; to be lauded, certainly, but not destined to be copied by many people who buy old houses with the general intent to restore them.
This was most obvious in his approach to rebuilding the kitchen and bathrooms. As utility rooms, these are the rooms in an old house that are most likely to be modernised; in this case, the kitchen and bathrooms had been redone in the 1930s/40s. Crone wanted to get the house as close to D-A's original design as possible, while installing modern amenities.
It's a difficult balance in any restoration and the most common approaches are: a). go for a completely modern approach (rebuild the whole room, or at least rip out everything and install modern fixtures/fittings) or b). attempt to recreate "period" rooms by installing reproduction or refurbished original fittings (most common for bathrooms). The merit of the former approach is that construction is more straightforward, and the design can be started from scratch - and hopefully will have its own integrity. The drawback is that it can result in a soulless room that bears no relation to the rest of the scale / fabric of the building. The merit of the latter is that it starts out with the conscious intention to produce something in sympathy with the building. The disadvantage (not everyone would agree) is that it tends to create a "simulacra" of history: how many miner's cottages even had indoor bathrooms, let alone large elaborate ones with fittings that would have been the exclusive preserve of much larger houses (electric lighting with "period" light fixtures; piped hot water; tesselated tiles; lions' claw cast-iron tubs...)? Desbrowe-Annear's bathrooms did not have modern amenities, so even if one could buy contemporary bathroom fittings in an "Arts and Crafts" style, installing them would not "recreate" his bathrooms - it would produce something new.
Crone chose neither approach. Instead, he restored the structural fabric of the rooms, restoring / replacing all the decorative timber panelling. Then he installed modern fixtures as a free-standing, self-contained unit within the centre of each room. (Imagine a cube sitting within a larger cube, and you get the general idea). This is an approach that is very common in Le Corbusier's architecture, and it's significant that Crone is an aficionado of Corbusier's work - the house was full of books about Corb, lithographs of his drawings, as well as elegant furniture designed by Le Corbusier / Charlotte Perriand. There is no nostalgia; instead, there is a very clear contrast between the old and the new, and the modern unit can be easily replaced or upgraded without destroying the integrity of the overall structure.
The overwhelming effect of D-A's houses is one of warmth. The plans are surprisingly appropriate for modern living. They do not waste space on little-used formal rooms, and they don't have loads of bedrooms (most have two, or sometimes three). Existing living and working spaces are generously sized but not vast. They have built in screens and sliding doors within larger spaces, to change the layout or ensure acoustic privacy. They have nooks and corners to create intimate spaces within larger, more public ones. They are made from beautiful and lasting materials. They are also labour-intensive and expensive to construct.
The preponderance of dark timber and sense of enclosure and privacy in the interiors is very much against modern taste, where the attitude seems to be that light, more light, and yet more light is the only possible approach -- preferably coupled with vast cathedral ceilings, blinding downlights, glossy surface finishes, and no acoustic insulation.
Pictures from the day (exterior shots only) will go up on Flickr, as soon as I get round to it.
This past weekend, M. and I went to an open day organised by the Robin Boyd Foundation, celebrating the work of the Arts and Crafts architect Harold Desbrowe-Annear. The day was organised as a self-touring itinerary of six eastern suburbs houses designed by Desbrowe-Annear, most of which are privately owned.
Here's a picture to tempt you to read on:
Having previously visited buildings by British Arts and Crafts architects (e.g. Baillie Scott, Voysey) I was very interested to compare Desbrowe-Annear's design approach. Basically, D-A's buildings use a lot more timber--including Australian cedar and imported American sequoia; they are committed to an open plan (circulation paths are built into the plan, and corridors reduced to a minimum); they tend to have square rooms, grouped around a central great hall or living area; they feature built-in furniture, timber panelling, art glass, stone hearths, and window seats; and they often incorporate rooms designed specifically to accommodate the owners' activities or professions. Many of these features are common to most Arts and Crafts houses. However, D-A's use of timber for both construction and interior detailing brings them much closer to American Arts and Crafts buildings like Greene & Greene's.
Local architect Peter Crone bought one of the houses (pictured above) and has painstakingly restored it, personally rebuilding much of the building fabric, and teaching himself old craftsmanship techniques so that he could do so authentically. He even imported new panels of sequoia, all the way from California! (I hope they were from a managed plantation). Crone's is a purist approach; to be lauded, certainly, but not destined to be copied by many people who buy old houses with the general intent to restore them.
This was most obvious in his approach to rebuilding the kitchen and bathrooms. As utility rooms, these are the rooms in an old house that are most likely to be modernised; in this case, the kitchen and bathrooms had been redone in the 1930s/40s. Crone wanted to get the house as close to D-A's original design as possible, while installing modern amenities.
It's a difficult balance in any restoration and the most common approaches are: a). go for a completely modern approach (rebuild the whole room, or at least rip out everything and install modern fixtures/fittings) or b). attempt to recreate "period" rooms by installing reproduction or refurbished original fittings (most common for bathrooms). The merit of the former approach is that construction is more straightforward, and the design can be started from scratch - and hopefully will have its own integrity. The drawback is that it can result in a soulless room that bears no relation to the rest of the scale / fabric of the building. The merit of the latter is that it starts out with the conscious intention to produce something in sympathy with the building. The disadvantage (not everyone would agree) is that it tends to create a "simulacra" of history: how many miner's cottages even had indoor bathrooms, let alone large elaborate ones with fittings that would have been the exclusive preserve of much larger houses (electric lighting with "period" light fixtures; piped hot water; tesselated tiles; lions' claw cast-iron tubs...)? Desbrowe-Annear's bathrooms did not have modern amenities, so even if one could buy contemporary bathroom fittings in an "Arts and Crafts" style, installing them would not "recreate" his bathrooms - it would produce something new.
Crone chose neither approach. Instead, he restored the structural fabric of the rooms, restoring / replacing all the decorative timber panelling. Then he installed modern fixtures as a free-standing, self-contained unit within the centre of each room. (Imagine a cube sitting within a larger cube, and you get the general idea). This is an approach that is very common in Le Corbusier's architecture, and it's significant that Crone is an aficionado of Corbusier's work - the house was full of books about Corb, lithographs of his drawings, as well as elegant furniture designed by Le Corbusier / Charlotte Perriand. There is no nostalgia; instead, there is a very clear contrast between the old and the new, and the modern unit can be easily replaced or upgraded without destroying the integrity of the overall structure.
The overwhelming effect of D-A's houses is one of warmth. The plans are surprisingly appropriate for modern living. They do not waste space on little-used formal rooms, and they don't have loads of bedrooms (most have two, or sometimes three). Existing living and working spaces are generously sized but not vast. They have built in screens and sliding doors within larger spaces, to change the layout or ensure acoustic privacy. They have nooks and corners to create intimate spaces within larger, more public ones. They are made from beautiful and lasting materials. They are also labour-intensive and expensive to construct.
The preponderance of dark timber and sense of enclosure and privacy in the interiors is very much against modern taste, where the attitude seems to be that light, more light, and yet more light is the only possible approach -- preferably coupled with vast cathedral ceilings, blinding downlights, glossy surface finishes, and no acoustic insulation.
Pictures from the day (exterior shots only) will go up on Flickr, as soon as I get round to it.