The Sydney School

[image from Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects]

The Sydney School of Architecture is arguably the first unique "style" that comes out of Australia. The movement came to prominence during the 1960s. The work exists somewhere between Frank Lloyd Wright and hard-edge Modernism.

Harry Seidler, who was largely responsible for bringing the language of Modernism to Australia, practiced in Sydney and continued to adopt the International Style aesthetic. In contrast, while the formal moves of Modernism play a big part in the work of the Sydney School, their aesthetic of rough, textured buildings that blend in with the landscape display a new attitude towards building.

[image from Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects]

[image from Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects]

Clubbe Hall, by Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects (pictured above and below) is a seminal work of the Sydney School. The bricks vary in color and the roof is composed of rough, textured shingles. Formally, the architects let the shape of the auditorium inform the mass and organization of the rest of the building.

[image from Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects]

The organization and underlying concept of the building is Modernist, but the massing, feel, materials, and sense of place is more akin to works by Aalto or the later Corbusier.

[image from Allen, Jack, & Cottier Architects]

The wine cellar pictured above, by the same architects, expresses the tensile structure of wood ridge boards and rafters. Everything from the columns to the wine barrels line up. The building, brought to life out of rough-hewn timber, is romantic and at the same time rational.

[image from University of Newcastle Cultural Collections Flickr Set]

Other good examples abound on the campus of the University of New South Wales. Many of the buildings were designed by Ancher, Mortlock, Murray, & Woolley. Again, we have pitched, shingle roofs joined to patterned brick-work.

[image from University of Newcastle Cultural Collections Flickr Set]

[image from University of Newcastle Cultural Collections Flickr Set]

One might say the Sydney School is a precursor to some of the most internationally well-known Australian architecture of today. Many in the school continue to lead large firms.

Although the tectonic "bush" architecture of Glen Murcutt or Troppo is markedly different in composition and materiality, the kernel an idea, that Australia's ethos & climate can form a basis for architecture, remains a compelling argument.