The University of Melbourne and Harvard University have jointly announced that professor Philip Goad has been appointed as the Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser Chair in Australian Studies for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Internationally renowned for his research on Australian architecture, professor Goad is chair of Architecture and Redmond Barry Distinguished professor in the university’s faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning and a former president of the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

In 1994 he received the Joint RAPI Award for Excellence from Planning Institute of Australia, while in 2000, Goad was awarded the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media, from the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. In 1994 he received the Joint RAPI Award for Excellence from the Planning Institute of Australia.

Goad is also a past editor of Fabrications, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, and is a contributing editor to Architecture Australia and co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture.

As an expert on the life and work of Australian architect, writer, teacher and social commentator Robin Boyd, he has held visiting scholar positions at Columbia University, Bartlett School of Architecture (London) and UCLA (Los Angeles).

Joining Harvard’s Department of the History of Art and Architecture, Goad will spend the year teaching courses on Australian architecture from earliest times to the present and transnational exchange, and its connection to the Americas.

“This appointment represents a unique opportunity for me to present the complex and sometimes contested histories of Australian architecture to an international audience and engage with some of the world’s leading art historians,” he says.

“Historians of architecture and urbanism in Australia, the United States and former colonies have recently turned their attention to questions of indigeneity, migration and transnational networks. I hope my teaching will foster a new dialogue, one that sees the relationship between Australia and the United States in a reconsidered light.”

Goad’s current research explores 20th century Australian architecture and its trans-Pacific connections to the Americas.

“I’m excited to offer fresh interpretations and learn from Harvard colleagues about their vision for the future of the history of art and architecture, especially as it relates to networks and the New World,” says Goad.

The visiting professorship was established at Harvard in 1976, as a result of a gift from the Australian government to mark the bicentennial of the United States. Previous appointments include professors Geoffrey Blainey, Chris Wallace-Crabbe and Stuart Macintyre and Dr Chris McAuliffe.

Branko Miletic

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