“Architecture is the will of an epoch translated into space.” Mies van der Rohe.

Writing an omnibus volume on the full span of Australian architecture is such a daunting task that it's only ever been attempted twice. The second, ‘Australian Architecture, a History’ by Davina Jackson was released this month. The writing is excellent, but the book is flawed.

On the first page Jackson pays homage to Max Freeland’s ‘Architecture in Australia’ published in 1968. The difference in titles of the two books is telling. The earlier seeks to set out the history, whilst Jackson also seeks to find what is ‘Australian’ about our architecture through a telling of history.

Jackson finds that Freeland’s history holds up in the hindsight of more rigorous research, although she claims it mentions too few architects, which Jackson sets to ‘writes’ by name checking every architect with a significant building in Australia in the last 230 years.

Davina Jackson writes exceptionally clearly; 6 books and moreover ten years as editor of the AIA magazine ‘Architecture Australia’ have honed her craft as a professional journalist to be able to undertake the enormous task in front of her. The text flows smoothly, making this vast sweep eminently readable. She is a rarity in architectural writing.

The story starts with pre-white-settlement designs, correcting a lacuna in the writing of many previous writers including Robin Boyd, but not Walter Bunning’s ‘Homes in the Sun’. She draws upon the one great text for this research, Paul Memmott’s ‘Gunyah Goondie and Wurley: the Aboriginal Architecture of Australia’, and the good news on that front is the publisher, U of Q, is looking to re-publish it, now that copies are so rare as to fetch more than $2,000 (if you find one).

The readability of ‘Australian Architecture, a History’ is greatly aided by the text layout. The book is divided into 10 chapters, which are further divided into headings in bold font at the start of the discussion of a style or period, which could be seen as a bit cheesy, but this is a book of stories to dip in and out of. It's a pleasure to read. So far, so good.

My gripes are twofold. Firstly, the writing leans too heavily on style over substance. This may well be forced by the sheer volume of material, but it is not helped by a two-page spread of multiple images of overseas ‘design influences’ in each chapter. There are very few images of interiors (architecture is space), fewer plans and no sections. All reinforcing the view of the book as a catalogue of styles.

It makes all the works look derivative, when the focus, at least according to the title, is architecture that is definitively Australian. If style is the arbiter, then you’re better off reading this most comprehensive text.

But the big question is why is the book design so appalling? The layout is terrible; many images are totally disconnected from the text (a discussion of Walter Griffin and Marion Mahony's ‘Knitlock’ blocks appears on page 165 but is illustrated on page 183).

Moreover, the illustrations: they are jumbled in size, poorly positioned and some are poor reproductions, even though in colour. It includes a pet hate: images set across the gutter of a perfect bound book; either accept you'll never see the center of the photograph or destroy the book by breaking the spine to see it.

Jackson’s time at Architecture Australia was marked by a major lift in the graphic quality of the magazine and she is a stickler for clarity. So, it’s a puzzle how this poor book design happened.

By way of contrast, the book ‘Australia, modern architectures in history’ by Harry Margolit (one of a series surveying some 20 countries in a similar format) has larger, better proportioned images, and better displayed albeit only in black and white. Images of contrasting or parallel designs are often cleverly juxtaposed on opposite pages.

The downside here can be some of the ‘architecturalese’ such as “the iconography inheres the meticulous detailing and engineered plasticity of concrete as a material of high architecture”. Mars the argument and flow somewhat.

Finally, can you use Jackson’s book as a ‘guide’ to finding the architecture? Well, yes and no, and maybe the web is the saviour. The text makes an interesting case for the influence of digitization on 21^stC architecture, so, one defence for the poor imagery and thumbnails may well be that many more, and better, images can be easily found on the web. That’s how a print book, and its fixed images, may be expanded.

But the inconsistency in captions can be infuriating. On page 286 there are small colour images of four high rise office buildings. One has the street and number, two are listed by the name of the street, and the fourth has no address at all. Here are two other books which provide a more direct guide to finding those buildings (as well as multiple guides to individual cities and precincts).

Davina Jackson’s book will sell well: every architect and student in Australia will want one, as well the public wanting to be better informed on architecture. Let’s hope that success encourages the publisher, Allen and Unwin, find a better graphic designer for this very important, and well written, work.

Postscript to last week’s column: as predicted, Elizabeth Farrelly stole votes from Labor, but the preferences weren’t there to flow back to them, so Strathfield seemed the odd one out in four contests, with a swing to the Liberals. Preferential voting with strong women challenging Liberal members in the Federal election may have quite a different outcome.

Tone Wheeler is principal architect at Environa Studio, Adjunct Professor at UNSW and is President of the Australian Architecture Association. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and are not held or endorsed by A+D, the AAA or UNSW. Tone does not read Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or Linked In. Sanity is preserved by reading and replying only to comments addressed to toneontuesday@gmail.com.

Tone Wheeler

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