Books by Nicole Sully
In 1984, a small group of architects and historians from Australia and New Zealand met in Adelaid... more In 1984, a small group of architects and historians from Australia and New Zealand met in Adelaide to present research on the history and historiography of architecture. Since then, under the wing of the Society of Architectural historians, Australia and New Zealand (SAHANZ), these meetings have become one of the key architectural history conferences internationally.
Shifting Views draws together a selection of writing from across twenty-five years of these conferences to provide a fascinating view into the region's architectural history discipline. The essays collected here, from such diverse thinkers as Judith Brine, Joan Kerr, Miles Lewis, Sarah Treadwell, Philip Goad, Julie Willis and Mike Austin, reflect some of the most illuminating debates from these conferences.
Together these essays capture a tone of critical enquiry and the conditioins of writing architectural history in Australia New Zealand. Shifting Views takes us into the mechanics of architectural history-making, exposing its foundations and demonstrating how they can be called account. It shows us how architectural history has been made and revised, giving us a glimpse of the means by which our past becomes our history.
Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully, and William Taylor (eds), Out of Place (Gwalia): Occasional essay... more Philip Goldswain, Nicole Sully, and William Taylor (eds), Out of Place (Gwalia): Occasional essays on Australian regional communities and built environments in transition, UWA Press, 2014. ISBN: 9781742585543
This collection of essays explores historical, geographical and cultural factors that contribute to our understanding of places and settings of Australian transient communities.
From Gwalia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Charters Towers in Queensland, and Queenstown in Tasmania, the places provide opportunity to revisit sites of history from the different angles of architecture, landscape theory, social history and visual arts. They also provide a springboard for thinking through the pressing issues for of contemporary Australians and counterparts in other ‘post-settler’ societies.
Contents:
1. Introduction to Australian places, place-making and the politics of displacement in a transient society / William M. Taylor
2. 'Public photographs': a serial representation of Kalgoorlie, 1893-1903 / Philip Goldswain
3. The moral economy of prefabrication: the curious case of the Brown Hill Mine building and Kalgoorlie Health Laboratory, c. 1899-1923 / William M. Taylor
4. Burning the bastards out: the destruction of Yugoslav homes on the Boulder lease, 1934 / Criena Fitzgerald
5. From lords of creation to petticoat dominions: the place of women during the gold rush of 1851 / Clarissa Ball
6. 'The world' and Charters Towers: gold, stock exchanges and the electric telegraph in the first era of globalisation / John Macarthur
7. Mining, place and propriety in Queenstown: architectural propriety and belonging in social and environmental contexts / Stuart King
8. On the edge of beyond: mining and painting the Australian landscape / Nicole Sully
9. Designing way out: Shay Gap and the 'living laboratory' of the 1970s / Lee Stickells
10. Back to the future: FIFO, mining and urbanisation in Australia / Mathew Aitchison.
Selected Journal Articles by Nicole Sully
Oase, 2019
Frampton’s critical regionalism is notable for the degree to which he conflates analysis and judg... more Frampton’s critical regionalism is notable for the degree to which he conflates analysis and judgment. The forewords, prefaces and introductory essays to new books on those architects or by those writers who address this theme have, over time, become assumed strategic importance for the historian in securing his critical fortunes—an enduring process of confirmation and demonstration of a position carved out, in some cases, decades earlier. This essay reads across these short but pointed pieces to see how Frampton continues to explore the ideas, tropes, or values that secure his enduring relevance to contemporary architectural culture, locating an aspect of his ‘project’ therein.
Fabrications: Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand, 2019
In 2012, the United States of America received its newest Presidential memorial. Four Freedoms Pa... more In 2012, the United States of America received its newest Presidential memorial. Four Freedoms Park, designed by Louis Kahn and situated on Roosevelt Island in New York, honours Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the country’s 32nd President. Completed almost seven decades after the President’s death, and four decades after the death of its architect, the project forms one of a growing number of architectural works that can be regarded as what this paper terms “posthumous monuments of modernism,” being projects that have been constructed not from the desk of the architect, but rather from their historical archive. This paper considers the problem of the posthumous monument in relation to the specific case study of Louis Kahn’s Roosevelt Memorial. It first offers an account of the emergence of this memorial, and then, through this work, consider the ethical, philosophical, and historical implications of posthumous architecture.
Architectural Research Quarterly, 2010
This paper surveys and critically examines the ‘official’, ‘unofficial’, ‘planned’ and ‘spontaneo... more This paper surveys and critically examines the ‘official’, ‘unofficial’, ‘planned’ and ‘spontaneous’ memorials for Diana, Princess of Wales in the context of the historical culture of commemoration.
M/C - A Journal of Media and Culture, 12:4 'Climate'
Historians of Modern Architecture have cultivated the image of the architect as a temperamental g... more Historians of Modern Architecture have cultivated the image of the architect as a temperamental genius, unconcerned by issues of politeness or pragmatics. Despite their indisputable place within the architectural canon, many of the most important works of Modern Architecture were heavily contested on pragmatic grounds, such as cost, briefs and particularly concerning issues of suitability and effectiveness in relation to climate and weather. In June 1930, Mme Savoye, the patron of the famed Villa Savoye, wrote to her architect, Le Corbusier, stating “it is still raining in our garage” – a persistent theme in their correspondence. The new owners of Frank Lloyd’s Wright’s Prefab No. 1 (1959), on Staten Island declared they initially did not have enough pots, jars and saucepans to place under the fifty separate leaks in their home, but in December 2005 proudly boasted in the real estate section of the New York Times, that they were ‘down to only one leak’.
This paper will discuss a number of famed instances in the history of Modern Architecture where climatic conditions have become a contested issue in the reception of ‘the masterpiece’.
Selected Book Chapters by Nicole Sully
Laboratory Lifestyles: The Construction of Scientific Fictions, 2018
This chapter considers the interplay between science and fiction in the history of space explorat... more This chapter considers the interplay between science and fiction in the history of space exploration, and in particular the journey to realizing the long dreamed of laboratory in space. It begins by examining early accounts that fuse science and fiction as part of the act of imagining travel to other worlds and the experience of inhabiting their terrains. It then considers a number of cases in the history of real and imagined space travel that progress toward, and eventually realize, the ‘space laboratory’. The chapter’s concludes with a discussion of the Mars-500 mission and its reception.
Links: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/laboratory-lifestyles
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1029794575
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262038927/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_gCCICb02JAGE6
Mining, its booms and its busts, have long informed historical writings on the urban and architec... more Mining, its booms and its busts, have long informed historical writings on the urban and architectural development of Australia following European settlement. However the impact this has had on Australian art has, comparatively, received little consideration. Early painters such as Eugene von Guérard (1811–1901) and S.T. Gill (1818-1880) visited and depicted mines and mining related communities- the former dabbled in mining itself in search of his fortune. Later artists such as Sidney Nolan (1917-1992), Albert Tucker (1914-1999), Fred Williams (1927-1982) and John Olsen (b. 1928) also visited mining regions (many of which were in Northern Western Australia), and depicted mining and mineral rich landscapes. In some cases these visits were prompted, and commissioned by the mining companies themselves. While the theme of mining been addressed to a small degree in critical commentaries of each artist, the thematic of mining in painting more generally has largely been overlooked. This paper will survey mining as a thematic in Australian painting, and seeks to locate mining related paintings within the broader Australian landscape painting tradition.
In 1794, following his participation in a duel, Xavier de Maistre was placed under a period of ho... more In 1794, following his participation in a duel, Xavier de Maistre was placed under a period of house arrest which spanned forty-two days. During this time he composed the work Voyage Around My Room, a model for undertaking introspected journeys within one’s own home. This work associatively counterpoised the interior confines of the home with both imagination and memory. The ‘mental traveller’ was encouraged to conceive of journeys that drew from the remembrance of other journeys (whether those be experienced personally or vicariously through literature or travel narratives), the imaginative possibilities of experiences beyond the realm of one’s own experience, and preconceived notions of the nature of travel and place.
Maistre’s prescriptive narrative, and its subsequent sequel, engaged with a number of historic precedents. Firstly, in terms of the associative values of objects and places (and the imagined traversal of these), it resembled and exploited what Frances Yates was to later dub the art of memory, being a techne for extending the natural memory advocated by practitioners of classical rhetoric. Secondly, the work responded to the growing eighteenth century fascination with travel narratives and the vicarious experience of adventure and place they facilitated. This paper will discuss memory in relation to the imagined voyage, with particular reference to Xavier de Maistre, places and narratives designed for vicarious travel, and the classical art of memory.
Selected Conference and Symposium Papers by Nicole Sully
Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: 37, What If? What Next? Speculations on History’s Futures, edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi, 2021
Following the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1963, Dallas was nic... more Following the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy in November 1963, Dallas was nicknamed “the city of hate”. In the weeks and months following the assassination and its aftermath citizens of elsewhere wrote to various public forums and officials to express their hatred of the city and its citizens. The planning of the assassination site was silently implicated in the endless interrogation of the crime, through analytical mapping and models, as well as the ever-present landmarks
represented in documentation of the assassination. In response to these events, the city introduced a number of new architectural and urban planning gestures to aid in the economic and social recovery from this tragic event. Re-planning and re-building became a literal rather than metaphorical means for Dallas to make amends for the burden of its history. This paper will examine how the built environment was quietly
implicated in the death of President Kennedy, and the measures that were taken to redress the negative portrayal of the city throughout America and the world.
To Cite this paper:
Nicole Sully. “Urban Planning After JFK: Re-planning the ‘City of Hate’.” In Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: 37, What If? What Next? Speculations on History’s Futures, edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi, 296-303. Perth: SAHANZ, 2021. Accepted for publication December 11, 2020.
Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/wp-content/uploads/2B_296-303_SULLY.pdf
Full Proceedings Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/conferences/proceedings/page/2/
In 1977 the Voyager I and Voyager II twin probes were launched into deep space on a fact-finding ... more In 1977 the Voyager I and Voyager II twin probes were launched into deep space on a fact-finding grand tour of the cosmos. The unmanned space probes were to make close observations of major planets including Jupiter and Saturn and their various moons. Each of the Voyager probes carried a copy of what is known as the Golden Record - a twelve-inch phonograph record made from gold-plated copper - that was conceived as a cosmic greeting card intended to introduce and educate alien life to the ways of planet Earth.
The compilation, overseen by scientist Carl Sagan, included a carefully curated collection of music including, among others, work by Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry. A selection of ‘the sounds of Earth’ were also represented through whale songs as well as the sound of thunder, crickets and Morse code. Greetings and well wishes were recorded in fifty-five languages, and included messages of peace and friendship from countries such as Greece, Israel, Brazil and Syria as well and more idiosyncratic messages, such as that from Sweden, whose message was a greeting ‘from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on the Planet of Earth’. The Golden Record was tantamount to a compilation of civilisation's greatest hits.
In addition to these sound recordings, the Golden Record was encoded with 118 images that were chosen to represent the richness and diversity of life on Earth. Among these were a number of images of the built environment and specific works of architecture ranging from images of vernacular buildings in Africa through to views of towns, cities and highways. It also included a series of images of landmark buildings and structures, including the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge, the United Nations Building, and the Sydney Opera House. The Golden Record, in effect established the first canon of human architecture and endeavour intended for the unknown residents of the universe. This paper will chronicle and critically consider the architectural content of the Golden Record.
Fabulation : myth, nature, heritage : proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia & New Zealand, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia, 5th-8th July 2012, 2012
The nineteenth century witnessed a vast increase in the publication of advice manuals in many fie... more The nineteenth century witnessed a vast increase in the publication of advice manuals in many fields of interest, including the production of treatises on etiquette, manners and behaviour that were aimed at both male and female readers. Treatises such as The Laws of Etiquette (1836), A Manual of Politeness (1837) and Martine's Hand-book of Etiquette and Guide to True Politeness (1866) advised their readers on the proper codes and practices of behaviour at the dining table and in the ballroom, as well as more general advice on small-talk, avoiding awkwardness and characteristics of goodbreeding. While the emphasis of such publications was, generally, in advising individuals on the proper customs and behaviours within the domestic sphere, they also offered advice on correct behaviour when travelling outside of the home: both in the city or town of one's residence, and when travelling further afield. In particular, such publications commonly featured sections on 'street etiquette' that outlined the proper conventions for walking, meeting, greeting and deportment on the street. The overwhelming emphasis of such advice was the proper behaviour of and towards ladies in the public realm of the street. This paper will examine the codes of behaviour for the street and contextualise these advice manuals amongst architectural and social practices of the city.
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Books by Nicole Sully
Shifting Views draws together a selection of writing from across twenty-five years of these conferences to provide a fascinating view into the region's architectural history discipline. The essays collected here, from such diverse thinkers as Judith Brine, Joan Kerr, Miles Lewis, Sarah Treadwell, Philip Goad, Julie Willis and Mike Austin, reflect some of the most illuminating debates from these conferences.
Together these essays capture a tone of critical enquiry and the conditioins of writing architectural history in Australia New Zealand. Shifting Views takes us into the mechanics of architectural history-making, exposing its foundations and demonstrating how they can be called account. It shows us how architectural history has been made and revised, giving us a glimpse of the means by which our past becomes our history.
This collection of essays explores historical, geographical and cultural factors that contribute to our understanding of places and settings of Australian transient communities.
From Gwalia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Charters Towers in Queensland, and Queenstown in Tasmania, the places provide opportunity to revisit sites of history from the different angles of architecture, landscape theory, social history and visual arts. They also provide a springboard for thinking through the pressing issues for of contemporary Australians and counterparts in other ‘post-settler’ societies.
Contents:
1. Introduction to Australian places, place-making and the politics of displacement in a transient society / William M. Taylor
2. 'Public photographs': a serial representation of Kalgoorlie, 1893-1903 / Philip Goldswain
3. The moral economy of prefabrication: the curious case of the Brown Hill Mine building and Kalgoorlie Health Laboratory, c. 1899-1923 / William M. Taylor
4. Burning the bastards out: the destruction of Yugoslav homes on the Boulder lease, 1934 / Criena Fitzgerald
5. From lords of creation to petticoat dominions: the place of women during the gold rush of 1851 / Clarissa Ball
6. 'The world' and Charters Towers: gold, stock exchanges and the electric telegraph in the first era of globalisation / John Macarthur
7. Mining, place and propriety in Queenstown: architectural propriety and belonging in social and environmental contexts / Stuart King
8. On the edge of beyond: mining and painting the Australian landscape / Nicole Sully
9. Designing way out: Shay Gap and the 'living laboratory' of the 1970s / Lee Stickells
10. Back to the future: FIFO, mining and urbanisation in Australia / Mathew Aitchison.
Selected Journal Articles by Nicole Sully
This paper will discuss a number of famed instances in the history of Modern Architecture where climatic conditions have become a contested issue in the reception of ‘the masterpiece’.
Selected Book Chapters by Nicole Sully
Links: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/laboratory-lifestyles
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1029794575
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262038927/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_gCCICb02JAGE6
Maistre’s prescriptive narrative, and its subsequent sequel, engaged with a number of historic precedents. Firstly, in terms of the associative values of objects and places (and the imagined traversal of these), it resembled and exploited what Frances Yates was to later dub the art of memory, being a techne for extending the natural memory advocated by practitioners of classical rhetoric. Secondly, the work responded to the growing eighteenth century fascination with travel narratives and the vicarious experience of adventure and place they facilitated. This paper will discuss memory in relation to the imagined voyage, with particular reference to Xavier de Maistre, places and narratives designed for vicarious travel, and the classical art of memory.
Selected Conference and Symposium Papers by Nicole Sully
represented in documentation of the assassination. In response to these events, the city introduced a number of new architectural and urban planning gestures to aid in the economic and social recovery from this tragic event. Re-planning and re-building became a literal rather than metaphorical means for Dallas to make amends for the burden of its history. This paper will examine how the built environment was quietly
implicated in the death of President Kennedy, and the measures that were taken to redress the negative portrayal of the city throughout America and the world.
To Cite this paper:
Nicole Sully. “Urban Planning After JFK: Re-planning the ‘City of Hate’.” In Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: 37, What If? What Next? Speculations on History’s Futures, edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi, 296-303. Perth: SAHANZ, 2021. Accepted for publication December 11, 2020.
Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/wp-content/uploads/2B_296-303_SULLY.pdf
Full Proceedings Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/conferences/proceedings/page/2/
The compilation, overseen by scientist Carl Sagan, included a carefully curated collection of music including, among others, work by Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry. A selection of ‘the sounds of Earth’ were also represented through whale songs as well as the sound of thunder, crickets and Morse code. Greetings and well wishes were recorded in fifty-five languages, and included messages of peace and friendship from countries such as Greece, Israel, Brazil and Syria as well and more idiosyncratic messages, such as that from Sweden, whose message was a greeting ‘from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on the Planet of Earth’. The Golden Record was tantamount to a compilation of civilisation's greatest hits.
In addition to these sound recordings, the Golden Record was encoded with 118 images that were chosen to represent the richness and diversity of life on Earth. Among these were a number of images of the built environment and specific works of architecture ranging from images of vernacular buildings in Africa through to views of towns, cities and highways. It also included a series of images of landmark buildings and structures, including the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge, the United Nations Building, and the Sydney Opera House. The Golden Record, in effect established the first canon of human architecture and endeavour intended for the unknown residents of the universe. This paper will chronicle and critically consider the architectural content of the Golden Record.
Shifting Views draws together a selection of writing from across twenty-five years of these conferences to provide a fascinating view into the region's architectural history discipline. The essays collected here, from such diverse thinkers as Judith Brine, Joan Kerr, Miles Lewis, Sarah Treadwell, Philip Goad, Julie Willis and Mike Austin, reflect some of the most illuminating debates from these conferences.
Together these essays capture a tone of critical enquiry and the conditioins of writing architectural history in Australia New Zealand. Shifting Views takes us into the mechanics of architectural history-making, exposing its foundations and demonstrating how they can be called account. It shows us how architectural history has been made and revised, giving us a glimpse of the means by which our past becomes our history.
This collection of essays explores historical, geographical and cultural factors that contribute to our understanding of places and settings of Australian transient communities.
From Gwalia and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, Charters Towers in Queensland, and Queenstown in Tasmania, the places provide opportunity to revisit sites of history from the different angles of architecture, landscape theory, social history and visual arts. They also provide a springboard for thinking through the pressing issues for of contemporary Australians and counterparts in other ‘post-settler’ societies.
Contents:
1. Introduction to Australian places, place-making and the politics of displacement in a transient society / William M. Taylor
2. 'Public photographs': a serial representation of Kalgoorlie, 1893-1903 / Philip Goldswain
3. The moral economy of prefabrication: the curious case of the Brown Hill Mine building and Kalgoorlie Health Laboratory, c. 1899-1923 / William M. Taylor
4. Burning the bastards out: the destruction of Yugoslav homes on the Boulder lease, 1934 / Criena Fitzgerald
5. From lords of creation to petticoat dominions: the place of women during the gold rush of 1851 / Clarissa Ball
6. 'The world' and Charters Towers: gold, stock exchanges and the electric telegraph in the first era of globalisation / John Macarthur
7. Mining, place and propriety in Queenstown: architectural propriety and belonging in social and environmental contexts / Stuart King
8. On the edge of beyond: mining and painting the Australian landscape / Nicole Sully
9. Designing way out: Shay Gap and the 'living laboratory' of the 1970s / Lee Stickells
10. Back to the future: FIFO, mining and urbanisation in Australia / Mathew Aitchison.
This paper will discuss a number of famed instances in the history of Modern Architecture where climatic conditions have become a contested issue in the reception of ‘the masterpiece’.
Links: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/laboratory-lifestyles
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1029794575
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0262038927/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_gCCICb02JAGE6
Maistre’s prescriptive narrative, and its subsequent sequel, engaged with a number of historic precedents. Firstly, in terms of the associative values of objects and places (and the imagined traversal of these), it resembled and exploited what Frances Yates was to later dub the art of memory, being a techne for extending the natural memory advocated by practitioners of classical rhetoric. Secondly, the work responded to the growing eighteenth century fascination with travel narratives and the vicarious experience of adventure and place they facilitated. This paper will discuss memory in relation to the imagined voyage, with particular reference to Xavier de Maistre, places and narratives designed for vicarious travel, and the classical art of memory.
represented in documentation of the assassination. In response to these events, the city introduced a number of new architectural and urban planning gestures to aid in the economic and social recovery from this tragic event. Re-planning and re-building became a literal rather than metaphorical means for Dallas to make amends for the burden of its history. This paper will examine how the built environment was quietly
implicated in the death of President Kennedy, and the measures that were taken to redress the negative portrayal of the city throughout America and the world.
To Cite this paper:
Nicole Sully. “Urban Planning After JFK: Re-planning the ‘City of Hate’.” In Proceedings of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: 37, What If? What Next? Speculations on History’s Futures, edited by Kate Hislop and Hannah Lewi, 296-303. Perth: SAHANZ, 2021. Accepted for publication December 11, 2020.
Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/wp-content/uploads/2B_296-303_SULLY.pdf
Full Proceedings Available at: https://www.sahanz.net/conferences/proceedings/page/2/
The compilation, overseen by scientist Carl Sagan, included a carefully curated collection of music including, among others, work by Bach, Mozart, Louis Armstrong and Chuck Berry. A selection of ‘the sounds of Earth’ were also represented through whale songs as well as the sound of thunder, crickets and Morse code. Greetings and well wishes were recorded in fifty-five languages, and included messages of peace and friendship from countries such as Greece, Israel, Brazil and Syria as well and more idiosyncratic messages, such as that from Sweden, whose message was a greeting ‘from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on the Planet of Earth’. The Golden Record was tantamount to a compilation of civilisation's greatest hits.
In addition to these sound recordings, the Golden Record was encoded with 118 images that were chosen to represent the richness and diversity of life on Earth. Among these were a number of images of the built environment and specific works of architecture ranging from images of vernacular buildings in Africa through to views of towns, cities and highways. It also included a series of images of landmark buildings and structures, including the Great Wall of China, the Golden Gate Bridge, the United Nations Building, and the Sydney Opera House. The Golden Record, in effect established the first canon of human architecture and endeavour intended for the unknown residents of the universe. This paper will chronicle and critically consider the architectural content of the Golden Record.
Endeavours to conceal social realities, such as those practiced by the Brazilians, or the less extreme measures of Olympic host cities, have generated a number of interesting issues with regard to not only exclusion but artifice and illusion. Issues which were also present in 2003 when the APEC summit in Bangkok saw beautification efforts extend beyond the placement of potted plants and the removal of dogs and beggars. The Thai government erected large banners to hide views of the slums from visiting delegates, a tactic which was alarmingly reminiscent of the actions of Grigory Potemkin. Coinciding with Catherine the Great’s tour of the Crimea in the eighteenth century, legend has it that Potemkin staged the construction of elaborate fake villages along the shores of the Dnieper River, to give the impression of prosperity among its citizens - concealing social realities with cardboard constructed illusions. This paper will discuss the Potemkin Village and its legacy, with reference to the Bangkok banners.
In 1962 Perth hosted the VIIth British Empire and Commonwealth Games. The Games marked a growing civic confidence and were enthusiastically embraced by a city aspiring to international significance. A number of architectural projects completed at the time became emblematic of that “moment in the sun.” This paper explores the varying fates of some of these projects and the way in which they have become integral to debates about the notion of heritage, including the ability of the built environment to embody history.
Amongst the major projects completed at the time of the Games were the City of Perth’s Council House, and the Athletes’ Village in suburban Floreat. Although its future was uncertain for some time, Council House was successfully heritage-listed, restored, and still stands as an emblem of ‘60s civic pride. The fate of the Games Village is far less certain. The struggle to avoid the “burdens” of heritage has recently exploded among homeowners in the Empire Games Village. In 2003, an announcement that this area was undergoing assessment to determine its worth as a heritage precinct sparked residential outrage, and an unprecedented number of demolition applications from property owners anxious not to be restrained by a heritage listing.
Discussing the debates surrounding Council House and the Empire Games Village, this paper will explore issues related to the fear of heritage in Perth and the problematic nature of embodying collective memory.
This publication was produced in association with the 'Civic Visions: Council House 1954-1963' exhibition on show at Council House from 4 November 2019 until 17 January 2020. The exhibition was commissioned by the City of Perth, to coinicide with Perth Open House 2019, and was curated by Leonie Matthews (Matthews McDonald Architects/University of Notre Dame) and Nicole Sully (University of Queensland)
In 1960, after years of debate the Perth City Council decided to proceed with a national architecture competition for the design of a new town hall and administrative building. The final selection for the site was the parcel of land on St Georges Terrace. There was much interest from the architecture community with the council receiving 184 registrations for the competition, with 61 entries submitted. The competition was won by Melbourne based team of Jeffrey Howlett and Donald Bailey. Second place was awarded to the well-known Perth architecture firm Cameron Chisholm and Nicol, with third place given to a Perth consortium of Anthony Brand, Ronald J Ferguson and William R Weedon.
This exhibition re-visits the competition, the context and the construction of Council House - completed in time for the 1962 British Empire and
Commonwealth Games held in Perth. The exhibition will enable visitors to view other competition submissions and imagine alternative histories of Perth. It will also allow a greater understanding of the complex social and cultural history of Perth and its efforts to establish an identity as a modern, progressive city.
The Frank and Eunice Corley collection consists of approximately 61,000 photographs of houses taken in Queensland suburbs in the 1960s and 70s and sold to households as calendars and Christmas cards. Consisting of images that didn't sell, and which were retained by Frank Corley for taxation purposes, it is estimated that the complete collection approached 300,000 images. Frank, in a pink Cadillac, drove the suburban streets of Brisbane (and a number of Queensland towns) documenting every house that could be seen from the street. Eunice, based in a mobile dark room parked strategically in each suburb, developed the film, and a team of salespeople worked the suburbs selling the images. While Frank and Eunice’s project was primarily an entrepreneurial one, the collection is valued for the stories it tells of Queensland’s suburbs, its heterogenous and complex nature, and the lifestyles it fostered.
'Home: A Suburban Obsession' explores the collection and how it is used and interpreted by various agents including researchers, artists, designers, educators and community groups. The exhibition also includes work by Dr Frederico Teixeira (UQ School of Architecture) working with Muge Belek, The Annerley Stephens History Group, Jennifer Marchant and Ian Strange.
'Home: A Suburban Obsession' explores the collection and how it is used and interpreted by various agents including researchers, artists, designers, educators and community groups.
Dr Nicole Sully,
School of Architecture, University of Queensland
Abstract for Unpublished Paper delivered at 104th Annual Conference of the College Art Association, Washington D.C., February 3–6, 2016
In 1964 Yoko Ono’s "Grapefruit" reduced artworks to ideas and instructions that represented the artist disembodied, the art object decontextualized and dematerialised and artworks created by proxy. Three decades later, Ono embarked upon "100 Acorns", which involved issuing one hundred event scores on a dedicated website over one hundred days. In transforming the scores from physical objects to digital moments, the project emphasised the temporal and performative nature of Ono’s own contribution. In 2013 this project was repeated via Twitter and Instagram before being republished as a book. Both "Grapefruit" and "100 Acorns" involved the repeated translation and exchange of the material and immaterial; the art form is conceived, written, represented, produced, distributed, reproduced and enacted. Focussing on "Grapefruit" and "100 Acorns", this paper will consider the digital dissemination of the event scores of Yoko Ono to explore the translation and exchange between the material and immaterial in her work.
Dr Nicole Sully, School of Architecture, University of Queensland
Abstract for Paper Delivered in the ‘Appetite for Destruction’ session, College Art Association Conference 105th Annual Conference, New York, 15-18 February 2017.
As theorists ranging from Susan Sontag to Mike Davis have observed, the destruction of cities and iconic buildings were a common vision in literature and film throughout the twentieth century. In 1937, responding to rapid growth and modernization in the town, John Betjemann wrote, “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now.” Six years later, Ayn Rand’s character of the perfectionist architect Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead" chose to destroy his own building rather than allow an aesthetically compromised scheme to remain. These iconic moments that fantasized about the deliberate obliteration of modern architecture were also paralleled in art. In 1968 Ed Ruscha imagined the destruction of the ultimate white box in "The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire". In 1995 Sam Durant, referencing the modernist works of California’s iconic Case Study Houses, constructed these in various stage of ruin. In 2013 Chris Larson mounted a performance whereby a life-size model of a Marcel Breuer house was publicly and performatively burned. More recently Xavier Delary embarked upon his “Pilgrimage to modernity” project that represented Le Corbusier’s pristine white modernist house, the Villa Savoye, in a state of graffiti-covered decay—a work inadvertently complemented by Le Petite Architect (2016) that allowed one to digitally destroy the same house.
This paper critically considers these and other works, as well as the intellectual context and creative impulses that have led to the artful destruction of modern architecture in art spanning from the mid-twentieth century until the present.
The parable of Noah’s Ark has taken on new significance in recent decades, as scientists forecast the catastrophic effects of climate change— including increasing temperatures, rising seas and mass extinctions—that may be seen by the year 2050. Taking inspiration from scientific prophecies of climate calamity, the narrative of Noah, and the
ark as an architectural archetype, participants in this studio will be invited to make an urban proposition for an “ark” to provide refuge for the
year 2050.
Available at: https://www.architecture.uq.edu.au/news/humans-landed-moon-50-years-ago-what-if-they%E2%80%99d-stayed
Half a century after the first manned Moon landing, the long-imagined possibilities of outposts and colonies in space have yet to be realised. In the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing, this studio invites students to revisit this seminal moment in human history, by designing a lunar colony, and exploring new and utopian possibilities for the Moon.
The studio considered ways in which cities deal with their own history. Students were invited to consider how cities recognize, address and progress from problematic pasts, and specifically, the artifacts and urban legacies that represent these troubling moments in the context of recent debates surrounding the legacy of the Civil War in the United States of America, and through the particular case study of Richmond, Virginia.
Studio Scenario:
The year is 2017. In the past twelve months the United Kingdom voted for Brexit, the people of Australia elected Pauline Hanson to the Senate, Donald Trump was voted in as the American President, bees were listed as an endangered species, and scientists predicted that coffee may be extinct by 2080. Distraught at the state of the world, in particular the outcome of the US election, a group of like-minded individuals, choose to retreat from society, and start their own community that is intended to be a survivalist-infused utopian refuge. This community will be a place to ride out the storm for the next four years (or longer), and a place of both refuge and resistance. It will be a place to not only dwell and work, but a repository for the values and knowledge that are currently under threat. Its citizens begin by soliciting architectural proposals.
Taking inspiration from grassroots movements, such as ‘Calexit’, the proposed settlement draws on an historic secessionist proposition, known as Cascadia, that hoped to form an independent nation based around the Cascadia bioregion, on the north western coast of America, that includes parts of California, Alaska, Oregon, Washington State, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Canada.