Making Landscape Architecture in Australia

Making Landscape

Architecture in Australia

Dr AnDrew SAnigA is Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture,

Planning and Urbanism at the University of Melbourne. He has

taught history, design, and landscape heritage and conservation since 1994 and has published in all these fields.

LandscapeArchitctureText2PrintFINAL.indd 1 27/08/12 12:12 PM

Making Landscape

Architecture in Australia

Andrew Saniga


A UNSW Press book

Published bynewSouth Publishing University of new South wales Press LtdUniversity of new South walesSydney nSw 2052AUSTrALiAnewsouthpublishing.com

© Andrew Saniga 2012First published 2012

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This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without written permission. inquiries should be addressed to the publisher.

national Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entryAuthor: Saniga, Andrew.Title: Making Landscape Architecture in Australia/Andrew John Saniga.iSBn: 9781742233550 (pbk.) 9781742246079 (ePDF)Subjects: Landscape architecture – Australia – History. Landscape gardening – Australia – History.Dewey number: 712.0994

Design Josephine Pajor-Markus Cover design Pfisterer + FreemanCover images top Bruce Mackenzie speaking at XXiFLA world Congress, Canberra, 1982, photograph by ralph neale. bottom The first mudbrick building in 1974 with members of the eltham Mob, A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, Mullaya Publications, Victoria background bottom Landscape plan titled ‘Plan Layout and Planting Yarra Bend national Park’ by Hugh Linaker, 5 May 1930, State Library of Victoria Acc no. H348 background top woomera Village, South Australia, Andrew Saniga 2010. back cover woomera Village, South Australia, Andrew Saniga 2010 Serpentine Dam tourist map by John Oldham 1961, water Corporation Perth and Trustees, John Br Oldham estatePrinter everbest, China

All reasonable efforts were taken to obtain permission to use copyright material reproduced in this book, but in some cases copyright could not be traced. The author welcomes information in this regard.

This book is printed on paper using fibre supplied from plantation or sustainably managed forests.


To Lyn, Rudi, Stanys and Clyde


Contents

introduction viii

1 Landscapearchitectureincontext 1

Creators of landscape and environment 1

roots of the profession 6

early proponents of an emerging discipline 10

2 originsandprecedents16

Landscape and power 18

international ideas 28

edna walling and her contemporaries 42

3 spiritofthepioneers62

garden 66

City 88

Land and country 104

4 unevenpaths123

infrastructure 124

A landscape for Monash 147


5 aninstituteforidentity 166

institutionalisation of landscape architecture 167

Forming identity 183

6 Makingground199

reclaiming land 201

Assessing the value of landscape 215

Site planning and design 233

7 contestedterritories 255

The transformative power of urban space 259

Making claims to Australian urban design 270

Landscapes of the future 294

Acknowledgments 303

notes 307

Bibliography 319

Abbreviations 333

index 334


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Introduction

The complexity of landscapes makes them difficult to define, to put bounda-ries around, to conserve or protect and, importantly, to value. Urban Australia exhibits an eclectic array of public parks and gardens, whose qualities are often not understood, although these spaces may be greatly admired and lovingly preserved. As well as parks and gardens, urban landscapes include the conduits we drive along, the neighbourhoods we seek to live within, the distant views we appreciate, and the myriad of other places we seek out for a sense of escape. Thought of this way, landscapes are a product not only of design but also of planning, politics, bureaucracy, community, and a host of idiosyncratic forces. They satisfy needs for a sense of beauty, for contact with nature, and other requirements intrinsic to social and cultural life. The creators of these land-scapes, likewise, form a challenging group to understand and to appreciate, or even to label; they call themselves different things, and are labelled differently by third parties, they work at different scales, and they often have very differ-ent motivations.

This book is about those who design landscape. The focus is on landscape architects but the story extends far beyond the profession itself: it is a story that is ultimately connected to the everyday worlds of people who experience landscape. important planning and design premises of landscape architecture are also discussed, addressing aesthetics in the context of particular cases of landscape design, management, site planning, urban design, cultural and natu-ral heritage, and landscape rehabilitation.

Structured sequentially, the book looks at particular themes relevant for particular times. Some of the people discussed are well known and some are obscure.


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The scope of this book is Australia-wide, although the author resides in Melbourne and, with the exception of six months of research in Perth and numerous short visits to Canberra and Sydney, the availability of primary sources in Melbourne tends to bias local examples. However, it is also true that many of the people significant in the development of the discipline and institutionalisation of landscape architecture worked in Melbourne or Sydney. education in horticulture in Australia commenced in the late 19th century in Melbourne (Victoria currently hosts three tertiary courses in landscape architecture) and key designers spent most of their working life in the state. Victoria’s popularised 1970s motto, ‘the garden State’, and the activities of the garden State Committee reflect the fact that the Melbourne region has a temperate climate capable of growing a great wealth and breadth of plant materials and this, too, helps to explain why designers and the landscapes they created in Melbourne are of such prominence.

Sydney, too, has a great wealth of landscape design culture; and Canberra was, in a sense, a home to the new profession, both from the point of view of planning and design and in the context of institutionalisation of the profes-sion. Other states such as Queensland were, perhaps because of the nature of their economies, afflicted more severely by factors such as weeds, world war and economic depression, all of which stifled the expansion of gardening.1 The cities of Brisbane, Hobart and Adelaide, and the designers found in each of these respective states, feature less prominently. However, for readers new to the profession, this book will explain key aspects of lineage and enable them to reflect on how to define landscape architecture. For the more knowledge-able reader and likewise for scholars of landscape history, this book provides a framework for positioning and comparing other practitioners or events known to them or to their respective cities. For landscape architects this book should be the cause for critical reflection of the work they are engaged in, the roots underpinning it and, ultimately, the question of interpreting (and possibly conserving) landscape architecture of the recent past.

Landscape architecture was advanced in 1979 when the first issue of a national professional journal, Landscape Australia, was published. encouraged by the staff of the Centre for environmental Studies at the University of Mel-bourne, ralph neale was the journal’s instigator and inaugural editor and he


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continued to produce the journal for the next 22 years as the only real public forum for the profession in Australia. ralph neale is also a historian, photog-rapher, painter, naturalist and is responsible for many images within this book. Landscape Australia helped to represent a particular charter for the profession, a charter that was overwhelmingly one of stewardship of the land. Contribu-tors to the journal came from a wide array of backgrounds with varying issues and concerns, all crucial to understanding the make-up of landscape archi-tecture in Australia in the early years. without Landscape Australia, and its descendent, Landscape Architecture Australia edited by Cameron Bruhn, much of the history of landscape architecture in Australia would be lost.

This book is a starting point for assembling some of this history, and for uncovering and debating what is undoubtedly a rich and interesting story.


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Landscape architecture in context

creatorsofLandscapeandenvironMentin 1993, as a new graduate of landscape architecture, i stumbled upon Papadakis Park, while exploring the Melbourne suburb of west Sunshine. Speaking with the local community, i learned that the park was named as such in the early 1990s and its exact location had once been the site of the proposed r5 Metropolitan ring road, whose initial routing had potentially involved the compulsory acquisition and demolition of 105 homes, including that of Peter Papadakis.

From the time of the initial ‘leaking’ of this news, there came signs of looming resistance. The road Construction Authority mounted an exhibition of engineering drawings accompanied by a questionnaire. Papadakis felt that the nature and consequences of the freeway proposal had not been properly communicated to the multicultural community that could be affected. Folklore has it that he physically barred the entrance to the exhibition and ‘strongly’ suggested that the residents not fill out the questionnaire because he felt this would lead to misinterpretation and misuse of the data collected. The situation was intense and, combined with the outcomes of other planning and design considerations that it had been working through, the rCA decided to select an alternative route. This is how the freeways alignment came to include a noticeable bulge in a westward direction in the vicinity of west Sunshine, the cartographic expression of which stands as one of the most tangible records of west Sunshine’s historic community action.


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During the anti-road campaign there had been mention that the shifting of the freeway would provide opportunities for new development (the rumour was ‘buildings’) on the former freeway reservation but instead the vacant land became the focus of a fight for new urban parkland for west Sunshine. in november 1989 Papadakis presented council with a petition signed by approx-imately 800 residents. By november 1990 his campaigning had convinced the City of Sunshine to prepare a landscape plan for the park.

At times attempts to garden at Papadakis Park seemed futile and often in the 1990s one could observe the pathetic sight of maimed or dead plants amid a sea of stunted vegetation. The region’s heavy clay soils crack in summer and become sludge in winter. Peter Papadakis, Savvas Demetriou, Tom Diele and the community had been constantly planting a chaotic and crowded array of vegetation, consisting of native plants among pines or fruit trees and, perhaps, a 2-metre transplanted palm in the middle of a well used path. The eclectic and at times bizarre plant selection reflected different preferences within the community, but there was another logic at play. The locals knew from first-hand experience that in these poor soils the most effective way to nurture plants was to ‘borrow’ from the pockets of pre-existing friable soil surrounding the bases of existing trees or at points where trees had finally been deemed ‘deceased’. The other eclectic quality of the site was the comings and goings of signage declaring it to be ‘Papadakis Park’, and there were many prototypes: the sign drew so much controversy from both within the community (indig-nant that someone should name a ‘public’ space after themselves) and from local government that signs were taken away or demolished, sometimes even burned down. The ultimate sign, which was also eventually taken away, was made of what Papadakis referred to as ‘greek rock, Mate!’

Papadakis, who died in 2004, was not a landscape architect, nor was he a council worker or consultant designer or anything of that nature. The park that bore his name (and in one edition of Melbourne’s street directory was recorded as such) lay largely outside the bounds of the normal conventions of park-making, at least in Melbourne. Papadakis Park was not a particularly pretty place. its story was gritty and endearing, a product of its tumultuous origins, a little reminiscent of the Kerrigans’ journey in the cherished Australian film, The Castle. its design was opportunistic, based on good will and community


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effort, and its aesthetic, which was extremely powerful to behold, had noth-ing to do with anything other than the will to grow plants, any plants, and to colonise a space and to see it develop into public parkland for community use.

Today’s media popularises such activity under the title, ‘guerilla garden-ing’. But Papadakis Park was more than this. it was intrinsic to Papadakis’ life story, one that included family, immigration, factory work, resistance, Mel-bourne’s greek community, landscape planning and design. it was Papadakis’ fundamental belief in the park and his tenacity in successfully ‘working’ the bureaucracies who had a say in it, that inspired me to make comparisons with the profession i had just entered. it challenged me to reassess landscape archi-tecture; its merits, values and, importantly, its contributors – who they are and

Peter Papadakis, West Sunshine (Melbourne), 1994 (Photograph by Andrew Saniga)


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how they operate; because, ultimately, Papadakis’ struggles for a park compare favourably with some of the most intrinsic motivations of the profession.

worlds away from Papadakis Park, the designers of Australia’s many parks, gardens, streets and cities had equally to fight for their ideas, often amid very protracted bureaucratic struggles. Coupled with these struggles were often strong motivations to create places that conformed to ideals of beauty preva-lent at the time. william guilfoyle and Charles Moore created botanic gardens in Melbourne and Sydney, respectively, in the 19th century, realising english garden design ideas in the Australian context, and their creations have become important international treasures. Likewise, designs for private gardens in the early 20th century by edna walling and Paul Sorensen were astounding; their ideas persist to the current day, in books and as living creations. At the same time that these people were designing gardens in Melbourne and Sydney, a new breed of designer was emerging in north America, whose role was largely defined by the work of landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Cal-vert Vaux in new York City’s Central Park. Their work moved beyond the garden into the design of whole suburbs and park networks. The expanded role of landscape architects in north America paralleled the work of surveyors, engineers and an even broader group of talented amateurs in Australia in the 19th century. The designers of Canberra in 1912, walter Burley griffin and Marion Mahoney griffin, marked one beginning of landscape architecture in Australia yet it took another half a century for a distinct profession to emerge. Little is understood about the history of the occupations that underpin the designed landscape and how people eventually began to call themselves ‘land-scape architects’.

The post–world war ii years were a time of rapid change and unpre-cedented economic development as Australia progressed determinedly towards its consolidation as a nation. Public consciousness of and concern for the environment was increasing and the establishment of a bureaucratic infrastructure gave expression to the new concerns – for example, in 1965 the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) was formed and in 1967 the new National Parks and Wildlife Act was passed. environmental conscious-ness encouraged experimentation in garden design as designers attempted to apply environmental sensitivities to their design and planning. The planting of


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lemon-scented gums, trees that grow up to 50 metres in height, in the small front yards of inner Melbourne terrace houses became common practice, as did the furnishing of suburban garden beds with white quartz stones and native shrubs. immigration too had major ramifications for the postwar Australian workforce and, combined with growing consumerism and urban expansion, had far-reaching effects on the professions. The creation of new suburbs and the establishment of their associated infrastructure provided new opportuni-ties for work in planning, designing and developing Australia’s major cities. All of the growing cities and regional centres needed water, power, roads and resources and supplying these needs gave rise to new organisations and bureau-cracies. whether the Australian environment could cope with the demands of urban growth was less often questioned; it was simply assumed that it could. As Australian landscape architect and one of the founders of the profession ellis Stones (1895–1975) said of the period: ‘After the war the uncontrolled destruction of my country started.’1 This observation was not only incisive, it was prophetic, considering how critical issues of sustainability, climate change, and ultimately, global environmental destruction, have become in practically all social and political arenas.

The profession of landscape architecture started to emerge in the 1950s. The Olympic games came to Melbourne in 1956 and the role of the landscape architect in designing the Olympic Village in Heidelberg received consider-able attention in the press. The first office to practice landscape architecture opened in Melbourne – that of John Stevens, albeit under the professional title of Landscape Consultant. what was perhaps one of the earliest positions for a landscape architect in a government department was established in the mid-1950s when John Oldham pioneered a role for a landscape architect in the State Housing Commission and the Public works Department in western Australia. in 1958, the national Capital Development Commission (nCDC) was formed as a development body to manage the growth of the nation’s capi-tal, Canberra. The nCDC had a strong landscape architecture division and it was in Canberra that the Australian institute of Landscape Architects (AiLA) began to take shape after 1966.

The professionalisation of Australian landscape architecture was a highly distinctive, if fraught, process to which today’s landscape architects owe a great


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deal, especially for institutional backing that the AiLA provides. The forma-tion of the AiLA provided important functions, not the least of which was to underwrite the perpetuation of the profession. From a historical viewpoint, the AiLA represents activities, events, stages and turning points whose stories are critical for an understanding the profession today. The idea to create the AiLA came from very mixed influences. its formation was partly circumstan-tial, driven by motivated individuals, some carrying out the instructions of the international Federation of Landscape Architects (iFLA) to proliferate the profession and others seeking to define a profession that would give them a voice in the conservation battles in which they were embroiled. in this sense, the AiLA was a consciously constructed landmark imposed on the Australian scene and, as such, its establishment attracted some and left others bemused.

Landmarks in the landscape are often easier to determine than their con-text, which can be complex and changeable. So, as well as understanding how and why the AiLA came into being, the stories of the changing work envi-ronments upon which it was, and still is, dependent and the inevitable dis-putes that arose around it also need to be told. Because there is currently little understanding of the lineage of their profession, landscape architects have a great many lessons yet to learn. given that the profession in Australia was only institutionalised in 1966, a great deal of early landscape architectural work happened in the relatively recent past. The knowledge about the past that is unearthed in this book can shed light on issues of conservation and heritage, particularly regarding important modern gardens from the period of experi-mentation in using Australian plants. it might also be a catalyst for discussion and debate in the ongoing project of historiography of landscape architecture – a profession in Australia that in 1990 Tommy garnett, columnist for Mel-bourne newspaper The Age, referred to as ‘that still uneasy profession’.2

rootsoftheprofessionLandscape architecture is seen by some as a generalist profession. it covers diverse areas of expertise and, in this sense, attempts mastery over complexity – social, cultural, natural – in order to solve problems. its practice requires an unusually broad set of knowledge and skills that span artistic, scientific and


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technical dimensions. its multidisciplinary nature is both its strength and its Achilles heel. As well as having to acquire potentially vast fields of knowledge about land and environment, landscape architects find themselves constantly battling other professions for territory. interestingly, this harks back to the very origins of landscape architecture in the struggles and victories of some of the greatest designers in the western world. The title ‘landscape architect’ is at the core of such debates. even the profession’s founder in the United States of America, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822–1903), initially had doubts about the professional label. in 1865 he wrote:

i am all the time bothered with the miserable nomenclature of L.A. Landscape is not a good word, Architecture is not; the combination is not. Gardening is worse … The art is not gardening nor is it architecture. what i am doing here in Cal[ifornia] especially, is neither. it is the sylvan art, fine-art in distinction from Horticulture, Agriculture or Sylvan useful art. we want a distinction between a nurseryman and a market gardener & an orchardist, and an artist. And the planting of a street or road – the arrangement of villages streets – is neither Landscape Art, nor Architectural Art, nor is it both together, in my mind – of course it is not, & it will never be in the popular mind. if you are bound to establish this new art – you don’t want an old name for it.3 [italics as in the original published version.]

The term ‘landscape architecture’ appears to date back to the early 18th century, and possibly even earlier. One origin is in descriptions of buildings that were depicted in landscape painting. in designed landscapes, such as those of william Kent (1685–1748), the inclusion of architectural elements, or fabriques, represented a link between the intent behind picturesque design and one based on painterly references. The term carried through into land-scape gardening and was used in the writings of englishman John Claudius Loudon (1783–1843) and north American Andrew Jackson Downing (1815–52). Loudon and Downing had been early campaigners for the role of land-scape gardening in the creation of new parks in towns and villages. Loudon


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used ‘landscape architecture’ in 1840 to refer to the design of architectural elements set in landscapes.4 Architecture in the landscape required technical competence in designing constructed elements and an understanding of their construction methods and stylistic characteristics. Downing’s A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America, first pub-lished in 1841, discussed relationships between architecture and landscape and explained that ‘embellishments’ involved the union between the house and its immediate surroundings and the integration of the artificiality of architec-ture into the beauty of nature. This necessitated the incorporation of urns, vases, columns and other elements, such as the architectural flower garden, into landscape designs.

in order to master these embellishments, Downing employed the english-trained architect Calvert Vaux (1824–95) as an assistant in his landscape gar-dening practice so he could use Vaux’s technical skills as an architect.5 Vaux was eager to work for Downing and, with Downing, became involved in politi-cal agitation for the creation of Central Park in 1848; and it was in Down-ing’s house in 1851 that Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux first met, beginning a relationship that ultimately led to the introduction of the term ‘landscape architect’.

if Vaux represented the ‘architect’ part of the title, Olmsted most cer-tainly represented ‘landscape’. By the time of their meeting in 1851, Olmsted, unlike Vaux, was already well known because of his writing about landscape and related topics. His idealism and his bid to articulate the value of land-scape had won him a public reputation but among powerful bureaucrats he was cast as a ‘wholly unpractical man’ (as Olmsted described himself with some relish).6 when Olmsted and Vaux won the design competition for the improvement and expansion of new York’s Central Park in 1858, they recast themselves, rather idiosyncratically, in a union between landscape and archi-tecture. norman T newton dates the naming of the profession of landscape architecture as 12 May 1863:7 on this significant day, newton argues, an offi-cial government document was signed in which Olmsted and Vaux designated themselves ‘landscape architects’. This occupational title was at the core of their deliberations as professionals and their correspondence serves as a record of complex and idiosyncratic negotiations between two individuals, exposing


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aspects of their personalities and professional affiliations with other profes-sional titles, such as landscape gardening.

what these dilemmas reveal is the power attributable to different labels and the artful way in which ‘landscape architects’ sought a position in the new field of work that had emerged, in the design and management of the public park. Historians of landscape architecture tend to iron out the wrinkles of ety-mological debate about their field, favouring a positive approach and an inevi-tability about the present. The creation of the title had a distinct role to play in the competition between many professions for jurisdiction over work in the new bureaucratic structures. it has been argued that professions exist within a system, and movements within the system have repercussions elsewhere8. This theory, in which interdependence is so intrinsic, seems particularly relevant for

Central Park, New York, 2008 (Photograph by Jennifer Gavito)


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landscape architecture, which was born of more established professions such as architecture, planning and forestry.

The most monumental of Olmsted’s battles in defining landscape architec-ture as a profession was Central Park in new York, with which Olmsted and Vaux were involved from 1857 to 1877. in the fight for Central Park, Olmsted’s 1882 pamphlet, The Spoils of the Park, summarised his and Vaux’s experiences over 25 years in dealing with the Central Park Commission. A careful reading of this pamphlet reveals four themes that distinguish the profession of land-scape architecture: that the role of the landscape architect was not subordinate to other professions; that gaining and managing public support was an impor-tant aspect of the landscape architect’s role; that the landscape architect should not compromise in matters of taste or landscape value, particularly while in conflict with bureaucrats; and that the expertise of the landscape architect was distinct from that of any other professional. These axioms of practice serve as a useful basis for tracing the development of landscape architecture in Australia, both before and after people began to use the title.

earLyproponentsofaneMergingdiscipLineThe careers of Olmsted and Vaux and their protracted deliberations about the naming of this new profession help explain how the term came into use. But stepping further back in time, the discipline of landscape architecture owes much to earlier garden designers such as André Le nôtre (1613–1700) and other great master gardeners from all round the world. Mariage explains that, in Le nôtre’s time, nepotism and family dynasties dominated the profession of the master gardener in France, where a four-year apprenticeship followed by two years’ practice was required. Training involved a study program in which practical gardening was secondary to the study of graphic art, painting, geom-etry, surveying, the art of fortifications, and other skills more akin to architec-ture and decoration.9 The emphasis on art and design had been strengthened by Henri iV, who had assembled an academy of artisans at the Louvre at the end of the 16th century, thus ensuring that ‘boundaries were abolished between the mental and the manual, where art, knowledge, and know-how walked hand in hand’10. Le nôtre was very much influenced by the experi-


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mentation and multidisciplinary nature of the Louvre artisans and combined new technologies, such as those used by military tacticians, with the art of gardening. The multidisciplinary nature of landscape architecture is still one of its most important aspects, having both positive and negative implications.

in the romantic era, the english landscape garden embodied a link between landscape and nation, patriotism and politics. eighteenth-century writers and designers pitched englishness and the natural garden against French formal-ism and, ultimately, against the excessive geometric garden design of André Le nôtre’s landscapes of the French baroque. The gardens of the Chateau de Versailles, arguably one of Le nôtre’s greatest works, were all about keeping nature at bay. They were also conceived within a domain of royal servitude, built in an atmosphere of oppression and tended to within a regime of exact-ing standards. in 1770, Horace walpole (1717–97) wrote The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, in which he described the experience of French formal gardens, deriding their straight lines, symmetry, topiary and parterres as ‘childish endeavours of fashion and novelty to reconcile greatness to what it had surfeited on.’11 John Dixon Hunt explains that walpole’s patriotic zeal linked the english landscape garden to the British constitution, a position that remained unchallenged for many decades.12 Because of walpole’s widespread and long-term influence, englishness, nature and the pursuit of the natural garden gave rise to an influential school of followers who debated wholeheart-edly, and loudly, the production of the natural garden.

The english ‘Landscape gardening School’ made the articulation and dis-cernment of taste the heart of its claim to a new professional territory. if wal-pole launched the idea of modern garden design in the 18th century, the work of Humphry repton (1752–1818) and John Claudius Loudon took landscape gardening as a profession into the early 19th century. Many others contrib-uted, including william Kent (1685–1748) and Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown (1715–83), but it is the careers of repton and Loudon that are particularly referred to here, partly because of the sheer volume of their published writings, but also because of the way their careers claimed professional territory for the art of landscape gardening.

The writings of Loudon, who introduced the gardenesque theory of design in 1832, achieved international renown and influenced the development of


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horticulture and landscape gardening in Australia. His publications were used in the Australian colonies, where his gardenesque approach came to be one of the most prevalent design styles in Australian public and private landscapes in the 19th century. gardenesque design aimed to make a designed landscape undeniably a work of art. in order to achieve this goal, the designed garden needed to be clearly different from the natural environments in which it was set. Loudon’s involvement in farming and the repair and maintenance of rural lands included the laying out of farms and farm buildings. His expertise as a landscape gardener thus included a solid understanding of horticulture, as well as theories of farm management and production, pitching the profes-sional territory of the landscape gardener far beyond the design of ornamental garden beds and decorative parterres. Loudon expressed his ruminations in a wide array of publications, from encyclopaedias to gardeners’ magazines, all of which set the foundations for a transition from the physical labour of the gar-dener to the more detached and thoughtful role of the professional landscape gardener. Loudon’s publications encompassed many fields of expertise and it is in this breadth of constructs that the roots of the professional jurisdiction of landscape architecture are partly to be found.

if Loudon set an erudite tone for a new profession, Humphry repton is important for a different reason. repton is renowned for consciously setting out to raise landscape gardening to the status of a profession. His ability to do so stemmed from his competence as a visual artist and writer and he used the art of landscape gardening as a way of competing with established occupa-tions. His hand-drawn business logo consisted of an assortment of implements ranging from the manual (rakes, shovels, barrows, etc.) to the technical (the surveying instruments he carried as a symbol of expertise), to the artistic (a painter’s palette with brushes) and bore the words ‘Landscape gardening’. The logo highlights the essential dimensions of art, science and the technical that characterise the profession of landscape architecture to the present day. repton positioned the art of landscape design in the professional orbit of the english gentry and secured a newfound status for the art by publishing his ideas. rep-ton’s artful and elaborate ‘red Books’ advanced his profession, using hinged overlays of painterly ‘before and after’ scenes as a clever sales pitch. His scheme for The Fort near Bristol used the illusion of spatial appropriation to sell the


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idea of obliterating the public from view, playing on class ten-sions. Still, an important hurdle for repton was that newly established landscapes, littered with saplings and bare earth, had an immutable nascence, a phenomenon that still plagues the profession today. rep-ton’s practice underpinned the gap between his alluring images of a mature landscape and the reality of the newly constructed landscape by emphasising the technical aspects of his work.

industrialisation and accom-panying social change placed new demands on 19th-century plan-ners and designers. After repton’s death, the reform Movement of the 1820s and 1830s in england ushered in many changes, including making open space accessible to the public, whose access to private parks had hitherto been at the whim of the aristocracy. with the passing of the reform Bill in 1832, a shift in political and social structures had many effects, including the creation of new tasks in planning and design and, ultimately, the emergence of landscape architecture as a profession. The planning and design of landscapes specifically for public use became an occupational niche within newly emerging administrative structures. The burgeoning public parks of the mid-19th cen-tury provided the opportunity for landscape gardeners to apply their expertise. There was also an affinity between the landscape gardener’s pursuit of nature as an ideal model for the garden and the ideology of what the public park could provide for society. The public landscape achieved new value in democratic societies in the mid-19th century, inspiring Olmsted and Vaux and ultimately forming the basis of their ideology in America13 – the ideology that gave rise to the profession of landscape architecture.

The art and expertise of landscape gardening as suggested by the content of Humphry Repton’s business logo, circa 1800 (H Repton (1803) Observations on the

Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening,

printed by T Bensley for J Taylor, London, p. 8

of preface; Special Collections, Baillieu Library,

University of Melbourne)


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Landscape improvements for ‘The Fort’ near Bristol by Humphry Repton, circa 1803 (H Repton (1803) Observations on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening, printed by

T Bensley for J Taylor, London, p. 8; Special Collections, Baillieu Library, University of Melbourne)


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in richard Aitken’s The Garden of Ideas the extraordinary range of stylistic qualities of Australian gardens is celebrated. Some of this distinctiveness stems from colonial origins, some from particular political and economic forces, and still other influences were highly dependent on particular individuals, their careers and their behaviour as professionals. Some of the early landscape architects in Australia worked within government departments in which the internal bureaucratic structures required different professions to coexist and thus to serve each other. Some professional territory was delivered via science, new technologies or new organisations. Other bases for arguing the validity of landscape architecture came in highly abstract, even emotive ways, as was the case in arguments for conserving and promoting the beauty of the Austral-ian indigenous landscape, its plants and its visual character. This endeavour produced waves of experimentation in attempts to forge ideas for designing Australian landscape, and to simultaneously apply this to a role for the profes-sional designer.


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2

Origins and precedents

After Olmsted and Vaux coined the term ‘landscape architect’, nearly half a century passed before the term was used in Australia in any official circles – in association with the north Americans walter Burley griffin and Marion Mahony griffin and their competition-winning design of Canberra in 1912. Olmsted’s writing indicates that he was certainly aware of Australian parks and their politics. He referred in 1865 to the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide as having ‘already secured spacious public grounds’1 but also noted that the city of San Francisco ‘at its worst was not as bad as that of Melbourne’ and ‘the government of Virginia City, imbecile and corrupt as it appears to be, is certainly no worse in any respect than that of many english towns in Aus-tralia’.2 Detail of correspondence between Olmsted or Vaux and an Australian counterpart has yet to be found. what is known is that the designed land-scapes of Australian cities in the 19th century were overseen not by landscape architects but by members of multiple professions or occupations – surveyors, engineers, curators, park superintendents, landscape gardeners, garden archi-tects, and probably others as well. There is clear evidence that books about landscape gardening were used in Australia and that Australian landscape gar-deners corresponded directly with some of england’s more prominent authors and landscape gardeners, including Loudon and repton. early colonial design was also fused with pastoral pursuits and was the domain of large homesteads and estates, some linked to notable dynasties such as the Macarthurs in new South wales and their property, Camden Park.

Horticultural acclimatisation and the propagation and trade of introduced plants were important economic activities, first for survival and, increasingly, for the pleasure and status derived from the beauty of the cultivated garden. Thomas Shepherd (1779–1835) was one of the first to open a commercial


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nursery in Australia and to promote landscape gardening. Shepherd’s father was principal gardener at Struthers, the seat of Lord Crawford and Lindsay, north of edinburgh, and Shepherd worked for a landscape gardening business in Scotland and england, where one of his assignments was on a property adjacent to one that Humphry repton was developing. Shepherd set out with a group of settlers from Scotland in 1825 to establish a flax-growing enterprise on new Zealand’s Stewart island, but moved to new South wales in Febru-ary 1826, establishing a nursery in Sydney. Although he made little financial gain from his nursery, he was instrumental in propagating a vast amount of the plant material used in the gardens of early colonists. Shepherd spoke about the importance of making the most of Australia’s indigenous plants at a time when most people were voraciously clearing the land around their houses. in 1835 he prepared a series of seven lectures on landscape gardening, only the first of which he delivered at the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts before he died in that year. The lectures were subsequently published3 and form the earliest theoretical contribution to landscape design in Australia; they make an impas-sioned plea for preserving the value of landscape in the Australian colonies, but the extent to which practitioners heeded the call is debatable. Other important nursery proprietors, seed collectors and horticulturalists who had an impact on horticulture and, ultimately, on the deployment of plants within the fabric of Australia’s colonial cities, include Francis Ferguson (1824–92) in Sydney and, in Melbourne, John guilfoyle (1852–1909) who forged a professional role for the horticulturalist within local government, laying the groundwork for the Melbourne City Council Parks and gardens Department in the 1890s.

A number of important influences tentatively linked to landscape archi-tecture help clarify the status of the discipline prior to its full emergence in the mid-20th century. The first is the influence of individuals who achieved landscape design through executive power and organisational control, who serve as suitable comparisons to landscape architects in north America at that time. The second is the influence of the international flow of ideas, especially those of the City Beautiful movement, city planning and the Arts and Crafts movement, each of which had tentative links with landscape architecture. The third is the arrival of walter Burley griffin and Marion Mahony griffin in Australia, the event that signifies the formal introduction of the profession to


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the country. And finally, a diversity of garden designers and others who were prevalent during the interwar years and immediate post–world war ii years warrant discussion, not as founders of the profession of landscape architecture, but for the important precedents they set.

LandscapeandpowerThe first Australian designers of landscape who compare favourably with Olmsted occupied the ‘bureaucrats’ domain’. raymond wright4 coined this phrase to describe a group of men who held positions of power because of their workplace seniority and who contributed to the creation and management of large-scale public spaces, including parks and gardens. Some of the earliest superintendents, such as Charles Joseph La Trobe (1801–75) and his successor Sir Charles Hotham (1806–55) took it upon themselves to provide lungs for towns and to reserve Crown lands for public recreation, areas that would otherwise have been sold off as wasteland.

The development of many 19th-century parks resulted from multiple forces, including agitation by politicians and community, conceptual design on paper, the laying out of, and importantly, the process of establishing and managing plants over long periods of time. Understanding the complex bureaucratic cir-cumstances that surrounded their creation would no doubt cast further light on the extent to which individual practitioners were significant from the point of view of the discipline of landscape architecture. For example, in new South wales the creation of Sydney’s Centennial Park was a landmark in establishing a tradition of large public parks and reserves in Australia. its history includes the political influences of governors Macquarie and Carrington and Premier Henry Parkes, a design by engineer Frederick Augustus Franklin (who had worked on the Crystal Palace, Sydenham under Joseph Paxton in the 1850s), and debates between botanic gardens director Charles Moore (1820–1905) and overseer James Jones over the planting character during the park’s laying out and establishment from 1887.

Likewise, in Melbourne, the alienation of Crown lands and the simultane-ous need to create public parks was an issue fought on numerous fronts. For example, in 1875 barrister and politician Sir Henry John wrixon (1839–1913)


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made speeches in the House imploring the preservation of public lands for the use of the people. Between 1854 and 1890, edmund gerald Fitzgib-bon (1825–1905) was the longstanding town clerk of Melbourne. He was a fierce advocate for the rights of the public to open space for the purposes of recreation and was known by his slogan ‘Hands Off Our Parks’.5 As Olmsted intimated, the circumstances in Australia underlying the power struggles amid professions and the public in the creation of large public parks bore similarities to his own experiences in north America.

clementhodgkinson’smanylives

in the period when the occupation of ‘landscape architect’ was first named in north America, some of Melbourne’s earliest public parks, such as Fitzroy gardens (1858), were being designed and developed. The practitioners responsible were, like Olmsted, generalists who were self-taught in the art of landscape design. A significant contributor to their development from 1860 was Clement Hodgkinson (1818–93), who had trained in civil engineering in France and was a surveyor in england before migrating to Australia. As the administrative head of the Victorian government’s Board of Crown Lands and Survey, he made it his responsibility to lay out and manage parks in Melbourne, including Studley Park, Flagstaff gardens, Fitzroy gardens and Treasury gardens, of which georgina whitehead has written detailed accounts.6 He also helped instigate the development of a number of smaller gardens further from the city centre, such as Alma Park in St Kilda east. in the early 1850s Hodgkinson was involved in establishing Melbourne’s first reservoir, the Yan Yean reservoir, a piece of infrastructure that transformed urban areas by making potable water and water for irrigation available to the people of Melbourne. There are many parallels between the careers of Hodgkinson and Olmsted, even though Olmsted derided surveyors and others who had taken to park-making. in wright’s detailed account of Hodgkinson’s bureaucratic life, The Bureaucrats’ Domain, he notes the great breadth in his training, skills and experience, including many forms of engineering, surveying and drafting, and his strong interest in trees and the Australian landscape which led to his involvement in forest management policy.


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Forestry in the 19th century was the domain of silviculturists and was a discipline in Australia pursued by a Scottish immigrant John ednie Brown (1848–99). Brown documented some of his designs for forest plantations and parkland in Adelaide, which included sketches of sylvan scenery complete with paths and avenues and rolling knolled landscapes. They reflected the extensive tree plantings that Clement Hodgkinson, who also advocated sound forestry practice, had specified in some of his designs for Melbourne parks. Hodgkinson and Brown were forging early forest conservation practices in 19th-century Australia, and were emulating, in part, the kinds of management practices proposed by Olmsted for Central Park.

Like Olmsted and Vaux, Hodgkinson understood the value of landscape in the context of the expanding colonial city. He was also one of Melbourne’s earliest environmentalists in linking the widespread destruction of forest trees with the loss of landscape quality around inner Melbourne. whitehead’s analysis of Hodgkinson’s environmental consciousness reveals links to north American writer and environmentalist george Perkins Marsh.7 Hodgkinson worked with Victoria’s first government botanist and the first director of the Melbourne Botanic gardens (from 1857 to 1873), Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich von Mueller (1825–96). Hodgkinson’s sensitivity to the Australian landscape, its indigenous cultures and its natural features had been engendered during his first visit to Australia, from 1839 to 1843. During these years he worked as a surveyor in northern new South wales and kept a record of his observations of soils, plants, geomorphology, colonists and the Aboriginal tribes, for whom he held a degree of respect. His first-hand experience of their survival in the Australian landscape must have given him a strong affinity for them; of the colonists’ attempts to tame the Australian Aborigine he wrote:

for what great inducement does the monotonous and toilsome existence of the labouring classes in civilized communities offer, to make the savage abandon his independent and careless life, diversified by the exciting occupations of hunting, fishing, fighting, and dancing.8

Hodgkinson returned to england for a few years before returning to


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goldrush Melbourne in December 1851 and launching a career as one of Victoria’s most influential surveyors. in January 1852 he joined the office of the colony’s first Surveyor-general, robert Hoddle, and rose to Assistant- Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey by 1860, a position of much power and bureaucratic clout. He was a tireless worker who took on many additional responsibilities including the management of Melbourne’s earliest parks. His landscape design skills were clearly influenced by the gardenesque and included the pragmatics of circulation and the creation of comfortable surroundings, mostly by using trees for shade and including ornamental ponds and lakes. Hodgkinson’s redesign of Fitzroy gardens (1866), for which the tal-ented edward La Trobe Bateman (1816–97) had in 1856 prepared an elegant design, was clearly intended to be practical to implement and use. Hodgkinson was a ‘doer’ and seems to have roused discontent among bureaucrats because of his unrelenting involvement in Melbourne’s landscape, much as Olmsted did. in clarifying his accomplishments, wright noted that Hodgkinson was:

a poor administrator: inefficient, pedantic, incapable of delegation and, ever hard at work, oblivious to the organizational quagmire into which the Lands Department slid during his time as Assistant-Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey. But in those liabilities lies much of the explanation for the surprisingly coherent conservation perspective that emerged in Victoria during the years 1857 to 1874. By unnecessarily taking responsibility for so many facets of the colony’s land legislation and by directly intervening in all matters connected with Crown land reserves, Hodgkinson imposed a semblance of unity and direction on government environmental management.9

Many of Hodgkinson’s designed landscapes have changed dramatically, but today some still exhibit elements of his layout and planting structures. His artful approach to the establishment and management of parks is of signifi-cance in assessing the nature of his contribution. An examination of the events surrounding the establishment of Alma Park in St Kilda east (formerly the east St Kilda reserve), 7 kilometres south-east of central Melbourne, reveals


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that, to a certain extent, Hodgkinson anticipated public need. in June 1867, 53 St Kilda east ratepayers presented a petition to St Kilda Council asking it to order the laying out and planting of the east St Kilda reserve in accordance with a plan prepared by Hodgkinson.10 The respect for his plan expressed in their plea indicates Hodgkinson’s good standing and reputation in the public mind and, perhaps, his readiness to make his services available to the public in

Above Remnant indigenous trees among exotic trees at Alma Park (formerly the East St Kilda Reserve), St Kilda East (Melbourne), 2012 (Photograph by Lyn Pool)

Left Plan for the East St Kilda Reserve (Melbourne) attributed to Clement Hodgkinson, dated 1867 (Port Phillip City Collection)


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the interests of expanding the development of Melbourne’s parks and reserves. At its next meeting, on 24 June, the St Kilda Council informed the ratepay-ers that funds for such works had been fully appropriated for the year and suggested they seek a government grant which would be spent on the park to conform with Hodgkinson’s plan. within two weeks the grant materialised and the council recommended that the Planting Committee become involved in spending it immediately.

Hodgkinson’s design for Alma Park responds primarily to circulation, linking major streets and buildings via the park. Small water features were to be lined with willows; one included a fountain, the other followed an existing drainage line with sections dammed to increase size. Details of formal av-enues of pines, oaks, elms and other exotic trees were specified on the plan, as were clumps of cypresses, araucaria and deciduous trees. Hodgkinson secured a small section of the reserve’s northern area for the protection of existing vegetation and today this border has an unmistakably Australian native feel about it; contemporary viewers might imagine it to be the achievement of recent indigenous landscape activists rather than the foresight of a surveyor more than 140 years ago. Although changes have been made, a fundamental structure that is attributable to Hodgkinson still prevails in paths and avenues, even with drought conditions killing many of the aging trees between 2009 and 2012. Despite his contributions to the public interest in the landscape of Melbourne, his role in its design was largely forgotten, even in his own time, as wright notes:

And Clement Hodgkinson, Assistant-Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, inspector-general of Metropolitan Parks, gardens and reserves, father of Victorian state forestry, author of the critical ‘selection before survey’ clause of the 1865 Land Act, promoter of the Yan Yean reservoir, Melbourne Harbour Trust commissioner, writer, sanitary engineer, architect, administrator, surveyor, ‘expert’ and government land manager, died on 6 September 1893 almost completely forgotten.11


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creatorsof19th-centurypubliclandscapes

Hodgkinson’s contribution to designed landscapes in 19th-century Melbourne was a result of his engagement in decision-making and the way in which he straddled so many professional realms. The creation of Melbourne’s parks and gardens can also be credited to horticulturalists and landscape gardeners working within less diverse professional contexts. For example, from 1858 James Sinclair (1809–81) worked as gardener in Fitzroy gardens and lived in a cottage within the gardens (today Sinclair’s Cottage) which establishes the fact that he had a degree of influence on the gardens’ evolution. Many landscape gardeners lived within the gardens in which they were employed, giving them ongoing and tangible influence. Hodgkinson’s creative act was his embeddedness in bureaucratic wrangling which, as the research of wright and whitehead indicates, is something that the recording of histories based on single professions or individual gardens often fails to capture. Likewise, some of the more ostentatious of designed landscapes in Australia’s major cities, including the Botanic gardens Sydney (1816), have received rather more attention and, consequently, their designers are better remembered than those of more modest landscapes such as plantations in neighbourhood parks and street plantings, as valued as they may be today. what becomes clear is that, although landscape architecture as a profession did not exist in the 19th century, there certainly were individuals whose practices reflected the discipline, Hodgkinson being just one example.

One of Hodgkinson’s contemporaries was william robert guilfoyle (1840–1912), a self-trained landscape designer, who reshaped the royal Botanic gar-dens Melbourne from a garden arranged on the basis of collections of plants into a public landscape embracing social values and recreational use. The site of the gardens was land deemed unfit for development and clearing of indig-enous vegetation began in 1846. in the 1850s, under the directorship of emi-nent botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, the gardens were developed primarily as a botanical collection for science and education. Von Mueller had a euro-pean sensibility, installing iron arbors and iron seating in a fashion similar to parks of europe around the time. Under guilfoyle’s directorship from 1873, the gardens were completely transformed, with extensive rearrangement of plants,


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lia installation of new paths and changes to the lake and its environs. These trans-

formations gave guilfoyle unrivalled success and power as a designer. His design ethos, as Paul Fox explains,12 arose from three aspects of his life following his family’s migration to new South wales in 1849: exposure to the picturesque qualities of the Botanic gardens Sydney; his experience of Australian rainfor-est in a wild condition on his family’s property near Tweed river in northern new South wales; and his travels as a member of a scientific expedition in the South Pacific. guilfoyle’s lasting impact on Australian landscape design extended to the design of regional botanic gardens and a number of homestead gardens in western Victoria. His garden designs for the homesteads Mooleric and Turkeith at Mt gellibrand in western Victoria used a broad palette of plant

Specimen planting, Melaleuca linariifolia, in a picturesque setting at the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne, circa 1909 (WR Guilfoyle (1909) Australian Plants Suitable for Gardens, Parks, Timber Reserves, etc, Whitcombe and Tombs Limited, Melbourne, p. 208;

photographer unknown, circa 1898)


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materials, including palm trees and other species that reflected the images he had formed from his rich colonial experiences. in Australian Plants Suitable for Gardens, Parks, Timber Reserves, etc, guilfoyle made a strong plea for the wider use of Australian native plants in parks, streets and home gardening.13 illustrations of Australian native trees in this book included examples from the royal Botanic gardens Melbourne, many of which still exist today. guilfoyle was succeeded as director of the royal Botanic gardens Melbourne in 1908 by horticulturalist John Cronin (1865–1923), whom guilfoyle had recommended.

The power of Hodgkinson and guilfoyle as curators and superintendents stemmed from their ability to be articulate and to interact with bureaucrats, extending their influence well beyond a single defined professional position. They were unproclaimed landscape architects, in a similar mould to Olmsted, and stand out in contrast to others working as landscape designers at the time. Unlike william guilfoyle, John Cronin and even william’s brother, John, were more emphatically horticultural in their outlook; design and broader issues were not as prominent in the role they defined for themselves. A closer match for guilfoyle was Melbourne landscape gardener of some repute, william Sangster (1831–1910), who was in business with william Taylor (1826–92). Taylor and Sangster were both from Scotland and, as well as operating their nursery business, were responsible for gardens at Como House in South Yarra, Mandeville Hall in Toorak, Studley Park in Kew and Victoria gardens in Prahran. Sangster was one of many designers to make alterations to the design of the Carlton gardens surrounding Melbourne’s royal exhibition Building in the late 19th century and he gave planting and horticultural advice. Many of the landscape practitioners in Australia’s capital cities and regional centres no doubt identified themselves as horticulturalists, operated nurseries or were seed collectors and saw their role as less about design and more the manage-ment of plants, albeit often experimental as was the case with Thomas Charles george weston (1866–1935) in Canberra (discussed later). Most capital cities had substantial botanic gardens from the mid-19th century. The first super-intendent of the Brisbane Botanic gardens (now City Botanic gardens) was walter Hill (1820–1904) commencing in 1854. Like von Mueller, Hill’s career involved botanical collections and concerns for propagating plants that could be useful in the colony. Knowledge of Australia’s tropical plants was exchanged


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with their counterparts in Melbourne and Sydney and ultimately england.An important application of plant knowledge in the 19th century was the

establishment of street plantings, of which two phases have been identified in Victoria: from 1850 to 1870 was a period of fast-growing evergreens (mainly conifers and some Australian natives – blue gum); from the 1880s decidu-ous trees were widely used, based on precedents set in europe and north America.14 The gracious avenues that established elms, oaks and other trees are a product of lengthy deliberations of horticulturalists, gardeners, foresters and others, including Daniel Bunce (1812–72) and william Ferguson (circa 1827–87), whose lives Paul Fox has written about in some detail,15 opening up a world that was defined as much by individual personalities as the social constructs of life in 19th-century Australia.

with the growing interest in civic planning and design at the time of fed-eration of the Australian colonies in 1901 and the international spread of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th century, changes in the balance between the different groups within the landscape profession in Australia were imminent.

internationaLideasThe second important indicator of an emerging discipline of landscape architecture was the international flow of ideas and the testing of these ideas in the Australian context. The emergence of town and country planning as a profession accompanied the aesthetic reform of the city. in Designing Australia’s Cities, robert Freestone gives an account of the City Beautiful movement and of the political and bureaucratic situation when town planning was emerging. The professions included all those who claimed a role in changing the form of cities; the 1901 Melbourne Congress of engineers, Architects, and Surveyors stands as a good example of the coming together of several professional groups.16 Among prominent people in the rise of city planning was architect and town planner John Sulman (1849–1934), who had spoken as early as 1890 to the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science on ‘The Laying-out of Towns’. in 1909, Sulman published a pamphlet, The Federal Capital, and went on to be involved not only in the development of


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Canberra but also in the institutionalisation of town planning in Australia. in that year, Sulman also made suggestions for landscape schemes in places such as Belmore Park in Sydney. His proposals for these schemes included a strong axis and vistas that were often terminated by public buildings, which in Belmore Park was Sydney’s central railway station. Sulman was founding president of the Town Planning Association of new South wales in 1913 and, along with other prominent architects, writers and supporters of town planning such as Florence Mary Taylor (1879–1969) in new South wales and Harold Boas (1883–1980) in Perth, advanced the profession of town planning in the early decades of the 20th century.

Although landscape designers did have an influence on the City Beauti-ful movement, their role in the movement was secondary to that of planners. Among those who helped incorporate the ideas of the City Beautiful into Australian practice was Joseph Henry Maiden (1859–1925), who succeeded Charles Moore in 1896 as Director of Botanic gardens in Sydney. Maiden was appointed just a few years before the newly formed Commonwealth of Australia began to seek advice about establishing a federal capital for the new administration and was raising questions about selecting a site for it and designing it, which also gave rise to wider concern about Australian cities. george Handley Knibbs (1858–1929), lecturer in surveying at the University of Sydney and later to be the first director of the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics, presented a paper to the royal Society of new South wales in 1901, entitled ‘The Theory of City Design’. Knibbs made reference to John Sulman in his consideration of theories of city design, particularly in relation to his thinking about the national capital, thus continuing an estab-lished discourse on the subject. Lionel gilbert, in his comprehensive examina-tion of Maiden’s life and work,17 makes the observation that, at almost every level of public life, Maiden upheld a long campaign for the betterment of landscape and environment and the transformation of Sydney. An example of his noteworthy landscape design and advocacy of the garden City Movement can be seen at Daceyville, Australia’s first garden suburb in south-east Sydney, which was planned by Sulman in 1913 and modelled on Letchworth garden City in england; Maiden was responsible for advising on the selection of street trees for the suburb.


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Other important contributors to the development of public parks and gar-dens came from outside the realms of horticulture and planning. in a sense, their bureaucratic style and impact on landscape made them landscape archi-tects in the Olmstedian tradition. edwin Smith has been described as a ‘prom-inent brewer, philanthropist and politician’ who, as Mayor of Adelaide from 1879 to 1881 and again in 1886 and 1887, made a strong impact on Adelaide’s civic beautification and the transformation of the Adelaide parklands18 and worked energetically to improve that city’s streets and streetscapes and to develop its parks and gardens. Among the numerous parks that together con-stitute Smith’s contribution to the City of Adelaide in the 1880s is elder Park.

in Melbourne at the turn of the 20th century, Carlo giorgio Domenico enrico Catani (1852–1918), an italian civil engineer, played a role in form-ing and shaping public open space and streetscapes. As chief engineer for the Public works Department of Victoria from 1892 to 1917, he was responsi-ble for the realignment of the Yarra river in Melbourne for flood mitigation, which began in 1896. The creation of Alexandra Avenue as a major boule-vard included avenues of trees planted prior to the completion of the massive earthworks. The process continued with the laying out of Alexandra gardens in 1901. These changes to the city had major repercussions for the redevelop-ment of the open spaces surrounding government House and St Kilda road. elsewhere in Melbourne, Catani was influential in instigating change and in putting in place a design aesthetic that still prevails. He was a founding member of the St Kilda Foreshore Trust when it was set up in 1906. The fore-shore gardens, later named Catani gardens, and esplanade were constructed partly on reclaimed lands and their aesthetic was characterised by planting of cypresses and Canary island palms, and by dramatic terracing, hedging, stone-work, rockeries and the Catani Arch (built in 1916). The impact of Catani, a talented amateur when it came to landscape design, on the landscape of Mel-bourne is irrefutable. Contemporaries such as Charles r Heath (1867–1948) also played a role in beautifying parts of Melbourne. An architect and surveyor, Heath designed the new Melbourne general Cemetery at Fawkner in 1906 and, in relation to this project, somewhat enigmatically referred to himself as a landscape architect and an architect.


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architectsversuslandscapegardeners

Another early benchmark for landscape architecture was the Arts and Crafts movement in early-20th-century architecture. Arts and Crafts architects in Australia competed for control of domestic garden design, drawing support from debate in england at the time, which dismissed the naturalistic style developed by landscape gardeners a century earlier. in 1892, english architects reginald Blomfield and inigo Thomas published The Formal Garden in England, which rejected the involvement of landscape gardeners and engineers in designing public space. instead, Blomfield and Thomas described architects as ‘cultivated designers’ qualified in the art of design and disparaged landscape gardeners particularly harshly:

Construction of Alexandra Avenue and straightening of the Yarra River, Melbourne, circa 1898 – avenue planting of trees commenced prior to the completion of earthworks (State Library of Victoria, Acc. No. H347; photographer unknown)


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For some inscrutable reason the laying out of public grounds is usually left either to the engineer or to the landscape gardener. The engineer is, no doubt, a man of ability and attainment, but there is nothing in his training to qualify him to deal with a problem which is in the main artistic; and the landscape gardener makes it his business to dispense with serious design … he will at once set to work to contradict the whole character of the place by means of irregular curves and irrelevant hummocks.19

Sentiments similar to Blomfield’s were expressed in Australia when, in 1903, Melbourne Arts and Crafts architect walter richmond Butler (1864–1949) attempted to engage horticulturalist Charles Bogue Luffman (1862–1920), then principal of the Burnley School of Horticulture, in public debate; Butler argued that the design of garden and house should be contingent upon each other. He was renowned in Melbourne and designed many gardens associ-ated with that city’s mansions. it was generally believed that architects were the most suitable professionals to design the garden and the horticulturalist should be, at best, subordinate to the architect and, at worst, no higher in status than builder or workman. The art of domestic garden design for wealthy owners became the purview of the architectural brief, giving credence to the title ‘garden architect’. Luffman was not present at the debate but submitted his argument in writing for public perusal.

The essence of debates such as this was not confined to domestic garden design, and the positioning of one discipline within another profession was not consistent around the world. Disciplinary domains were, to an extent, in a state of flux. For example, england’s University of Liverpool founded its Department of Civic Design in 1909, thus establishing one of the first university courses in town planning and urban design and, in the same year, the School of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University in the United States introduced city planning studies within the discipline of landscape architecture. in 1911, British landscape architect and town planner Thomas H Mawson (1861–1933) published Civic Art, in which he called for parks to be more carefully conceived in the context of the city. in achieving this aim he


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questioned the relevance of the practical gardener’s obsession with plants, and of the landscape gardener he wrote:

… failure has resulted from the notion that landscape gardening is an art which aims at concealing art; it was, and is supposed to be, an art which seeks to reproduce nature in her ‘gentler moods’ – an operation which anyone, from the Borough engineer down to the Chairman of the Parks Committee, is capable of directing with success and economy. Apart from the absurdity of expecting those with a lifelong training in exact science to copy the waywardness of nature, the entire point of view is wrong. whatever may be said of the aims of landscape gardening, civic art must be inventive, and, as applied to parks and gardens, is rightly described as ‘landscape architecture’.20

in the context of battles over who should design landscape, a window of opportunity opened for architects and others to expand their jurisdiction. The architecture and garden design of Harold Desbrowe-Annear (1865–1933) was one of the more significant contributions to early-20th-century Melbourne. Desbrowe-Annear was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and, after world war i, by beaux-arts town planning ideas, which he included in plans for Melbourne that were never realised. Desbrowe-Annear’s legacy in garden design rests on his designs for mansions in South Yarra and Toorak, which show the influence of British garden designer gertrude Jekyll and architect edwin Lutyens. in his work, the architecture of the house and the design of the garden were conceived as one and were often based on geometric struc-tures of axes, grids or circles with radial patterning emanating from the house. Cranlana in Toorak was designed for retailer Sidney Myer in 1932 and its plan incorporated a large garden with a formal axis, sunken garden, fountains and paths, including a straight gravel drive leading to the house from a wrought-iron gate in the front wall. The strong geometry of the design connected the house, garden and sunken garden, and has been compared with landscape architect Beatrix Farrand’s design for the Fountain Terrace at Dumbarton Oaks, washington, DC.21


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given Desbrowe-Annear’s additional interest in town planning and the significant garden designs that both he and Butler created, it is perhaps not surprising that the profession of landscape architecture did not emerge during their working lives. Both were architects and their claim that garden and house should be considered as a single entity meant that landscape architec-ture as a separate profession was irrelevant to them. it is clear, nevertheless, that the subsequent rise to fame of garden designer edna walling is linked to the achievements of Desbrowe-Annear and Butler in introducing the Arts and Crafts movement into Australian practice. They raised expectations for designed landscape accompanying grand domestic residential developments; walling’s meteoric trajectory was, however, driven by her own motivations and went beyond the relatively meagre ambitions of establishing a new profession, as discussed later in this chapter.

thegriffinsinaustralia

The unequivocal introduction of landscape architecture to Australia occurred while the debate among the Arts and Crafts architects, horticulturalists and others was raging. Americans walter Burley griffin (1876–1937) and Marion Mahony griffin (1871–1961) were the first in Australia to start using the title ‘landscape architect’ in an official context, after winning the competi-tion to design Australia’s new national capital, on 23 May 1912. This was the first large-scale regional work that could be classified as a landscape architec-ture project in Australia. The Canberra plans, the alluring quality of which is attributed to Marion’s artistry, communicated the spirit of their design ideas and captured the special qualities of the Australian landscape. in the plans, Marion used reds and browns and subtle washes of colour in ways that were quite unlike other competition entries. The history of Canberra’s design encap-sulates the contribution that the discipline of landscape architecture can make to planning and design; landscape and architecture were given equal weight

Left Looking through entrance of house towards the sunken garden at Cranlana, Toorak (Melbourne), designed by Harold Desbrowe-Annear in 1932, photographed by Harriet Edquist circa 1985 (Harriet Edquist)


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in the underlying social and political symbolism.22 The griffins’ involvement with Canberra links landscape architecture in Australia to the foundations of landscape architecture in north America, even though griffin was initially referred to as an ‘architect and landscape artist’ when he was announced Can-berra’s designer by the Minister for Home Affairs, King O’Malley.23

walter Burley griffin was born in Chicago in 1876. He was trained in archi-tecture at the University of illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1895–99) and used the title ‘Landscape Architect’ on his American work.24 His training in land-scape architecture consisted of one term of forestry and two terms of landscape gardening towards the end of his architecture degree. His interest in landscape architecture began when, as a high-school student, he witnessed the design and construction of the 1893 world’s Columbian exposition in Chicago, which is widely claimed as unprecedented in its site planning and landscape design. The planning and design of the exposition was a collaborative effort that involved Daniel Hudson Burnham as director of works, architect John wellborn root (1850–91) and Frederick Law Olmsted. griffin sought a career that would combine the separate disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture.

Marion Mahony griffin was born in Chicago in 1871 and was the second woman graduate in architecture from the Massachusetts institute of Tech-nology (MiT), Boston (1894), thus helping to pioneer a role for women in architecture in the USA. Her training at MiT was under the beaux arts model that advocated, among other things, a strong connection between architecture and fine art, historical styles and, importantly, careful and precise drawing technique.

Marion and walter both worked for Frank Lloyd wright (1867–1959) between 1901 and 1906. walter’s role included landscape architecture in com-bining house and garden and nature, particularly with the development of the prairie-style house, named for and inspired by the indigenous landscape of the Chicago region. Marion did freelance drafting for wright and in this position developed a striking style for presentation drawings and detailing and her unique painterly approach became a hallmark of the griffins’ oeuvre. They were both deeply involved in environmental groups. Together they explored vast areas of lake systems around Chicago and it was while canoeing that walter conceived the idea of a large central water body for Canberra.


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Christopher Vernon reinforces the importance of landscape architecture to Marion’s self-definition and design philosophy.25 Her arrival in Australia in 1914 and her involvement with Australian native flora signalled a distinct change in her practice. She became formally associated with the discipline of landscape architecture and demonstrated this association in projects such as the design of the building and landscape of newman College in Melbourne in 1915. As with many of the griffins’ designed landscapes, the planting plans for these projects were elaborate and complex and are evidence that the design-ers had studied Australian plants intensely and purposefully. They were also known to order planting arrangement by colour of blooms, and often achieved this using Australian native species. They inculcated their associates with their distinctive design practice, key among them being architect eric Milton nicholls (1902–65), with whom the griffins formed a partnership in 1930 as griffin & nicholls. Analysis of the floral patterns of a small garden scheme that came out of the griffins’ Melbourne office, which in 1925 had been left to nicholls to run, reveals their planting ordering devices. in the Herborn garden (1927–29) in the Melbourne suburb of east Hawthorn, designed by eric and Mary nicholls, just under 50 per cent of the plants used were Aus-tralian natives and the planting was laid out in order of colour.26 Through the design of Canberra and their interest in Australian native plants, the griffins showed what the discipline of landscape architecture could achieve in connect-ing nation and landscape.

At the same time as the griffins were exploring the notion of an Australian design ethos, they were struggling to be accepted professionally in Australia. walter experienced great frustration in overseeing Canberra’s early construc-tion according to their original plan. His anguish was not dissimilar to that expressed by Olmsted when he was overseeing the construction of Central Park. From 1913 to 1921, when he was Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction, griffin’s experience was said to be demoralising and disillusion-ing.27 He faced constant opposition from other professions embedded in the bureaucracy in which he was embroiled and his situation was made worse by a clash in temperaments between him, ‘a dreamer’, and the Administrator of the Federal Capital Territory, David Miller, ‘a doer’.28 Many government officials opposed griffin on the basis of ideals, nationality and issues of professional


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practice. He also met opposition from other landscape practitioners such as TCg weston, Officer-in-Charge, Afforestation (appointed 1913), who was a horticulturalist, arboriculturist and landscape gardener trained in england and Scotland. His contribution to the landscape of Canberra between 1913 and 1926 equated to the propagation and planting of many hundreds of thou-sands of trees and shrubs, ultimately setting the foundations for Canberra as a garden city. in 1914 weston established the Yarralumla nursery and west-bourne woods Arboretum, a site of some 120 hectares for growing and testing

Walter Griffin Calls to See Charles Weston – Canberra 1916: depiction of Weston’s nursery office with Walter Griffin (centre) Charles Weston (right) and Marion Griffin (viewed through window inspecting plants outside) (Painting by Ralph Neale, 1988)


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Australian natives and exotic trees. weston’s horticultural and plant manage-ment philosophies to an extent contradicted griffin’s approach to experimen-tation with a newfound Australian flora; no doubt the nursery site was one of collaboration mixed with exasperation. Joseph Maiden supported weston and, as well as forwarding plant material to weston, visited Canberra in 1919 and wrote a polite but critical seven-page report to the Surveyor-general regard-ing griffin’s purported inept management of the planting. Maiden’s reproach is thought to have quelled griffin’s enthusiasm for such experimentation in Canberra:

no one impugns the ability of the Federal Director of Design and Construction in regard to matters of architecture and its related engineering problems, but problems affecting planting in Australia, in which Australian indigenous species are concerned, and also questions of meteorology, drainage and soil, in so far as they affect plant welfare, belong to a different category … i want our Federal city to be one of the most beautiful in the world, and i do not wish to hinder this by bungling the planting.29

James weirick argues that the griffins did not separate their spiritual worlds from their professional lives.30 Their approach to realising demo-cratic architecture in a democratic city was mystical rather than something they thought achievable through executive power or professional status. The personality traits that helped Olmsted achieve success professionally – his intransigence, the manner in which he actively engaged other professions and cleverly manufactured public support at Central Park – were not to be found in the griffins, especially not in walter. The griffins and Olmsted did, however, share other significant character traits and interests, including an interest in conservation and indigenous landscapes. After walter’s position in Canberra was abolished in 1921, the griffins continued their careers in Australia and internationally, working in relative isolation from other professions. Among their most important contributions to landscape architecture in Australia were the subdivision planning and designs for the Mount eagle estate (eaglemont) in the Melbourne suburb of Heidelberg (1914) and for the Sydney suburb of


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Castlecrag (1919–35). The latter included the Haven Valley Scenic Theatre for enhancing community life, which was eventually constructed in 1930 as an amphitheatre of terraced seating made from stone and was enjoyed by the estate’s thespians, a group that Marion directed herself.31 engendering and maintaining community spirit and conserving Australian native flora were key principles underpinning their ideology and creativity.32 Marion identified gaps in knowledge about the aesthetic use of Australian plants and was invited to speak publicly about her ideas. Her Forest Portraits, a collection of drawings and descriptions of Australian plants, included a drawing of Angophora lanceo-lata, stating:

The amphitheatre at Castlecrag (Sydney), originally the Haven Valley Scenic Theatre (1919), was constructed in 1930 and used by the estate’s thespians (Photograph by

Andrew Saniga, 2007)


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This magical tree is quite restricted in its habitat to the greater Sydney area of which our three wonderful Castelecrag [sic] promontories are a part and here they are being carefully preserved. A visitor said 2 men had discovered Australia, Captian [sic] Cook to possess it and Burley griffin to preserve it.33

The griffins saw architecture as a discipline that ranked among the arts, a view that was also expressed by TH Mawson in 1911, when he suggested that civic art must capture the spirit found in individual cities and that civic ideals, impossible to cast in words, might be shaped and augmented by art.34 in 1923, griffin suggested that the architect’s marginalisation and restriction had been the result of the dominance of other professions, such as engineering. He concluded that the architect, like other artists, was ‘condemned to one of three states – a parasite, a pander or a recluse’35 but, whereas an artist can afford to be reclusive, the architect’s successful practice demanded parasitic or pander-ing behaviour, itself a limitation to artistic expression. He also had firm ideas about the nature of professional subordination in Australia in the 1920s, and described landscape architecture and town planning as ‘special branches’36 of architecture. Collectively, the three professional pursuits were subject to social forces of inter-professional criticism that marginalised all of them in Australia, a claim that precisely echoed those made by Olmsted 40 years earlier at Cen-tral Park. griffin stated:

with us here this widest phase of the architect’s work, landscape architecture, is unknown except as a meaningless name. were the architect a factor in life today, this field would supply the motif for all his works, and our creations would be designed to serve natural need instead of artificial prejudice.37

walter griffin called for the advancement of a landscape profession to combat the demise of Australia’s native flora. However, the result was not the sudden birth of a profession in Australia; few chose to call themselves land-scape architects, probably because circumstances, such as the two world wars and the economic depression between them, were not the most conducive to


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professional advancement in garden design, and there was competition from architecture and town planning. rather, the title ‘landscape architect’ seeped into the Australian context and was used so intermittently that it is difficult to track its use. Marion griffin established links with Australian landscape practitioners; her interest in the form and character of the country’s natural landscapes appealed to them and was an important part of activities of her social group. This had the rather accidental effect of widening the understand-ing of landscape architecture but only a select few, such as emily gibson, who worked in the griffins’ office, became pioneers of the profession. A fur-ther reason for the tardiness of landscape architecture’s establishment in Aus-tralia was the pre-eminence of landscape designers, who enjoyed centre stage through the first half of the 20th century. Paramount among these was edna walling, in whose orbit a small suite of designers revolved.

ednawaLLingandherconteMporariesOnly a few practitioners who used the occupational title ‘landscape architect’ before the mid-1950s became members of Britain’s institute of Landscape Architects (iLA), which was founded in 1929. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that they attempted to organise themselves into a profession in Australia, and the small number of others who filled comparable roles accepted other, more established, occupational titles, such as garden designer, landscape designer and horticulturalist. They were often relatively autonomous and con-sidered themselves, to a certain degree, artists rather than professionals. nev-ertheless, a history of Australian landscape architecture is incomplete without considering these practitioners because, to an extent, their professional lives reflected the discipline. A small number of notable garden designers and writ-ers in the first half of the 20th century established a clear image in the minds of the public that there was a professional role in designing gardens. However, for various reasons these people (with the notable exception of the likes of emily gibson, ellis Stones and Karl Langer) did not play a role in the insti-tutionalisation of landscape architecture after world war ii.


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horticultureandthegardenartists

Many Australian landscape designers in the first half of the 20th century were trained horticulturalists who designed and managed large gardens for private clients. Horticulture schools, such as Burnley School of Horticulture in Victoria (established in 1891) and at the Sydney Technical College (established in 1938) – which became the ryde School of Horticulture in 1948 – performed a critical role in training these practitioners. The other important source of training was the english apprenticeship system whereby expertise was obtained through service in one of that country’s established gardens. Although horticultural training and landscape gardening had been heavily disputed as a legitimate profession in the realm of civic art, some individuals who were trained at Burnley or ryde went on to do landscape architectural work beyond the design of domestic gardens.

in Melbourne, Frances georgina (ina) Higgins (1860–1948) was one of these; she was among the first intake of women at Burnley School of Horti-culture in 1899 and was one of the first women to take up horticulture and gardening professionally in the early 1900s. She designed the settings of insti-tutions such as the Talbot Colony for epileptics in Clayton in Melbourne’s south-east, which opened in 1907. The colony and its gardens existed until 1958, when the campus of Monash University was established on the Clay-ton site. A Monash University survey plan reveals that, in 1958, the Colony’s gardens had sweeping open lawns surrounded by garden beds and an avenue of oaks led from wellington road into the grounds. Today the only traces of Higgins’ design are fragments of the oak avenue and other established exotic trees in among the university’s car parks and buildings. Higgins was a member of a group of Melbourne suffragists, honorary secretary to the United Council for woman Suffrage (from 1894) and was involved in hosting the inaugural Australian exhibition of women’s work (1907) held in the royal exhibition Building in Melbourne. An ardent supporter of gender equality in professional horticulture, Higgins was also known to have been part of Marion Mahony griffin’s supportive network of friends in the early 1920s. in 1914 she assisted the new South wales government Commission of irrigation with planting plans for two model townships in the Murrumbidgee region of new South


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wales. in 1938, when the Presbyterian Ladies’ College purchased Heather-sett, a property in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Burwood, Higgins – an old collegian – laid out the grounds. important precedents were being set and through the war and interwar years women continued to establish horticulture and landscape design as important ways to form professional careers, alongside contemporaries in architecture and town planning such as Florence Taylor.

in South Australia, elsie Marion Cornish (1870–1946) was a self-styled landscape designer who designed and planted gardens that remain today as a significant contribution to Adelaide’s strong tradition of parks and gardens. Her scheme for the Pioneer women’s garden (1938–39) in Adelaide was clearly influenced by the ideas of gertrude Jekyll and Mediterranean design. it had strong axial arrangement and was enclosed by an ornate low red-brick wall and symmetrical planting that included poplars and cypresses. The design was ceremonial and processional, augmenting the memorial statue that under-pins the space. Higgins and Cornish and a number of others from this period are relatively unknown; however, for various reasons – not the least of which is their comparative levels of creative output – the writing of garden design history has left them in the shadow of edna walling and her contemporaries.

in Australia for most of the 20th century, Melbourne-based designer edna walling (1895–1973) remained perhaps the most influential garden designer; contemporaries with comparable achievements are Sydney’s Paul Sorensen (1891–1983) and Jocelyn Brown (1898–1971). walling’s influence can be explained in terms of the quantity and quality of the designs she completed. She produced a very large collection of extraordinarily distinguished design drawings. equally important were her prolific writing and the public profile she achieved through decades of contributions to Australian Home Beautiful, which made her a household name for those interested in gardening and gar-dens. These aspects of walling’s career, which has been described by some as meteoric, distinguish walling from Brown and Sorensen and placed several other Australian designers into orbit around her.

The title blocks in one collection of edna walling’s plans reveal that she preferred the title ‘landscape designer’, with variations such as ‘garden designer’ and ‘edna walling Designer’. But at least one plan, dating from 1921, for a suburban garden in Melbourne, was labelled ‘edna walling. Landscape


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Architect’. This variation in the way she defined her role may have reflected the fact that her entrance into professional landscape design paralleled the groundwork of the Arts and Crafts architects38 or perhaps her knowledge of the griffins. in any case, she did not readily adopt the title and instead went on to publicly challenge the status quo of landscape design in Australia and the question of the most appropriate training. Like proponents of the civic arts, she was particularly critical of horticulture, commenting in 1943 on the elusiveness of good design in the garden: ‘it is not always the ardent horticulturists who

The Pioneer Women’s Garden in Adelaide Parklands designed by Elsie Marion Cornish between 1938 and 1939 (Photograph by Lyn Pool, 2009)


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Plan for ‘New flower garden and improvements to existing lawn and borders at Ringwood’ signed ‘Edna Walling. Landscape Architect. 1921’ (State Library

of Victoria, Acc. No.

H97.270/135)


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achieve the best results.’39 even though she herself was qualified in horticulture as a graduate from the Burnley School in 1917, walling believed arboriculture superior to horticulture because it could apply an understanding of the form of trees to the design effects required.

Jocelyn Brown was elected a Fellow of the iLA in 1952. She was trained in drafting through an apprenticeship with a firm of commercial artists in Sydney and began designing residential gardens in new South wales in the 1930s. Her contribution to residential garden design, which shows the influence of gertrude Jekyll, is indisputable. Brown’s enthusiasm for working with plants, coupled with a strong leaning towards the Arts and Crafts aesthetic, under-pinned her approach to design. Her garden design for the property greenwood at St ives (1941–45) is reputedly one of her finest works. She was a contribu-tor to popular gardening columns and wrote for the monthly magazine Home from 1939 to 1942. in the 1950s she taught landscape design briefly at the University of Sydney. The impact of Jocelyn Brown in terms of constructed gardens was, however, less than that of Paul Sorensen.

Sorensen has been described as one of the first master gardeners to operate in new South wales.40 Born in Copenhagen in 1891, he started horticultural training at the age of twelve and began a path of professional development in horticulture that included extensive practical experience. He realised that in order to advance his career he needed international experience. while he was working his way through europe, one of his most important experiences was his work in Switzerland for the Mertens Brothers on landscape designs for wealthy businessmen who wanted elegant gardens around their mansions. Sorensen’s broad training in horticulture and design equipped him for practice in Australia as it enabled him to deal with everything from garden manage-ment (from running nurseries to tree surgery) through to construction and ultimately the design of the garden as a form of art. in 1914, with the grow-ing tension of the war in europe, Sorensen decided to migrate to Australia. Shrugging off his employer’s warnings about the dearth of landscape design work in Australia, he arrived in Melbourne in 1915. The warnings proved cor-rect; the state of landscape design was a mere shadow of what Sorensen had experienced in europe. His first opportunity to practise landscape design and construction took him to the Blue Mountains of new South wales, a region


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known for its rugged topography and dramatic rock formations and named for its blue atmospheric hue. Here, Sorensen gradually built a reputation for designing gardens for the elite, mostly for guesthouses and mansions, and by 1917 his business had established a nursery in the area, in Katoomba.

in the 1930s Sorensen’s business took on a commission for Sydney business-man Henri van de Velde’s everglades at Leura in the Blue Mountains. ever-glades remains as one of Sorensen’s most significant works and is recognised as one of Australia’s more important gardens by its listing on the Australian Heritage Council’s register of the national estate. in all his work, Sorensen consistently identified the desirable qualities of a site as something to be care-fully understood and negotiated. These qualities, of course, included existing vegetation and stone, but equally significant were views, both within the garden and beyond to the broader landscape of the Blue Mountains. in this sense, his work had an element of pragmatism that probably came from his strong appre-ciation of practical horticulture and physical engagement with the site’s topog-raphy. Perhaps the most poignant aspect of everglades, which unfortunately can no longer be seen in the garden, was an old eucalypt that Sorensen incor-porated in the studio terrace, protecting its root system by surrounding it in a tilted plane of earth retained by a sloping stone wall. it was a relic of an ancient past set within the modern garden, conflating time and place in a way that per-vades other elements of the garden such as the recycling of an entrance porch from the London Chartered Bank of Australia building in Sydney. Sorensen’s achievements in reinterpreting the english garden and the Arts and Crafts in new South wales earned him the reputation of ‘master gardener’; however, aside from projects such as the roof garden for van de Velde’s Feltex House in Sydney (1939), 41 this reputation was confined to the domestic garden.

in this sense, the careers of walling, Sorensen and Brown were similar in that they rarely completed large-scale works related to park design or public landscape projects. The essential difference between walling and her new South wales counterparts relates to the art of landscape design through repre-sentation and publications – her drawings and books have been as lasting and stable as the realisation of her designs in actual landscapes. Her renderings were brilliant compositions that her clients beheld, with the expectation that their materialisation would achieve a parallel beauty. Many of these gardens


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had vibrant displays of colour, and their stairs and paths still feel totally at rest with the surrounding forms today. As was typical of Arts and Crafts gardens of the time, house and garden were one, and the incorporation of series of outdoor rooms and terraces, often arranged around axes, were a common theme in walling’s work. Her hugely popular book Gardens in Australia sketched out these princi-ples, sometimes repetitively, of domestic garden design but she was also an ardent commentator on the creation of public landscapes. in criticising the landscape being developed for the King’s Domain in central Melbourne, she lamented that someone of the calibre of horticultur-ist and arboriculturist TCg weston, who was responsible for much of Can-berra’s early planting, was not available in Melbourne.42

walling also criticised residential living in Australia and, like the griffins,

participated in new forms of residential subdivision. At the heart of her ambi-tions lay a different way of imagining life and community. Her conception and development of the small subdivision of Bickleigh Vale, which began in 1921 when she purchased farmland in Mooroolbark, 31 kilometres west of central Melbourne, was based upon the ideal of small rustic cottages set within tranquil open gardens. On an initial allotment, walling built her own house, Sonning, mostly with her own hands. Soon after, she purchased a neighbouring block of around 20 acres (about 8 hectares) and controlled its development by vetting would-be purchasers and designing their homes and gardens. walling’s links to the Burnley School of Horticulture resulted in students from the school visiting Bickleigh Vale on field trips. Some female students were so moved by

Eucalypt set within the studio terrace at Everglades, Leura (NSW) designed by Paul Sorensen circa 1938 (Gwen Morton Spencer and Sam Ure Smith (1950) Australian

Treescapes, Ure Smith Pty Ltd, Sydney, p. 56; photograph by

Olga Sharp)


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‘Brigit Behind “The Barn” in 1966’, a photograph of Brian and Jan McKeever’s child playing in the gardens at Bickleigh Vale, Mooroolbark (Melbourne), taken by Edna Walling (Brian and Jan McKeever)


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the visit that they embarked on extended periods of work experience (practi-cally there and then) and even purchased land upon which they built their homes. The social life of the subdivision, especially with the children, became an important outlet for her photographic art and ultimately a testament to the creativity in walling’s oeuvre. Bickleigh Vale was also a site for exploring and experimenting with exotic and Australian plants. She was concerned about the lack of attention paid to Australian streetscapes and roadsides, and her book The Australian Roadside (1952) addressed the treatment of roadside vegetation in easements in Victoria and signalled her involvement in debates about plan-ning and engineering matters in her local environment. She acknowledged landscape architects as professionals who could work closely with architects and engineers and bring a broad vision to civic landscape work.43 in recognis-ing the profession’s role in affirming indigenous qualities of the Australian countryside through the design of country properties, walling concluded: ‘To be a good landscape architect is to be a good conservationist’.44

Lostfoundersofaustralianlandscapearchitecture

To the detriment of the profession, the careers of walling, Sorensen and Brown did not play a strong guiding role in establishing the position of landscape architects. in part, their lack of influence has been because many practitioners, both then and now, have striven to dispel the common perception that landscape architects only design private gardens or that their primary training is horticulturally-based. in the 1970s it was the boom in large-scale public projects involving landscape remediation and rehabilitation that gave the new profession its major thrust. But another reason for the failure of these pioneers to influence the profession’s establishment is merely due to circumstances. Sorensen died before the Australian institute of Landscape Architects could deliver a letter to him offering an Honorary Life Fellowship. Brown was nearing 70 years old when the institute formed in 1966. By the time walling was asked to join discussions about the prospects of forming the AiLA in 1962, her interests were solely in nature conservation and not in design. She responded:


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i would be an anachronism in any [sic] institute. However, of course, my very best wishes go to the Australian institute of Landscape Architects.45

This was a significant loss: her membership might have given the AiLA more legitimacy in the eyes of the public. it is also likely that walling’s con-tribution has tended to shroud the work of others who did fit more closely the professional mould of a landscape architect.

A number of interwar designers, not particularly recognised as land-scape architects by the profession as it developed in the 1960s, were in fact the AiLA’s founding practitioners. One such was Hugh Linaker (1872–1938) from Ballarat in Victoria. After holding various landscape gardening and cura-torial positions laying out plantations for municipal lands (later to become parks) in western Victoria, Linaker became a landscape gardener in public institutional settings from 1912. He was specifically associated with landscape design for the Lunacy Department (in particular for the Mont Park Hospital for the insane, in Melbourne’s north-east) and later broadly advised munici-palities and government bodies, such as the Public works Department and the State electricity Commission on the planning of parks and gardens. The precise number of private gardens he was involved with is not known, but one of the most notable was the garden of Burnham Beeches at Sherbrooke in the Dandenong ranges east of Melbourne (circa 1935) where Percival Trevaskis (1903–91) was head gardener.

Hugh Linaker rose to the level of Superintendent of Parks and gardens for the State of Victoria in 1933 and, in so doing, he established within gov-ernment departments recognition of the skills of the landscape gardener. This had come after many years of work experience in public service, some con-troversial, where he competed for authority among the various bureaucracies and organisations within which decisions on landscape design were made. Linaker’s empowered role as landscape gardener for high-profile projects in part came from his associations with politicians such as Sir Stanley Argyle.46 For this he attracted criticism and even derision from designers, particularly (and notably) edna walling, as well as other organisations. He was responsible for many projects in Melbourne, including planting and design in association


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with the Shrine of remembrance and parts of the King’s Domain (1933) in central Melbourne, whose Pioneer women’s garden he designed in 1934. His assistance with the project to generate highway planting between Melbourne and geelong was marked by a simple sign in a commemorative reserve on the freeway to geelong, but the sign recently fell victim to the redevelopment of a large interchange. Perhaps one of Linaker’s most significant works in terms of scale was his 1930 proposal for the Yarra Bend national Park in Melbourne. The plan incorporated shelter pavilions, a band rotunda, 23 cricket grounds,

The elaborate landscape plan titled ‘Plan Layout and Planting Yarra Bend National Park’, drawn at scale 240’ to 1”, signed H Linaker Mont Albert, 5 May 1930 (State

Library of Victoria Acc. No. H348; photo lithographed at the Department of Lands and Survey,

Melbourne)


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other sports arenas and activities such as ‘Shoot the Shoot’ and a fish hatch-ery. A Temple of the winds was suggested on the axis of Johnston Street, an eastbound arterial road out of central Melbourne, but this never eventuated.

Linaker’s planting schemes were bold, regimented and testament to the value he placed on trees for ornamentation and practicality. He often specified avenue planting of exotic deciduous trees along roads and paths, and inter-spersing of exotic and Australian native species in single planting arrange-ments or clusters (often of three). Plantings of specimen trees were proposed in the open spaces created by path networks, and planted sometimes 50 to 70 metres apart from each other. Linaker’s planting for the Buchan Caves national Park in 1929 was also rich in planting arrangement and design.

The breadth of Linaker’s influence is reflective of the way in which social and political connectedness can empower individuals who are enmeshed in government departments, a notable trait of many of the pioneers of landscape architecture in the post–world war ii period. in new Zealand, too, such a role emerged, with the career of Swiss-trained horticulturalist and landscape architect Fred Tschopp (1905–80)47 who was employed from 1929 by govern-ment and local authorities in wellington, rotorua and Auckland. in Victoria, the role of Superintendent of Parks and gardens extended to regional towns across the state where Linaker provided elaborate designs for football ovals, such as the football ground of enormous proportions in the Cohuna recrea-tion reserve (1938) in northern Victoria.48

Linaker’s role in creating acceptance within government departments for the designed landscape is no more clearly demonstrated than in his long and arduous battles over the design and planning of the new town of Yal-lourn, 140 kilometres south-east of Melbourne.49 in 1921 Alan La gerche was appointed head of the Architectural Sub-branch of the State electricity Commission and a year later Linaker was appointed as landscape gardener. For more than a decade the two consultants argued over planting the streetscapes of Yallourn. La gerche wanted simplicity and formality and a landscape treat-ment that would resemble welwyn garden City in england, with avenues of elms and lawned open spaces. Linaker opposed uniformity and simple plant-ing and won the support of local residents who wanted to reduce the harsh-ness of the government-owned township. engineer and director of Yallourn’s


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development Sir John Monash adjudicated in the disputes until his death in 1931. By the mid-1930s a series of compromises had resulted in extensive avenue plantings, in which fragments of the doctrines of both La gerche and Linaker were represented. when Yallourn was demolished in the 1980s to make way for the extension of the nearby open-cut coal mine, most of the trees, which by then had grown to form effective and valued avenues, were destroyed; only a small number were transplanted to neighbouring towns.

precedentsfromeurope

A group of notable immigrant practitioners played a formative part in estab-lishing the role of landscape design in public practice, introducing contem-porary european models of density and urban design. Such models were at odds with the character of Australian cities but they were also way ahead of the time. ernest Fooks (1906–85) – who changed his name from ernst Fuchs when he became an Australian citizen in 1945 – was born to a Jewish family in Bratislava, Slovakia, and at an early age moved to Vienna, Austria. in the 1920s he studied psychology at the University of Vienna and architecture at the Technical University of Vienna, where his doctorate (1932) focused on urban design and city planning. The publishing of his doctoral thesis, Stadt in Streifen (The City in Strips), was thwarted because of the rise of nazi germany and its annexation of Austria. Between 1932 and 1938, however, Fooks’ career flourished. He worked for Theiss-Jaksch architects on Hochhaus Herrengasse, Vienna’s first high-rise apartment building, and won a design competition for ‘The growing House’ in which can be seen an exuberance of ideas for trans-forming the city and the fundamental implications that design of cities and urban open spaces could have for quality of life. in his thesis he stated:

Culture is bound to single points, it reaches its blossom in the cities. nature is not bound to anything. it can be everywhere. it has to be in the metropolis also. That is the assignment.50

Fooks arrived in Australia in May 1939 and within weeks had taken up a town planning position within the planning department of the Housing


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Commission of Victoria, working closely with Frank Heath and Best Overend. At that time the Housing Commission was seen to be a progressive organi-sation, with major projects including large-scale planning and design along garden city principles, with new housing at Fisherman’s Bend in Melbourne in the early 1940s and, soon after, at regional centres such as Swan Hill, Hor-sham and Seymour. The provision and design of open space and streetscape in a complete package for residential subdivision was a key concern and this ultimately created a need for landscape design in the public realm.

The Master Plan of Seymour by Frank Heath, architect and town planner, showing the intrinsic nature of open space in town planning that ultimately created a need for landscape design (Seymour Shire Council and Ratepayers (undated circa 1940) Seymour Your Town,

The Ruskin Press, Melbourne)


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Fooks was offered the position of director of the Urban Research Institute to plan for postwar reconstruction in 1944 but was unable to take up the posi-tion because he was designated an ‘enemy alien’.51 In 1942 he had written ‘The Democratic City: Town-Planning in Russia and Australia’ which discussed comprehensive planning under the Soviet system, and in 1946 he published his ideas on cities and density more expansively in X-Ray the City! The Den-sity Diagram: Basis for Urban Planning. Fooks’ career in Australia is strongly associated with town planning but it was also linked with ideas for open space

Ernest Fooks, when employed by the Housing Commission of Victoria, demonstrating a typical neighbourhood unit in the ideal town in the early 1940s (Noemi Fooks; photographer unknown)


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and new ideals in planning and designing residential subdivisions. After his early experience in the Housing Commission of Victoria, he switched to architecture, setting up his own office in 1948 and developing an impressive list of commissions thereafter. Unlike his contemporary and fellow Austrian émigré Karl Langer, Fooks never really connected with the profession of land-scape architecture, although he was known to carefully integrate gardens into domestic architecture and won awards for doing so. Most significantly, his early work in Australia clearly advanced residential subdivision design, and, ultimately, pre-empted the broader roll-out of the practice of urban design in the 1980s. An important contemporary of Fooks was ernest Milston, who was also ahead of his time in the broader view of planning urban spaces in Australia in the 1940s.

ernest edward Milston (1893–1968), born Arnöst edouard Mühlstein in Prague, Czechoslovakia, graduated in architecture in 1916. in partnership with Victor Furth, his firm was responsible for designing buildings between 1926 and 1940 that became significant examples of international Style archi-tecture in Prague.52 He migrated to Adelaide in April 1940, where he practised as an architect on public works projects before moving to Melbourne in 1946 to take up a position in the Victorian Public works Department. in 1950 he won the prestigious design competition for the world war ii Forecourt at the Melbourne Shrine of remembrance, which enabled him to set up in private practice. The shrine demonstrated Milston’s ability to conceive urban space. it has a striking presence within the King’s Domain and anchors the major north–south axis through the city of Melbourne.

Milston’s comprehensive approach to design, embracing site planning, architecture and landscape, was most clearly demonstrated in his collaboration with Melbourne architect Don Hendry Fulton (for whom landscape architect grace Fraser consulted). Together they designed the mining town of Mary Kathleen (1955–57) in outback Queensland, their plans for which incorpo-rated cul-de-sac design and shared pedestrian and open-space corridors which linked residential areas with the town’s essential services. Their plans also show a strong respect for the natural features of the site and broader landscape. The site was a few kilometres from the mine, beyond a hill that offered work-ers respite from their workplace. neighbourhoods were grouped according to


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natural features such as trees and rock outcrops. Treed spaces were intrinsic elements within the overall scheme and microclimate issues were considered in the alignment of each house. Such principles had been lacking in mainstream residential subdivisions in Australia’s capital cities but change was imminent. Commenting in 1960 on the success of the design of Mary Kathleen, robin Boyd referred to the homogeneity of its design as exemplary of the ‘art of town planning’.53 within a decade, landscape architects were beginning to make a case for the legitimacy of their profession in the expectation that it, not town planning or architecture, would satisfy the need for more sensitively designed housing developments in relationship to their environmental contexts.

There is reason to speculate about the extent to which Mary Kathleen’s pleasant character was a product of the Milston and Fulton design and to what extent it was due to the experience of AJ Keast, then general manager of the Australian Aluminium Production Commission, who had witnessed the for-mation of green belts elsewhere in Australia, including at Broken Hill in the far west of new South wales, in the 1930s. This was one of the most adven-turous pioneering acts of land rehabilitation in the arid Australian landscape. After more than 30 years of mining, Broken Hill had become a denuded sandy wasteland whose residents were regularly afflicted by drifting sands and endured difficult living conditions, exacerbated by devastating winds that caused seri-ous injury and destruction. in The Greening of the Hill (1992), Horace webber documented the extraordinary group of people who came together in Broken Hill to create a habitable landscape in place of desolation. Much of what was achieved there is attributable to the visionary understanding of Australian landscape and its flora of long-time resident mine worker, amateur botanist and horticulturalist Albert Morris and his wife Margaret. Morris’ belief in the importance of Australian indigenous plants and environment won the support of mine management and workers. with further support from Broken Hill’s municipal bureaucracy and the Barrier Field naturalists’ Club, an impressive feat of land rehabilitation was accomplished.


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These feats of large-scale land reclamation were a result not of one individual profession, but of people from a diversity of disciplines and professional groups inspired to work together with a shared vision for designing and caring for the land. Such multidisciplinary organisational environments became the norm with the advent of large government organisations such as the national Capital Development Commission (1958) and public works departments around the country, all of whom stepped in to respond to the demands of the Australian post–world war ii boom. They were stocked with the professions of architecture, engineering, town planning, landscape management, horticulture, forestry and others. Simultaneously, a broad group of pioneers who advocated the new profession of landscape architecture set out to vie for a place in the new structure.


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3

Spirit of the pioneers

After world war ii, the pioneers of the Australian landscape architecture profession began to emerge, in the most unlikely places and unexpected ways.

The small and remote woomera Village, set deep in arid South Austral-ian desert, roughly 500 kilometres north-west of Adelaide, was conceived in 1947 to house and service defence and civilian personnel associated with the Long range weapons Project and subsequently became the infrastructure on which to hang a variety of other government activities such as space research (Australia’s first satellite was launched from woomera) and, more recently, a highly contentious immigration reception and Processing Centre. All these activities, somewhat tragically, favour desolate sites. The Arcoona Plateau is treeless and paved with shards of stone which clink and slide beneath the feet. water is not seasonal: when it comes it causes floods and the ground becomes mud; then the rain can refuse to fall, sometimes for years on end. Summer produces temperatures well into the 40s (Celsius) with hot winds bringing a pervasive dust. To the north, east and west of woomera lie hundreds and thousands of kilometres of largely undeveloped land; the traditional owners of the area include different tribes of Aboriginal people, many of whom had been displaced by large but thinly spread homesteads. it was these characteristics that made Australia an ideal place for the British to test bombs and military hardware and to hurl rockets towards the sky, activities linked ultimately to the underground skirmishes of the Cold war.

woomera rose with recalcitrance from its desolate location and from the extreme sociopolitical context of the post–world war ii years. in its heyday in the 1960s more than 6000 people lived in the village. Correspondingly, social and cultural life bloomed, tenuously kept alive by water pumped hundreds of kilometres in a pipeline from the river Murray. As a government-owned


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village, woomera was well resourced and, in the context of extreme conditions, this produced great feats of landscape design and management, largely fuelled by a belief that barren desert could be made to sustain life and even be productive. The protago-nist was rH Patterson, who went under the title of ‘arboriculturist’ when working for the Common-wealth of Australia Department of works, probably because that was a title to be found on gov-ernment payrolls. However, from some of the scratchy details that can be gleaned, Patterson also seems to have been one of the few Australians to be an associate of the British institute of Landscape Architects (iLA) at least as early as 1953, if not earlier.1 The physi-cal expression of his innovative and state-of-the-art ideas in turning arid Aus-tralian landscape into a habitable domestic environment commenced in August 1950. He was responsible for the establishment of parks, an arboretum (com-pleted 1951), a green belt encircling the town and street plantings lining what were essentially desert roadways. By August 1953, 17 000 trees and shrubs had been planted in streets, park areas, the green belt and in nearby areas such as Koolymilka, and 3076 plants had been supplied for home gardens.

The greening of woomera Village using Australian native plant species commenced in the very early stages of the town’s development. To an extent, it was pre-emptive, unlike its important precedent at Broken Hill, where years of land degradation occurred before moves to rehabilitate were made. Patterson’s involvement started in november 1948 when he requested a reconnaissance of

Aerial view of the Woomera Arboretum and nursery in foreground, with the thriving ‘green’ village of Woomera in background and, beyond, the treeless plain of the arid South Australia desert, circa 1962 (Roger Henwood,

Australian Government Department of Defence,

Corporate Services & Infrastructure Group, Woomera;

photographer unknown)


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the area’s soils. He established an arboretum and conducted groundbreaking research into the Australian native flora and exotic flora that could cope with the extremely arid conditions at woomera. He propagated this flora utilising one of the earliest arid-zone grey-water reticulation systems for street tree planting and public open space in Australia, commencing circa 1950. Using indigenous plants, Patterson planned and designed a greening strategy for the town in an attempt to mitigate the severe arid conditions endured by the people living in the town. in the proceeding decades the domestic landscape bloomed, largely due to the efforts of committed long-term arboretum staff such as the inventive Aub reilly, works and Services officer in charge of the arboretum,2 and his crew. Patterson also produced landscape designs and in so doing he incorporated local materials, with high-quality stone paving, densely planted garden beds, playgrounds and even ornaments such as fountains, as seen in his 1954 plan for the grounds of the Staff Mess – which, like most of the rest of woomera, has since been demolished. Patterson’s role in the green-ing of woomera resembled the role of forestry – the profession that Olmsted had cited as the closest discipline to landscape architecture. it was the forestry commissions and certain enlightened philanthropists, such as horticulturist Sir russell grimwade (1879–1955), who advanced the impressive examples of Broken Hill and woomera (which grimwade had visited in 1951) and applied them in land rehabilitation projects in other needy regions, such as the wim-mera and Mallee of north-western Victoria, in the mid-20th century.

Patterson’s work at woomera signified a new culture of design that was emerging amid the wreckage of world war ii; it was one that was explora-tive, particularly when it came to the use of plants, but it also came as a result of new government organisations that provided employment structures that landscape architects could infiltrate, enabling them to utilise the available capital to create landscape. Those attracted to the work that was to become identified as landscape architecture in the 1960s reinvented themselves, as

Landscape design for the grounds of the Staff Mess, Long Range Weapons Project, Woomera, by RH Patterson, 1954 for the Commonwealth of Australia Department of Works (Head Office, Melbourne) (Roger Henwood and Marcus Jones, Australian Government

Department of Defence, Corporate Services & Infrastructure Group, Woomera)


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‘ready-made’ expertise was identified across an eclectic array of occupations. Australia was on the receiving end of multiple forces of change. Population growth and widespread shortages of building materials placed heavy demands on the planning for and provision of the built environment, including housing and infrastructure. The significant program of postwar immigration brought predominantly european immigrants and with them came ways of doing things that were new to Australian culture, that manifested in the design of landscape. A profession was cobbled together from the very diverse exper-tise and experience of these people: those who contributed to transforming domestic environments through garden design; those whose work contributed to improving the shared public spaces of cities and towns; and those whose work had at its core a fundamental understanding of the land that is Australia and sought to preserve its values. Among them were contemporaries of promi-nent earlier 20th-century designers such as edna walling and Hugh Linaker, but who, unlike those figures, were to become (often for very different reasons) pioneers of the new profession.

gardenDuring the development boom that followed world war ii the domestic landscape was newly envisioned, mainly because of the search for a suburban utopia and its accompanying idealism. The need for domestic comfort and self-sufficiency prevailed but, in the rapid development that was satisfying this need, the Australian landscape was changing. To solve problems of Australia’s urban environments, new unions between planners, architects and others were required. in north America the modern garden was being transformed in radical ways and the popular garden design magazine Sunset was testament to this trend in the United States. People had begun to realise the significant role that a garden could play, both in the domestic setting and beyond, in the public realm of suburbs. in Australia, advocates of horticulture and garden design provided the bridge between domestic and public landscape design and it was the person who specialised in deploying plants for specific purposes, at that time known as a ‘plantsman’, who first satisfied the demand for the discipline of landscape architecture.


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writersforlandscapearchitecture

Most of the writing on gardens and horticulture in the first half of the 20th century emanated from Melbourne. One important reason for this was the potential of Melbourne’s temperate climate which was so conducive to growing a great breadth of plants. Perhaps the best known writer was edna walling, through her contributions to Australian Home Beautiful. But in this particular forum walling was distinctly writing about domestic garden design. The public was introduced to landscape architecture as a specific and identifiable field by a small group of practitioners that included ernest Lord (1899–1970). Lord called himself a landscape architect in 1948 when he published Shrubs and Trees for Australian Gardens, a publication widely embraced by practitioners as staple source of plant knowledge. He did so nearly 20 years before landscape architecture in Australia found formal expression in a professional organisation.

Although based in Melbourne, Lord claimed first-hand knowledge of gardens and horticulture in every part of Australia and in many other coun-tries. Born and educated in england, he spent his professional life in Aus-tralia. He had acquired his knowledge and professional ability without any formal training and his accomplish-ments were broad and eclectic. He held curatorial positions, was a member of several national and international committees, was engaged with news media (Melbourne Sun and radio 3DB) and was teacher, among other things. Lord established the popular gardening magazine Your Garden and

Ernest Lord called himself a ‘Landscape Architect’ in 1948 in his influential publication Shrubs and Trees for Australian Gardens, which was reprinted for decades thereafter (Ernest E Lord (1970)

Shrubs and Trees for Australian Gardens, Lothian

Publishing Co. Pty Ltd, Melbourne, frontispiece

and dust-jacket; photographer unknown)


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was its founding editor in 1948 and 1949. He was curator of Parks and gar-dens at Horsham (Victoria) from 1935 to 1941 and had an interest in Austral-ian native plants, as demonstrated in his many years on the Management and Advisory Committee for the Maranoa gardens, a public garden in Balwyn (Melbourne) dedicated to the cultivation of Australian flora. His premature use of the title ‘landscape architect’ is perhaps explained by the association with academics and practitioners he established during his international trav-els. in 1953 he started the ernest e Lord School of Landscape gardening in central Melbourne. From 1953 until his death in 1970, more than 150 people received certificates under Lord’s tuition, including gordon Ford who was one of the school’s first graduates, in March 1956. After his death the school was managed by edna Pollard and Patricia newton – who described Lord as having ‘the driest sense of humour that anyone could possibly imagine’ and being ‘eccentric!’.3 (He stuck spent toilet rolls together with sticky tape to make the containers for his graduates’ certificates.) Although Lord had won the respect of colleagues and associates internationally, his work was not as widely acknowledged or as well understood in Australia.

in 1958 Lord wrote Your New Home Garden: Its Design, Construction and Planting as a response to postwar suburban expansion and the public’s interest in domestic gardening. garden design in the postwar period blended practical needs, functional use and aesthetic appearance. The front garden invariably had generous swaths of lawn with garden beds of flowering trees for seasonal colour and a densely planted understorey of low-growing shrubs. Lord empha-sised the importance of planning and expressed the value of a garden laid out holistically and in the ‘professional style’. He offered advice on the prepara-tion of garden plans; key aspects of his design were an ornamental garden at the street frontage, the allocation of functional requirements such as vege-table-growing, clothes hoist and sheds, and detailed planting arrangements that made extensive use of a property. There is evidence that he included areas dedicated to wild nature that were defined by native plant material. His garden plans carried his signature and were accompanied by the title ‘LAnDS. ArCH.’ equating the design of the garden with that of landscape architecture, Lord was helping to set foundations for the elevation of garden design to that of a professional pursuit. He supported the institutionalisation of landscape


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architecture when it occurred, but there is little evidence of his active partici-pation in the process, which came very late in his career.

Like ernest Lord, Olive Mellor (1891–1978) made significant contribu-tions to suburban garden design through writing, most notably through her regular column in Australian Home Beautiful between 1934 and 1970. She con-sistently used the title ‘landscape architect’, even though historians of garden design tend to ignore this fact. Olive Mellor imparted the idea that the owner of a home should be encouraged to participate in planning its garden and she sought to develop the amateur gardener’s knowledge and skills through her writing. in her consultancy work she aimed to satisfy the needs and desires

Design for a suburban front garden, an illustration that accompanied the article in Australian Home Beautiful written by Olive Mellor, titled ‘Tasteful front garden’ in 1951 (O Mellor, ‘Tasteful front garden’, in Australian Home Beautiful, Volume 30, No. 7, July 1951, p. 67)


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of her clients rather than to impose her own aesthetic visions, although her articles often contained imagery promoting tasteful domestic garden settings made picturesque by the insertion of the happily married couple at work within the garden. Her approach may have been artless, but it was always instructive and practical applications were paramount. Her book The Garden Lovers’ Log (1940) was written with the distinct purpose of helping people to manage their gardens; design was often implied rather than consciously advocated.

Mellor’s writing was intended to help domestic gardeners rather than to support the design and planning of larger-scale public places. She did, never-theless, promote the engagement of women in the horticulture industry and made a significant contribution to changing the gender balance in the field. She was invited to the first informal meeting of landscape architects in 1962, but, like Lord, she did not take an active role in forming the professional body. in spite of their potential as high-profile public advocates for the emerging profession, neither Mellor nor Lord was among its leaders in the 1960s. Like walling and Brown in the years before world war ii, Lord and Mellor were approaching the end of independent and successful careers and their partici-pation in an organised profession perhaps seemed irrelevant or beyond their declining energies.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s interest in native plants as symbols of Australian identity grew steadily. Lord and Mellor both embraced a liberal mix of exotic and native plants, an approach that became increasingly criticised as the bias towards Australian native plants strengthened. writers such as Jean (‘Correa’) galbraith (1906–99) in Victoria were pivotal to raising awareness of Australian native plants, particularly from a botanical and field identifica-tion perspective. A book by Thistle Harris (1902–90), Australian Plants for the Garden, published in 1953, was one of the first responses to the growing inter-est in using Australian native flora in design. From 1938 to 1962 she taught biological sciences at Sydney Teachers College, all the while writing about the Australian bush and its plants for nature lovers. Her career diverged from nat-ural history when, after completing a Master of education at the University of Melbourne, she went on to graduate in 1970 from Peter Spooner’s Diploma in Landscape Design program at the University of new South wales, a course that soon after became a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture. Harris’ letter-


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head changed to ‘Thistle Y Harris Landscape Architect’ and, retrospectively, she stated:

[studying landscape architecture] had a profound effect on me. it altered my own relationship to the bushlands through which i passed … giving greater attention to the combination of species and their relationship to one another, and why.’4

Her passion for Australian native plants and landscapes had a significant impact on landscape practitioners and other writers of her time.

Knowledge of how to use Australian natives from an aesthetic and practi-cal standpoint was, however, not readily available. Practitioners were operat-ing in an environment that was still infused with scepticism about the use of native plants. Most people still clung to the view that native plants were bleak and scrubby and thought they had little variety or appeal. Publications that promoted alternative views were read with great interest and seen as an affir-mation for many practitioners starting landscape consultancies. Of particular significance from this period were two books about native gardens by sisters Betty Florence Maloney (1925–2001) and (edith) Jean walker (1922– ). Designing Australian Bush Gardens (1966) and More About Bush Gardens (1967) presented practical and technical explanation for replicating Sydney bushland in suburban gardens. Maloney and walker studied art at Melbourne Techni-cal College before moving to Sydney, where they were inspired by the region’s landscape and formed a design consultancy in 1964. The sentiment in their books articulated work that professional landscape architects were beginning to do in the late 1960s. Landscape architects Bruce rickard and Bruce Mac-kenzie both recalled the work of walker and Maloney. rickard referred to the books as ‘My Landscape Bible’.5 Mackenzie added Harris’ book to walker and Maloney’s as being writing of major influence, stating that it was,

… in terms of their compassion for native landscape and their inspirational sort of mood or basic philosophy because, i was ‘doing’ that sort of thing. i was ‘thinking’ that sort of thing. i was ‘talking’ all that sort of thing.6


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The emotion stimulated by the Australian native landscape was a major catalyst for change and its origins are a complex mix of literature and other forms of cultural expression of the time. The inspirational mood that Macken-zie identified had an undeniable influence on the development of landscape architecture as a new profession. Optimism about what could be achieved with native plants prevailed over scepticism about their shape, structure and behaviour and writers played a crucial role in changing public perception. To a certain extent, literature about native plants became inextricably linked to expanding interest in conservation, as exemplified as early as 1952 with edna walling’s The Australian Roadside. Others writing in journals such as Architect

and Architecture Australia began to promote the importance of planning land-scapes beyond the domestic backyard, appropriating good practice in domestic garden design and applying it creatively to commercial or institutional envi-ronments. Sometimes the results of the emotionally-charged use of Australian native plants and the corresponding experimentation were naive and clumsy. Today they stand out as such and, although we would do well to preserve some of these examples, many have been or will be forgotten, perhaps for the better. At other times designers were able to successfully take their expertise in plant-ing design and management from the domain of the domestic garden into the plazas and public spaces of Australia’s major cities, where they found increased opportunities to experiment with modern design.

gardendesignersinpublicspace

The expanded opportunities for horticulturalists and garden designers offered by larger-scale commercial and institutional landscaping provided an avenue for them to engage in professional practice equivalent to that of architects. Before the 1960s large public sites were constructed by competent landscape construc-tion firms such as that of eric Hammond (1898–1992) in Melbourne, which took on projects such as the resurfacing of the Melbourne Cricket ground for the 1956 Olympics – a significant project but not noted for its aesthetic quali-ties. Hammond had, since 1926, a long association with edna walling in con-structing her garden designs and, as a result, built up considerable experience to become a formidable design and construct practitioner. it was the uncommon


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and particular abilities of practitioners such as Hammond that enabled him to apply landscape design beyond the domestic scale. The subsequent engagement of landscape architects and increasing acknowledgment of aesthetic aspects in public landscaping projects were very much the result of the gradual acceptance of landscape architecture as an academic discipline.

eg waterhouse (1881–1977) attempted unsuccessfully to establish land-scape architecture as an academic discipline before world war ii. A Univer-sity of Sydney graduate, he initially taught languages but became an eminent garden and landscape designer in new South wales. He toured the United States in 1934 to study the landscaping of university campuses and, after speaking with designers such as Beatrix Farrand (1872–1959), a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects, he returned to Australia with the belief that training leading to the professional qualification of landscape architects was needed. waterhouse attempted to promote land-scape architecture through public forums, extending his advocacy to writing to local newspapers calling for the newly constructed Sydney Harbour Bridge to receive proper landscaping.

waterhouse had little hope of establishing education for landscape archi-tecture in Australia in the 1930s. There were only a few practising landscape designers and these had proven to operate quite successfully without this kind of occupational association. Three such designers who were beginning to apply their skills outside of domestic work were Harold Bloom (1897–1985), emily gibson (1887–1974) and David (rex) Hazlewood (1886–1968). They worked in diverse ways, but a common factor was the way they adapted their horti-cultural expertise to the design of landscapes for commercial and industrial clients. Bloom was 50 when he started his landscape design career, having worked initially in his family’s jewellery business before studying Arts and Law at the University of Sydney. He developed an interest in landscape design after devising schemes for his own garden and those of friends, which led to his engagement by a seed and plant merchant company. within a few years he had established his own firm in landscape design and worked in Sydney, Dubbo and wollongong designing public open space and industrial sites. He was highly motivated, working on sites as far afield as guam island (1966). On his application for membership to the AiLA in August 1966 he stated his


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training consisted of ‘a great deal of reading and personal study of all the allied subjects’.7

emily gibson became involved with industrial landscaping through her association with major architectural firms of the time. Unlike Bloom and Hazlewood, she had formal training in horticulture at the Burnley School of Horticulture in Melbourne (1914–16) and had become known as a horti-cultural writer in newspapers and journals. After graduation, she worked in the office of walter and Marion griffin on projects such as newman Col-lege, which may have heightened her awareness of the profession of landscape architecture. Professional photographer rex Hazlewood also became an inno-vative landscape designer through his work with his brothers in Hazlewood Brothers nursery, which they established in the Sydney suburb of epping in 1908. in 1931 Hazlewood designed the national rose garden, still in exist-ence, alongside the first Parliament House in Canberra. He became a land-scape consultant for local and state government and continued in this role until late in his life.

The professionalisation of landscape architecture in Australia was at first hesitant. Some Burnley graduates – such as Thomas ingle Parramore, who graduated with a Certificate of Horticulture in 1933 – had started to gain design commissions before world war ii. in 1940, Parramore was commis-sioned to prepare a design for the grounds of the national war Memorial in Canberra, some 10 hectares, and his plans were adopted by the war Memorial Board and the national Capital Planning and Development Committee in that year. He collaborated with the supervising architect from Sydney, John Crust. The design of the building had been produced collaboratively by Sydney architects emil Sodersten and John Crust, and Parramore subsequently col-laborated with Crust who was made supervising architect during construction. The memorial opened in 1941; however, the extent to which the grounds were developed to Parramore’s recommendations, or are extant, remains unclear. Parramore went on to teach at the ryde School of Horticulture, taking over from nigel Ashton in teaching classes in garden design, and ultimately being among the early list of applicants for membership to the AiLA. Concerted attempts to guide people more deliberately into professional landscape design came as a result of the efforts of emily gibson in Victoria and Harold Bloom


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in new South wales, who became vital contributors to the process. Although they were both established as landscape designers by the close of world war ii, it was not until after the war that their ideas and mentorship had a notice-able impact among other practitioners.

gibson and Bloom both saw the potential role that landscape professionals could play in resolving complex social problems as well as the practical prob-lems associated with landscape and suburban expansion. Hazlewood inspired future practitioners through teaching landscape design to planning students at the University of Sydney. in 1947 gibson returned to teaching at Burnley School of Primary Agriculture and Horticulture (she had taught there from 1918 to 1922), which had become a nationally recognised centre for horti-cultural pursuits, although there were still no courses in landscape design or landscape architecture in Australia. From the early 1950s academics in related disciplines with an interest in landscape began to introduce short courses in landscape design for planning and architecture students. A group of horti-culturalists and inspired amateurs, mostly women, including Mervyn Davis, Margaret Hendry, Beryl Mann (an architect as well as a horticulturalist), erica Ball, Allan Correy, John Stevens and grace Fraser, began to mobilise. in Mel-bourne, gibson set an example by linking horticulture with architecture and engineering that enabled a new breed of designers to move beyond domestic garden design into industrial, institutional and commercial landscape design. For example, gibson worked on private commissions with Hilda Dance, a graduate from Burnley (1934) and instructor at Burnley. Dance herself was an inspirational landscape designer with members of her own family, daughter Jane Marriott and nephew Chris Dance, becoming well-known landscape architects in Victoria.

it is difficult to gauge the extent of gibson’s influence on planning the site layout or detailed documentation of her commercial landscape design because most of her drawings were destroyed. The few available plans indicate that she prepared comprehensive planting designs which carried instructions for the installation of garden furniture or construction of elements such as paving and walls. She used a liberal mix of plants: Australian natives in perimeter plant-ing within larger and often curvilinear garden beds; exotic trees and shrubs in lawn; and clipped hedges, rose gardens and annuals within a more geometric


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layout closer to buildings and to define entry points and address the street. The choice of deciduous trees and shrubs close to buildings or within court-yards indicates a concern for solar access to internal spaces. in 1950 gibson, in association with Hilda Dance, prepared a garden scheme for the nurses’ Home at the gippsland Hospital in Sale, Victoria, consisting of mainly exotic plant material and incorporating a summer house, paved courtyards with pots of geraniums, clipped hedges and extensive shrub border planting. A major commission for gibson came in 1953 in association with architects Stephen-son and Turner, for the Standard Vacuum refinery Company Ltd administra-tion building complex in Altona, Melbourne. For protection from hot westerly winds, she proposed the west perimeter have wooden ‘half-pergolas’ backed with brush screens. remnants of her plantings remain but, because so much of the design hinged on planting design and less on constructed elements, changes over time have severely eroded her design intent.

gibson in Melbourne set an important precedent for professional work but it was to be John Stevens (1920–2007) who would take this precedent and so markedly define a new niche for landscape architecture. Stevens studied horticulture at Burnley in 1938 and graduated with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree from the University of Melbourne in 1949. He worked with gibson on industrial projects in Victoria such as the oil refineries in Altona and geelong, gaining experience and encouragement that launched his career. in 1952 John Stevens was one of the first to open a landscape consulting prac-tice in Melbourne under the title, ‘John Stevens Landscape Consultant’. He worked with prominent Melbourne architecture firms including Bates Smart & McCutcheon (BSM) and grounds, romberg and Boyd, thus earning wide respect among architects and engineers. His competence at planting design and his ability to prepare detailed documentation drawings filled a void in professional modern design.

Sculpture was often included in Stevens’ designs, engaging sculptors such as gerald Lewers (1905–62) and Lithuanian émigré Teisutis Zikaras (1922–91)

Left Garden plan titled ‘Gippsland Hospital Sale Nurses’ Home Garden Plan’ by Emily Gibson and Hilda Dance, drawn at scale 1’ to 1/16”, 8 December 1950 (State Library of

Victoria, Acc. No. LTAD 110)


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who was a part of the sculptors’ collective ‘Centre Five’ that included inge King and another Lithuanian, Vincas Jomantas, among others. Centre Five’s bid was to raise the status of sculpture in association with architecture, which had a flow-on effect for landscape design. As a result of the work Stevens did together with colleague and long-term friend grace Fraser (1921–2010), the credibility of carefully designed landscape rose in Melbourne at the end of the 1950s. increasingly, Stevens was engaged for commercial and institutional projects such as iCi House in Melbourne (1955–58), Monash University, Clayton (1958–63), the eTA factory, Braybrook (1958–59) and Chadstone Shopping Centre (1961). By the late 1950s Stevens’ office had grown, with architecture students and draftsmen Trevor westmore, Malcolm Munro and robert Skerritt (in 1955), all of whom helped advance the quality of design and documentation the office produced. Skerritt later developed his own suc-cessful landscape consultancy in Melbourne. Stevens lectured to architecture and planning students at the University of Melbourne and early in his career he worked for a Melbourne-based television station (HSV7) and contributed to other media under the pseudonym ‘John Sunnyman’. From 1964 to 1977 Stevens was landscape architect for the Australian national University in Canberra, a job he took great pride in and through which he made a significant contribution to the advancement of the profession.

grace Fraser held qualifications in horticulture and garden design from Burnley (1943–44) and taught there between 1948 and 1950. She also stud-ied plant pathology in Australia and abroad and, on the recommendation of gibson, she was responsible for the newly established grounds of Tint-ern Church of england girls grammar School in east ringwood, an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne (1953–58). Fraser worked for Stevens between 1959 and 1964, after which she ran her own private practice until 1986. She completed many public, institutional and commercial design consultancies including the BP Administration Building, western Port (1965) designed by architect Don Hendry Fulton, and the Australian plant garden at royal Park, Melbourne (1973). it was while remonstrating with Fulton about a new road scheme at Arthur’s Seat on the Mornington Peninsula that Fraser claimed to have commenced her role as conservationist, a commitment that lasted more than 40 years.


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Stevens and Fraser were passionate about plants and used them brilliantly to achieve any required effect. Stevens’ earlier designs often featured a mix of Australian native and exotic plants, which he was able to combine and contrast in complex and innovative ways. A planting plan by Stevens and Fraser for the residence of architect roy grounds at 24 Hill Street, Toorak (Melbourne) in 1953 is a splendid example of the complexity of his designs. it reflected the fashion of the period for an Asian flavour and made use of bamboo, Japa-nese persimmon (Diospyros kaki) and Chinese elm (Ulmus chinensis), plants known for their distinctive and ornamental value. elsewhere in the plan Ste-vens used rose sheoak (Casuarina torulosa) and other Australian natives in a patterned display that echoed the detail of materials and joinery in grounds’ building. His design also responded directly to functional considerations of grounds’ modernist design, which featured a circular courtyard set within a square frame. Bamboo was used in the courtyard, hard up against the glazing so as to offer internal spaces respite from the northern sun. A persimmon and Strelitzia reginae featured within the circular court, giving a sculptural and a highly individual flavour to the space. The strong vertical elements expressed in the window framing of clerestory windows seemed to have inspired Stevens’ border-planting arrangement, which included a rhythmic placement of olives interplanted with broom. The courtyard design of the house at Hill Street foreshadowed grounds’ design for the national gallery of Victoria.

As landscape consultant for BSM’s iCi house (1955–58), Stevens’ office in association with BSM designed an intricately sculpted open space and plaza to compensate for its being the first building exceeding Melbourne’s 132-foot height limit. it was constructed by eric Hammond. Stevens, however, claimed that his most important and representative courtyard work was not iCi House but the 1962 commission for the Conzinc rio-Tinto Australia (CrA) fore-court8 at 95 Collins Street Melbourne. Stevens designed an asymmetrical area of tiled paving and garden bed edges. The planting included a mix of exotic plant species, with distinctive succulent and flax-leaved plants adjacent to the building. The pavement layout was executed in fine detail, including plans showing the ordering of every tile unit in the central space. The Vaccari tile pavement consisted of 6 x 3-inch tiles graded in a range of colours, includ-ing browns, warm greys and ochre tonings. in place of the intended italian


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Left Aerial view of the Conzinc Rio-Tinto Australia (CRA) Building, 95 Collins Street Melbourne, with forecourt landscape designed by John Stevens Landscape Consultant in 1962 (State Library of Victoria, Acc. No. H99.50/110; photograph by Wolfgang Sievers)

Above Landscape plan titled ‘Forecourt Planting: Consolidated Zinc Building 95 Collins Street’, designed by John Stevens Landscape Consultant, [no scale], February 1962 (State Library of Victoria LTAD 135/ Malcolm Munro; drawing by MDM)


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sculpture were three flagpoles and a tri-stemmed lighting feature at the fore-court entrance. The layout and planting reflected biomorphic landscape design characteristic of the work of South American roberto Burle Marx.

theinfluenceoftheémigrés

Stevens was very much a pioneer of the modern landscape in Australia and his work reflected a significant shift in design aesthetic in Melbourne. Before world war ii the influence of england was paramount and gardens inspired by Jekyll and walling enjoyed supremacy, thus firmly locating garden design in the domestic arena. Postwar Australia was characterised by a surge of international ideas and, importantly, of larger scales of practice in public spaces. The expansive postwar immigration program resulted in the direct transfer of european and American garden design knowledge as new immigrants joined Australian designers and influenced practice. They were often employed initially as draftspersons usually because of language or regulatory barriers, even though state-of-the-art training offered in early 20th-century europe often afforded a broad range of competencies such as structural detailing, pushing the boundaries of design beyond what someone who only specialised in plants might have achieved.

A noteworthy immigrant to Sydney was Latvian ilmars Berzins (1921–93), who studied horticulture and landscape architecture at the State Hor-ticultural College and the University of Technology in Hannover, germany. Berzins migrated to Australia in 1948 and was one of the first qualified land-scape architects to be employed in local government in Australia when he took up a position with the Sydney City Council’s Parks and gardens Division in 1951. As in all of the state capitals, the long period of cutbacks during world war ii fuelled a new desire in Sydney after the war to improve public parks and reserves for the benefit of society. Berzins’ abilities were suited to the task, for he had the unwavering aim of introducing nature into the city and he instigated very liberal planting programs. His aesthetic was not related to Australian indigenous landscapes, instead introducing a european sensibility to the thoughtful design of public open spaces in Sydney, detailing his land-scape designs in a way that was unprecedented in public works. He stayed with


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Landscape architect and Latvian émigré Ilmars Berzins on site among the complex stone detailing and level changes at the Arthur McElhone Reserve, Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, circa 1953 (Mayne-Wilson & Associates (2001) Draft Heritage Study & Review of Proposed

Landscape Masterplan of the McElhone Reserve, South Sydney City Council, NSW, pp. 22 & 28/Sylvia

Berzins; photographer unknown)


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the Sydney City Council until 1986, by which time he was director of Parks and recreation, advising external consultants on major urban redevelopment projects, such as the major redevelopment of Darling Harbour in the mid-1980s. One of Berzins’ most highly regarded works was his design for the Arthur Mcelhone reserve at elizabeth Bay, south Sydney, in the early 1950s. He proposed the use of ‘Selected Bush Sandstone rocks’9 for rockeries and edging. in the context of the underlying Hawkesbury sandstone this resulted in a feeling of integration. Berzins made use of extensive stone detailing that incorporated bookleaf sandstone, partly because stone masons were in relative abundance in Sydney.

Among other immigrants was Otakar (Otto) ruzicka (1920–96), whose work in the Australian Capital Territory is significant. Born in Czechoslova-kia, ruzicka trained in garden design at weihenstephan, Bavaria, and arrived in Australia in 1949, initially taking up a position at Kemp’s nursery in South Australia. ruzicka’s strong ability and sensitivity for landscape design are evi-dent in his design drawings, which were significant in promoting landscape design in the bureaucracies in which he worked. By 1952 he was employed under Lindsay Pryor in the Parks and gardens section of the Department of the interior in Canberra where he designed many gardens, including parts of the Australian national Botanic garden, several courtyard spaces at the Australian national University (AnU) and parts of government House and the Prime Minister’s Lodge. He specialised in the design of water features and working with Pryor gave him the opportunity to design fountains within planting schemes designed by Pryor.10 At the Australian national Botanic garden (AnBg), ruzicka designed angular shelters with clean lines and these still exist today.

when the national Capital Development Commission (nCDC) took over all design work from the Department of the interior in 1958, ruzicka was invited, because of his capabilities as a designer, to join the newly formed body but, to the disappointment of many, he declined this offer. ruzicka did

Top right photograph of garden shelter at the Australian National Botanic Gardens (Canberra) in 2011 (Photograph by Scott Heyes)

Below right Sketch for garden shelter at the ANBG by Otakar (Otto) Ruzicka circa 1955 (Australian National Botanic Gardens)


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not join the AiLA when it formed in 1966, although he clearly had an impact on Lindsay Pryor, a key motivator in AiLA’s foundation. He also helped to shape professional roles of garden designers elsewhere, including that of robin Sinclair Hill who was born in 1931 in Adelaide, and became a noted land-scape designer particularly in South Australia in the 1950s and 1960s. Hill, who was interested in fine arts and had studied sculpture, trained at Kemp’s nursery where ruzicka had worked briefly. Hill was influenced by european and American design, particularly by the work of Thomas Church (1902–78). Hill did landscape work for prominent Sydney architect Peter Muller in the 1960s and, although Hill is most remembered for his use of plant textures and forms, his designs also demonstrated skill with patterning of the ground plane to imbue small sites with complexity, as evidenced by his work at the iPeC building in Adelaide.

Based in Melbourne, an immigrant from Hungary, Lorand Sebestyen (1901–2005) graduated in architecture at the University of Technology, Buda-pest, in 1928. He had pursued studies in landscape-related disciplines but also claimed to be a structural engineer, translator, landscape designer, rare plant collector, pianist (including performances on ABC national radio) and pho-tographer. in 1931 he was admitted to the Budapest Chamber of engineers as a building engineer. He furthered his interest in landscape architecture at the Academy of Horticulture in Budapest and regarded his passion for exotic forms in the garden (both organic and inorganic) as the driving force behind his design approach. Sebestyen emigrated to Australia in 1939 and was a struc-tural designer in the City Architect’s Department of Melbourne City Council (MCC) from 1949 to 1966. He designed elements for several public open spaces in central Melbourne, including Lincoln Square, the Treasury gardens and small ornamental features around Melbourne such as the corner of exhi-bition and Victoria Streets. His design for the Men’s retiring room in the Fitzroy gardens (demolished in 2006) featured a cantilevered reinforced con-crete shell roof. Sebestyen’s most significant extant landscape work is the Ken-nedy Memorial in Treasury gardens, a commission he received after winning a competition within the MCC in 1965. Between 1967 and 1979, Sebestyen was employed as an architect for roy grounds and completed the landscape associated with the new Melbourne Arts Centre; he claimed to have developed

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the critical aspects of the large garden that extended over City road and func-tioned as a seamless transitional space, and helped create the Arts Precinct.11

The internationalisation of the designed landscape in other centres across Australia occurred sporadically and in localised ways. Brisbane designer Arne Fink was born in Hamburg, germany in november 1930 and qualified in horticulture before completing the garten Technische Hochschule course in Hohenheim in 1950. Fink obtained a Diploma of garden Technique from the Universität Hamburg two years later. Most of his personal records pertaining to his education were confiscated by the east german authorities in 1952, about the time of his emigration to Australia, where he worked initially on farms, stations and nurseries. His first position as a landscape architect was with the Brisbane City Council under Harry Oakman from 1959 to 1961, and thereafter as a private consultant completing projects for architectural and engi-neering firms and city and shire councils in Queensland (including ipswich, Toowoomba, Mackay, Longreach, redcliffe, Miles and Tweed Heads) and Murwillumbah in new South wales. He became affiliated with various pro-fessional bodies in the early 1960s, including the American institute of Park executives, the Australian Planning institute (APi) and the Australian insti-tute of Park Administration (AiPA). in South Australia, Stefan rohozinski (1924–2001) from warsaw, Poland, established landscape architectural services within state town planning for Adelaide’s metropolitan area (1958–61) and the Commonwealth Department of works from 1961 to 1968, completing land-scape proposals as part of his responsibilities as ‘design architect’. rohozinski went on to contribute to the formation of the AiLA and taught planning and landscape architecture at the South Australian institute of Technology. The trajectories of these émigrés, many of which include severe wartime experi-ences, serve as a compelling counterpart to their resourcefulness as practition-ers in satisfying emerging needs. Landscape design expanded into countless situations, many buried in public works projects in each state of Australia. One is also left to ponder the void these émigrés left behind in europe, for as well as developing european know-how in the Australian context, they were also outstanding among their peers in their homelands before they departed, and some could well have become notable in their respective fields.


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All of these people – garden writers and garden designers – were pioneers of landscape architecture in their various private and public practices. while they brought to their role as pioneers a distinctly garden-design mentality, they also introduced international ideas for the design of public open space. Only a few are discussed here and there were others like them across Australia but, in terms of the development of the profession of landscape architecture, they were all significant players whose careers helped give substance to the ambitions of the profession and their success could be cited to support the claim that landscape architecture was of vital importance in the transformation of Australian cities.

cityThe barriers between architecture and planning and landscape architecture seemed easily crossed in the 1950s. Planners often entered their profession through architecture, and most landscape architectural work was done by architects and planners. Academics too, particularly those in town planning, played an important role in supporting a symbiotic relationship with landscape architecture. Two more groups of professionals, foresters and landscape managers, were also diverted into landscape architecture, taking on executive roles in bureaucracies that dealt with public landscapes, especially in cities. All of these people had a distinctly design and/or management focus, far more so than that of garden designers and those whose expertise was in plants.

The postwar development boom placed pressures on many professional groups which led to a broadening of the objectives of some professions. Many architects and planners exchanged architecture, planning and landscape ‘hats’ at will. At first, the domestic garden still dominated discussion but articles on landscape design, written by architects, started to appear in popular archi-tecture journals. Among the most notable architects early on in the diversi-


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fication process were richard Clough (1921– ), Harry Howard (1930–2000), Beryl Mann (1914–82), John Oldham (1907–99), Bruce rickard (1929– ) and Peter Spooner (1919– ), all of whom were architects who practised landscape architecture before the first steps towards professional organisation were taken in the early 1960s. Some of the practising architects who became active land-scape architects in the mid-1960s were Malcolm Bunzli (1933– ), James earle (1927– ), ronald rayment (1930– ), russell Smith (1932–91) and george williams (1940– ). Of these, Oldham, Howard and earle were the only ones who did not complement their architectural knowledge with formal training in landscape design, landscape architecture or horticulture, although Howard and earle both held diplomas in town planning and Oldham was active in research and writing on many facets of architecture, landscape and planning. Mann, Spooner and rickard all benefited from additional training in horticul-ture, landscape design and landscape architecture, respectively.

Many of these people, especially Oldham, Spooner, Mann and Clough, played key roles in the narratives that unfold and many more soon followed in the 1970s. However, other significant people, particularly planners, who do not necessarily feature in the narratives that follow, nevertheless warrant dis-cussion, for their achievements and for their contribution to the advancement of the discipline of landscape architecture in Australia.

harryhoward,Brucerickardandotherarchitects

The work that Harry Howard, Bruce rickard and others achieved from the 1960s onward has been grouped together with designers known colloquially as the Sydney School. The extent to which this group of practitioners constituted a ‘school’ has been debated but essentially a number of them shared office space at 7 ridge Street, north Sydney, including architects ian McKay, Harry Howard and Bruce rickard. Howard and rickard diversified and undertook landscape architecture work. Other architects, including richard Leplastrier, gravitated to this group, and the ridge Street office represented other disciplines including landscape design (by Bruce Mackenzie, who is discussed later in the chapter), photography (by David Moore) and graphic art and design (by Harry williamson and gordon Andrews). At ridge Street they shared ideas and no


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doubt collaborated, although it was Howard, rickard and Mackenzie who became high-profile practising landscape architects predominantly in Sydney and Canberra.

The Sydney School represented a design ethos closely tied to the renewed interest in Australian landscape and, ultimately, to a deep concern for envi-ronment and conservation. At its most instrumental it was a rejection of the common building practices that involved clearing a block of land to make way for a new home. They believed that, if their ethos was widely adopted, urban areas would move towards a conserved natural landscape. Fundamen-tally, however, the Sydney School practitioners were attempting to replicate the appearance of undisturbed landscapes, native flora being a key ingredient. Their methodology was simple but effective and could be applied retrospec-tively to existing properties, to the development of new homes, and even to the landscape of commercial and institutional settings. The growth of environ-mental awareness in urban communities across Australia placed these practi-tioners in a fortunate position for selling the merits of their profession in terms of the materialisation of ‘the bush’.

Because Howard and rickard had trained as architects, their design prac-tices could take on architectural commissions in which they could arguably take a seamless approach to the treatment of building and landscape. Bruce rickard gained a Master of Landscape Architecture degree from the Uni-versity of Pennsylvania in 1957 and, on his return in 1958, he featured in local newspapers as he attempted to articulate the differences between land-scape gardeners and landscape architects and was described as saying that a landscape architect is ‘someone who designs open spaces – maybe a highway turnpike, a university campus, a new suburb, or – from time to time – an individual house and its garden.’12 rickard taught landscape architecture part-time in the Department of Town and Country Planning at the University of Sydney. Harry Howard added town and regional planning to his architec-tural training but was more of a designer than a town planner. Both rickard and Howard were self-confessed modernists with an affinity for Australian indigenous landscapes and also for the work of architects such as Frank Lloyd wright. evans and Buchanan have identified the link between the Sydney School and the landscape architecture profession in the United States.13 As the


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years at ridge Street progressed, rickard’s practice changed from site design to landscape planning and included the preparation of reports for govern-ment departments in new South wales and the Australian Capital Territory. early in his practice he attempted to use Australian native plants in densely constructed urban places, including plazas and streets. His design for Qantas House in north Sydney (1975) included hexagonal planting boxes containing native plants, a design approach that forced Australian native plants into new and unfamiliar growing environments. Howard’s association with architects edwards Madigan Torzillo in 1959 was followed in the 1960s by work in site planning and design. Howard and Associates, which included Barbara Buchanan, consistently realised the bush ethos often at an impressive scale, such as the design of the national gallery of Australia which had strong links to the urban design of Canberra, and Howard was landscape architect for Lane Cove Council, new South wales.

Other architects moved into landscape architecture in a more idiosyncratic way, their contributions nevertheless important in establishing a place for landscape architecture. Barbara van den Broek (1932–2001) was an architect, landscape architect, town planner and lecturer before she moved from new Zealand to Brisbane in 1956. Her career in beautifying Brisbane was illustri-ous, as exemplified by her work in campus design, parks (ironbark gully) and visual impact studies for quarry sites around Brisbane. At the north Bris-bane College of Advanced education, van den Broek was landscape archi-tect for the site-planning firm Heathwood, Cardillo, wilson Pty Ltd in a project that ran from 1974 to 1979. The landscape architect’s role involved the planning and management of plant material and earth mounding which helped define functional relationships and movement systems. in Melbourne, Phyllis Simons, another important contributor to the development of land-scape architecture, studied in architecture and interior design at the royal Melbourne institute of Technology and practised and taught in Victoria, Tasmania and western Australia. She was actively involved in the develop-ment of organisations such as the Society for growing Australian Plants in 1950 and was active in conservation disputes such as Lake Pedder in Tasma-nia. At Mount nelson in Hobart, landscape architects Simons and Salis were engaged to do landscape design work for the Tasmanian College of Advanced


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education, which they completed in 1981. Their design emphasised the re-establishment of Tasmanian endemic plant species on a site that had been cleared during building construction. in the supply of local species needed for the college, new propagation and revegetation techniques were pioneered which changed the nursery industry in Hobart and, eventually, the standards of the industry beyond Hobart. The design and planning of plant material by Simons and Salis altered the spatial and aesthetic complexion of the campus.

The recruitment of architects from england, a number of whom came from the University of Liverpool with its long tradition in civic art and urban design, was another significant aspect of the professionalisation process. roger Johnson (1922–91) trained in architecture and civic design at the University of Liverpool and became First Assistant Commissioner, Architecture and Urban Design, at the nCDC, also contributing to the development of education in landscape architecture and its professional body. Perhaps less well known was Paul ritter (1925– ) in western Australia, who held a Bachelor of Architec-ture and a master’s degree in Civic Design from the University of Liverpool and was an advocate within state and local government for the inclusion of planning and landscape concerns in the culture of the architecture profes-sion. Lindsay robertson (1936–74) held an honours degree in architecture from the University of new South wales and then studied landscape at the University of Pennsylvania, returning to become the first landscape architect appointed to the new South wales State Planning Authority (nSwSPA), followed by a second, Allan Correy, in 1970. robertson brought back with him knowledge of the north American ecology movement and imparted it to Australians working in landscape planning. Other architects, such as James earle in Melbourne, established in the late 1960s multidisciplinary practices that included architecture, planning and landscape architecture, a trend that expanded into the 1970s.

Top left Sketch for planter boxes, seating and Australian native planting on the roof-top terrace at Qantas House, North Sydney, designed by Bruce Rickard, 1975.

Below left Qantas House as constructed, 1975 (Photograph by Bruce Rickard)


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academicsupportersofthelandscapecause

A number of powerful academics in varying disciplines were supportive of the profession of landscape architecture and some, including george Seddon (1927–2007) and John Stewart Turner (1908–91), are discussed in more detail in later chapters. Again, european and north American influences perme-ated the Australian scene. Denis winston (1908–80), who came to Australia to become professor of Town and Country Planning at the University of Sydney in 1949, was an important contributor to the national Capital Plan-ning Committee established in 1958 to oversee the nCDC projects. winston was the first president of the Australian Planning institute (APi), formed in 1951 through the amalgamation of state organisations in Victoria, new South wales and South Australia, and was also a member of the institute of Land-scape Architects in Britain. He studied architecture, civic design and land-scape planning at the University of Liverpool and Harvard University and is considered an ‘elder statesman’ and ‘founding force’ of planning education and institutionalisation in Australia.14 in his early life winston had been exposed to the perilous effects of 19th-century industrialisation in British cities. After his immigration to Australia he promoted the importance of designing and developing public open space, for example in his 1957 account of the Cumber-land County planning scheme, Sydney’s Great Experiment. He appreciated the need for landscape architects to work alongside planners, architects and engi-neers, even though his subordinates resented the complication of otherwise ‘smooth functioning’ of planned developments.15 winston had a strong bias towards environmental protection and promoted institutionalisation of land-scape architecture in the hope that it might attend to the ‘continuing brutaliza-tion of our environment, and a growing demand for good design and the solace of unspoiled bushland and beach, mountain and river, trees and vegetation, undivorced from everyday life’.16 winston introduced landscape design into planning education (predominantly postgraduate diploma courses), enlisting designers such as rex Hazlewood, Jocelyn Brown, Lindsay Pryor and Bruce rickard as lecturers. Among the students of these courses were Peter Har-rison (later director of town planning for the nCDC in Canberra) and nigel Ashton (head of the new South wales State Planning Authority), both of


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whom were important advocates and supporters of the profession of landscape architecture.

Architect and town planner Dr Karl Langer (1903–69) was involved in the formation of the APi, as well as being a member of the royal Austral-ian institute of Architects (rAiA) and later, as a founding member, with the AiLA. Born in Vienna, he studied architecture at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna and gained a doctorate at the University of Vienna in 1933. His interests were wide, encompassing ‘engineering, mathematics, architec-tural science and physiology, planning, landscape, and horticulture’.17 His doc-torate explained the history of concrete and its applications and he applied this knowledge in architectural practice in Vienna. His 1927 concept for Cityhaus Projekt in the heart of Vienna was never built but the design clearly reflected bold thinking and ideas radical for the time. it consisted of a number of large rectangular volumes banded horizontally in alternating colours: red for the lower parts, orange for the middle storeys and yellow at the top.18 Langer brought such innovative thinking to Australia when he and his wife migrated in 1939, settling in Brisbane where he eventually established a career as a town planner and lectured part-time in town planning at the University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology. in neighbouring new Zealand a comparable narrative applies to Anna Pischke née Lang (died 1983), wife of architect ernst Anton Plischke (1903–92), both of whom fled Vienna because of Anna’s Jewish heritage and subsequently practiced land-scape architecture in new Zealand. Likewise, Friedrich georg Theodor (Odo) Strewe (1910–86) arrived in new Zealand in 1938 and practiced landscape architecture in wellington and Auckland. He moved to Sydney around 1970 but, unlike Langer, little is known of his career in Australia from this time.

Langer was deeply influenced by the Australian landscape, but also by that of greece to which he had fled in 1938. The influence on Langer of architects and writers such as Adolf Loos and Camillo Sitte is perhaps reflected in his broad and original work, which included substantial contributions to land-scape planning, not the least of which was his 1944 publication Sub-tropical Housing with its ideas for home gardens, subdivision planning and house siting and design.19 Like his contemporary ernest Fooks, Langer’s early pathway towards a career in planning in government departments was altered as a result


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of political angst over the perceived threat of ‘enemy aliens’. Despite this, his arrival in Australia heralded the discipline of urban design decades before such a discipline gained widespread acceptance in the 1980s. The evidence of these influences distinguishes Langer’s contribution from the likes of ernest Lord, Olive Mellor and even walling, who were more horticultural in their approach. Langer’s flair for design, so evident in his formative years in Vienna, is revealed in the design of Lennon’s Broadbeach Hotel at Surfers Paradise (1957), an image of which adorns the cover of Treib’s international survey of modern

Above Plan by Karl Langer labelled: ‘Schematic lay-out for a community of approx. 2,000 with walking distances max. 10 min. [to illustrate the principle of avoiding Fatigue]’ (K Langer (1944), Sub-tropical Housing, Original Paper, Faculty of Engineering, University of

Queensland, Brisbane, vol. 1, no. 7, plate 8)

Above right Garden design by Karl Langer for Lennon’s Broadbeach Hotel, Surfers Paradise (Queensland) in 1957 (Department of Architecture (1957) Cross-Section, University of

Melbourne, Issue 55, May 1, p. 1; photographer unknown)


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landscape architecture, The Architecture of Landscape 1940–1960. The detailed paving design, replete with extensive shelters and brick screens, demonstrated his knowledge of concrete and masonry in terms of patterning and colour.

The merging of planning and landscape ideas in the postwar years con-tinued to set a precedent for a contextual approach to design. Professor gavin walkley (1911–2005), a native of Adelaide, was particularly interested in the potential overlap between all disciplines in environmental design and thus foresaw the growth of urban studies as a discipline distinct from planning or architecture. walkley graduated from the University of Adelaide as Bachelor of engineering (Architecture) in 1934 and from the University of Cambridge with a Bachelor of Arts (Architecture) in 1938, Master of Letters (Fine arts) in 1939 and Master of Arts in 1941. After rising to the rank of major in world war ii, he returned to Adelaide to take a position as planning officer in the South Australian Housing Trust. At some time in 1946 he began to contribute weekly lectures in the School of Architecture in the South Australian School of Mines (which later became the South Australian institute of Technology,


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SAiT, then University of South Australia), at the invitation of Louis Lay-bourne Smith, a strong advocate of town planning. He succeeded Laybourne Smith as Head of School in 1951, a position he held until his retirement in 1976. He introduced building, quantity surveying, town planning, interior design and landscape architecture to the education offerings at the South Aus-tralian institute of Technology and a certificate course in landscape design commenced in February 1965.20 His role in several professional institutions, both as a member and as national president (of both the APi and the rAiA in 1965), indicates his preparedness to embrace all of the professions simul-taneously. in June 1967 the Australian institute of Urban Studies was formed largely as a result of walkley’s efforts and he was its founding director. The diversity of walkley’s professional activities perhaps represents a broader phe-nomenon of the 1960s – the planning profession in Australia was struggling to maintain its relevance in a time when design services were becoming increas-ingly important.21 Because urban design was not yet commonly considered to be a distinct discipline, landscape architecture, as a profession capable of offer-ing design services, had a chance to take hold alongside the more established professions of architecture and planning.

There were academics in each of Australia’s capital cities who promoted both planning and landscape architecture as winston did in Sydney. neil Abercrombie at the University of Melbourne enlisted practising landscape consultants John Stevens in the 1950s and Beryl Mann in the 1960s and 1970s, principally to teach planting design to architects and planners. At the University of western Australia, architect and planner Professor gordon Ste-phenson (1908–97) completed consultancy work from 1954 to 1965 for the university and in 1955 prepared the Plan for the Metropolitan Region, Perth and Fremantle, Western Australia, 1955 with John A Hepburn, for the western Australian government. Stephenson was prominent in early AiLA meetings and a member of the national Capital Planning Committee from 1966 to 1973. The appreciation of design that academia brought to planning on the one hand marked a need for landscape architecture, and on the other provided a precedent for urban design.


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Landscapemanagers

A very different group of pioneers were landscape managers who held execu-tive roles in government service. One of these was rH Patterson, who was part of a group who opened the way for exciting work on large-scale projects such as woomera. Most were men in positions with titles such as ‘curator’, ‘superintendent’, ‘director’ and ‘manager’ of Parks and gardens. They often had no professional training, although some held qualifications in agricul-tural science, forest science, horticulture or arboriculture. Some were land-scape gardeners who had come out of the British apprenticeship system, for example Percival Trevaskis (1903–91) who became Superintendent of Parks for the City of Brighton, Melbourne (1944–50), and State Superintendent of Parks and gardens in the Victorian Public works Department (1950–64). Their positions involved politics, planning and policy, management and main-tenance, in ways that echo the professional role described by Olmsted in The Spoils of the Park. An important professional organisation was, in Victoria, the Victorian Tree Planters’ Association, established in 1926, which, after a series of name changes, became the Australian institute of Parks and rec-reation (AiPr) in 1964 and in 1977 the royal Australian institute of Parks and recreation (rAiPr). Few from this group, however, wrote extensively on landscape design; the influence of their work is represented in the physical landscape.

Significant practitioners of urban landscape management who had a national impact included JS Owens (1899–1989), rTM Pescott (1905–86), Harry Oakman (1906–2002), Thomas H Kneen (1913–2007), Francis (Frank) Keenan (1914–2007), Thomas robert (noel) Lothian (1915–2004), Alan edward wilson (1919– ), and rH Patterson. The emergence of landscape architecture in the 1960s drew mixed reactions from landscape managers. in the early stages of the formation of AiLA, landscape managers were canvassed for their thoughts on the new profession and tensions were indeed evident. John Owens, president of the rAiPr (1947–65) at the time was determined to mark the professional territory of landscape managers and rejected the pros-pect of their redefinition as landscape architects.


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we have our own professional institute, The Australian institute of Park Administration, who’s [sic] objects cover our own professional field.22

Only a few landscape managers actually became landscape architects but many were nonetheless supportive of the new profession because they could identify the need for it. Frank Keenan commenced with the Melbourne City Council (MCC) in 1931 after completing two years at Burnley School of Pri-mary Agriculture and Horticulture in 1954. He succeeded Owens as the MCC’s Superintendent of Parks, gardens and recreation in 1964. At one stage he attempted to study landscape architecture at Harvard by correspondence but through his career he was a devoted supporter of horticulture and of raising its standard in Australia. He was dedicated to park administration for recreation and the public good and managed also to design parks by using the MCC in-house draftsman Les Allen, who was also a Carlton and north Melbourne foot-baller, to draw up plans. By 1974, Keenan was advocating landscape architects’ work in local councils, including the MCC’s designing of royal Park, Princes Park and others. it is likely that he had some influence in the staging of a joint symposium in 1974 of the Victorian Division of the AiPr and the Victorian group of the AiLA titled ‘Landscaping Australian Parks’ held at Latrobe Uni-versity, which was attended by many of the emerging landscape architects from across Australia. Keenan’s appreciation of the need for both good management and good design in successful public open space inspired landscape architects beyond Melbourne, including John gray in Canberra, who in the 1960s was a member of both the institute of Parks and recreation and the AiLA.

Perhaps the most notable of the landscape managers and one who made significant contributions to the literature of the new discipline was Harry Oakman. Oakman held diplomas in agriculture and horticulture from Sydney Technical College and, after working in local government in Ku-ring-gai and newcastle, joined the Brisbane City Council where he was Superintendent of Parks from 1946 to 1963, becoming a member of the British iLA in 1947. Oakman galvanised a number of Queensland and new South wales land-scape practitioners (mainly horticulturalists and trained gardeners), including george Trapnell (1918–98) and Keith williams (1916– ), both great collec-


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tors of Queensland’s native plant species and promoters of the popular use of native plants. Alan wilson, who was trained in horticulture and design at ryde School of Horticulture, had worked as a landscape designer for govern-ment departments in new South wales (1950–58) and then under Oakman in Brisbane City Council (1958–59) before becoming Superintendent of the Parks and recreation Department in Townsville from 1959. Oakman moved to Canberra where he was Director of Landscape Architecture with the nCDC until his retirement in 1973. He fought for recognition of landscape architects within public practice and one of his great achievements was the recognition of landscape architects by the Commonwealth Public Service Board, giving them access to salary scales and career opportunities. His writing on plants, particularly tropical plants, spanned many decades.

forestersandlandscapearchitecture

in the first half of the 20th century, some members of the forestry profession considered the conservation of landscape values to be part of their professional responsibility. Legislation that enabled the establishment of forest reserves in Victoria was passed in 1907, in which the Victorian Forestry Commission rec-ognised that forest management included recreational and aesthetic aspects;23 western Australia and Tasmania passed similar legislation in 1919 and 1920. Two eminent foresters whose criticism of the state of forestry in Australia led to the passing of these laws, Sir David Hutchins and Charles Lane Poole, were advocates for the role that forestry had to play in conservation and rec-reation. Lane Poole, as inspector-general of Forests from 1927 to 1945, was responsible for the first federal forestry legislation. Organisations such as the Australian Forest League and Save the Forests Campaign also played a role and attracted philanthropists, such as Sir russell grimwade, who were pow-erful advocates for cultivating and using Australian trees. The expertise and experience of foresters were generally found to be more adaptable to park and recreation management, and, ultimately to large-scale design issues, than those of people trained in horticulture.

The most important contributor in terms of establishing a link between forestry and landscape architecture was Lindsay Pryor (1915–98), who


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graduated from the University of Adelaide (in 1935) and the Australian For-estry School (in 1936). Pryor was to hold senior forester positions in the Australian Capital Territory from 1940 to 1944, when he was appointed Superintendent of Parks and gardens, continuing also as the Australian Capi-tal Territory’s Forester until 1946. Lindsay Pryor admitted that he faced a professional change in moving from the forestry profession to his new role and that he attracted the label ‘renegade forester.’24 As Assistant Forester in the Australian Capital Territory under Charles Lane Poole, Pryor was encour-aged to be sensitive to design issues. Poole had arranged for Pryor to spend time travelling overseas, mainly in north America, to study landscape work, an experience that compensated for his lack of formal training in landscape architecture at a time when no courses were available in Australia. Pryor drew comparisons between the landscape of Canberra and washington DC, which he claimed should serve as a model for Canberra’s development.

when the nCDC was taking shape in 1958, Pryor graduated as a Doctor of Science from the University of Adelaide and eventually became Professor of Botany at the Australian national University. His 1962 publication, Trees in Canberra, documents much of the landscape architectural work that he com-pleted in Canberra as Superintendent of Parks and gardens between 1944 and 1958 – work that has perhaps been overshadowed by that of griffin and weston in terms of historiography. Of his work, raymond Margules noted that Pryor ‘introduced the great value of the Australian flora to municipal landscaping; installed a dynamic management policy for open space, intro-duced urban forest concepts and pursued with vigour and aggression the pres-ervation of the good from the past.’25

Pryor’s work as Superintendent of Parks and gardens for the landscape of Canberra shows little design sophistication. when Pryor discussed details of design he did so in a manner that suggested less of an engagement with land-scape design and its history of aesthetics than with the selection and deploy-ment of plants. it was the knowledge and skill of Otakar ruzicka that shone through in the detailing of landscape plans, complementing Pryor’s approach to landscape management, in which he really excelled. Pryor described his planting approach in Canberra’s parks as breaking away from formal plantings, ‘like a simplified parterre, like the French style of design there, like a piece


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of embroidery put on the ground.’26 what Pryor did was to plant geometric circles of trees because he hoped that, over time, the effect would be informal and pleasing; it also proved to be an expedient way of dictating the layout of plants across large planting areas. in effect, this was a practice that went back to weston’s time at west-bourne woods in 1914. when it was suggested that circles were geometrical and therefore formal, Pryor laughed, saying, ‘Yes, for a purist it might have been said “well, that was a real hybrid you created” ’.27

Pryor was, however, in a position to make powerful executive decisions and he demonstrated that he was a capable strategist. in 1945 he made the Canberra Botanic gardens his primary project and started by revis-ing the recommendations of a report in 1935 by Chief of the Division of Plant industry in CSir (later CSirO) BT Dickson (1886–1982) on the chosen site and the character of the proposed Botanic gardens in Can-berra.28 Pryor expanded the suggested site boundaries to incorporate two deep gullies that Dickson had identi-fied as problematic. when trees needed to be removed from public spaces, Pryor, along with his associates, bemoaned the lack of forethought for the proper management of forest life cycles. His leadership in the application of forestry principles to Canberra’s landscape made him an important mentor

Circular tree planting of twelve-year-old Populus trichocarpa var. Maximowiczii (Androscoggin Poplar) in Westbourne Woods (Canberra) in 1962 (Lindsay D

Pryor (1962) Trees in Canberra, Department

of the Interior, Canberra, p. 65; photograph

by W Pederson, News and Information Bureau,

Department of the Interior)


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to practitioners who became influential in landscape architecture. raymond Margules (1926– ) graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) degree from the University of Sydney in 1950 and was employed by Pryor in the 1950s as Assistant Director of the Parks and gardens Section in the Australian Capital Territory. He later established a landscape practice in partnership with John Deverson (who had completed a diploma in horticulture at Burnley in 1960) and together they proceeded to expand the role of landscape architects in Canberra. Among other foresters inspired by Pryor was John gray (1930– ) who graduated with a Bachelor of Science (Forestry) from the University of Sydney in 1953 and went to work with Parks and gardens, Department of the interior, Canberra, in the early 1960s, then completed a master’s degree in landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley (1970) and later a doctorate in landscape architecture. gray went on to work as a land-scape architect for the nCDC in 1974 and was its Director of Landscape Architecture from 1980 to 1988. He also taught landscape architecture at the University of Canberra.

One of the few other contemporaries with training in landscape architec-ture at this time was Carol Frank-Mas (1938– ). After gaining a Bachelor of Science degree in landscape architecture from Pennsylvania State University in 1960, she arrived in Australia in 1970, developed a career in Melbourne and completed landscape designs for the open spaces of the Housing Commission of Victoria’s estates. Another was roger walker, who was trained as a landscape architect in england and emigrated to Australia at the beginning of 1970. He took up a position as a lecturer under gavin walkley at the South Australian institute of Technology and, between 1973 and 1978, was Supervising Land-scape Architect for the Sydney City Council before moving to the State gov-ernment (Forestry Department). Kent McCoy was also a landscape architect who came to Australia bringing American know-how. These people were all to become important contributors to institutionalisation in the early years.

LandandcountryA third group of practitioners among the diverse array of pioneers of landscape architecture had a local focus and an ideology that was overtly centred on


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Australia. inextricably linked to their practice were visual and experiential references to Australian natural landscapes that went beyond mere reference to native flora. Their ethos incorporated a domestic lifestyle in close association with the land and, because they mostly lived within cities and suburbs, a major objective of their approach was the direct transmission of the visual character of Australian rural landscapes into the city.

Significant professional landscape architects emerged in Melbourne from an initial group of these people in the 1950s, based on a suburb consisting of semirural land within Melbourne’s metropolitan area known as eltham. Like the Sydney School, the Melbourne Bush School had no constituted body but, rather, was a loosely formed ‘school of thought’ and its members were fondly referred to as the eltham Mob. Unlike the Sydney School, it consisted largely of completely self-taught individuals without training in architecture or related disciplines, who derived their knowledge from hands-on experience.

Wooden play equipment in a children’s playground at Wilson Reserve, Ivanhoe (Melbourne) designed by Ellis Stones, 1968, photograph by Ted Rotherham (Ellis Stones

(1871) Australian Garden Design, Macmillan, South Melbourne (Victoria), p. 105/Shirley Rotherham –

in photograph with daughter Karen)


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The initial impetus for their practice was the postwar shortage of building materials, which led people to find alternative ways of building and living. Their ambition to work with the land stemmed from an emotional attach-ment to country and their communities. For some the ideals behind the Bush School were a catalyst that altered the trajectory of their lives after world war ii; they took it upon themselves to work with the land because it promised a more fulfilling lifestyle. ellis Stones was a prime contributor to and instigator of the principles that underpinned the Bush School and mentored key figures in the eltham Mob.

ellisstonesandtheelthamMob

ellis (rocky) Stones (1895–1975) was a doyen of the profession, with a career that was shaped by an unconventional mix of influential experiences. His introduction to landscaping came at the age of 40 but his career was inter-rupted by world war ii, after which he built up a landscaping business. One commentator recorded that Stones was a ‘practitioner in a different world’.29 Stones believed in the potential of the profession to promote landscape con-servation, while seeing it as an occupational pursuit that was broad enough to encompass artistic expression and personal enough to be embedded at the core of family and community life. His conviction arose, of course, from his own life experiences. initially he constructed landscapes with his own hands and through his career he played a strong role in directing the construction of his designs, particularly the stonework. His completed work included countless domestic gardens, suburban parks, rockwork at the royal Botanic gardens, Melbourne (1966), and wilson reserve, ivanhoe (1968), to list but a few. He worked with the project housing firm Merchant Builders on their architect-designed houses from 1965 and undertook institutional works such as parts of the South Lawn precinct at the University of Melbourne in 1971. He was an ardent conservationist and activist in the fight to protect semi-natural places in Melbourne. He wrote the book Australian Garden Design in 1971 and was a columnist for Australian Home Beautiful. His role as an instigator of the pro-cess of professionalisation that led to the formation of the AiLA is particularly notable. nevertheless, although Stones designed and constructed many gar-


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dens, his extensive experience as a practitioner initially was not enough to gain him the status of corporate member when the AiLA was formed in 1966. His lack of formal academic qualifications in landscape architecture stood in the way. He was made an affiliate in 1967 instead and several years later, a month before his death, he was awarded and accepted a fellowship. An element of scepticism about the benefits of formal education persisted in his view:

in order to become a landscape architect today it is necessary to go through a long period of specialized training from which a man of talent benefits, but if he does not possess that inborn artistic imagination necessary to visualize his designs, then his training may have been in vain.30

Stones grew up in the Melbourne suburb of essendon and spent much time hunting rabbits with friends and inadvertently absorbing the sensory qualities of the rocky semirural lands near Donnybrook, just beyond the northern edge of metropolitan Melbourne. Land and country, its materials and processes, thus marked him indelibly and gave rise to his unshakable design ethos and convic-tion. He initially trained as a carpenter and, after his leg was badly injured in world war i, spent much of the 1920s and 1930s working in construction in rural new South wales and Victoria whilst starting a family. His war injuries presented a daily challenge, yet he lived his life to the full. His designed land-scapes evoked nature, and his steadfast maxim, ‘Be bold’, is best encapsulated in his habit of burying at least a third of any massive boulder to achieve a natu-ral appearance. Stones was introduced to landscape design when, working as a carpenter, he completed some stonework for a garden designed by walling. Of his skill and ability walling remarked, ‘it is a rare thing, this gift for placing stones, and strange that a man possessing it should bear the name Stones – it should be easy to memorise.’31

Stones led by example and his combination of energy and skill made him an effective mentor to other practitioners, many of whom had initially worked in his office, including robert grant, David Leech, Beverley Hanson and Pamela reynolds. Beyond his immediate employees, Stones inspired Alistair Knox (1912–86) and gordon Craig Ford (1918–99). Knox started out as a


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bank clerk, twelve years of which led him to conclude, ‘i had no intention of rotting away in some inside job after tasting the spirit of being outside in the elements’.32 He embarked on a career in building in 1948 that lasted until his death. Three of his publications, Living in the Environment (1975), We Are What We Stand On (1980) and Alter-native Housing: Building with the Head, the Heart and the Hand (1980) document extensively the contribu-tions of many to environmental building. Knox was also involved in the early years of the AiLA’s for-mation, and was made an Honor-

ary Fellow in 1983, the year before the University of Melbourne conferred upon him an Honorary Doctorate of Architecture. His wife Margot Knox (1931–2002) worked for ellis Stones in the early 1950s and had a notable career in landscape design in Melbourne. Alistair Knox became a consultant to community groups across Melbourne in fighting inappropriate subdivisions, the alienation of public open space and in preserving the Yarra river, forming allegiances with local councils to prepare master plans and management pro-posals for the river. Knox’s commitment to environmental protection was such that he admitted to using the professional title of ‘landscape architect’ purely for political gain, stating in 1975:

This qualification [AiLA membership] is the only one i have ever had or am ever likely to have. i don’t use it, except that it does open occasional doors that would otherwise remain closed.33

gordon Ford started as a public servant in the Victorian Forestry Com-mission selling trees to nurseries. Margot Knox introduced him to Stones in

Stone placement and planting in Ellis Stones’ front garden with letterbox and milk bottle (date unknown) (Liz Anderson (née Stones)

and Steve Junghenn; photograph by Ellis Stones)


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the late 1940s and he then worked for ellis Stones in 1952. After completing ernest Lord’s course in landscape design in 1956, Ford went into partner-ship with Peter glass (1917–97), an artist and painter who had been associ-ated with the eltham community since buying land there in 1938. Between 1952 and 1967 Ford completed over 200 gardens for well-known Melbourne architects, including Kevin Borland, Peter Mcintyre, guilford Bell and robin Boyd. with Peter glass, Ford took on larger projects such as the Shepparton Civic Centre and sites within Monash University at Clayton.

At eltham the landscape became distinctive with its mudbrick houses and renowned for its strong sense of community. There was also an emphasis on Australian native plants, based loosely on semi-reconstruction of pre-existing indigenous landscape. Peter glass and gordon Ford lived near each other in eltham, building their own mudbrick houses on their large blocks of land, which they returned from orchard landscapes back to gardens with an Austral-ian native landscape feel. Their work was experimental and done by their own hand; as Ford said about his career, he had ‘always been hands-on, soft-edge’.34 Ford applied the same approach to projects he undertook elsewhere in Mel-bourne, and the trend caught on. redgum railway sleepers, timber edges to gravel paths, garden beds of native plants were all characteristics that flooded popular gardening. Commercial and institutional settings featured islands and edges of native plants often set in large expanses of quartz aggregate mulch over black plastic. The popularity of this aesthetic rested on the premise that gardens would be low maintenance but at the same time exuberant. in the long term this proved a difficult virtue to uphold because a lack of knowledge of how to manage native plants in ornamental gardens often resulted in a poor appearance.

MerchantBuildersandthealternativehousingmovement

An important body of work closely associated with the Melbourne Bush School was to be found in alternative residential design in Melbourne. This was largely a result of the work of the firm founded in 1965 by David Yencken (1931– ) and John ridge, Merchant Builders. Yencken’s early projects were motel developments, on which he worked with prominent architects John


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One of Gordon Ford’s designs under construction in 1971, with builders (from left to right) Peter Dan, Gordon Ford, Paul Pease, Karl Howard and unknown man standing (Gwen Ford; photograph by Sue Ford, licensed by Viscopy, 2012)


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Mockridge and robin Boyd, but he subsequently diversified into residential housing, a market in which Merchant Builders became innovators and leaders. His experience of Australia’s landscape was a pivotal motivation for change.

David Yencken was born in Berlin and educated in europe, although some of his childhood was spent in Australia. He completed a degree in history at Cambridge University and returned to Australia in his early 20s, initially for a working holiday. en route, he journeyed to Canada where he discovered motels. Soon after arriving in Australia in 1954 he drove from Sydney to Mel-bourne along the new South wales coast and later took a road trip around Australia; both trips were formative experiences. within a year of arriving in Australia, Yencken’s career began to take shape. He set up a commercial art gallery dedicated to Australian painting and at the same time launched into a project to develop one of Australia’s earliest motels, the second for the state of Victoria. Yencken’s first motel in Bairnsdale was designed in 1957 by John Mockridge of Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell and the landscape was designed in-house by Beryl Mann (see illustration on page 236). His second motel pro-vided the opportunity to work with robin Boyd, whom Yencken had met as a result of the publicity attracted by the Bairnsdale motel. The Black Dolphin Motel (1961) at Merimbula, on the new South wales coast halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, was designed by robin Boyd of romberg and Boyd architects with landscape design by gordon Ford. The simplicity and logic of Boyd’s architecture helped cement Yencken’s interest in new ways of building in and working with the environment in an integrated fashion.

Merchant Builders began as a project-house builder, selling and promoting its houses through groups of display houses that were architecturally designed, professionally landscaped, and had high-quality interiors. Through their partnership, Yencken and John ridge brought together in Merchant Build-ers a broad array of designers and artists to work on project housing. initial participants included architect graeme gunn, ellis Stones, graphic design-ers Bruce weatherhead and Alex Stit, and interior designer Janne Faulkner. in 1965 gunn designed the first three project houses in glen waverley, a suburb then on the urban fringe of Melbourne. Later in the 1960s other archi-tects who designed for Merchant Builders included Daryl Jackson, Charles Duncan, David Mcglashan, Terry Durrough, Peter Carmichael and Max May.


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Merchant Builders also employed its own architects to work with clients and external consultants and to help design houses and lay out projects. Among these were Barry gray, Leo de Jong and robert whyte, and in the early 1970s landscape architect Kevin Taylor (1953–2011) joined the team. The firm moved to town-house projects, mostly in Melbourne’s inner suburbs, several of which won architectural awards. The competitive market around this time included project home designs by Ken woolley and Michael Dysart of Pettit and Sevitt in new South wales with landscape design and construction by Bruce Mackenzie and, in western Australia, by Syd Corser and Peter Over-man of Corser Homes. Such work was attracting attention and siting, respon-siveness to climate, and outdoor living were a key part of their distinctiveness. in the case of Merchant Builders, Yencken backed his pitch for alternative housing with articles in architecture journals that criticised the architecture profession and its failings.35

Merchant Builders’ integration of architecture and landscape and the inclu-sion of designs by ellis Stones formed perhaps the strongest sales pitch for landscape architecture. The firm evenly applied this logic to suburban hous-ing developments and cluster-housing schemes. Their (and Victoria’s) first cluster-housing project, winter Park in Doncaster (Melbourne), constructed between 1970 and 1974, had landscaping designed by ellis Stones and 20 houses designed by graeme gunn. The core of the subdivision had a park-like feel and in the courtyard spaces brick paving, natural stone, timber steps and timber seating combined to create a relaxed and open feel. Seven thousand people reputedly came to winter Park on its first weekend open for inspection and thousands came in subsequent weekends. elliston (1970) in rosanna was a subdivision in north-east Melbourne that reinvigorated standard approaches

Top right Victoria’s first cluster subdivision, Winter Park, Doncaster (Melbourne) with its park-like feel and shared landscape spaces (Liz Anderson (née Stones) and Steve Junghenn;

photograph by Ellis Stones)

Below right Winter Park was built by Merchant Builders’ John Ridge (far left) and David Yencken (centre right) with landscaping by Ellis Stones (far right) and houses by architect Graeme Gunn (centre left) (Cross-Section Archive, Architecture Library, University of

Melbourne; photograph by Geoffrey Harris & Assoc. Advertising Photography)


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to Australian residential and open-space design. it featured continuous open-space systems and a ‘ride’ that initially ran at the rear of the unfenced proper-ties but has since been enclosed. The ride was planted with native plants and had a simulated dry creek bed surrounded by tan bark, which connected the properties to parkland. it also allowed for the provision of timber play equip-ment, a log stile and a community barbecue, all of which reflected the strong community-oriented ideology underlying Merchant Builders’ (and Stones’) philosophy. rockwork featured prominently and the public open spaces were unmistakably ‘Stones’ in their low-key, semirural design.

nativeplants,naturalapproach

The new value system that judged a design by the extent to which Australian native plants were used meant that those engaged in landscape architecture needed to establish a position. For some, designing with native plants was a movement in itself; for others, native plants were like any other, to be used in the right place at the right time in the right job. Champions of Australian natives and Australian native plant gardens, many of whom are still active, include glen wilson, Marion Blackwell, Claire welsh, ray Holliday, Bruce Mackenzie, william (Bill) Molyneux, roger and gwen elliot, Susan Forrester, ivan Stranger (1937–97) and Paul Thompson. Stranger and Thompson both started out in the late 1960s and developed design consultancies into the 1970s that specialised in designing with native plants. Stranger spent some years in the 1960s working as a designer for architects Bates Smart & McCutcheon and explored Australian landscapes through painting and drawing. At eltham College, north-east of Melbourne, he re-created a sense of remnant bushland after new buildings had been completed. His native plantings in shopping centres, industrial gardens and schools were exemplary and highly influential. Thompson was inspired by his friend and mentor glen wilson and was unequivocally dedicated to understanding and working with Australian native plants in a way that was underpinned by a deep interest in preserving Australian landscape. in recent decades his most significant contributions to the field include a major publication on planting design36 and his consultancies on major projects such as royal Botanic gardens Cranbourne, Victoria.


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Molyneux and Forrester expanded the use and understanding of native plants mainly through the Austraflora nursery, Croydon (1972) – which had been established by roger and gwen elliot in 1959 – and through Molyneux’s Grow Native: Creating an Australian Bush Garden (1980), which was illustrated by Forrester.

Marion Blackwell championed indigenous plants and landscape in the early years of the profession in western Australia. She grew up on a cattle sta-tion in the mountains upstream of the namoi river in the northern new South wales high country and attributed her close ties to the Australian landscape to her early childhood experiences, which included learning to understand local Aboriginal culture. Blackwell completed a science degree at the University of Sydney in 1952 and lectured in mycology at the University of new South wales before marrying and moving to Perth, western Australia in 1958. As she brought up her young family in the 1960s she became increasingly involved in environmental and landscape planning work, largely from a botanist’s and ecologist’s point of view. A hallmark of her work was finding new ways of establishing Australian native plants in difficult microclimatic conditions, such as those existing in desert, saline and windswept coastal developments of western Australia. Blackwell was and continues to be an ardent supporter of conservation and researcher into Australian native plants. Her landscape architecture career formally began in 1965 when she established Mi Blackwell and Associates in Perth, undertaking design, planning and rehabilitation work as well as lecturing in the botany and architecture departments at the Univer-sity of western Australia. Her treks into western Australia’s arid landscapes, where she worked with Aboriginal communities and identified previously unfamiliar and unknown Australian native flora, have been highly influencial in terms of social change, botanical research and, importantly, conservation. in 1973 she formed the partnership Blackwell and Cala Pty Ltd before becoming Blackwell and Associates Pty Ltd in 1987 with her son, landscape architect Tony Blackwell. in 1973 she became involved in the landscape design of the Harold Boas gardens (formerly Delhi Square), west Perth. Other significant projects included site planning and planting design at Murdoch University campus (mid-1970s) and work in association with Mervyn Davis on garden island for an Australian navy installation. Blackwell was not an associate of


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the AiLA during these years but was active in the AiLA’s western Australia group and was subsequently elected Honorary Fellow of the AiLA in 1981.

it was the discovery of a native plant display garden at Bernhardt and Dulcie Schubert’s nursery in noble Park, south-east Melbourne that inspired glen wilson to embark on a career in landscape design, commencing in the late 1950s. He heard that edna walling was advertising for ‘paying students’, at a time in walling’s career when she was making more use of Australian native plants than she had previously done. wilson learnt walling’s design philosophy and, as his confidence in laying out planting designs with Aus-tralian native plants grew, she began to entrust him with the physical reali-sation of her planting design work. in Melbourne, the Freiberg garden in Kew, designed by edna walling as a wholly Australian native garden in 1960, was built by eric Hammond, with plantings done by wilson. The garden has evolved in form since then, but the structure of the planting, largely defined by Eucalyptus citriodora (lemon-scented gum) is still largely intact. As a conse-quence of this job, wilson worked for eric Hammond as an estimator, super-visor and designer for eight years, gaining valuable knowledge and confidence for experimentation. By the late 1960s wilson was a lecturer in landscape con-struction for the royal Melbourne institute of Technology (rMiT) postgrad-uate diploma course in landscape design. in 1975 wilson wrote Landscaping with Australian Plants and became a lecturer in landscape architecture at the Canberra College of Advanced education. in 2011 he assembled a significant volume on landscape design.37

wilson’s design and writing advanced the Bush School aesthetic, providing valuable precedents for moving beyond the naturalistic approaches so preva-lent in residential design. He designed a courtyard for the er Squibb and Sons building (now demolished) in noble Park in 1969, a building that had been designed in 1966 by architects Buchan, Laird and Buchan in the brutalist style using brown brick and concrete and was surrounded by open lawn. The owners had called upon ellis Stones to design planting for the boundary and entry landscape in an attempt to soften the building’s modernist appearance and eH Hammond Pty Ltd was commissioned to design the internal courtyard. wilson was inspired by John Stevens’ striking modern designs and used richly detailed natural stone paving studded with river pebbles to create an abstrac-


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tion of a creek bed, but the low tiled walls in a biomorphic arrangement, which doubled as container for three small pools and seating, were the main feature. A tile and reinforced concrete arch sat atop a small pool with a jet spray that became the source of a small fountain. garden beds were mulched with crushed white quartz and planted with mostly exotic species but wilson also claimed that native plants might have been used to a similar effect. Foreman John Kel-lett constructed wilson’s design without the aid of a full set of construction drawings, and he did so with extraordinary precision. in contrast, Hammond and wilson’s design for an internal display garden in a South Melbourne fac-tory showroom in the mid-1960s was confronting in its displacement of place and time. Sealed behind glazing and removed from direct light and rain, it was a fragment of dry creek bed replete with water-worn pebbles and gravel. in these two very different projects, wilson was referencing the materiality of the Australian landscape in forms that challenged contemporaneous approaches.

The sense of opportunism and survival in landscape designers of this time drove glen wilson and others, such as new Zealander John Amos (1913– ), to constantly reinvent themselves. Amos established himself as an accountant and a landscape architect in new Zealand and Australia despite the Depres-sion, world war ii, and other difficult conditions afflicting those countries in the first half of the 20th century.

The most notable Australian landscape architect and champion of Aus-tralian plants and landscape was Bruce Mackenzie. Mackenzie began his working life in Sydney as a graphic designer, at first working in the printing industry, but he moved into landscape design and construction in the 1960s, at which he excelled. He ceased contracting and commenced professional prac-tice in landscape architecture in September 1967 and remained an advocate for other landscape contractors such as John Milroy Temple (born in London in 1921) of new South wales to move into professional landscape architecture. Mackenzie professed a deep interest in the experiential power of Australia’s natural and semi-natural places, and his greatest contribution as a pioneer of landscape architecture was to herald ‘alternative parkland’ as a form of urban experience.38 His impressive site-reclamation work in the 1970s is discussed in chapter 7; however, earlier still Mackenzie was alerting architects, build-ers and the public about the importance of respecting Australian indigenous


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landscapes. His work on project housing for Pettit and Sevitt saw concerted attempts to avoid clearing a site’s vegetation prior to constructing a build-ing. in his early park work that involved transforming post-industrial sites in Sydney into designed landscape, he intended to capture the mood of remote natural places, not so much through complete ecological analysis but rather through the pragmatism of replacing the excesses of decades of abuse with reconstructed nature. One of his early projects completed by Mackenzie and Associates, that of Peacock Point (later illoura reserve) on Sydney Harbour, was commissioned in preparation for Queen elizabeth ii’s visit to open the Sydney Opera House in 1973. Architect Finn Thorvaldson, then working for the Maritime Services Board of new South wales, played a role in procuring Mackenzie’s services and subsequently commenced a career in land-scape architecture within the firm. Catherin Bull, who had commenced hor-ticultural studies at ryde School of Horticulture in the early 1970s, joined Mackenzie and Associates at this time, and nell rickard, an architect and landscape architect who had worked for Stones and rayment in Melbourne, joined in 1974. At Peacock Point, the history of the site’s former maritime use as storage for timber pylons was embraced in its design by the erection of a timber viewing structure.

Mackenzie is perhaps the most celebrated advocate of the Australian land-scape in the professional sense, and his weighty self-authored monograph, Design With Landscape (2011), substantiates this claim. it is also worthwhile noting the importance of another kind of designer whose interest in land and country also produced significant designed landscapes. The contention that the art of landscape design was alive and well in the post–world war ii years can be explored among a group of people who were outside the commercial realm of landscape architecture but whose high profile in the arts and society has allowed their ideas for landscape to become influential.

ER Squibb and Sons building and internal courtyard in Noble Park (Melbourne) (top) and a simulated dry watercourse as viewed from staff lunch room above a showroom (South Melbourne), both designed and constructed by EH Hammond Organisation (Glen Wilson), circa 1970 (Photographs by Glen Wilson)


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One of these is Dame elisabeth Murdoch (1909– ), whose own garden, Cruden Farm at Langwarrin in Victoria, is more than a symbolic gesture towards the art of landscape design; it is a model for good design in its own right. The Murdochs purchased the property, which included a pre-existing house and designed landscape, in the late 1920s. Designs for the garden were prepared by Harold Desbrowe-Annear (who had completed an architectural commission remodelling the facade and entrance of the house) and edna walling in the years between 1928 and 1930; however, it was walling’s plant-ing and layout ideas that the Murdochs sought to implement. The garden was developed over many decades by the Murdoch family in conjunction with their gardeners, who included a Mr Duell and later Michael Morrison, resulting in the garden holding a prominent place in the world of Australian

The timber viewing structure under construction at Peacock Point (now Illoura Reserve) circa 1974, with the industrial shoreline of Darling Harbour in the distance (B Mackenzie

(2011) Design with Landscape: A 50 Year Journey, Bruce Mackenzie, Sydney, p. 46; photograph

attributed to the office of Bruce Mackenzie and Associates)


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garden design. The closely planted lemon-scented gums within the 300-metre curved driveway that leads towards the house has created perhaps one of the most photographed and distinguished avenues in Australian domestic garden design. in recent decades Dame elisabeth Murdoch has become a patron of the profession of landscape architecture. Meanwhile, there are also countless examples of private and public gardens – such as the garden at Heide, a pri-vate residence developed by John and Sunday reed in Bulleen, Victoria – that have become celebrated examples of landscape design by talented amateurs. These are physical manifestations of a culture of landscape design that undoubtedly have counterparts in other states of Australia. it is the direct association with plants, climate, soils and the personal aspirations and values of those who live with and create these gardens over long periods of time that give them distinction.

Celebrated as important pieces of cultural heritage, the designed land-scapes of Cruden Farm and Heide belong to a more generalised culture of

The lemon-scented gum drive at Cruden Farm, Langwarrin (Victoria) in 2001 (Photograph by Lyn Pool)


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landscape design often positioned within the realm of domestic gardens. A window into these gardens and their designers is offered by cultural events such as Open garden schemes. interestingly, domestic gardens and their designers have only played a kind of subliminal role in the canon of landscape architecture in Australia to date; yet these gardens represent a pioneering spirit of landscape design and the significance of their high public profile has, corre-spondingly, been a lost drawcard for the profession. The reasons for this lie in the new directions that landscape architecture took after world war ii, when there was a distinct shift away from domestic garden design into a profes-sional practice that focused primarily on public lands, infrastructure and large-scale landscape planning. This shift in direction sometimes severed the links between a culture of landscape architecture and the horticultural and garden-ing cultures that were so important in engaging the public in the landscapes of Australian cities. Some important pioneers of Australian garden design were subsequently forgotten by the profession of landscape architecture. For other pioneers, modern landscape architecture in Australia took on exciting new trajectories that allowed their ongoing reinvention.


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4

Uneven paths

To gain a foothold in the world of professional landscape design took all the resourcefulness the early landscape architects could muster. A major battle in the campaign for recognition was over the case for designing landscapes beyond the back garden or the local park. These battles were fought in highly individualistic ways. The practitioners’ breadth of skills and their artfulness conjured work where there had been none, under the bemused gaze of archi-tects, engineers and planners who often had no idea what landscape architec-ture was, or why it was needed. And the general public, of course, was even less informed. To add to the difficulties, those who were now casting themselves as landscape architects often had no clear idea of what their peers were doing, or how or why they were succeeding.

Landscape architects in the 1950s and 1960s found work for themselves by any means necessary. For these pioneers, leading a life of multiple professional personalities was not uncommon.

By 1966 the profession was sufficiently confident to establish its own pro-fessional institute but it was also on the lookout for work opportunities that would enable people to move into the new profession. Large-scale projects in the 1950s and 1960s provided those new possibilities, with the development of infrastructure and planning of sites for large new public institutions. But a need still had to be created. A growing awareness of the ugliness of Australian cities, which was emphatically defined by writers such as robin Boyd, espe-cially in his book, The Australian Ugliness (1960), further advanced the poten-tial for landscape architects to invent and reinvent themselves. Two narratives from opposite sides of the nation, both commencing in 1958, help to convey the ideas, philosophical questions, controversies and type of participants in landscape architecture that were beginning to take hold: the first relates to


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the building of infrastructure, exemplified by the Serpentine Dam in western Australia; the second is an account of master-planning in the dynamic context of a new university’s life at Monash University in Victoria.

infrastructureThe link between landscape architects and the design of infrastructure had been strengthened as a result of industrialisation in 19th-century europe, and later, as the concepts of the City Beautiful and civic art took hold. Both concepts, at their most basic level, included the design of aesthetically considered streets and roads and the planning of whole towns with landscape in mind. As metropolises worldwide expanded, landscape architects also began to be engaged in the design of landscapes associated with large-scale infrastructure. in Britain following world war ii, roles for landscape architects in planning the infrastructure of roads and electric power were proposed by writers such as Sylvia Crowe.1 in the 1950s Australian landscape architects claimed that they could reduce the detrimental effects of infrastructure on nature and on cultural and social life. Prominent advocates for the environment called for the increased involvement of landscape architects in planning and designing infrastructure. in 1966 the rAiA-commissioned study Australian Outrage (1966) depicted the plight of Australia’s rapidly developing cities. The landscapes of newer settled cities and towns, such as Canberra, were heralded as the antidote to the blighted infrastructure of Sydney and Melbourne. Others called for landscape architects, if they could not be actively involved in the design of infrastructure, to increase their involvement in the new bureaucracies set up to manage the postwar development boom. To minimise the impact of infrastructure and urban sprawl on the landscape, genuine collaboration between architects, planners, engineers, surveyors, landscape architects and enlightened developers was essential.

A significant development for landscape architecture was the professional relationship that grew between landscape architects and engineers. engineers were often blamed for the deterioration of the visual quality of Australia’s urban landscapes, although engineering was at the same time generally understood as essential to developing the nation. engineers believed in the inevitability


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of infrastructure whilst also acknowledging that multidisciplinary teams were required in order to protect landscape values.2 in this respect, civil engineering launched the trajectories of some landscape architects and gave them a plat-form on which they could promote their new profession. it was acknowledged that beauty and infrastructure could actually coexist and that the environment could therefore be protected, an attitude that had been vigorously promulgated in Britain and now needed advocates in Australia.

peterspoonerandroadlandscaping

One of these advocates was Peter Spooner (1919– ). Spooner held a Diploma of Architecture from Sydney Technical College (1942) and, after a brief period of wartime military service, he practised architecture for six years in Sydney then in 1949 joined the architecture faculty at the new South wales University of Technology as a senior lecturer. in 1955, as the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholar, Spooner went to england to study under Brian Hackett at the University of Durham’s Department of Town and Country Planning in newcastle upon Tyne. when england’s M1 motorway was constructed in the 1950s, it attracted the attention of engineers and planners in Australia and the Commissioner for Main roads in new South wales, HM Sherrard, contacted Spooner in england to prepare a report on the design and planning of motorways in england. Spooner’s report was received favourably and he was sent to the United States to report on highway development in that country. As a direct result of these commissions Spooner pioneered a role for landscape architects within the new South wales Department of Main roads when he was employed to consult on the landscaping of major freeways from about 1960 to 1969, and also for the Metropolitan water Sewerage and Drainage Board (1964–76) and other Australian government departments. He was outspoken about landscape and roads in the news media and in 1969 was sponsored by the Australian road research Board to compile a substantial report, Highway Landscape Design. His approach was generally intuitive and had dimensions of utility, safety, beauty and economy.3 intuition was often relied upon by landscape architects through the 1960s; practitioners needed to develop theoretical standpoints as they went along.


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Spooner’s first consultancy on roads was for the Cahill expressway, after being suggested for the project by the City of Sydney’s senior town plan-ner, nigel Ashton. Ashton later became chairman of the new South wales State Planning Authority and ensured that all major project planning teams

The newly constructed Sydney-to-Newcastle Expressway, 1962–67, with rock dumps in median strips partly a product of Peter Spooner’s consultancy as landscape architect (‘Landscape Australia An Exhibition’, School of Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne, 1982/

New South Wales Department of Main Roads; photographer unknown)


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employed landscape architects. Spooner also consulted on major road projects in other parts of Australia, including the Adelaide Hills Freeway in 1966 and, later, the glen Helen Highway in the northern Territory. His most acclaimed work, however, was as consultant landscape architect in the landscape plan-ning and design for the Sydney-to-newcastle and the warringah express-ways (1962–67). The rugged terrain that the proposed Sydney-to-newcastle expressway was to traverse presented a unique set of engineering problems. Spooner described the road heading northwards, over a knife-edged ridge once it had crossed the Hawkesbury river, as requiring extensive cut and fill, which had the potential to scar the landscape.4 Although this was of grave concern to him, he claimed that it would be impractical to attempt to conceal the scarring by blending the road into the pre-existing landforms. working with the engineers, Spooner left large rock dumps in median strips which, as well as adding drama and rugged texture, had the advantage of separating traf-fic and reducing sun glare in places.

From Spooner’s accounts of his involvement in the Sydney-to-newcastle expressway project, it becomes apparent that one of his significant achieve-ments was the way in which he engaged directly with the mechanical processes of rock cuttings and, correspondingly, the generation of the engineers’ con-struction plans and even on-site decision-making during construction. Look-ing back on the construction of the expressway, to what extent is it the product of engineering and to what extent can it be considered an achievement for landscape architecture? Bruce rickard has suggested that one dilemma for landscape architects is that the tangible result of their input is often difficult to observe, particularly in retrospect.5 Alan Powers, in discussing the work of British landscape architect geoffrey Jellicoe in projects that carried over many years, noted that Jellicoe suggested that art is in the experience of creation and not just in the finished object.6 in this sense, the artfulness of practitioners in negotiating design outcomes in collaboration with engineers (or other profes-sionals) should be of equal significance when gauging the contributions of individuals and identifying great works of landscape architecture.


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theartandartfulnessofJohnoldham

A contemporary of Spooner, who not only developed landscape architecture as a collaborative venture with engineers but also created tangible evidence of the art of the profession in parallel with infrastructure and modern design, was John Bramston russell Oldham (1907–99), one of Australia’s most significant designers in the mid-20th century and a key promoter of landscape architecture in Australia. As early as 1956, Oldham had begun landscape architectural work related to infrastructure, working mainly within the western Australian Public works Department (PwD). Predating the formation of the AiLA by ten years, Oldham created his own role as a landscape architect in government departments where none had previously existed. Oldham was largely self-taught and had very diverse work and design experiences, as an architectural draftsman, town planner, poster designer, perspective artist, architectural illustrator and exhibition designer, landscape architect, naturalist and conservationist, consequently possessing a rare and essential combination of concerns and capacities that norman T newton claimed to be the making of a ‘well-rounded landscape architect’.7 He was also instrumental in forming conservation organisations in western Australia – and the fact that he did so while he was professionally involved in developing infrastructure makes his work all the more challenging to critique. Throughout his career Oldham published widely in the journals of architecture, engineering, landscape architecture and conservation and, after he retired in 1972, he and his wife wrote Gardens in Time (1980) and other publications on landscape architecture, architecture and design. By 1970, John Oldham was an active member of the AiLA, Fellow of the rAiA, Fellow of Britain’s institute of Landscape Architects (iLA) and a member of the Australian Planning institute (APi); in 1969 he was federal vice-president of the APi and president of its western Australian division, vice president of the international Federation of Landscape Architects (south Asian region), chairman of the western Australian nature Conservation Council and foundation president of the Conservation Council of western Australia. He was elected Corresponding Member of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1970 and was recognised by Campbell e Miller, President of ASLA, as ‘one of the most prominent and influential


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landscape architects in Australia and as a dynamic force for the profession in his country’.8

Oldham began in architecture as an apprentice in his father’s firm in Perth, Oldham, Boas and ednie-Brown. He travelled to Melbourne in 1929 and around this time became an admirer of the work of walter Burley griffin. He was deeply influenced by the griffins’ design of Canberra, especially by Marion’s presentation drawings. He also became aware of the griffins’ work at Castlecrag and of the fact that architecture could branch out into ‘interest-ing semi-planning type of work’.9 From 1930 to 1934 Oldham derived an income from designing and producing inexpensive linocut posters in Perth with Harold Krantz (1906–99) – who, as well as being an architect, also ran a commercial art business – and then in Sydney, before returning to Perth and setting up in architectural practice with Krantz until 1937. He joined the Communist Party after becoming associated with Katherine Susannah Prich-ard and actively involved with the workers Art guild, producing graphic art work for the party and contributing to communist literature.

returning to Sydney in the late 1930s, Oldham took up a position with the architectural firm Stephenson and Turner, where he worked on a commit-tee charged with designing and building the Australian Pavilion at the 1939 new York world’s Fair, an experience that he described as his first project of any major consequence. He worked with artist and designer Sydney Ure Smith and photographer russell roberts to put together an exhibit that fea-tured imagery of Australian industry and workers. Some of the world’s most influential modern architects were at the 1939 fair, including Sven Markelius, Oscar niemeyer, Alvar Aalto and landscape architect roberto Burle Marx. working alongside such people Oldham stated that he ‘hit on the thought of Landscape Architecture’.10 He returned to Australia and worked in Sydney through the 1940s and early 1950s on projects such as prefabricated hous-ing and planning in postwar reconstruction at the invitation of Herbert Cole Coombs (1906–97), the director-general of the Ministry of Post-war recon-struction in Canberra.

in 1944, Oldham also became president of the Modern Architectural research Society (MArS, established 1938), which is an indication of his deep association with the modernist movement in architecture. goddard explained


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that Oldham was especially interested in artist and designer László Moholy-nagy’s concepts of space, form and time and in the Bauhaus School more generally.11 Oldham articulated the intellectual foundations that he had drawn from modernism in 1959, when he wrote that the first 150 years of Australian history provided no evidence of landscape architecture as a conscious art; he felt Australia had unquestioningly adopted the english landscape gardening tradition based on picturesque principles.12 Oldham believed that the modern-ist movement in architecture provided the opportunity to break from english tradition. The aesthetic translation of functional planning combined with the conscious use of Australian native plants and natural building materials would imbue a project with beauty and art. Here he diverged from Spooner, who at this time was arguing that landscape architecture, particularly as setting for architecture, was an ‘anodyne offering escape from the perfection of deadly reasoning’.13 Oldham linked environmentalism and nationalism to the work of landscape architecture on several levels. He concluded, ‘as we develop a garden aesthetic inspired by this “Australian vision”, we shall also create a characteris-tic and beautiful Landscape Architecture’.14

Between 1949 and 1953 Oldham worked for the Snowy Mountains Hydro-electric Commission (SMHC), based at Cooma in new South wales. He con-tributed to the building of Australia’s biggest piece of infrastructure by designing prefabricated homes for the SMHC settlements and also designing their land-scapes. During his years with the SMHC he finally sat the rAiA’s entry exami-nation in Sydney and qualified as an architect, although his experience during those years also stimulated his pursuit of landscape architecture.15 The SMHC’s activities had resulted in the huge scarring of landscape from widespread cut and fill practices and Oldham identified the need for landscape architects to work with and to respect engineers in dealing with landscape issues. Although he was critical of their work at the Snowy, he concluded that engineers were less inhibited than architects and thereafter acknowledged their importance and worked alongside them.16 He also realised the opportunities that public practice held for applying the ideas behind communism and seamlessly linking design and aesthetics to people and social need. He said that he was less concerned with money and more with how he could serve society through design of public spaces. reflecting on his association with Krantz, he stated:


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[Krantz] would say, ‘it doesn’t matter how much money you’ve got, money means power and you can always do with more and more and more’, sort of business. i just said, ‘well, give me enough to do what i want to do for society and i don’t want any more.’ You see? So he perceived his, sort of concept, and became a millionaire. i didn’t make any money, but i – enjoyed [my life and work].17

when Oldham left the SMHC in 1953, he returned to Perth with his wife and two daughters and worked briefly as an architect in his father’s firm but, as the son of the firm’s originator, he felt awkwardly placed in the office envi-ronment and in an uneasy relationship with his fellow architects. However, having origins in a prominent Perth family also proved to have its advantages in the city. He also may have been stigmatised to a certain extent because of his previous Communist activities. regardless, the Oldham name was well known and well regarded and gave him an instant profile in the planning and design professions, as well as in the broader social scene of Perth. This helped him position landscape architecture advantageously amid other professions and within the large government departments that could support his interests and causes.

Soon after his return to Perth, Oldham designed the landscape for a block of flats built by the western Australian State Housing Commission (1955–57). The commission was prompted by concerns about the visual intrusion of wandana Flats, on the eastern edge of Subiaco, into the urban fabric of the residential suburb of west Perth, whose residents believed that the flats were going to be a slum. Krantz, the architect for the complex, employed Oldham to landscape the flats, more or less as a gift to the housing commission. The design was consciously Australian native in character and used tall existing eucalypts and local stone boulders as accent.

Over the course of a decade, Oldham attempted to translate modernism into a new Australian landscape architecture. For his scheme at Armadale High School in 1956 he devised courtyard planting plans based on the flora of each Australian state. The public face of the school, the broad open land-scape along the South western Highway, was devoted to western Australian flora. A secondary theme explored the political context of Australia within the


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included planter boxes containing species from British Commonwealth coun-tries and an ‘international garden’ flanked the northern boundary of the site. ideas for a modern Australia were physically stamped onto the school grounds in its layout and planting design.

By the mid-1960s, Oldham was a key player in large-scale infrastructure projects in Perth, including the narrows interchange (1963–74), a 40-hectare site on the edge of Perth’s central business district, containing a large body of water known to the citizens of Perth as the city’s reflecting pool. The public was outraged by the Department of Main roads’ proposal to fill the reflect-ing pool and to build a massive road interchange there. Oldham had already

John Oldham’s planting scheme for Armadale High School was based on vegetation types from each state of Australia; the assembly courtyard planting design was based on the Commonwealth countries; an ‘International’ garden was also part of his scheme (plan titled ‘Landscape Scheme Armadale High School’, DWG 115-03, (PWD WA), 1956) (Armadale High School; Trustees, John BR Oldham Estate)


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completed landscape work for the PwD and John Punch, Commissioner of Main roads, asked him to prepare a landscape scheme for a new park under-neath and throughout the interchange, in an attempt to appease the public. Oldham’s artistry in drawing colour perspectives of the site as it would look with thousands of trees, large reflecting ponds, waterfalls and fountains was a critical component of the proposal.

A major project that comprehensively brought together Oldham’s ideas and advanced his career considerably was his scheme for Serpentine Dam, which was built by the Metropolitan water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Department (MwSS&DD) and completed in 1961. in the late 1950s Oldham designed landscapes whilst working under the title of architect for several dif-ferent government departments, probably because one person, Paddy Clare, was both the chairman of the State Housing Commission and the head of the Architectural Division of the PwD. with his involvement in the Serpentine Dam project, Oldham cemented his position as a landscape architect within the Architectural Division of the PwD, which was quite literally ‘building a state’ as it constructed dams, water supplies, public buildings, wharves, sew-erage, drainage and irrigation infrastructure across western Australia. rapid increases in public expenditure in the postwar years meant that the number of permanent salaried officers in the Architectural Division, of which landscape architecture became a part, increased by 84 between 1946 and 1958.18

in his role in the PwD, Oldham nurtured the careers of Oline richards and robert Hart in the early 1960s and was responsible for recruiting both trained and untrained people to landscape architecture such as Peter Cala, Peter Akerman, Michael Heath and UK-trained landscape architect and town planner Mike Tooby, who arrived in Australia in 1971. Cala had left a career in accountancy in 1963 to set up a landscape construction business. He was inspired by natural forms and was strong advocate for organically inspired solutions in design. He completed his most impressive projects in the 1990s by which time he had his own consultancy and was involved in major suburban development at ellenbrook east of Perth. Tooby had considerable experience with large local authorities such as Scotland’s Cumbernauld new Town. After working at the PwD he worked for Jean Verschuer and, with his wife, Pamela Tooby, who also trained in landscape architecture, took over Verschuer’s


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industrial landscape commissions such as refineries and associated infrastruc-ture in western Australia. Oldham recruited Peter Akerman, who had come to Australia from Britain in 1966. Akerman went on to make important contri-butions to the Landscape Section of the PwD, working on key developments such as Heirisson island in the mid-1970s for the sesquicentennial celebra-tions and later becoming active in debates over the conservation of jarrah for-ests in western Australia.

Oldham’s ability to cross professional boundaries within the Architectural Division of the PwD was a dominant factor in his professional success. Anec-dotal evidence suggests that the internal pecking order among the division’s employees was: architects, engineers and then, after a large gap, landscape architects and draftspersons. Although landscape architects were thought of as the ‘weeds ’n’ seeds’ people, generally attracting a kind of bemused atten-tion, Oldham had won the respect of the engineers and considered them his allies. Consequently, at Serpentine Dam he was able to operate in an array of strategic and artistic dimensions that would not normally have been possible.

Serpentine Dam is 70 kilometres south-east of Perth and, as well as being one of the main water supplies for the region, is a popular destination for day-trippers from the metropolitan area. The scale of this project was a ‘first’ for the department, as was the early decision to comprehensively plan and design the dam and its environs. Those advocating the Serpentine Dam project were proud of the scale of its environmental impact, claiming that it would turn a ‘new and decisive page in the history of the lovely Serpentine Valley’.19 Old-ham’s role in landscaping was to fit the dam into the valley and he stated that his predominant concern was ‘not to strive to subjugate nature; or to try to keep the natural environment in its original state; but to harmoniously inte-grate man’s works with nature’s’.20 ‘Fitting in’ was not solely an artless exercise in camouflage or softening the scars of progress. Oldham believed that engi-neered structures demanded equal respect for three considerations: the design expression of the element of infrastructure; the harmonious fit with the ‘design’ of nature; and the public perception of the union of the two. Although his ret-rospective explanations of the project included a sense of romanticism he also applied a modern design aesthetic, utilising local materials and engaging with the functional processes underpinning engineering and infrastructure.


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Oldham’s first significant intervention was strategic. He persuaded robert Hillman, the construction engineer for the dam, to take construction material only from areas that would eventually be covered by the new reservoir. This, he asserted, preserved as much of the existing landscape as possible. Hill-man stated that Oldham had impressed the engineering Department of the MwSS&DD and indeed had an ‘effect on the shape of the borrow pits’, mainly because he had the special ability to ‘visualise amongst the turmoil of moving trucks and massive machinery the results he sought and then to describe them so convincingly that we were always persuaded’.21 Oldham consistently viewed the project as a cut-and-fill exercise and he worked with the engineers across the site to ensure that all earthworks and access roads in the dam’s construc-tion could be used later as design opportunities in a new tourist landscape. earthwork manipulation included directing the placement of spoil dumps to areas within the dam’s environs that were both damaged by construction and implicated in Oldham’s design scheme. Many of the modifications made to the engineers’ construction plans on site resulted in the protection of vegeta-tion and Oldham’s rapport with the resident engineer, robert elliot, made such environmentally sensitive modifications possible.

writing about the Serpentine Dam project several years later, Oldham, after describing the cut-and-fill strategy, went on to describe his techniques for revealing the beauty and magnitude of engineered structures at the site. He designed vantage points and movement systems so that people could expe-rience their scale by circulating around and over the dam wall. His design sequence commenced approximately a kilometre from the dam wall at a point where the newly constructed approach road began its descent into the catch-ment. He lined the entrance road with silver wattle, a plant not native to the area but one that he felt would provide contrast and serve as transition ‘away’ from the marri bushland, which Oldham described as ‘dark’ in form.22 Visitors were then drawn to a restaurant located at the edge of a large terrace, where the main view of the dam was revealed. Designed by Sye de Jager, a senior architect in the PwD, the restaurant had a flat roof, strong horizontal lines and glazed clerestory. The building, as shown in early photos, embraced Old-ham’s landscape concept completely. The walls incorporated panels of local rock in mortar and had wide sliding doors that extended internal spaces into


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Above The restaurant at Serpentine Dam circa 1961 designed by Sye de Jager of the PWD WA with landscape setting designed by John Oldham of PWD WA for the MWSS&DD (Water Corporation, Perth/MWSS&DD; photographer unknown)

Top left Aerial view of the Serpentine Dam project under construction, showing massive cut-and-fill earthworks and the formation of terraces for a tourist landscape, designed by John Oldham for the MWSS&DD, circa 1960 (Water Corporation, Leederville, WA;


Below left Watercolour by John Oldham titled ‘Landscape Development Scheme for Serpentine Dam’ generated in 1961 for promotional purposes (Metropolitan Water Supply,

Sewerage & Drainage Department (1961) Serpentine Dam Official Opening, Water Corporation, Perth/

MWSS&DD; Trustees, John BR Oldham Estate)


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the open air and the panorama of the dam. The strong horizontal lines merged with the surroundings; architecture and the designed landscape were of equal importance in the broader scheme and neither could be perceived to be in a subservient role.

A road led down from the restaurant car park, passing underneath an arch-ing single-span footbridge designed by Lew Harding, who was Chief engi-neer (Structures). The footbridge was anchored on one side with the Flagstaff Knoll, a viewing point consisting of a circular walled platform and a flagpole. Combined, the bridge and the knoll were to frame views and provide passage to a precinct consisting of a fountain, which spurted jets of water from the periphery of a circular pond of river pebbles and grey slate onto the granite tor at its centre. The design of the paving base for the pond included a compass rose with single letters for north, south, east and west, set in white quartz. The fountain was intended to let visitors feel the movement of water and thus get a sense of the gushing spillway. After driving over the dam wall, the visitor went back into bushland and descended to the base of the dam wall via a road lined with exotic plants, including pines, poplars and araucaria. A terrace enabled views of the wall from below so visitors could contemplate the ‘great earth wall [looming] majestically above’.23

The sweeping curve, combined with local materials sourced from blasting the spillway through rock, was used in the construction of car parks, picnic areas, fountains, seating and viewing platforms. The planting was to be a showcase of Australian native flora and exotic non-Australian plants, so as to encourage people to use these species in their home gardens. The mix of plant-ing seemed to blur the boundaries between the exotic and native by preserving the existing towering marri as a frame for introduced plant material below. He sought out rubble stone for walls, weathered granite for paving and kerbs and native plants, including the grass trees that were locally prolific. robert elliot co-operated with gangs of men, the ‘Balts’ (new immigrants), who collected pieces of nature and moved them into position within the landscaped areas of the dam’s environs.24 Laterite, reddish gravel also known as ironstone, was used for many of the consolidated aggregate and bitumen paved surfaces and this tied in well with Oldham’s desire to use Aboriginal colours. in so doing, Oldham was making an early attempt to reflect Australian indigenous culture


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in landscape design. in retrospect, he might now be criticised for tokenism, as he went so far as to design the layout of the car park planting beds to mimic emu tracks similar to those depicted in Aboriginal rock art. The most dramatic appropriation of indigenous culture, however, is the design he generated for the parterre garden.

The restaurant was built on unconsolidated fill and could not be placed on the edge of the car park embankment as Oldham had first hoped. This meant the embankment below the restaurant had to be cut away to restore the expansive panorama of the dam wall and reservoir, which resulted in Oldham’s parterre garden, created from washed river pebbles, kalanchoe and alyssum to a layout design symbolising Mundun, a mythical totemic snake linked by some Australian indigenous peoples to fertility, rain and assured water supply. Oldham’s design came from a rubbing of a sacred ritual board relating to a gamadju rock hole in the western Desert south of Balgo,25 therefore not from the indigenous people of the Serpentine Valley, in a collection assembled by Dr rM Berndt during anthropological field research. Concentric circles rep-resented waterholes, with the serpent weaving and coiled among the sources of water. The parterre garden was a modern expression of an ancient hope: namely of assured water supplies at Serpentine Dam. Oldham had great faith in the adage ‘Study the Old; it Contains the Present’,26 as revealed in his description:

The Aboriginal colours – black, red, brown, and yellow – were used throughout the restaurant and other structures, because they are characteristic of our country. This served as an additional link between the twentieth century structures and the age-old landscape in which they were placed.27

An alluring and vibrant poster designed by Oldham to illustrate the Ser-pentine Dam28 also combined indigenous and western cultural symbols, depicted in a graphic layer over an aerial photograph of the constructed dam. Scenes around the border of the poster, depicting the many leisure activities that the building of the dam was expected to make possible, were reflective of aspects of the graphic composition found in the Bayeux Tapestry.29 The famous tapestry had fascinated Oldham for many years and had been a part of


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Above The parterre garden at Serpentine Dam, designed by John Oldham circa 1961, was based on the pattern taken from a rubbing of a sacred ritual board (Water

Corporation, Leederville, WA/MWSS&DD; photographer unknown; Trustees, John BR Oldham Estate)

Top right Oldham’s plan titled ‘Serpentine Dam Landscaping Details at ‘A’ & ‘B’, Restaurant & ‘C’ drawn at scale 1/8” to 1’ ’, was prepared for the PWD WA Architectural Division, 1961 (Water Corporation, Leederville, WA/MWSS&DD; Trustees, John BR

Oldham Estate)

Below right The 1961 poster by John Oldham that was generated with the intention that tourists would use it to find their way around Serpentine Dam (Water Corporation,

Perth: Metropolitan Water Supply: Sewerage and Drainage Department (c. 1961) Serpentine Dam

pamphlet; Trustees, John BR Oldham Estate)


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the basis of a commission he had envisioned for artist robert Juniper’s 1954 national Bank mural in Perth.30 in Oldham’s poster, the Bayeux Tapestry style of the border graphic merged with an array of indigenous cave art symbols depicting sea life on the cerulean-blue water of the dam and compass rose. Australian fauna, also in an Australian indigenous style, were depicted amid spear-throwers and other silhouetted forms on an ochre landmass. Closer examination of the patterned circle of the compass rose reveals the name of Serpentine’s chief engineer, FM Kenworthy, and was clearly a reference to Oldham’s constructed design for the directional marker set within the spillway fountain. At the nexus of the graphic is a kangaroo, also drawn in the style of Aboriginal cave art. Just as the Bayeux Tapestry has attracted much specula-tion about its origins and meaning, the use of indigenous spiritual objects in a poster depicting the intrusion of a massive piece of infrastructure on the Serpentine Valley leaves the observer pondering.

in 1964 there was enough rain to allow water to rise up against the spill-way gates. when the spillway was first commissioned in that year, the par-tially opened gates released such a gush of water that large boulders were torn from the spillway floor and, combined with the fact that since 1964 there had been very few flood events, the gates were never properly operational again and instead were removed in 2002. Oldham’s use of Aboriginal cultural symbols must be viewed in the context of 1960s Australia, and appropriation by designers and artists such as Margaret Preston. But it is significant that he introduced Aboriginal references as a legitimate form of representation through the PwD and the MwSS&DD infrastructure projects and that the results were enthusiastically received.

John Oldham retired from the PwD in December 1972 at the age of 65 but continued his involvement in landscape architecture and, increasingly, conservation. The significance of his professional career was that he made public bodies like the PwD accept that designed landscape should be a part of all capital works, an achievement that was simultaneously developed by the landscape architects employed by the nCDC in Canberra. He reinforced the possibility that designed landscape could help to make the people of western Australia proud of the infrastructure the state was building and, at the same time, raise awareness of indigenous culture. He recruited landscape archi-


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tects and helped found their profession in western Australia. He managed to explore and express his own artistic ideas, to take creative risks, and to realise these in built form of considerable physical magnitude. The narrows inter-change is still intact and forms a crucial part of the image of Perth. At Ser-pentine Dam, the relic of the parterre garden, the largely intact and extensive detailing, and the sensory and formal qualities of the entire complex all speak of Oldham’s experimental and expressive work. in this sense, he artfully man-aged to combine three different and often contradictory worlds: the abstract world of artistic expression; the seemingly disconnected world of the profes-sions; and the world of engineering and infrastructure.

infrastructureandconservation

engaging the profession of landscape architecture in new infrastructure in western Australia placed Oldham in a curious position in terms of conser-vation. Again, ‘artfulness’ is the most appropriate term to describe the way he negotiated a labyrinthine arrangement of competing and vested interests, political parties and public opinion, thus managing to participate in conserva-tion debates in many effective ways, both as an activist and as a participant in bureaucratic negotiations. He saw himself as a conservationist and a landscape architect, and maintaining the two sides of his double life required trade-offs. For instance, when discussing conservation issues many years later, he was careful to articulate his role in projects such as the Ord river Dam in northern western Australia.31 As with other completed large infrastructure projects, the dam was criticised for its environmental impact, yet Oldham saw his involve-ment as the most obvious way of accommodating conservation concerns in the development of infrastructure at the time. Setting aside any question of whether the Ord Dam should ever have been built, in terms of what Oldham made of the situation, much was achieved through the symbiotic relation-ships he nurtured between seemingly disparate sectors. Tangible results at the Ord river Dam included the physical relocation of the culturally significant Durack Homestead, which the dam’s waters would have covered, and the con-sideration of visual scarring of the landscape and the reuse of elements such as the construction camp later on for tourist facilities.


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Oldham was involved in establishing some of western Australia’s earliest conservation organisations, such as the Tree Society (1957) and the Conserva-tion Council of western Australia. Key associates in these tasks included his wife, ray Oldham, gloria Butcher and Shirley de la Hunty but there were no doubt many others at that time and in the following years. At the same time as this involvement in conservation, he was designing and promoting the land-scapes of public infrastructure. Part of the reason for the Tree Society’s strong foundations, which included a secretary borrowed from the Forest Depart-ment, was the fact that he had built a good relationship with Herbert graham (1911–82), who was Minister for Forests as well as Minister of Housing and also a member of the Tree Society of western Australia. Oldham believed that the good accord between the Landscape Section of the PwD and the needs and development of the Tree Society led to the society’s ultimate suc-cess. An additional strength in the society’s campaign strategy was Oldham’s close friendship with griff richards, the editor of Perth’s newspaper, The West Australian, which ensured good media coverage for the Tree Society and for landscape architecture. Of the 1956 campaign to set aside Perth’s Kings Park as a future Botanic garden – the proposal being discussed was to build a large swimming pool in the park – Oldham recollected:

… i attended that committee and told them of my thoughts about the botanic garden at Kings Park! now they were divided on the issue, but i could see that if i didn’t come out and make a vigorous statement about it that they might pick it up and i would be forgotten as the author. i felt that it was important to establish my authorship of all these things, because they helped the development of landscape architecture or the recognition of landscape architecture, and of course they helped the idea of developing my own career!32

Contemporaries of Oldham in western Australia aligned their practices to respond to infrastructure and conservation in different ways.

Jean Verschuer (née Slatyer 1925), who later become Lady Brodie-Hall (1980), developed a role for landscape architecture in the 1960s in her employ-


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ment for western Mining Corporation and Alcoa Australia and their refiner-ies at Kwinana (commencing 1963) and Pinjarra. The latter was completed in the 1970s by Mike Tooby, who later went on to work on other Alcoa infra-structure such as residential accommodation at the small town of Carcoola (later north Pinjarra) and Alcoa’s biggest refinery at wagerup in 1978. Ver-schuer held degrees in nursing which she completed during world war ii. in the 1950s she married and went on to complete horticulture, architecture and planning subjects at the Perth Technical School (later Curtin University); by the early 1960s she was employed with architects Forbes and Fitzhardinge on the Standard gauge railway stations and cuttings between Perth and Kalgoorlie.

Around this time she commenced work for western Mining Corporation at Kambalda east, a company town and mining operation to be developed 50 kilometres south of Kalgoorlie in western Australia. Her aim, which she wrote into her brief, was to establish the town and operation within the indig-enous arid woodland setting. it was necessary to establish an on-site nursery for propagating and distributing local vegetation which was used for landscape restoration and available for residents’ gardens. early contractors and their employees took little notice of the requests to protect the indigenous vegeta-tion and it was found necessary to include clauses in contracts advising that employees who removed areas of vegetation not marked for removal would be banned from the site. The clause was invoked only once, and there was no further problem and the construction workforce, Verschuer claimed, grew to be proud of their protection of vegetation.33

A similar problem occurred with the first residents. The company houses, mainly transportable, were sited to retain as much vegetation as possible. Fences enclosed the area behind the house and attached to its side, leaving the front gardens unfenced. As practically all residents were tenants, this was done for two reasons: firstly, to retain maximum vegetation; and secondly, to allow maintenance to be carried out as part of the road and verge maintenance. Purely visual devices were also employed in an attempt to create visual har-mony. when letterboxes started to appear in all kinds of discordant colours, Verschuer instructed contractors to paint these a standard olive green, later labelled ‘Kambalda green’.


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Marion Blackwell’s research into the use and management of Austral-ian native plants and her advocacy for the indigenous landscape sustained a thoughtful ecological approach to conservation and infrastructure. She became involved in writing environmental impact statements and environmental review and management programs. rehabilitating damaged landscapes in the wake of development was a key concern and required pioneering work in propagating plants. in 1968, the residential development of rockingham Park south of Perth destroyed coastal plant communities; thus the landscape planning and design for this project included rehabilitation on poor soils in windswept conditions, which involved careful plant selection and plant propagation. For this Black-well used nurseryman george Lullfitz, who was at the time plant propagator for waneroo wildflower nursery. They propagated Allocasuarina equisitifolia ‘incana’, the seeds of which she sourced from the mouth of the Macleay river, and local trees, shrubs and ground cover plants such as the five forms of Hemi-andra pungens, which Lullfitz succeeded in cultivating for the first time.

in 1975 Blackwell & Cala produced a landscape master plan for Lein-ster Township in the great Victoria Desert in central western Australia, for Agnew Mining Co. Pty Ltd. This was a comprehensive project involving town orientation, landform analysis, site planning and planting for all parts of the town. initially Blackwell carried out detailed surveys of vegetation and plant structures of the neighbouring Perseverance well area, providing a solid assessment upon which to base subsequent planting design and remedia-tion decisions. She collected seeds and cuttings of appropriate adapted local species to propagate and use in her designs in order to create a town ‘of the desert’ rather than a town ‘in the desert’. Accompanying the master plan was an educational booklet, Gardening at Leinster, which aimed to instil a respect for arid landscape qualities and promote the appropriate use of Australian native plants rather than exotic ones. encouraging residents to plant Austral-ian native ground-cover plants in place of green lawns was practical and also intended to raise awareness of conservation and the environment. Blackwell went on to other work for the north-west Shelf Project, Argyle Diamond Mines (in 1984) and projects in Aboriginal communities.

The links between infrastructure and conservation pioneered by the likes of Oldham, Verschuer and Blackwell were in one sense ahead of their time in


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the way they defined new roles for landscape architects. in another sense, they were of their time, in that when they accepted such commissions, they also accepted the inevitability of new infrastructure in the context of the develop-ment boom of the post–world war ii years, and that compromises had to be made between conservation and development.

aLandscapeforMonashAs the nation faced the challenges of building new infrastructure to support its postwar growth, concerns also grew about the way that towns and their settings were being planned and designed. The concept of master-planned environments, like the design of infrastructure, was not necessarily new. Canberra was, par excellence, an example of Australian master-planning. in postwar Australia, the preparation of master plans took on new significance; designers faced with large-scale projects on green field sites at the fringes of suburbia faced the public’s reaction to ill-conceived developments. in Australia in the late 1960s, architects were realising the importance of the social and physical contexts in which they operated. Merchant Builders and Tract Consultants, among other firms, brought site planning more fully into the realm of the landscape architecture profession during the 1970s and made it their real strength. Landscape architects took on nascent roles in site planning, by acting as consultants to architects and advising them on the management of plants and the design of outdoor spaces. The manner in which landscape architects in the 1960s took on these new roles tells us something of how the profession evolved. One story, an extreme case, is that of the development of a campus landscape for Monash University at Clayton, Melbourne.

Campus master plans for major universities had been prepared in the past, but they often evolved organically after a staggered start and sometimes they were set aside completely. For example, the University of western Australia in Perth initiated a competition for a master plan for its Crawley site in 1915. The winning entry was that of Melbourne-based Arts and Crafts architect Harold Desbrowe-Annear, but very little of his scheme was ever implemented. The University of Melbourne’s treasured 19th-century landscape was severely compromised by the mid-20th century; car parking, roads and new buildings


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had eroded its integrity. A series of master plans dating from the 1940s failed to be influential. it took until 1970 for a binding master plan to be put into action. indeed, in some contexts the notion of a master plan was simply not on the agenda. in the mid-1950s, Peter Spooner generated a master plan for the University of new South wales. nothing came of this and Spooner later claimed unequivocally that Professor Baxter, vice-chancellor from 1953 to 1969, was ‘not a believer in the production of a master plan’.34 Perhaps this was a mindset that was merely a symptom of the sheer amount of available space that Australia, as a relatively young nation, had enjoyed in its first century or so of existence, a luxury that was rapidly diminishing in the post–world war ii years. Latrobe University, Victoria’s third university, was developed from 1964 with master planning by architect roy Simpson from Yuncken Freeman Architects and landscape consultants Lindsay Pryor and richard Clough, but by this stage Monash was already six years in the making.

The planning of Monash University was an exemplar of change as its land-scape was at the core of deliberations over the campus’s early development. From 1958 to 1971 the building program developed rapidly and a succession of landscape consultants, all of whom were high-profile figures in the profes-sion’s early years, consulted on master-planning and landscape design. They were John Stevens (with grace Fraser), Mervyn Davis, Lindsay Pryor, gordon Ford (with Peter glass) and Beryl Mann. The narrative of Monash Univer-sity also encompasses a host of other players from across Australia, including Professor John Turner, eric Hammond, richard Clough and ernest Lord. The controversy that arose around their roles was fuelled by powerful social movements of environmentalism and nationalism, which were expressed in the fight over whether plants other than Australian natives should be used in the new campus landscape.

Monash University’s origins date from the mid-1950s, when there was significant pressure to establish a second university in Victoria. Louis Mathe-son was appointed the new university’s first vice-chancellor and took up his position in January 1960. Throughout his time as vice-chancellor, Mathe-son, who was a civil engineer, took an active role in the development of the campus landscape, as did other professors. One who was perhaps more vocal in the landscape’s planning than Matheson was Alan John ( Jock) Marshall


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(1911–67), Foundation Dean of Science in 1961 and then Professor of Zool-ogy and Comparative Physiology. Matheson described Marshall as having strong convictions, which he expressed with ‘vigour and a considerable com-mand of invective in the certainty that he was always right’.35 Marshall grew up on Sydney’s outskirts and lost an arm in a shooting accident at the age of sixteen, but this did not deter him from participating equally in any activity he undertook; after initial rejection for wartime service in the Australian imperial Force, he became a captain in the intelligence Corps, leading a patrol fondly known as Jockforce in the weewak campaign (1944–45) in new guinea. His 1943 publication Australia Limited, a commentary on Australian society and culture, exemplifies his strong views and forthright writing style. A retrospec-tive assessment of Marshall indicates that he might have made a good land-scape architect; his writing and ideas crossed established boundaries between science, art and the professions and he showed tenacity and intransigence in fighting for the value of landscape.

The master-planning of Monash University, however, started long before Matheson and Marshall came to be involved. On 22 December 1958 the Melbourne firm of architects, engineers and town planners, Bates Smart & McCutcheon (BSM), were appointed as the master planners and architects for new university’s 250-acre (100-hectare) site. Osborn McCutcheon was lead-ing consultant, working with senior architects richard Butterworth and AJ ralton. inherent in the master plan was a clear idea of how landscape should be treated. McCutcheon had a keen interest in plants and had developed a professional relationship with John Stevens, who was Monash University’s landscape consultant from 1958 to mid-1963. Stevens worked with ralton to prepare the first inspection of the Monash site in January 1959, produc-ing a survey plan that, among other things, identified features such as a large eucalypt specimen that later became known as the Matheson gum. One of the guiding landscape principles in BSM’s master plan was that a liberal mix of Australian native and non-Australian deciduous plants was required.


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nativeplantsversusexotic

Marshall returned to Australia in June 1960 to take up his position at Monash, after fifteen years of study, research and teaching at the University of Oxford and the University of London, finishing his time abroad with visiting professorships at the University of California, Los Angeles in 1959 and Yale University in 1960. in 1962, Marshall and artist russell Drysdale published Journey Among Men, which gives an account of travels in remote parts of Australia in 1958 when Marshall had returned for a brief visit. On this trip Marshall and his companions were collecting zoological specimens including at Maralinga in the far western South Australian arid lands, where atomic tests had taken place. The trip also engendered in Marshall a deep respect for the culture and landscape of Australia as he met people in their communities and their landscapes.36 Marshall became a conservationist pioneer, untiring fighter and strategic manipulator for the preservation of the natural environment at a time when, as Libby robin discusses at length, early environmentalists were charting unknown territory and forming alliances across once well-defined boundaries between scientists, amateur naturalists, economists and bureaucrats.37 Perhaps his most significant contribution to the literature of conservation is the volume he edited, entitled The Great Extermination: A Guide to Anglo-Australian Cupidity, Wickedness and Waste (1966), for which he assembled contributions from key people involved with protection of the Australian environment.

Jock Marshall campaigned for the Monash University campus landscape planners to develop a purely Australian native planting scheme. initially, the campaign was conducted in a hysterical manner. with lecturer and zoolo-gist Tim ealey and the rest of ‘Jock’s Brigade’, he applied guerilla tactics and removed the exotic plants that BSM and John Stevens had planted. They tore out offending poplars, threw them into the back of a Volkswagen Combi van and eventually replanted them as an avenue on a property north of Melbourne. Marshall fought to set up a reserve for native fauna and flora, which he named Snake gully; it was renamed the Jock Marshall reserve after his death in 1967. This reserve contained some of the last remaining indigenous vegetation on the Monash site; its gradual expansion was ensured through the nocturnal manipu-


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lation of survey pegs. Marshall became a legend at Monash and a photograph of him still hangs above the public bar in the nearby notting Hill Hotel. Over time Jock’s Brigade’s passionate advocacy extended to procuring and cultivating native plants on campus; Marshall corresponded constantly with curators of parks and gardens, including the royal Botanic gardens Melbourne, and with seed suppliers and conservation groups throughout Australia.

The battle between Marshall and the consultants over a native plant-ing policy was essentially a conflict between ideological points of view and practical or aesthetic considerations. The records of the Monash grounds

Cibachrome photograph (1958) by Russell Drysdale (born England 1912, arrived Australia 1923, died 1981), no title (Tim [Ealey], Jock, Ivan & Dom at Fossil Downs, Western Australia) (25.7 x 38.2cm (image); 30.5 x 41.4cm (sheet), National Gallery of Victoria,

Melbourne; gift of Lady Drysdale, 1982/Estate of Russell Drysdale)


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Committee provide a window onto native-plant fervour but they also give deep insight into inter-professional competition, thereby telling much about the new emerging profession of landscape architecture. As early as August 1960, letters about the use of Australian native and non-Australian plants began circulating. The exclusive use of natives in the perimeter planting and in much of the broad open space areas was proof that native plants were deemed impor-tant in the overall master plan; however, in August 1960, after nearly two years of planning and construction, Marshall, just two months after taking up his post, called for the establishment of a grounds committee, speculating that ‘in a few years we may discover ourselves to be in a very peculiar floristic situation, with nobody in particular responsible except one person, the landscapist’.38

The somewhat contradictory situation in which Marshall and Stevens and Fraser became embroiled is best explained by considering the management of Snake gully. Jock Marshall saw Snake gully as an opportunity to construct an Australian-inspired landscape for scientific purposes to be used as a wild-life sanctuary. John Stevens and grace Fraser, however, considered the gully a degraded relic of indigenous landscape, the fate of which depended upon the extent to which it could be regenerated to maximum effect with minimum intervention. Stevens and Fraser reported on the existing Australian native vegetation they could identify and assessed the weed problem affecting the site, which, they noted, meant that no Australian native grasses had a chance of re-establishing there. Their proposals for the reserve began with detailed instructions for weed eradication and replanting with local species, indicat-ing that their actions were at least in part underpinned by the beginnings of a more careful consideration of existing ecology. Their response was, in fact, enlightened for the time.

Marshall, however, had envisaged for Snake gully a conglomerate of faunal and floral symbols of Australian landscape. He was emphatic that the site should contain as many different Australian native plants as possible, an approach that would contribute little to reconstructing and sustaining the site’s natural ecology. As the plantings that Stevens and Fraser had specified for Snake gully matured, their colour and form continued to be a disappoint-ment to Marshall whose response was to plant showier species across the site. The irony of the situation was that, while Marshall was fighting against


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the use of non-Australian plants throughout the campus, he was attempting another kind of colonisation in the last remaining patch of endemic vegetation at Snake gully by planting Australian native plants sourced from outside the immediate region.

By May 1961 the debate regarding the balance of use of native plants versus non-Australian plants had escalated. with the consultants describing some spaces in the master plan with phrases such as ‘english Park Character’39 and proposing planting schemes that showed a liberal attitude to both native and exotic species, they really had no chance with Marshall. in the courtyards

A view towards the Menzies Building circa 1967 from Snake Gully, which at that time was a site of remnant indigenous vegetation (Photograph by Wolfgang Sievers, State Library of

Victoria, Acc. No. H2004.49/256)


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created among the campus buildings, it was envisaged that deciduous trees would be used more extensively so that more light would be admitted in winter.40 McCutcheon and Stevens argued against the sole use of native spe-cies because they were inappropriate for the site’s soil conditions and explained that only a limited number of species would actually grow on Monash’s unreli-able soils. The sentiment expressed by BSM and Stevens in these early discus-sions reflected Stevens’ expertise in deploying plants and the related dictum that plant selection was ‘a matter of the right plant for the particular job’.41 The risks involved with using native plants were too great for a rapidly developing campus which had been nicknamed the ‘University-in-a-Hurry’.42 in spite of their arguments and explanations, a temporary ban was placed on the use of imported species in May 1961 and by July the ‘english Park’ had been turned into an Australian one.

Matheson sought further opinion on the matter of using native species as opposed to exotic species from John Turner, Professor of Botany and Plant Physiology at the University of Melbourne (1938–73). Turner’s contribution to conservation in Victoria and Australia included his work as a founding member of the Victorian national Parks Association (1952) and the Austral-ian Conservation Foundation (ACF), as founding member and chairman of the national Trust Landscape Classification Committee and as member of the Victorian Land Conservation Council (1970). Turner was then a supporter of a broad range of activist groups, all of which were in some way associated with the conservation of the natural landscape although he also supported the conservation of culturally important landscapes. Consequently, he was asso-ciated with edna walling and ellis Stones, among others, and was a friend and supporter of John Stevens. Turner disagreed with Marshall’s views and had solid grounds for doing so. He had been engaged in 1960, as a member of the Maud gibson Trust, in an exercise to determine the most appropriate of a range of sites within a 60-kilometre radius of the centre of Melbourne for the royal Botanic gardens Annexe, which was to consist exclusively of native plants. Turner was, therefore, indeed well qualified to conclude that the Monash campus could not support the kind of landscape that Marshall envisaged. Marshall referred to Turner’s arguments as ‘a pack of irrelevant and sometimes irresponsible nonsense’,43 but had sufficient respect for Turner to


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rise above their differences about the Monash landscape and invite Turner to contribute a chapter entitled ‘The Decline of Plants’ to his compilation, The Great Extermination.

The profession’s role in the politics of nature conservation is a vital theme in the history of landscape architecture in Australia. in its somewhat fragile state in the 1960s, the arguments of the profession were notably inconsistent. On the one hand, conservationist ideas underpinned the profession’s birth; on the other hand, sustaining professional status and ongoing work called for a degree of impartiality and even complicity in developments that caused a loss in the integrity of natural resources. The pragmatics of professional practice and the ideals of the activist formed a vexed dichotomy which, to this day, has never been easy to resolve. Turner consistently demonstrated that he was comfortable with the axiom ‘wise use of resources’ but was known to have said:

it’s a question of balance. The extreme right-wingers are just as emotional as the greenies. But both extremes are necessary against the inherent compromising tendency of the middle-of-the-roaders. i don’t think for a moment that the Franklin river would have been saved without the extreme leftists. i always tried not to show it, but i’m just as emotional as the next man when i see something awful happening.44

courtyardsbystevensandfraser

within months of Turner advising that it should not be supported, the policy for all-native planting was in place. The key exception to this policy was that the planting design of internal courtyards was to be at the discretion of the deans of the enclosing buildings. The logic for this decision was that, as courtyards, these spaces were enclosed enough not to destroy the exclusive native planting character of the more openly visible parts of the campus. Predictably, this proved to be flawed logic, because of the potential that arose for inappropriate plant choices to be made. nonetheless, Stevens and Fraser persisted and made the best of what had become a frustrating consultancy. in 1967 the grounds


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Committee described the design and construction of the Science Courtyard at Monash as faultless45 and, over time, they grew increasingly appreciative of the quality of the landscape services that Stevens had provided.

The Science Courtyard was extensively documented with a grading plan, drainage plan and construction details which, in the context of the work of Stevens’ contemporaries in Melbourne, marked advancement in the profession. Constructed by eric Hammond, with glen wilson as foreman, the courtyard was under the close watch of Jock Marshall, who was Dean of Science for the first year of its construction. wilson recalled Marshall objecting to the alignment of the shallow U-shaped pond as being too angular and insisted on curved sections to replace Stevens’ straight sections, even though in Stevens’ design the intersections of these straight lines had been curved. Approximately a quarter of the site was taken up with this pond, which featured a promon-tory of boulders protruding from flax-leafed plant material. Stevens’ scheme consisted of a canopy of Casuarina cunninghamiana (river sheoak), wilga and Homolanthus populifolius (Queensland poplar), shrubs of Alyxia buxifolia (sea-box), Podocarpus alpina (mountain plum-pine), Xanthorrhoea australis (grass tree) and Paddy’s river grass. in the initial scheme, bands of exposed aggregate (Seymour pebble) and Bacchus Marsh sandstone paving made for a striking design that was free-flowing, modern and distinctively Stevens. At Marshall’s request, this paving design gave way to an enlarged area of lawn but still, as a piece of modern native garden design that is still remarkably intact, the Sci-ence Courtyard is a rare example tucked away in suburban Melbourne. A com-parable example is Stevens’ design for the redmond Barry courtyard (1961) at the University of Melbourne, which displays similar techniques to those in Stevens’ scheme for the Science Courtyard (before Marshall altered the

Above right The Science Courtyard at Monash University designed by John Stevens Landscape Consultant and planted with Australian native plants under the order of Jock Marshall (photograph taken 1999) (Andrew Saniga/author collection)

Below right Stevens’ plan titled ‘Alternative Planting Scheme Monash University Courtyard Native Plants’, drawn at scale 8’ to 1”, Dwg. No. 283-6, August 1961, was accompanied by an extensive set of design documentation drawings for levels, drainage, etc (State Library of Victoria; design by John Stevens and drawn by Trevor Westmore)


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paving). The redmond Barry courtyard is still partly intact and is one of the few remaining examples of such paving design.

The engineering Courtyard at Monash was also designed by Stevens and included a pond. in this case, however, the design was clearly influenced by Professor KH Hunt, Dean of engineering, who was keen to have exotic plant material in ‘his’ courtyard. The most spectacular planting scheme in terms of scale was the campus perimeter planting plan that specified planting areas of varying widths but extending more than a kilometre in length. These projects by Stevens and Fraser are testament to the fact that the impact of a plants-person’s skills is often not revealed until decades later and serve as a compel-ling reminder of the protracted delay in gratification that is often associated with landscape architecture. Countless sites in Melbourne contain planting structures that Stevens and Fraser designed, yet as designed landscapes they more or less go unappreciated.

trialsandtribulationsofanemergingprofession

Throughout the 1960s many of the early plantings of native species at Monash failed. Lack of adequate horticultural experience in propagation and maintenance and constant pressure from ongoing building work were partly to blame for this failure. The professional opinions of Stevens and Turner that the Monash site could not sustain the diversity of native plant material were being proven correct at this time. Marshall remained firm in his conviction, asking in September 1966, ‘i wonder what makes people think that exotics will grow any better in this native soil?’46 After Stevens’ and Frasers’ consultancy ended, a series of other practitioners came and went and their stories reveal aspects of the status of landscape architecture and the kinds of roles that founding members brought to it. Matheson procured the services of landscape architect Mervyn Twynam Davis (1917–85) in June 1963 to design the sports area and the gardens around the Zoology buildings. She came highly recommended, having designed the landscapes for various facilities for the Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction. in appointing Davis, Monash was taking on a professional woman with a very different approach from her predecessor. Stevens considered himself to be less concerned with advancing


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professional status and more concerned with fulfilling his passion for working with plants. Davis was spearheading the move to establish the AiLA and was very concerned about professional status and respect. in embarking on a career that required a degree of negotiation with architects, engineers and planners, she was competing in a male-dominated occupational environment. There are many documents in the archives at Monash University that lead one to conclude that she may have been rather too aggressively defensive of her position as a landscape architect in the Monash bureaucratic environment.

A survey of the work that Davis prepared for the university shows that it was very different from that of Stevens. Davis tended to write lengthy reports and letters about issues that, if compared with the scope of Stevens’ work, were beyond her brief. She attempted to challenge funding decisions that were made at higher levels rather than fulfil the more limited, but neverthe-less vital, task of preparing the planting plans that were so urgently needed. By early 1964 Davis had submitted her consultancy documents for the Sports Complex and Matheson asked her to submit her final account; she responded with a five-page document in defence of her work. Her submission for the Sports Complex was furnished with brochures for crib walls, water-meter boxes, grandstand seating and other detailing that she felt were necessary if the university was to have long-term guidance in the design and construction of landscape across the campus. However, the Monash landscape was not getting the level of financial commitment Davis believed it required and, more impor-tantly, her interpretation of the role of the profession of landscape architecture was not winning the respect of the professions who dominated the building and academic programs of the university at the time.

while a legal case over Davis’ fee was being resolved, Matheson continued to seek the advice of landscape consultants on the troubled campus landscape. Adjacent to the Student Union building was the Forum, a large open space that was a venue notorious for student demonstrations. There had been con-stant difficulty with the site because of its very heavy use and the extremely harsh microclimate created by the height and form of its adjacent buildings. in June 1964, Matheson appointed landscape consultant robert K Skerritt on a design-and-construct basis and he remained at Monash until October 1966. Skerritt held a Diploma of Arts but had no formal training in landscape


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design, although he had experience working in the office of John Stevens. He was at the time working on the general landscaping of major shopping centres and the settings for municipal, commercial and industrial buildings. Skerritt’s engagement became bogged down in the internal politics of Monash involving the Forum Committee, which was headed by Marshall. Under scrutiny was Skerritt’s knowledge of Australian native plants; Marshall, with support from the Professor of Plant Physiology, MJ Canny, stripped Skerritt of any control over plant selection and officially took over the selection of species. in the context of the Monash job, the combined scientific knowledge of zoology and plant physiology of Marshall and Canny trumped Skerritt’s working knowl-edge of plants and horticulture.

The landscaping of the Forum continued to be a conspicuous failure although, given its role in university life, it had the potential to be a show-piece. Matheson had been under increased pressure to resolve the issue of appointing a suitable landscape consultant to the university. in early 1966 he directed Monash’s buildings officer, gPH Boycott, to visit Flinders University


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in Adelaide and report on that university’s arrangements regarding landscape. Boycott was favourably impressed, especially by the bureaucratic structure per-taining to the grounds at Flinders University. He cited four reasons for its suc-cess: Lindsay Pryor as the ‘good landscaping consultant’; richard Clough as the ‘good assistant consultant’; L Harvey as the ‘good curator’; and the fact that there was ‘no committee to interfere with the plans and stifle initiative … The Pryor–Clough plans are accepted without question’.47 At Flinders, gordon Stephenson, Lindsay Pryor and richard Clough contributed to the landscape

The ‘impression’ of the Forum landscape designed by Gordon Ford and Peter Glass (1966) materialised differently when Ford and Glass artistically placed massive boulders near one corner of the towering Menzies Building in 1967 (Gordon Ford and

Peter Glass (undated) Monash University: Impression of Suggested Development – Eastern End of

Forum, perspective drawing/State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, LTAD 101, H2001; photograph by

Gwen Ford/photographer unknown)


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development and reported directly to Professor Peter Karmel (1922–2008), then vice-chancellor, making the job of decision-making regarding landscape master-planning relatively simple. in April 1966 Matheson sought the advice of Lindsay Pryor, who agreed to visit the Monash campus in July. Marshall was in hospital for cancer treatment and unable to attend the meeting. Pryor’s opinions of the Monash landscape were similar to those of John Stevens and he called for a review of the complex site-planning arrangements that had evolved, largely as a result of Marshall’s political activism. Pryor recommended abolishing the all-native planting policy and Matheson endorsed Pryor’s ‘inter-mediate position in the Australian versus exotic planting controversy’,48 at the same time acknowledging his expertise in native plant propagation. Marshall opposed Matheson’s proposal to appoint Pryor as the university’s landscape consultant, stating:

it would be expedient, but disastrous in my view, to give anybody carte blanche on the campus. we might well wake up in ten years time with effects such as occurred in parts of Canberra. we could then of course say “we did our best” but we would be nevertheless saddled with them.49

Marshall then suggested that Monash University procure the services of gordon Ford, ‘a very successful Melbourne landscape man … [who] has the rare combination of an acute aesthetic appreciation (groupings etc.) in the manner of John Stephens [sic]’.50 At the Planting Sub-Committee meeting on 15 September 1966, Jock Marshall gave his final input into landscaping at Monash. He was dying and was carried into the meeting on a stretcher, having been driven to the campus lying down in the back of a Holden station wagon. At the meeting, Marshall and ealey introduced gordon Ford, who revealed his enthusiasm for the Monash campus and its Australian native plant policy to the committee. Jock Marshall died in 1967 with the knowledge that Ford would design the landscape of the Forum and it was Ford’s design that lasted until the late 1990s. Matheson produced his own sketch for the site, which consisted of an amorphous pond edged with a single basalt pitcher and sur-rounded only by a large area of white quartz gravel.51 He might have been


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surprised when the interpretation of gordon Ford and Peter glass began to take shape. it consisted of dramatic basalt boulder formations, the sculptural qualities of which afforded a raised fountain-head adjacent to the pond. Tim ealey claimed, with some pride in the rawness of Ford’s work, that years later the engineers employed at Monash had determined that the feature’s rock-work was so massive that it was gradually sinking.52 Ford later suggested that it had faults – faults that arose because of the way the project was resolved on site, with great artistry, albeit without design documentation.53

Ford and glass remained true to their commitment to use Australian native plants and were part of the Planting Sub-Committee’s fight for the retention of the policy of using native plants when the Buildings Committee suggest the policy be reconsidered in early 1968. But in practice, the enthusi-asm for this commitment was not able to be supported. Alan wrigley, Monash University’s first full-time grounds curator (appointed circa June 1966), noted difficulty in obtaining the ground-cover plants that Ford and glass suggested for the mound they constructed around the pond in the Forum. This problem was symptomatic of the times, in that propagation of a broad range of Austral-ian native plants had not yet occurred in Melbourne and many species were simply not available. Ford and glass went on to complete work for the north-east Halls of residence (1967) and to design and construct rockwork at the intersection of wellington and Blackburn roads in 1971.

when the architectural firm Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell designed the religious Centre at Monash, which was adjacent to the Forum and Ford’s pond, Beryl Mann, architect and landscape architect with the firm, was directed by the grounds Committee in 1967 not to consult with Ford about the design of the Centre’s environs.54 The reasons for this directive are not clear, although it seems reasonable to speculate that, because Mann’s landscape design would have been embedded in the contract documentation within an architectural brief, from a professional practice point of view the Monash administration may have felt it prudent to insulate other landscape consultants operating under design and construct contracts, while Ford and glass were engaged in related work literally metres away. Simultaneously, Ford, glass and Mann were all involved in the group of people forming the AiLA, yet in the workplace they were worlds apart.


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After the Ford and glass appointment ended, no further position for a landscape architect was filled. The buildings officer noted that in 1972 the university employed a staff of 25 gardeners and a chief gardener and curator, John Cranwell, who held a Diploma of Horticulture and was under the imme-diate control of the university engineer. This meant that the task of schematic design was handled, ultimately, by Monash’s chief engineer, a situation that mirrored the control that engineers had held over municipal landscape works in Australia in the decades before the 1960s. Despite a decade of experimen-tation at Monash University with landscape consultants, some of whom were landscape architects, there had been no significant gains, at least in that insti-tution, for the profession in terms of developing a role for the private prac-titioner. in 1974, the Buildings Committee made a telling recommendation:

(f ) Future Planning - The Committee noted comments of grounds Committee concerning the appointment of landscape architects and the report that difficulties had been experienced in the past with some designs prepared by landscape Architects [sic]. The committee agreed that members should investigate possible suitable candidates and report. in the meantime it was agreed the University should continue with the present excellent development.55

Despite intermittent suggestions to employ landscape architects again as a result of spasmodic debate about the campus landscape, the minutes of the grounds Committee make no further reference to the employment of land-scape architects on the Monash University campus until the late 1980s. when landscape architects within the consulting firm Loder and Bayly, who had been engaged to consult on the landscape associated with the Forum, proposed the use of exotic deciduous plants, the debate about Australian native plants was revived. Marshall’s vision, however, was defended and the legacy of that vision persists today. The narrative of master-planning at Monash’s Clayton campus does not imply that the stance taken by the landscape consultants involved was not valid; rather, it indicates that their relative failure to win respect for their approach was in large part due to a lack of a coherent professional identity.


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while Oldham was designing landscapes at Serpentine Dam and winning respect for the emerging profession in western Australia and the succession of landscape architects were working at Monash University, the profession of landscape architecture was developing a formal structure in Australia. The generation of a profession in western Australia by John Oldham and others was potentially beneficial to the process, but in many respects a sense of disconnectedness prevailed among the separate activities and experiences that were occurring across the states of Australia. Likewise, the disconnectedness that defined the experiences and approaches of the landscape architects of Monash University served as a sobering reminder of the challenges in finding a convincing and unified voice for the profession. it was hoped that institutionalisation would remedy this situation.


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5

An institute for identity

in the 1960s, organising a profession of landscape architects seemed essen-tial. Battling solo for recognition was not the most effective way of operating, particularly when landscape architecture started to hit the newspaper head-lines. Take, for instance, landscape architect erica Ball who was one of the earliest to gain qualifications in the UK, in 1953. Upon her return to Aus-tralia she was well received by the Melbourne landscape community, although her early experiences in professional practice, particularly as designer for the Olympic Village, were not without difficulty. This was because the nature of her professional role was undefined and a degree of sensationalism had been generated over the fear that public plantings and gardens might demand sig-nificant public expenditure. newspaper headlines heralded, ‘She has £60,000 to spend on gardens’ and ‘girl’s garden is 77 acres’.1 The media clearly sensed the potential outrage that could be conjured in the public mind: that some-thing as flimsy as a garden could be attracting public expenditure and, what is more, that a ‘girl’ was in charge of the situation. A new type of professional, who was trained overseas to design landscape, rather than gardens, had entered Melbourne’s professional scene.

institutional backing was perceived to be essential but seemingly unachiev-able. Landscape practitioners at that time were a small and diverse group. Peter Spooner, inaugural president of the Australian institute of Landscape Architects (AiLA), noted that, although the profession was conceived in a chaotic fashion, the early founders and contributors were bound by a ‘unity of purpose’.2 it was the eccentric nature of the profession that saved the day for, as Carol Frank-Mas recalled, considerable resolve was required:


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… it was really earthy. Have you read Alistair Knox’s book We Are

What We Stand On? well that’s the way it was. You really were what you stood on. nobody had any airs and graces. Didn’t have all this political correctness. Australia was still Australia. And you know, blokes were still blokes. Sheilas were still sheilas. But don’t get romantic notions. it wasn’t romantic at all. it was a whole lot of odds and sods like myself, doing their absolute best. The goodwill was enormous. goodwill like you can’t imagine. in all those people, their heart and soul was really in landscape and still is.3

institutionaLisationofLandscapearchitectureThe state of the profession in America, and more so in the United Kingdom, provided an important impetus for institutionalising landscape architecture in Australia.

in the United States the first steps to organise the profession were taken between 1896 and 1898; the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) was formed in 1899. For the first 25 years, the numbers of practising landscape architects remained small: by 1926 the ASLA had 173 members. The first members had widely different training and yet by the mid-20th cen-tury the ASLA had become a stable society with extensive representation. Organisation of the profession in Britain began in the late 1920s. The institute of Landscape Architects (iLA) was formally constituted in 1929 with Thomas Mawson as its first president. During the early 1930s there was increasing interest in landscape architecture as a distinct discipline, which British archi-tect geoffrey Jellicoe has argued was because of the prestige Mawson brought to the profession.4 For many of its early years the iLA was an institution that represented domestic garden designers, because this was the work that landscape architects were engaged in. when Thomas Adams was iLA presi-dent from 1937 to 1939, he was highly influential in broadening the scope of the institute’s interests beyond garden design. These developments, and the formation of the international Federation of Landscape Architects in 1948, spilled over into Australia and manifested formally in the exchange of ideas


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and motivation for action. william Holford’s planning schemes for Australian cities and Dame Sylvia Crowe’s role in the landscape of Commonwealth Park in Canberra were direct influences. An important indirect transmittal of ideas came via a number of Australians who in the post–world war ii years went to study in Britain and, less so, the United States.

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important steps towards professionalisation of landscape architecture in Australia were taken after the return to Australia of a group of professionals, most of who had trained in england. Tom Kneen, in his capacity as Principal of Burnley School of Primary Agriculture and Horticulture, provided emily gibson with the contacts she needed to develop links with King’s College, newcastle upon Tyne, and to encourage graduates from Burnley to travel to england and pursue further study. Among the Australians who took up opportunities to study in Britain were richard Clough (1949), erica Ball (1953), Joan Kirby (circa 1954), Peter Spooner (1955), Margaret Hendry (1957), Mervyn Davis (1957), Allan Correy (1958), Malcolm Bunzli (circa 1965) and george williams (1966). That these Australians studied mainly in england rather than in the United States is significant, because the character of the British profession had a significant effect on the establishment of the AiLA, and on landscape design in the 1960s and 1970s in particular.

The two programs that most of the Australians entered were the Diploma of Landscape Design, led by Brian Hackett (1911–98) at King’s College in newcastle upon Tyne (then a college of Durham University), and the course in landscape design by Peter Youngman (1911–2005) at University Col-lege, London. Both courses began in 1949 and were in their infancy when the Australians arrived. Most of the knowledgeable people at the time were self-taught and the hybrid products of education in other disciplines. Young-man’s formal education comprised a degree in history from the University of Cambridge, followed by work experience and apprenticeships with landscape contractors and designers, which he supplemented with wide reading and per-sonal contacts in the emerging discipline. in the 1930s, Youngman worked as an assistant with planning consultant Thomas Adams and, like Hackett, he


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graduated from rowse’s planning course in London and entered the Town Planning institute. Of the power that town planners in Britain could poten-tially wield in postwar reconstruction, Hackett wrote:

we all thought that planners were really going to take the lead and all the others, the industrialists and the architects, the surveyors and engineers, were going to work under them. it never really worked out like that.5

Hackett had an interest in art and drawing, but had studied architecture at the Birmingham School of Architecture and then town planning under eAA rowse in London, who was noted for the broad vision of his teach-ing. For the newcastle upon Tyne program, Hackett drew on his observa-tions of the three American schools of landscape architecture he visited in 1949. The newcastle course was concerned from the outset with teaching the application of ecology to landscape design. in this sense, it laid the founda-tions for an ecological approach in landscape design, an approach that was also to be developed in north America under the Scottish Harvard graduate ian McHarg (1920–2001), at the University of Pennsylvania, from the mid-1950s. For Peter Spooner, attending the newcastle course was a turning point in his career because it reinforced his conviction that architecture should be inclusive of landscape considerations. returning to Australia, he became an active bush-walker with Myles Dunphy (1891–1985), an important advocate in the Aus-tralian national parks movement. Spooner then returned to newcastle upon Tyne to teach while Hackett was in north America in 1959 and 1960. when he returned to Australia again in 1961, he was appointed Associate Professor in the architecture department at the University of new South wales and organised a series of ten lectures as an extension course in landscape design. These lectures were the precursor to a two-year graduate diploma in landscape design that he started in 1964 and which constituted the first formal education in landscape design in Australia.

Simultaneously, the budding landscape architects trained UK-style also fell victim to a kind of cultural cringe. erica Ball (1930– ) was the first of the UK-trained graduates to return to Melbourne and take up practice. Ball


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had completed her certificate in horticulture at Burnley in 1949 and, encour-aged by Professor Denis winston, had completed the Diploma in Landscape Design at newcastle upon Tyne in 1953. On her return she worked in the Melbourne office of the architectural firm Leith and Bartlett, mostly design-ing the landscape for Housing Commission of Victoria estates (1953–54). She also designed streets, the Olympic Village in Melbourne in 1954, private gar-dens and drive-in movie theatres. The fact that Ball had been trained overseas in landscape design and had included exotic trees (poplars) in the Olympic Village did not endear her to some local practitioners, including edna wall-ing.6 Such events are signposts for the mood of Australianness that had per-meated landscape design, specifically for using Australian native plants.

The impact of english-trained landscape architects was also evident in the processes of organising the profession into a national body. richard Clough was the first to complete training in england, although he did not return to Australia until 1956. Originally trained as an architect at the University of Sydney (1947), Clough travelled to London in 1949 where, in a chance meet-ing with eg waterhouse, it was suggested that Clough study landscape archi-tecture while he was in London. He was in the first intake into Youngman’s course at University College, London and was admitted to the iLA on gradu-ation. He worked as a landscape architect for Sylvia Crowe on Basildon new Town from 1954 to 1956. His first task was the landscaping of a sewage treat-ment works but being involved in such large-scale projects his work extended to schools, housing, industrial estates, town parks, water courses and roads. These were projects in which garden design was less significant than a much broader urban and ecological approach. Clough returned to Australia and worked as an architect in Sydney for the Commonwealth government from 1956 to 1959, before moving on to become the first landscape architect at the national Capi-tal Development Commission (nCDC) in Canberra. He was instrumental in setting up the AiLA and served as its second president from 1969 to 1971.

Others who joined forces with Clough included Margaret Hendry (1930–2001) and Mervyn Davis, both of whom were graduates from Hackett’s new-castle upon Tyne program. Hendry also worked in england with the Basildon Development Corporation under Sylvia Crowe and travelled widely in europe, citing as extremely influential the ‘Scandinavian Solution’, which ‘allocated the


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space for open space first, and then they put the buildings in the areas that were not so favourable’.7 Hendry took up a position alongside Clough at the nCDC in 1963 and became a key player in establishing and promoting the AiLA; she was the AiLA archivist until her death in 2001. After her time at newcastle, Mervyn Davis took up a fellowship in 1957 at the international Agricultural Study Centre, wageningen University in the netherlands. After her return to Australia, she and John Oldham became individual members (in 1959) of the iFLA and together they were charged with the job of forming an institute in Australia, a job that Davis proceeded with, making effective use of the news media in promoting the new profession. Just before her appointment at Monash she had been the landscape architect for Perth Airport. Davis was praised by local gardening experts when she proposed that native plants be used extensively and was reported as saying: ‘it is a unique flora and there are no other exotic plants there’.8 Davis went on to complete the landscape for Mel-bourne’s Tullamarine Airport in 1969 and found herself at the centre of heated debate because of her decision to incorporate a garden of camellias and roses.

in the context of the english bias to landscape architecture in Australia at this time, the contribution of Allan Correy (1931– ) was significant. Correy played an important role as critic and agitator and thus occupied an impor-tant if sometimes vexed position in a professional environment overwhelmingly geared towards self-promotion. He held a Certificate in gardening and Horti-culture from Sydney Technical College (1950) and was inspired to pursue land-scape architecture by garrett eckbo’s 1950 publication, Landscape for Living. in 1958 Correy obtained his Diploma in Landscape Design from King’s Col-lege, newcastle upon Tyne and became a member of the iLA in 1959. He was associated with numerous British landscape architects including Jellicoe, Brenda Colvin, Crowe and Michael Laurie. erica Ball – especially in her role in the Melbourne Olympics, Peter Spooner, Margaret Hendry and Mervyn Davis were also influential in Correy’s early development. in 1961 he completed a Master of Fine Arts in Landscape Architecture at the University of illinois, which made him one of the first Australian landscape architects to graduate from an American program. Correy was one of the more active practitioners in environmental protection and had completed a Master of environmental Stud-ies at Macquarie University in 1983. in 1968 he and his wife wrote an extensive


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criticism of the landscape treatment of Canberra.9 This was a courageous piece of criticism, given the smallness of the landscape architecture community at the time and given that the achievements in planning and design in Canberra and the nCDC were a source of considerable pride to a significant proportion of that small community. Canberra’s planners and designers and the early steps towards professionalisation of landscape architecture were inextricably linked.

thencdc

At the time that Australian landscape architects began to study overseas, Prime Minister robert Menzies was leading what was to become one of the most stable governments in the 20th century. Menzies believed that Canberra should become a focal point for the nation. Although the building of Canberra had begun 40 years earlier, development had stagnated and much of the griffin plan had not been fulfilled. Few of the buildings proposed had been constructed and landscape development had not progressed. The land that was to be the centrepiece – the lake – was still a golf course and a racetrack. in the 1950s political, social and economic conditions favoured the development of the national capital under a new organisation, the national Capital Development Commission, whose influence spanned from 1958 to 1989. in 1988 the Australian Capital Territory became self-governing and the nCDC’s planning and development role was transferred to a new organisation called the national Capital Authority (nCA).

The establishment of the nCDC was first recommended in 1955 when a Senate Select Committee charged to enquire into the development of Can-berra determined that the only way to remedy the ‘stop-start’ approach was to form a single authority for its administration and development. Lindsay Pryor gave evidence at the enquiry and his input led to the recognition of the importance of Canberra’s landscape. The main objectives were for landscape planting to precede development by a minimum of 20 years and, importantly, for work on major landscape components of Canberra’s plans, such as the lake and various parks, to commence.10 The formation of this commission, to have sole responsibility for the development of Canberra, was essentially a reaction to the previous division of responsibility between the Department of works


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and the Department of the interior. Sir william Holford, then Professor of Town Planning at University College, London, was engaged in 1957 as a con-sultant to review the walter Burley griffin plan and to advise the government on the formation of the nCDC,11 which was enabled by the 1957 National Capital Development Commission Act. in January 1958 John Overall became its first commissioner, a position he held until 1972, and the nCDC heralded the beginning of a ‘golden age of operational planning’.12

John Overall was born in Sydney in 1913 and trained as an architect and town planner. As the first commissioner, his most immediate tasks included the establishment of a professional organisation with sufficient expertise and independence to cut through the bureaucratic wrangling that had hith-erto thwarted Canberra’s development. egalitarianism was a feature of the nCDC’s bureaucratic structure and landscape values were upheld amid the traditionally dominant concerns of architecture and the engineered landscape. The first appointments Overall made were engineers and architects, partly on the recommendation of Holford, and were people who also had experience in town planning, civic design or local government. He recruited architects from Liverpool University’s School of Civic Design to fulfil the dual demands of architecture and urban design, stating that graduates from this school ‘were educated in planning and architecture and taught how to incorporate build-ings into their surroundings’.13 Architects richard gray (external consultant), who died in 1982, and gareth roberts (1928–2009), employee of the nCDC, were among the first to become involved, in 1957 and 1958 respectively. The connection with people such as Holford proved pervasive in the recruitment and ongoing appointment process. roberts was replaced in 1968 by roger Johnson (1922–91), whose association with the profession of landscape archi-tecture was strengthened when he established the School of environmental Design at Canberra College of Advanced education in 1973. richard gray continued to visit Australia every year until 1981, consulting with Maunsell & Partners on urban development in the Australian Capital Territory and in other centres including in Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and Melbourne. He was known for his attempts to integrate engineered structures with their contexts and, in so doing, supported the role of landscape architects as equal partners with architects, engineers and planners.


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The ambitious plan to construct the lake, an important part of griffin’s original scheme, was high on the nCDC’s agenda. John Overall was very much aware of the importance of being faithful to griffin’s intentions. Peter Harrison (1918–90) had in 1955 embarked on master’s degree research into griffin and his plan for Canberra14 and had acquired a deep understand-ing of the scheme. in February 1959 Harrison took up the position of chief town planner in the nCDC and immediately recruited richard Clough as the first landscape architect within the nCDC’s Planning Division. Con-cern for Canberra’s landscape and sensitivity to landscape underpinned the approach of the three most senior officers in the Commission – Overall, william Andrews (Deputy Commissioner) and grenfell rudduck (Second Associate Commissioner). Andrews was familiar with landscape designers because he had been town planner and chief engineer for Parramatta City Council (1950–58) in new South wales and had come into contact with the Sydney landscape designer rex Hazlewood. rudduck was known for foster-ing good relations between communities and planners and could see how the skills of the landscape architect in planting and beautification works might help the commission win social acceptance. The fact that these high-ranking officers were receptive to the potential contribution of landscape architects was fundamental in providing a niche for a new profession, and the con-struction of Commonwealth Park (formerly Central Park) received much of the attention. Lindsay Pryor had made attempts to design the park in 1949; subsequent designs were by richard gray and william Holford and Partners (1961) and richard Clough (1962 and 1963). The first stage of its develop-ment was completed in 1964 by nCDC engineers Clive Price, Bill Minty and rod Dalgeish with consultants Maunsell & Partners. A subsequent 1965 master plan by two London-based firms, william Holford and Partners and Sylvia Crowe and Associates, included planting layouts that were crucial to the park’s design, with a generous mix of exotic plants, such as poplars and willows, and Australian native plants. in developing Commonwealth Park, the expansive history of which has been told by John gray, landscape archi-tects were beginning to operate on a similar footing with architects, whereby professional services included design documentation and the supervision of landscape construction on a large scale.


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richard Clough’s power came as a result of his ability to work in the mul-tidisciplinary environment into which he was placed. Competition was less of an issue than building symbiotic relationships. He developed his own role on the Co-ordination Committee alongside the chief architect, chief engineer and chief town planner. The Co-ordination Committee was chaired by robert Lansdown, who afforded power to landscape architects. Clough worked under Harrison and, together with planner Keith Storey, he was able to develop a strategic position from the beginning, earmarking areas to be conserved and river corridors, and applying broadly the British landscape principles he had previously acquired. He also gained the support of the chief engineer, Clive Price, who became a strong supporter when he found that the inclusion of landscape provisions in engineering proposals mitigated criticism. Landscape restoration work in engineering projects became accepted practice, rather more

Landscape architects Richard Clough (right) and John Stevens (left) supervising the construction of a causeway and pond at Commonwealth Park, Canberra with contractor receiving instructions (mid-1960s) (Richard Clough; photographer unknown)


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than landscape design around architecture did. Their successes were such that a Landscape Division was formed in 1963 to take over the role of the Depart-ment of the interior, which had been more horticulturally based. new recruits came immediately, including Margaret Hendry, Alan wilson (born in London in 1919) and Harry Oakman, who was appointed the new division’s first direc-tor, and who brought a wealth of knowledge in park management. Their influ-ence and that of the nCDC in shaping the quality of Canberra’s landscape was recognised two decades later, in 1986 when the lake and its adjacent parklands took out the AiLA’s inaugural Award for Design excellence.

The nCDC’s role in motivating the AiLA’s formation was equally sub-stantial in that it stimulated work opportunities for landscape architects. in the 1960s Oakman oversaw the early use of private consultants and contractors for landscape works in the national capital, which resulted in the gradual increase in private practice. Oakman inserted a clause in all contracts that required developers to provide plans for landscape. Bruce Mackenzie stated that the landscape architects and planners of the nCDC, including Clough, Hendry and Storey, introduced him to the broadscale and strategic planning work that further distinguished landscape architecture as a profession.15 The nCDC’s early landscape architects believed that, without a distinct institutional frame-work, the important process of peer review could not be achieved. These prac-titioners were in a different situation from their counterparts elsewhere in Australia; the nCDC’s national status and fortuitous geopolitical positioning put them in an ideal position to take a lead role in forming a national profes-sional body. However, other stances on professionalisation were developing across the country that would prove no less influential in shaping a national institutional identity for landscape architects.

theaiLa

Towards the end of the 1950s several initiatives in Melbourne ultimately led to the first real move to organise a national institute. These events had little to do with the nCDC, even to the extent that the protagonists in Melbourne viewed Canberra with some disdain. This is well captured by one of them, Alistair Knox, who wrote:


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we have our Canberra. it’s got something. However, one of those rather over-planned cities is enough for any country. Let’s have some laughter in the next one.16

Knox was known to have admired walter Burley griffin so it is likely he was aiming his criticism at the engineers, planners and designers of Canberra who came well after griffin’s time. The Melbourne initiative was fuelled by a grass-roots environmentalism, the mood of which stood in contrast to a more rational and strategic kind of progress towards similar goals that were being made by the landscape architects of the nCDC. in Melbourne, this was evi-dent as early as 1947, with key players being members of the eltham Mob who were active designing and building mudbrick houses north-east of Melbourne. ellis Stones was clearly the mentor for this movement and his design and construction of gardens such as the Le gallienne-Downing courtyard between 1949 and 1954 stood in stark contrast to the kinds of landscape architecture that were touted as major achievements in Canberra a few years later. Discus-sions in Melbourne were undoubtedly influenced by Mervyn Davis and her connection with the iFLA, but ultimately it was a meeting at ellis Stones’ Melbourne home in 1961 that initiated the process.

At that time, Stones and John Duncan (1915–89) were consciously pro-moting the role of landscape architects in designing the urban environment. Their motivation for doing so stemmed from their strong concern for the Aus-tralian environment and from their frustration over the alienation of public open space in cities. ellis Stones was particularly concerned about the Yarra river, Melbourne’s main waterway. He lived near the river and his children played along its banks. He had done landscape design work for private gar-dens beside the Yarra and was a strong advocate for protecting parts of the Yarra Valley from inappropriate development, becoming the first president of the ivanhoe river Parklands Protection League in 1955. He was an active participant in subsequent activist groups, such as the Save the Yarra League (formed in 1958 and renamed the Yarra Valley Conservation League in 1966). Stones’ early involvement in conservation included guerrilla activities, such as removing fences that separated the public from open space and threatening to throw the local mayor into the river. in 1959 his office produced a plan entitled


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‘Paradise Lost’ which depicted land that was being subdivided and lost from future public access.17

To Stones, and others he inspired, it appeared that no progress could be made in environmental protection as long as power over land development was held by engineers and planners entrenched in bureaucracies. Knox was adamant that planners needed to be ‘brought to heel’ and that laymen should be given more power to determine the outcome of urban conservation issues.18 Stones made it clear that the way forward was to invent an expert who could represent environmental concerns in official decision-making processes and compete in the same arenas as engineers and planners. in ‘Priority: Landscap-ing’ Stones wrote:

whenever any powerful organization is questioned on its policy that may be upsetting the environment, the advice of a person called an expert is called for and it is not difficult to find an expert who will back up their line of reasoning. it is amazing how many people will be silenced by that magic word ‘expert’ when common sense suggests that the expert is wrong.19

John Duncan was a lecturer in interior design at the royal Melbourne insti-tute of Technology (rMiT) and was convinced of the role landscape design could play in harmony with engineering. in 1960 he and Stones organised a course of twelve public lectures on landscape design from a sociological and environmental perspective. The series of lectures was delivered annually at the State Library of Victoria Theatrette and for a number of years it attracted a mix of architects, lawyers, doctors and others. Held in conjunction with the

Above left The first mudbrick building in 1947 with members of the Eltham Mob (left to right) L Mayfield (carpenter), Sonia Skipper, Alistair Knox, Tony Jackson and Gordon Ford (A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, Mullaya publications, Victoria, p. 22; photographer

unknown)

Below left The Le Gallienne-Downing courtyard in Eltham designed by Ellis Stones with later designs by Gordon Ford (A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, Mullaya publications,

Victoria, p. 22; photograph by Wesley Stacey)


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Burnley School, it included lectures by eric Littlejohn (later to become prin-cipal of Burnley 1967–77), Mervyn Davis, Ann Taylor, ellis Stones, Alistair Knox and rTM Pescott. The course proved to be extremely inspirational and Stones became its strongest supporter, lecturing on several topics, including the importance of natural contours and indigenous materials in landscape design. Through education he saw a strategic way of initiating the professionalisation of landscaping which could lead ultimately to the infiltration of decision-making authorities, such as the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of works (MMBw). Defining a new type of professional was an important aim for Stones, and one that presented certain challenges, according to gordon Ford:

[for Stones] it was more like you were just a gardener … there’s a phrase ‘The pathway from the tradesman’s entrance to the front door was a long one’ … which is true. They treated him more like a tradesman and then they gradually accepted him as a professional landscape architect. That took years.20

More than fifteen people were invited to the 1961 meeting at Stones’ home that led eventually to the formation of the Australian institute of Land-scape Architects. Stones, Knox, Ford, glass, Davis, Hendry and Duncan were the seven who attended. Among those who did not attend were people with established reputations nationwide, including edna walling, emily gibson and Olive Mellor. The meeting’s initial deliberations resulted in a survey that aimed to determine the current status of practitioners and their opinions regarding the establishment of an institute of landscape architects. A ques-tionnaire was sent to a select group of 32 landscape practitioners from across Australia, many of whom were members of the British iLA. it was also sent to academics and people in positions of power, such as the curators and super-intendents in major city administrations and botanic gardens. The responses were compiled in 1962–63 and clearly opinions were mixed. Some were doubtful that an institute was possible with so few practitioners, while others promoted an affiliation with the iLA or the APi and others still flatly rejected the notion of their own personal involvement or indeed the involvement of their respective organisations. eventually, many of those respondents who


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were initially sceptical about forming an independent institute became great advocates for the AiLA.

in november 1963 the first national general meeting of representatives from all states and the Australian Capital Territory was held in Canberra. it came about largely at Denis winston’s suggestion that a ‘gathering of land-scapists in Canberra’21 be organised in conjunction with the APi confer-ence. This was chaired by gordon Stephenson and attended by 32 people. A steering committee based in Canberra was set up to liaise with designated state representatives. Canberra was probably an obvious choice for the meet-ing; to coincide with it, an exhibition of the nCDC’s landscape architectural and planning work was mounted, perhaps helping to substantiate the scale and nature of work to which the new profession should aspire. The steer-ing committee consisted of Harry Oakman (Chairman), Margaret Hendry (Secretary), Arthur Cowie, richard Clough and Lindsay Pryor, who resolved to plan a further meeting at the next APi conference, in Adelaide in 1964. The fact that the early meetings were held in conjunction with the APi con-ferences reflected the aim, fostered by gavin walkley from South Australia, that landscape architecture in Australia should emerge as an offshoot of plan-ning. in contrast to the north American situation, where professionalisation of planning partly grew out of advances in landscape architecture, in Australia the autonomy of the profession developed as a result of the planning profes-sion’s rejection of an association with landscape architecture. Also around this time, moves were afoot to establish the Australian institute of Urban Studies (AiUS), which eventuated in 1967. The shifting state of institutional repre-sentation at this time was reflective of the fact that the planning profession was going through identity crises and had decided to remain ‘pure’.22 Some in the related professions felt that the ‘gardeners’ needed to be kept in their place so, while planners and other professionals helped landscape architects along in the process of professionalisation, there was also a tacit sense of territorialism that was ultimately expressed whenever any closer union was mooted.

At another meeting, again held in conjunction with the APi annual conference, this time in Sydney, in August 1966, 36 landscape practition-ers agreed that a professional institute for landscape architecture should be established, with the title ‘Australian institute of Landscape Architects’. This


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seems an appropriate birth date for the AiLA because it represented the deci-sion to institutionalise under a new identity, solo. Between 1966 and 1972 a number of other defining moments occurred that are also cited as the birth dates for the AiLA: founding committees formed, new members were recruited, a constitution was written and accepted in 1969, and the first two national con-ferences (Melbourne in 1969 and Adelaide in 1971) were mounted. Standards of practice were prepared, and by 1972 an education policy was formulated and passed. in 1986, 20 years after the decision was made to form the AiLA, a record of members of the institute totalled 276; sixteen were retired, 29 were fellows or honorary fellows, and the remaining 231 were active associates. For a short time around 1971 the AiLA also had links to an emerging profession in new Zealand, accrediting landscape architecture training at Lincoln College (east of Christchurch) and accepting graduate landscape architects as associ-ates before the new Zealand institute of Landscape Architects (nZiLA) was established in 1972/73. Seen in this way, the AiLA’s influence was substantial and to this day it has reciprocal agreements beyond Australasia.

AILA Council, Adelaide, August 1971, from right: Beryl Mann (Melbourne), Jean Verschuer (Perth), Peter Spooner (Sydney), George Williams (Brisbane), Ronald Rayment (Melbourne), Malcolm Bunzli (Brisbane), Gavin Walkley (Adelaide), Richard Clough (Canberra) (Richard Clough; photograph by Raymond Margules)


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forMingidentityin the correspondence between Olmsted and Vaux in 1865, 23 when they were discussing the acceptability or otherwise of the occupation title ‘landscape architect’, defining an identity for the new occupation was at the heart of their deliberations, just as it was for the instigators of the new AiLA. The fact that the name of the new profession, which needed to accommodate such a vast array of practitioners, included the word ‘architect’ resulted in very public discussion of identity and the jurisdictional issues this raised. in June 1968, the first issue of Quarterly Bulletin, a journal for AiLA members, was pub-lished, followed in June 1971 by Landscape Australia, which was an in-house publication not directly linked to the later reincarnation of Landscape Australia by ralph neale in 1978. The institute published a number of promotional

AILA promotional literature depicting the varied make-up and interests of the members of the AILA (undated) (AILA Archives; artist unknown)


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pamphlets with titles like ‘who He is’ and ‘what He Does’, in an attempt to explain the identity of the new professional. These no doubt had a reasonable audience, but perhaps the most forthright and widely read proclamations were articles that appeared in design and planning journals. An article by ronald rayment included a comic sketch reminiscent of repton’s logo for the land-scape gardener and announced the possible niches the new profession might find in the hierarchy of environmental occupations.24 A few months earlier Bruce Mackenzie gave a clear idea of the importance of landscape amid other professions and called on those in the established professions – architects, engineers and town planners – to augment their practices to include landscape architecture.25 Simmering behind these articles was a real concern to establish an identity for the new profession.

eligibilityandeducation

The most critical debates concerning identity arose in the determination of eli-gibility for membership of the institute: academic qualifications were pitched against demonstrated skill. Starting a profession with such a small number of elite members was seen as risky and potentially ineffectual. To begin with a more inclusive attitude to membership would accommodate the self-trained landscape contractor initially and allow for the gradual tightening of entry prerequisites later; however, this was seen as having the potential to erode prestige. Membership issues were discussed in several meetings from 1963 but the debate came to a head at a meeting in Sydney in August 1966 when a membership selection committee was formed, chaired by Margaret Hendry and Allan Correy with Mervyn Davis, Beryl Mann, Bruce rickard and gavin walkley as members. One of the key voices in the debate was Alistair Knox, as spokesman for landscape contractors who were initially excluded from becom-ing members because they lacked formal qualifications. in retrospect, Knox wrote:

There was the usual struggle to get into it and secure professional status. The whole structure and being of the institute revolved around academic qualifications.


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Two or three weeks before the institute was to be launched a letter was circulated setting out a list of proposed foundation members. it was noticeable that the most experienced were excluded in favour of those who had gained the academic qualifications in other countries, plus a brace of assorted professors from various disciplines to give it an official flavour.

i persuaded landscapers who had been browbeaten by the hierarchy to attend the Conference. They included men like Bruce McKenzie [sic], who is now Australia’s most successful professional landscape architect. By a narrow margin, it was decided at this crucial meeting to form the institute, but to give those who believed they had ability the opportunity to submit evidence of their work so that they might form part of the original corporate membership. This was how gordon Ford, ellis Stones, Peter glass and i became members.26

Opinions shifted during these formative years, probably as a result of changing perceptions of the profession in Australia, as well as through the influence of personal allegiances and good will that was developing within the social structure of the AiLA. Spooner questioned the notion of traditional forms of professionalism because he backed Bruce Mackenzie’s involvement. Mann felt that Stones, Knox, Ford and others were experienced landscape practitioners who, on the one hand, could be useful if they were admitted to the AiLA and, on the other, might resent the AiLA and even ‘… be a real danger to the institute if not admitted’.27 At about the same time, prominent advocates for the profession in north America, such as landscape architect garrett eckbo (1910–2000), were bringing to Australia American notions of what the profession might become. eckbo was visiting professor for eleven weeks at universities in Sydney and Brisbane in 1968. given the disputes about qualification for entry into the AiLA, it is interesting to note that, when the AiLA’s constitution was signed in 1969, it was at an annual general meet-ing held at Alistair Knox’s home in eltham. Forty years later, there are now almost no landscape contractors or completely self-taught practitioners among AiLA’s members, a fact that makes the membership debate and the early years


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of experimentation and inclusiveness seem all the more extraordinary in ret-rospect. it really was a profession born of 1960s and 1970s radicalism and broader social change.

The debate about eligibility for membership led to the development of a policy for professional education. Beryl Mann’s training as both architect and horticulturalist and her experience in teaching landscape design made her ideally placed to take a lead role in policy development. Her working relationship with architects was underpinned by a mutual respect that was hard earned, and perhaps those battles underpinned her determination to raise the status of landscape architecture. Mann had the support of an education committee consisting of Malcolm Bunzli, george williams and American Kent McCoy, who had taken up a position as landscape architect within the nCDC around this time. Their belief was that the quality of landscape architecture education in Australia should match the highest overseas standards and should take the form of an undergraduate degree comprising four or five years of full-time study. in a report on landscape education Mann wrote:

Landscape Architecture suffers from lack of status in Australia today. ‘Landscaping’ is seen as a product of the ubiquitous ‘Landscape gardener’ and little is known or understood of the skilled professional Landscape Consultant.28

Spooner’s graduate diploma course in landscape design at the University of new South wales (UnSw) in 1964 was followed two years later by the rMiT course. (The first courses with names that included the words ‘land-scape architecture’ were the graduate Diploma of Landscape Architecture at the Queensland institute of Technology and the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture at the UnSw in 1974 at which time Spooner was appointed Professor of Landscape Architecture, a first for Australia). Mann argued that the success of the profession relied on how it was perceived by the public, as she foresaw a social movement that would put landscape design and preservation in the spotlight of public interest. She wanted the newly formed AiLA to promote a broad approach to landscape architecture that encompassed much more than garden design. She believed the existing courses were too deriva-


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tive from architecture, engineering, horticulture or interior design programs and were not equipped to teach either landscape design or land use and con-servation. Sir garfield Barwick, vice-president of the Australian Conserva-tion Foundation (ACF), lent support, claiming there was a shortage of trained landscape architects in Australia who could intervene in conservation.29 Mann and her committee worked steadily towards formulating an education policy and, although the committee and other founding members of the AiLA agi-tated roundly for education in landscape architecture, it was not until 1983 that educators of landscape architecture themselves became organised under the Australasian educators in Landscape Architecture (AeLA).

when the institute’s education policy was finally released in August 1972 the disciplines of architecture, engineering and planning were presented as having only a very minor role in the education of landscape architects; the policy favoured an undergraduate degree as the path to professional qualifica-tion. george williams (Queensland institute of Technology), Peter Spooner (UnSw), ronald rayment (rMiT) and gavin walkley (South Australian institute of Technology) immediately raised objections. A lengthy debate ensued and consumed a good deal of energy in February 1973. At about the same time, george Seddon and the University of Melbourne’s Centre for environmental Studies (CeS) were pushing for the new profession to have landscape planning and natural science as its base, an approach that was at odds with Spooner and others who had a background in architecture. There was further tension between the landscape consultants, such as Bruce Mac-kenzie, and the architecture profession, which stemmed mostly from conflicts over the preservation of landscape values in relation to buildings and their sites. The new South wales state group of AiLA, represented by Bruce Mac-kenzie, was strongly in favour of supporting the emphasis on undergraduate education in Mann’s education policy. Mackenzie said:

i ask whether Architects would be tolerated whose training consisted of say an undergraduate course in forestry, geography, ecology, etc., followed by three years of part-time study in Architecture with an intensity equivalent to that typical of our current landscape courses.30


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Beryl Mann pushed for a distinctive and clearly defined academic train-ing for landscape architects as a means of securing professional territory. At the heart of eligibility for membership was the question of defining expertise, which has perplexed the discipline of landscape architecture from its incep-tion. in The Spoils of the Park, Olmsted argued that his expertise was his ability to manage land in ways that could achieve closer representations of the natu-ral world within urban environments and that none of the previously defined professions had this ability. Likewise, expertise in landscape architecture in Australia was beginning to be articulated as involving ecology and manage-ment practices for conservation and environmental protection. The new AiLA members’ ambition to be stewards of the environment became their main driv-ing force. As a consequence, Australia’s parks of the gardenesque, the City Beautiful, the Arts and Crafts and, to an extent, modernism, became design contributions that were eclipsed by the heady aims of the new profession. in many instances, however, these earlier traditions had in fact contained a rich history of design and land management, often conscientiously adapted to Australian environmental conditions, as was evident in the discussions of people such as Clement Hodgkinson and Hugh Linaker. The new landscape architecture profession soon discovered that making claims to an environmen-tal stewardship role presented certain challenges, not the least of which was the competition it faced from other professions and the coveted inroads others had previously forged.

earlyenvironmentalprotectionbattles

A growing awareness of the natural environment and threats to its quality and survival ignited and sustained the conviction that the development of the profession was fundamentally beneficial for Australia and its future. Although it is perhaps unfair to label early practitioners as self-righteous, some believed that landscape architecture could answer the call of environmental protection and thus bind together its divergent voices. People with intuitive knowledge of ecology and with an interest in the environment came to hold positions of power in AiLA, following a trend that was not peculiar to Australia. Describing roelof Bentham, a promoter of conservation and environmental


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issues internationally through landscape architecture who had links with UneSCO, Brian Hackett thought that Bentham had:

… started off originally as a school master, became involved in what is the equivalent of the Forestry Commission in Holland and eventually ended up as their chief landscape architect. He is another man like myself who never had any training as such but was involved in rural landscape right from the beginning and was also a keen naturalist, an expert on birds and bird watching, so that the ecological approach came naturally.31

Finding the acceptable level of participation in environmental protection proved as problematic then as it still is today. early members of the AiLA soon learnt that they held divergent views about the extent to which they should become embroiled in arguments on conservation issues. Many factions were evolving within Australia’s rapidly developing environmental movement of the 1960s and 1970s and many individuals within AiLA were aligned with the different factions. Their actions and advocacy threw the institutional iden-tity of AiLA into question on more than one occasion. Perhaps the earliest example was in 1966 when Harold Bloom proposed a motion that the AiLA join the ACF, which had formed a year earlier. AiLA records reveal that the motion was well received initially but was not passed. instead, it was resolved that grace Fraser, as an individual member of the ACF, should represent the AiLA at ACF meetings.

The most fertile ground for the exploration of early ideas about conserva-tion and environment is the record of the AiLA’s conferences. The first two conferences had the quality of the Australian environment and its conservation as their central theme; their titles are indicative: ‘The Landscape Architect and the Australian environment’ (1969) and ‘Landscape Architecture in Conser-vation’ (1971). gavin walkley, who chaired both conferences, proposed that the second one be organised in association with the ACF in Adelaide. The conferences attracted international input and allowed little time for discussing domestic garden design. The overwhelming emphasis of the discussion was on ecology, infrastructure and conservation in the context of broadscale landscape


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planning and the wise use of resources.At the 1969 conference, george Seddon,

then a senior lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of western Australia, spoke first on ‘The Quality of our Landscape’ and gave an extensive slide-show of his university and the Swan river land-scapes. it was Seddon’s formal introduction to the landscape architecture community in Australia and he impressed the group with his ideas about landscape and its preserva-tion, to the extent that his biographical note for the conference included the sentiment: ‘He is not a landscape architect; we wish that he was’.32 Seddon’s publications, particularly Swan River Landscapes (1970) and Sense of Place (1972), gave formidable backing to the emerging profession’s claim that their role in landscape analysis and design should be central in developing infrastructure. Seddon was able to articulate the kinds of landscape values held by many in the profession at that time. He was careful to acknowledge the significance of the relics of Australia’s colo-nial landscape, but gave equal weight to the importance of appropriate design that was in harmony with indigenous landscapes. His academic training included geology, which

added strength to the natural science justifications he combined with aesthetic reasons for protecting the visual qualities of landscape. Seddon’s writing pro-vided the profession with the intellectualisation required to elevate landscape architecture beyond the pursuit of practical gardening, and ultimately from garden design, and he admitted this openly. referring to the successful but intuitive designs created by the University of western Australia’s gardener,

Front cover of the proceedings of the 1971 AILA and ACF joint conference held in Adelaide, SA (Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and the

Australian Conservation Foundation (1971) Landscape

Architecture in Conservation: Proceedings of the

Conference of the Australian Institute of Landscape

Architects held in association with the Australian

Conservation Foundation, 19–22 August, Adelaide,

SA, The Griffin Press, Adelaide, South Australia/AILA,

Canberra; graphic design by Wolfgang Christ)


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Seddon said, ‘And it’s very successful. He does not understand the sources of his genius, you see. i have to explain them to him’.33

reading the proceedings, one also senses a bias towards the potential tech-nical bases upon which the profession might stamp out its territory. in rais-ing the perception of expertise, the conference seemed compelled to define landscape architecture as both a discipline and a profession and to make use of the heat of environmental awareness to achieve these goals. Alistair Knox and Bruce Mackenzie gave a joint paper with the arguably pseudo-technical title, ‘The indigenous environment as a Concept for Applied Landscape Design’. Mackenzie advocated an appreciation of the indigenous landscape, but he was balanced in his stance, discussing also the importance of exotic deciduous veg-etation in allowing sunlight into buildings during the winter months. Funda-mental to Mackenzie’s paper was his attempt to define the new profession as having a consistent ideology based on the aesthetic and practical values associ-ated with the indigenous environment. He stated that:

consistency of ideals is not an essential in landscape appreciation. But without it i contend that the results may be mere gardening rather than the building and retaining of good environment. Of course, there is nothing wrong with gardening as long as it doesn’t confuse the serious work of landscape design.34

Alistair Knox added a heavy dose of romanticism, suggesting that:

The first appreciation of the Australian indigenous environment is seldom an intellectual one. it is generally an intuitive experience like falling in love. The loved one becomes more beautiful and we become obsessed.35

He claimed that remedying environmental destruction required an under-standing of the fragility of the unique Australian indigenous environment. His argument for landscape architecture was based almost entirely on emo-tion and nostalgia, not only for indigenous landscape but also for the Austral-ian Aboriginal people whom he described in a highly romanticised way. Such


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romanticisation was not uncommon for the contemporary social attitudes. in extolling their virtues he said the Aboriginal ‘… moves in silence among the sand and boulders, or stands immobile on one leg, resting on his spears, nicely balanced between survival and eternity.’36 Knox was undoubtedly a complex figure whose interests in social, cultural and spiritual worlds coalesced in a deep interest in people’s living environments. it is also apparent that he felt the need to defend his own particular approach to design and his own claim to landscape architecture, one which undoubtedly sat uneasily alongside the other landscape practitioners making their presence felt at the conference. Knox stated:

it is interesting to note that the landscape is no respecter of persons. it is not the prerogative of the specialist. Laymen are often more affected by it than professional landscapers and horticulturalists. Some professionals lose patience with the enthusiastic amateurs who appear incapable of appreciating any other forms of plant life. i suggest this comes about in some instances because the professional is more concerned with the technical aspects of international landscaping while the man in the street is more susceptible to the untamed and primeval power of our indigenous landscape.37

in sharp contrast to Knox and Mackenzie, raymond Margules, a former forester, defined the discipline of landscape architecture as art applied to the discipline of forest science. His ‘enumeration Tables’ attempted to explore quantitative assessment of landscape value,38 which was partly a response to the landscape assessment tools developing in north America around that time.The apparently heated discussion that arose in response to Margules’ paper was entirely about conservation issues and centred on the philosophical position of the maxim, ‘wise use of resources’, to which Margules openly subscribed but with which others were less comfortable.

Forestry was not a popular profession in the 1960s and 1970s. As robin has noted, foresters were ‘seriously alienated by the new environmentalists … The 1970 shift in ecological consciousness left professional foresters stranded


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on the “other” side of conservation debates’.39 when Lindsay Pryor, another former forester, summed up the conference, he stated, perhaps optimistically, that, as a result of Margules’ paper, ‘there is already a better understanding between landscapers and foresters which has reduced the apparently head-on opposition which often tended to exist in the past’.40 These discussions, to a certain extent, contrasted a cosmetic approach to environmental ‘protection’ in the pursuit of preserving visual quality with the reality of effectively managing environmental impact in terms of such things as sustainable yields and erosion. Most of the presentations at the 1969 conference, however, were concerned with cosmetic and romantic notions. The role for landscape architecture in environmental protection proposed at that time was reactive rather than pre-ventive and the deliberations of the 1971 conference reveal this more clearly.

The Landscape Architecture in Conservation conference was held in con-junction with the ACF. Francis ratcliffe, a CSirO entomologist and ACF founder, held strong views as to who should constitute the ACF, namely sci-entists (his colleagues in Canberra) and professionals, although he conceded that there was room for amateur conservationists to collaborate with profes-sionals. The early membership of the ACF did, however, include people from business and government and the fledgling foundation was harshly criticised for being too conservative or, as architect and activist-conservationist Milo Dunphy (1929–96), son of Myles Dunphy, described it, an ‘old boys’ brigade’.41 The conservation approach that the ACF took in its early years was based on the ‘wise use of resources’, but the social protests and public demonstrations that became a condition of the 1960s and 1970s in Australia marked a distinct shift away from this conservative approach. Members of the AiLA were sup-portive of the ACF’s aim to use resources wisely. They took the attitude that it is inevitable that Australia’s many resources will be used – an attitude that still holds sway today – and that the role of landscape architecture in con-servation was to ameliorate the impact of their use, largely through cosmetic manipulation or ecological reconfiguration. it was more the exception than the rule that landscape architects became involved in environmental debates as activists. rather, their work was positioned on the development side of the ledger, due to their employment within development bodies, but they became increasingly aware of the difficulties of balancing development with


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environmental protection. interestingly, around the early 1970s the Landscape Branch of the nCDC changed its name to the Landscape and environment Branch, perhaps partly in response to the growing involvement of environ-mentalists in questioning the development of Canberra’s infrastructure, but also due to the increasing inclusion of ecology and other environmental indi-cators, such as noise, in nCDC planning and design.

Stones, Knox and Fraser were among the most active in conservation dis-putes in Melbourne, and across Australia other particularly active individuals included Allan Correy, Marion Blackwell, Thistle Harris, Bruce rickard and Bruce Mackenzie. when he was based in South Australia, Correy became involved in disputes over the building of roads and subsequent loss of large established eucalypts; his later critique of Canberra’s landscape can, in part, be viewed as a piece of environmental activism. Correy had worked for Loder and Dunphy in 1961, designing the garden of one of their award-winning houses, and had formed a close relationship with Milo Dunphy. Thistle Harris also incorporated environmental activism into her study of landscape design when she became a player in the Colong Caves dispute in new South wales. The active involvement of these people in environmental protection subsequently led to their practice being considered as something other than landscape archi-tecture – more as work to do with landscape preservation and national parks. There were notable exceptions. in 1982, Bruce Mackenzie as President of the AiLA, along with his council, issued a statement to the Honorable rT gray, Premier of Tasmania, requesting he do everything possible to avert the flood-ing of the Franklin river. in publicising this fact in Landscape Australia, even Mackenzie was careful to add the disclaimer that not always do ‘natural things [have] ultimate priority over any development or change’.42

Mostly, environmental protection involved cosmetic manipulation in the wake of destructive forces of development and many believed this to be a valuable contribution to the profession and to the environment. when inter-viewed, Lady Brodie-Hall stated that in the 1960s landscape architects did not need to get into environmental debates because, ‘we were seen to be the supporters, we didn’t have to get into debates … that was our work! we were the ones doing it!’43 The physical manipulation of degraded sites after destruc-tion was no doubt an important role, as it still is today; as this need became


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recognised, other professionals branched out into environmental work. Many of the papers at the 1971 conference were based in scientific and technical considerations of environmental conservation and were perhaps outside the scope of the interests and expertise of members of the AiLA. An exchange between two participants at the 1971 conference encapsulated something of the differing views about environmentalism among landscape architects. Ke Yeomans expressed his view:

i believe as landscape architects we should be interested in controlling water pollution and i suggest including in this recommendation something to the effect that no polluted water should be released directly into natural water courses or into the sea.

To which David Bell responded:

i do not think that this conference is in a position to make statements of this kind. i do not consider that this lies within the province of landscape architecture per se. it is a question relating to pollution, and i would rather see this sort of statement coming from a body which is qualified to speak out on pollution.44

in his paper, John Turner was wholly supportive of landscape architects taking a role in the regeneration of mined lands, but he believed that such involvement was contingent on the support of local, state and federal gov-ernment bodies. importantly, Turner also cautioned landscape architects over issues of professional jurisdiction and conservation, noting that mining com-panies were seeking the advice of trained foresters and biologists for environ-mental rehabilitation and that, if landscape architects were to be involved, they must be prepared to engage consultants in fields such as agriculture, forestry and hydrology if they did not have expertise in these fields themselves. Turn-er’s opinion pre-empted a deeper problem. if the landscape architects’ claim to professional work within the realm of mining was not to be based on scientific grounds, then on what grounds were they to convince a mining company of their value as a profession? Big companies such as Alcoa Australia in western


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Australia in the 1970s had a substantial number of in-house environmental staff who dealt with rehabilitation, plant propagation, attempts to deal with forest dieback and the like, and landscape architects were not necessarily in that group nor were they doing that sort of work. instead, landscape architects such as Mike Tooby were employed by Alcoa to work on site planning and visual considerations such as colour schemes for blending the infrastructure of mining into the landscape – their role was largely visual amelioration, less so scientific, ecological or strategic. Later in the 1970s the growing field of land-scape assessment went some way to provide potential for strategic grounds for landscape architects but, at the time of the 1971 conference, Turner concluded that the training required was from a complex mix of disciplines:

Landscape architects are faced with the problem of marrying two disciplines – town and country planning and applied biology, and at the same time inculcating a feeling for landscape and an aptitude for design … only a few today would qualify.45

in many respects, landscape architects were left with two possible courses of action when it came to conservation debates and landscape work. either they could take on a contentious commission knowing that environmental destruction was likely but resigned to the fact that it would happen anyway so they might as well be involved and attempt to ameliorate the result; or they could refuse the commission outright, as landscape architects such as Mike Tooby claimed to have done in certain instances. The dilemma and the pres-sure were very real. in Melbourne, grace Fraser’s efforts in conservation were also actively combined with landscape design. regarding her early years in conservation, she recounted a client’s retort:

‘Miss Fraser, you must make up your mind, are you going to be involved with your own profession or are you going to be involved with conservation?’ i said [to architect Don Fulton], ‘i am going to be involved with both, i suppose’. well, i used to get terribly bored with those rose gardens and things. You know, and sweeping away all those beautiful areas of natives.46


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A further potential way forward in linking landscape architecture and con-servation was to establish independent groups that were multidisciplinary in nature and aligned in environmental and conservation objectives, as was the case with the approach of Milo Dunphy’s practice. At the time of the 1971 conference, Dunphy was not closely associated with the newly emerging land-scape architecture profession, even though he had written an article as early as 1956 calling for architects to act as landscape architects, as was occurring in north America at the time, and to consider more carefully the surround-ings of their buildings. He proposed this as an interim measure at a time when Australia ‘neither has the apparatus for training [landscape architects] nor the demand for their work’.47 Dunphy went on to establish the Total environ-ment Centre in Sydney in 1972, which was a group of architects and other professionals who advised on environmental design as well as urban and plan-ning issues. The involvement of landscape architects in the work of the Total environment Centre included rickard and Correy and firms sympathetic to landscape, such as Clarke and gazzard, representing an effective method of fulfilling Turner’s ideal. rickard felt deeply about the destructive impact of sandmining in new South wales. He became involved in protests but did so in his professional capacity as a landscape architect, joining with Milo Dunphy to write reports about the detrimental effects of sandmining. Clarke and gaz-zard too became involved in campaigns for natural places in new South wales, such as Myall Lakes and the Border ranges national Park. Peter Spooner was found to be on the ‘other side’ of the Myall Lakes and Fraser island sand-mining debates, claiming that the conservationists were simply against any form of interference, whereas the mining companies, with time, were capable of returning mined environments to a state ‘very similar to the pre-existing ones’.48 in the early 1970s, Spooner consulted for Hillview Quarries Ltd in Dromana, Victoria, an operation that had been faced with a ban because of potential visual impacts. His consultancy resulted in the company’s success in its application for permission to mine within detailed specifications to attend to issues of the visual landscape and other controls.


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gauging the involvement of individual landscape architects in conservation and environment over time is not a straightforward exercise; their alliances changed as their value systems evolved, as do those of society at large. The AiLA sought to impose structure over three independent forces in its early years: the local initiatives around planning, design and conservation in Australian cities; the introduction of British-trained professionals; and the formation of the nCDC in Canberra.

rather than looking backwards, the AiLA offered a future-focused objec-tive for directing the energies of its new recruits. Many were swept along in a widespread renewed interest in the Australian environment; however, differ-ences among the diverse membership weakened the collective strength of what was only a small group of people. while landscape architects in the nCDC were advancing the role of the profession in large-scale planning and design in the Australian Capital Territory, others – for example, in Melbourne – were using it to fight environmental battles at the grass-roots level. Overwhelm-ingly, however, it was the promotion of the visual quality of the Australian indigenous landscape, rather than scientific or technical expertise or even the engagement in activism, that landscape architects saw as the real potential for their role. The design ethos of striving to achieve visual harmony and regional appropriateness underscored the justification for a new profession. in terms of the Australian environment, the rapid evolution of landscape practice in the 1970s was exploratory, though at times also complicit in destructive forces of development.


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6

Making ground

in 1982 the AiLA hosted the 20th iFLA world Congress in Canberra, the result of the enthusiasm and power currently being generated by founding members of the profession. Bruce Mackenzie was the AiLA’s president and recalled the ‘inspired enthusiasm’1 that sought to firm-up the basis from which a profession might grow. The 1970s had seen notable achievements in landscape architecture. Practitioners were highly optimistic that they would forge an environmental stewardship role and become a profession intrinsic to improving Australia’s landscape quality.

As the 1980s rolled in, the buoyant mood began to be weighed down with an array of expectations and concerns. Some questioned whether there was any cause to celebrate. george Seddon concluded the formal proceedings of the iFLA world Congress with his paper ‘where are we going?’, in which he referred to the profession’s widespread malaise. The crux of his argument was that landscape architects were making only superficial contributions to tack-ling the most significant environmental problems facing the planet, a point underlined by the travelling exhibition he had overseen, ‘Landscape Australia: An exhibition’. The exhibition, assembled by Master of Landscape Archi-tecture students at the University of Melbourne under the guidance of visit-ing Canadian professor Alexander e rattray, featured landscape architectural work from the 1960s to 1982. Seddon, immersed as he was in state-of-the-art landscape architecture, advocated the exhibition’s merits on the one hand but, on the other, used it as an opportunity for critique. He found the profession’s role in the cosmetics of prettying-up spaces around buildings or merely patch-ing up degraded sites uninspiring and remarked in the exhibition’s preamble that some of the work was clearly derivative and at times so self-consciously ‘Australian’ as to lead to ‘nationalistic absurdity’.2


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nonetheless, a strong sense of optimism for the profession’s work, coupled with a strong appreciation for the richness of the Australian indigenous land-scape, was a major theme of the exhibition. An analysis of the text used threw up a number of common descriptive words for what the landscape architects who contributed were trying to achieve. The top five words, ‘retain’, ‘soften’, ‘blend’, ‘plant’ and ‘protect’, are suggestive of what goad has coined ‘artless naturalism’;3 meaning, a lack of engagement with aesthetics or style or even theoretical underpinnings. The three most prevalent types of work found in the exhibition were landscape reclamation, site planning and design, and

Bruce Mackenzie speaking at the tree planting in Weston Park, Canberra, with Dr Hans Werkmeister (retiring President of IFLA) holding spade; the ceremony represented the AILA hosting the XX IFLA World Congress in Canberra, Australia, 1982 (Photograph by

Ralph Neale)


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landscape assessment and planning. By the mid-1980s, the design of urban spaces had become a further important avenue for expressing landscape ideas.

recLaiMingLandin the 1970s, reclaiming damaged or abused sites for their recreational and environmental potential provided a major avenue of work for landscape architects. As cities sprawled into semirural lands to envelop post-industrial sites, government and public voices at several levels fuelled the idea that something needed to be done. A new understanding of how cities in Australia could be improved placed added pressures on new engineering projects, ranging from the need to pay more attention to controlling erosion around new roads and quarries to reclamation of despoiled sites such as rubbish tips. reclamation work was multidisciplinary by nature; it brought new work for engineers, planners, landscape architects, horticulturalists and others. it was not necessarily new in Australia; projects such as the reclamation of degraded land at Broken Hill in new South wales and the design of Mary Kathleen in outback Queensland were important precedents, as was Spooner’s work with the Hillview quarry in Dromana, Victoria around 1970.

Softening the scars of mining and quarrying became important as private enterprise vied for acceptance by an increasingly aggressive environmental lobby. Landscape architects worked in new forms of partnerships, which encouraged advances in practice. The architectural firm earle greenway Taylor Pty Ltd, which was one of the early firms to embrace an interdisciplinary approach, teamed up with Bill Molyneux at Boral’s Montrose quarry in Victoria, starting in 1976, where quarry benches were restored using plants propagated from the quarry’s buffer zone. Molyneux extended his practice in beautification work for BP Australia Ltd. in Queensland, landscape architect Barbara van den Broek worked with engineering and planning consultants Loder and Bayly on careful visual analysis to lessen the impact of the narangba Quarry, which was completed in 1982. Often the landscape architect was embedded in a project’s steering committee and other working groups, as in the case of the million-dollar restoration project for the Stonyfell Quarry in Adelaide, South Australia, which was completed in 1981. Landscape architects ian Barwick


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and Associates (nongovernmental representatives) and Michael Heath (Public Buildings Department) were on a committee that insisted Quarry industries submit extensive documentation, in the form of grading plans, sections and planting plans. The outcomes of these projects did result in massive open-cut mines being blanketed in green and no doubt influenced the importance of forward planning in subsequent quarrying activities.

Freeways and roads also provided landscape architects with consulting work that could be considered as reclamation, albeit predominantly for their input into planting plans. The Country roads Board of Victoria instigated several beautification projects, including for the first stage of Melbourne’s eastern Freeway, which was landscaped by ronald rayment in 1977. Landscaping firms began to work in co-operation with engineers, one example being Scott and Furphy Consulting group’s work on the Boboyan road reconstruction in the Australian Capital Territory in 1982, which involved extensive propaga-tion of endemic plants. in new South wales, landscape architect Bruce Mac-kenzie had success influencing road alignment and hence mitigating impact – or at least ensuring a more desirable outcome post-construction. in the early 1980s, the senior engineers of the Department of Main roads took his advice on realigning a section of the Federal Highway (1985) at Lake george. in cat-


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egorising road landscaping as reclamation work, the outcomes were largely the pragmatic veiling of the past and, although important as markers of changed land management practices, such projects were less often ecologically com-plex, or interpretive or reflective designs. in the late 1980s road construction authorities began to take a more aggressive approach to landscape design in association with major roads, the results becoming more focused on the user experience of the road while dealing with practicalities such as noise-reduction walls, signage and freeway art.

BruceMackenzieandassociates

A different type of reclamation project was the invention of new parks in places where they had never been planned. One of the most impressive reclamation designs was a new foreshore park in Botany Bay in Sydney’s south, commencing in 1978 and completed in 1986. The site was to become an industrial waterfront

Softening the scars of mining at Stonyfell Quarry, Adelaide, South Australia, in August 1981, a reclamation project involving landscape architect Ian and Michael Heath (Public Buildings department) Barwick and Associates (Photographs by Ralph Neale)


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– in place of the exposed, flat and bleak site that existed there – and the client was the Maritime Services Board of new South wales. Landscape architects Bruce Mackenzie and Associates, together with a host of engineers and other consultants, reclaimed 28 hectares of tidal margin with pure sand from the seabed of Botany Bay. The impetus for the project was the development of the industrial port and the construction of a major new arterial road to service it. Foreshore reserve, now Sir Joseph Banks reserve, was thus born by default, and the original site’s tidal zone and seagrass meadows (albeit degraded) were to be replaced by a geomorphological substitute in a planning and development context that Mackenzie acknowledged had resulted in ‘the destruction of environmentally important bayshore margins’.4 Mackenzie later acknowledged the complicity of the Foreshore reserve project in the environmental change that resulted from the expansion of Sydney’s shipping infrastructure.5 His design for Foreshore reserve was a reproduction of coastal landscape not resembling the original site, and consisted of large dune-like forms with the underlying water table rising up to fill the valleys in between the dunes.

Mackenzie described his project as ‘environmental sculpture’ that was ‘inspired by nature’s voluptuous forms’ so as to ‘exude naturalness’.6 in fulfill-ing this aim he derived a design methodology for disturbed sites, which was to first create a facsimile of a natural place and, second, to carefully choreo-graph his predicted experience of the urban dweller within that facsimile. The underlying premise was that an urban population detached from nature might be reconnected to it through landscape design that was inspired by nature. The installation of boardwalks, paths and bridges promised visual diversity and interest, providing views over water and vegetated coastal dunes dotted with promontories and lookouts. glimpses of surrounding industry and infrastruc-ture, including the major road that adjoins the park, heightened the potential impact of the park’s restorative power.

Foreshore reserve serves as a benchmark on several levels and Macken-zie’s careful explanation of its construction is an important technical document for landscape architects.7 The scale of the work, its geotechnical and horti-cultural complexities (bulk soil improvers) and the successes in establishing plant material in harsh conditions helped make the park appear like magic. Mackenzie was also charting new territory for private practice in Australia at


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a time when in-house design bureaus in government bodies across Australia had certainly pre-empted private practice, largely because of the symbiotic relationships between engineers and landscape architects in building public infrastructure. The project was also significant for the influence of Mackenzie’s design philosophy on other major park projects. For example, in their winning

Vignette composition taken from ‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’ showing design attributes in the work by Bruce Mackenzie and Associates for Foreshore Reserve, Botany Bay, NSW (‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’, School of Environmental Planning, University of

Melbourne, 1982; composition attributed to the office of Bruce Mackenzie and Associates)


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design for the royal Park national design competition in Melbourne in 1984, Laceworks Landscape Collaborative followed a similar approach; they wanted urban parklands to communicate the sensorial qualities of the Australian land-scape. Laceworks was formed by Brian Stafford (architect, urban designer and landscape architect) and ronald Jones, a landscape architect who was trained at iowa State University and had come to Australia in 1981 to take up a tutor-ing role for James ( Jim) Sinatra at rMiT. in 1986, as debates continued over the relevance of the Australian idiom in the context of urban design, Macken-zie lauded royal Park as an example that combined aspirations for the recon-struction of Australian indigenous landscapes while not necessarily competing with the exotic context of Melbourne.8

thenewsouthwalespublicworksdepartment

in the 1970s the new South wales Public works Department (nSw PwD) played an important role in developing landscape practice in new South wales. Landscape architect Allan Correy worked in the Landscape Section of the department from 1967 to 1970, at a time when the Landscape Section worked with the engineering Section and Soil Conservation Service on flood mitigation works, reservoir construction and dune stabilisation projects at sites such as wollongong Beach, Freshwater Beach and Mangrove Creek Dam. in the early 1970s, landscape architect neil Oates headed the Landscape Section until his sudden death in 1977. He was succeeded by ronald Powell, who managed the section until late 1984, when he was replaced by Oi Choong (1984–90). Practitioners Oi Choong, Leonard Lynch, Barbara Stockton, rodney Crosweller, Lorna Harrison and Colin Dimitroff also made formidable contributions to the nSw PwD as leaders and designers. By 1986, with more than 40 landscape architects and technical officers, the department had generated one of the largest landscape offices in Australia and was undertaking a broad range of public projects including schools, colleges, public buildings and hospitals, as well as landscape improvement, heritage conservation and landscape reclamation.

One of the major projects that signalled the Landscape Section’s con-trol over landscape design was the reclamation of industrial land for the


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Chipping norton Lakes Scheme in Sydney’s south-west, which began in the mid-1970s. The project formally fell within the engineering Section’s jurisdic-tion and involved the stabilisation of land in the wake of uncontrolled extrac-tion of sand and gravel, which had turned the bank of the georges river into a wasteland. The Landscape Section was initially approached to prepare a ‘Veg-etation Survey’, which gave what Powell described as a ‘bureaucratic “foot-in-the-door” ’9 leading to the inevitable expansion of the section’s responsibility. A wildlife island was proposed and its design by the Landscape Section was driven by the reconstruction of forests, woodlands, grasslands and wetlands, based on pre-existing landscape types. The landscape plan, like many others at the time, depicted large mass plantings that suggested total coverage of ground that was previously barren. A sense of optimism was rife. Pioneering applica-tions of hydromulching with native trees and shrub seeds, including mangrove transplants, were attempted. Today the wildlife island appears to have totally eradicated its industrial past.

The range of restoration projects by the nSw PwD is testament to the approval with which the successes of the section’s approach was viewed. Most projects had detailed master plans, including the reconstruction of vegetation communities and erosion control. Among the section’s more significant pro-jects are Caves Beach and Hams Beach, greystanes Arboretum (not built), Soldiers Beach, and the Lane Cove river walkways system. At the Doon Doon Creek Dam, the identification of prominent visual features and signifi-cant vegetation had an impact on the location of borrow pits and, as at Ser-pentine Dam in western Australia, informed the development of recreational facilities. Projects completed for Australia’s Bicentennial anniversary included Mt Tomah Botanic garden (Blue Mountains), by landscape architects geof-frey Britton and Oi Choong, opened in 1987, and a new Australian native botanic garden, the Mt Annan Botanic garden (Campbelltown) by landscape architect ingrid Mather, opened in 1988.

Perhaps the most significant project undertaken by the nSw PwD in the 1980s was Bicentennial Park at Homebush Bay, a site adjacent to what was to become the main venue for the Sydney Olympic games in 2000. The 90-hectare site, 40 hectares of which became developed parkland, had been neglected and used for industrial purposes, including landfill. The idea of the


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park was announced in June 1983. it was to be opened by the Prime Minister in 1988, the year of Australia’s bicentenary celebrations, and the department was to manage its design and construction. Architect and landscape architect rodney Crosweller was project manager, and landscape architects Lorna Har-rison (principal designer), Julie whitfield (horticulturist), ronald Powell and Oi Choong formed the core of the team. The landscape architecture philoso-phy behind Bicentennial Park was described as contrasting ‘man-made and natural’ landscapes and stemmed from ‘classical design principles of order, geometry, focal points and axes’10 – an approach that was perhaps linked to the project’s inception as a celebration of the nation’s coming of age. The park architecture and its heavy axial arrangement contrasted with the rehabilitation program associated with the mangroves and shoreline. A boardwalk and field-study centre was proposed, thus demonstrating a commitment to managing the pre-existing ecological structure of the site. The Treillage, a three-storey latticework tower designed by nSw PwD architect Lionel glendenning, was intended as a focal point set off by a long narrow reflective pool complete with 200 fountain jets. The presence of unconsolidated fill that included garbage (for which detailed records were not available) presented challenges for the designers to deal with, including underground fires, methane gas production and significant levels of subsidence. rehabilitation methods included clay cap-ping, the importation of new fill for mounds and as planting substrate, and the various construction details for establishing foundations for buildings and methods of extracting methane gas. Bicentennial Park was unusual for the time, its aesthetic coming not solely from a naturalistic style, and its geotech-nical complexities demanding extensive engineering and design resolution. Major projects into the 1980s became even more holistic in their outlook with the move towards establishing collaborative private practices.

Left The Wildlife Island at Chipping Norton Lakes Scheme in Sydney’s south-west was designed by the Landscape Section of the NSW PWD/JW Thomson (Government Architect) in the mid-1970s: the barren island and industrial landscape created by mining was transformed and today the scarring is almost completely obliterated by a heavily vegetated landscape (‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’, School of Environmental

Planning, University of Melbourne, 1982; design by NSW PWD/J W Thomson Government Architect;



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The formality of Bicentennial Park, its Treillage (designed by NSW PWD architect Lionel Glendenning) and the contrasting areas of mangroves and shoreline in 1987, designed by the NSW PWD (The Public Works Department of NSW Bicentennial Park Project Team

(1990) ‘Bicentennial Park, Sydney: A park and a refuge for birdlife formed from suburban wasteland’,

Landscape Australia, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 173; photograph by John Lugg, NSW Public Works Department/

Jon Love & Rob Little)


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Landscaperehabilitationatever-increasingscales

The multidisciplinary firm known from 1990 as HASSeLL originated in Adelaide in 1938 as the architecture firm of Claridge, Hassell & McConnell and, after a series of name changes, became Hassell and Partners in 1970. in the early 1970s the company’s structure was changed to encompass planning and landscape architecture, largely as a result of the input of John Morphett, who had studied and worked abroad. Morphett worked with The Architects Collaborative (TAC) in Cambridge, Massachusetts under walter gropius from 1958 to 1961, gaining a focus on the collaborative design process involving a broad range of disciplines. He became a partner in Hassell, McConnell and Partners in 1967 and was director from 1975 to 1997. in 1970, Jack McConnell retired from the firm and in 1972 Morphett strengthened his ambitions to see the emergence of a collaborative and interdisciplinary practice. Hassell employed architect and landscape architect ian Barwick, who worked on the landscape for the Adelaide Festival Centre (1970); later, in 1973, in collaboration with architect David Cant he designed the wills Court (constructed 1975 after Barwick had left the firm) for Adelaide University. At the wills Court a water feature consisting of a fountain head and large still pool included Australian plants and landscape with a brick paving design that rolled into the pool. Today, the high-water mark of the pool blurs the transition between brick paving and river pebbles. This was not so much a piece of landscape reclaimed but rather a facsimile created as a gesture to what may once have occupied the site, adjacent to the Torrens river.

These small-scale works were complemented with projects of an enormous scale as, around the same time, Stephen williams was appointed to head up the planning arm. Hassell broadened the base and capability of the practice by recruiting Christopher wren, an Australian living in the United States, and Tony McCormick in the late 1970s. Land Systems (established 1979) and its successors, Land Systems Pty Ltd and Land Systems eBC Pty Ltd, provided landscape architecture services within the Hassell group. The practice grew to over 30 people in Adelaide and had offices in Melbourne and Sydney when it was renamed HASSeLL in 1990. wren had graduated as an architect at the University of Adelaide in 1971 and worked in the United Kingdom. in


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completing a Master of Landscape Architecture degree at the University of Massachusetts in 1975, he was influenced by ian McHarg’s writing and ideas. McCormick had worked with Margules and Deverson in Canberra and had studied at the Canberra College of Advanced education from 1974 to 1977.

in 1979 the River Torrens Study: A Co-ordinated Development Scheme was a product of the guiding principles of collaboration and a natural systems and ecology basis promoted by wren, McCormick and Ted Dexter. it became a nationally recognised example of the benefits that came from changing atti-tudes towards urban streams, which had hitherto been used for sewage dis-posal and then as concreted stormwater drains. in addition to flood mitigation works, the river Torrens project involved the retention of any surviving natu-ral features and the reclamation and re-creation of natural areas elsewhere. ecological planning was at the heart of what was achieved and this process involved extensive surveys and public planning workshops. implementation commenced in January 1982 and Hassell oversaw the gradual reclamation, over many years, of a 36-kilometre stretch of the river system and more than 500 hectares of land within Adelaide’s metropolitan area. A local system of trails encouraged nearby residents to use the Linear Park, thus strengthen-ing passive surveillance, and integrated it into the regional system of trails from the Adelaide Hills to the coast, which attracted residents from the entire metropolitan area. Subsequent commissions advancing the idea of linear parks followed, including a residential subdivision for Minda incorporated at Craig-burn in the Adelaide Hills and Adelaide’s O-Bahn Busway for the South Aus-tralian Department of Transport in the early 1980s. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, under the guidance of Christopher wren and Tony McCormick, the practice developed markedly into an influential company with a range of landscape commissions.

The developments in reclamation and rehabilitation work in the late 1970s and early 1980s proved infectious in terms of heightening the landscape

Left The Wills Court at the University of South Australia, photographed in 2009, designed by Ian Barwick and David Cant of Hassell, McConnell and Partners and constructed 1975 (Photograph by Lyn Pool)


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architect’s profile in government projects and in forming an identity for the profession. To a certain extent, such projects were used to appease interest groups opposed to unwanted development proposals in urban areas, particu-larly by reducing the visual impact. But not all landscape reclamation was confined to the city and in this sense, a different scale for reclaiming landscape became the concern.

in a very different context, landscape architect and educator James ( Jim) Sinatra was charting new ground in Victoria. Sinatra studied landscape archi-tecture at the University of georgia and the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s and taught at iowa State University in the 1970s before he became, in 1981, the foundation head (from 1993, Professor) of Landscape Architecture at the royal Melbourne institute of Technology. in this role he inspired count-less landscape architects with ideas for designing landscape that could be taken forward into the profession. with an rMiT colleague, David Jones, Sinatra involved students in revegetation programs in western Victorian farming areas. These projects were driven by a number of different people and aimed to create shelterbelts for wind reduction and to initiate other beneficial effects such as pest control and the improvement of habitat for wildlife. Sinatra and Jones communicated the importance of an ecological future for the Australian landscape. Perhaps Sinatra’s most important contribution was his promotion of learning from those with the most direct experience of living with the land. The books he wrote with his colleague Phin Murphy, Landscape for Health

(1997) and Listen to the People. Listen to the Land (1999), document some of the agroforestry projects carried out on farms, such as John and Cicely Fen-ton’s Lanark in south-western Victoria. They also provide detailed accounts of projects in rural and remote indigenous Australia, where they proposed that reclaiming land and settlement planning could be linked to human health.

The transformative power of reclamation work was a crucial basis for the profession’s claim for legitimacy. in the 1970s important foundations were laid for recognising a role for landscape architects in government departments and for what is now thought of as sustainable design – foundations that members of the profession today often take for granted. Despite this, decades later, when asked about the effectiveness of their early work, some landscape architects admitted feeling as if they had failed miserably, meaning that, in reclaiming


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degraded sites that were ‘isolated’ within a larger urban fabric that remained beyond their control, the trajectories of landscape architecture and landscape reclamation had not fully coincided with sustainable urban projects.

assessingthevaLueofLandscapeAt the same time that achievements in the repair of damaged environments were providing tangible evidence of a role for landscape design, a pre-emptive role for the profession was also gaining territory. The environmental movement of the 1960s was the impetus for change, this time through a heightened public awareness of landscape aesthetics and corresponding demands that those responsible manage the environment more carefully to reduce the likelihood of destructive practices. interest in the way landscape is perceived grew steadily in the 1970s, because at the heart of landscape perception was the more fundamental question of value. with the passing of the Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act in 1974 and the Australian Heritage Commission Act in 1975, the imperative to describe and classify landscape at all levels – national, state and local – was the most urgent and at the same time the most problematic task. it opened up two fields of landscape assessment: assessment of natural landscapes and of cultural landscapes. These two Acts led to the need for formal environmental impact studies and heritage appraisals which in turn called for both categorisation and valuation of landscape and cultural entities, the twin tasks of which were to consume analysts and decision-makers alike for the next two decades and beyond. Also significant were the somewhat arbitrary divisions resulting from the structure and jurisdictions of government bureaucracies.

The concept of protecting the natural values of landscape was more readily understood and accepted than protection of its cultural values. The move-ment to preserve land in national parks and reserves had begun in the mid-19th century. Yosemite (1864) and Yellowstone (1872) were the earliest tracts of land to be set aside as protected reserves in America; Australia followed suit when royal national Park and Ku-ring-gai Chase in new South wales were reserved in 1879 and 1894 respectively. The philosophical argument for national parks in America grew largely from expert knowledge and writers


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such as Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, george Perkins Marsh and Fred-erick Law Olmsted who, as well as writing down their arguments, were also capable of advancing these arguments for nature protection at the highest levels of bureaucracy. Marsh’s prophetic Man and Nature (1864) was a prime force in launching the nature conservation movement. it forecast the impact of humans on the health and sustainability of land from an ecological point of view and their deleterious effect on the beauty and aesthetic values of land-scapes. He asserted that Man and Nature ‘makes no scientific pretensions’ and that scientific men would deem it ‘trash’.11

Foresters were a significant force in thinking about conservation. Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949) was highly influential, as was the work of forester gifford Pinchot, who established and directed the US Forest Service in 1905. Pinchot’s contribution was political and bureaucratic, which is perhaps why Olmsted could see a role for Pinchot in landscape architecture. in Melbourne, Clement Hodgkinson played a similar bureaucratic role, com-bining early forms of forestry and environmentalism in the second half of the 19th century. Like his American counterparts, he was in a position that was sufficiently high profile to bring about change of the sort noted by historian Donald worster:

For Pinchot, as for roosevelt, conservation was part of a national revival crusade for rectitude, patriotism, efficiency, and strenuous living.12

But not all who were passionate about conservation held positions of power from which they could argue for change and the proper management of natu-ral resources. Other platforms were needed. in the 1970s and 1980s profes-sionals in natural resource management and landscape architecture attempted to quantify the value of landscape beauty – because if landscape had a price tag it could be taken account of in development decisions, public and private.


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culturallandscapeassessment

Compared with europe, the assessment and conservation of natural and cultural landscapes has a short history in Australia. in Britain the bid to preserve common lands resulted in the registration under the Companies Acts of ‘The national Trust for Places of Historic interest or natural Beauty’ in 1895. it was not until 1945 that the Australian national Trust movement started in new South wales, spreading to other states in the 1950s and 1960s. grass roots organisations rose sporadically. For instance, the Paddington Soci-ety in Sydney formed in 1964; its founding members included architect–urban designer Donald gazzard and wife Marea: they were essentially responding to the need to protect aesthetic and environmental qualities of the places in which they lived.

in 1972 a change of government saw cultural and natural heritage given increased attention, particularly at the federal level whereas previously herit-age conservation had been sporadic and state-based.13 By 1975 the national Trust of Australia (Victoria) had classified 23 landscapes in the first 20 years of its existence and recorded a further 26. it became involved in the landscape planning and conservation of cultural and natural sites and was an important advocate. The loss of significant buildings in Melbourne’s Collins Street and the erosion of the Victorian character of that city’s terrace houses heightened the urgency of the Trust’s message in the late 1970s. groups such as the Com-mittee for Urban Action in Melbourne in 1978 rallied against development in order to protect the character of inner suburbs and were able to gather together like-minded people, albeit from a range of different disciplines. Aus-tralia’s state-based national Trusts have continued to be of vital importance, but of equal or even greater significance in the distinctive evolution of conser-vation in Australia was the preparation of the Burra Charter.

The ravages of world war ii in europe were a major stimulus in rais-ing the importance of assessing and managing cultural sites in an organised fashion. The formulation of the international Charter for the Conservation and restoration of Monuments and Sites (the Venice Charter) in 1964 broke new ground. The document largely stemmed from the european experience of postwar reconstruction of cathedrals and temples and other monuments.


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its relevance to Australia diminished as it became apparent that this country needed something that could be applied to a broader array of places includ-ing towns, gardens, industrial and engineered sites, and vernacular or modern architecture. in 1978 at the Fifth general Assembly of iCOMOS (in Moscow) there was resistance to amending the Venice Charter to broaden its scope. As a result, a group of conservation practitioners in Australia adapted the Venice Charter, in 1978 drafting a charter that provided for Australian conditions and accommodated a concern for the concept of ‘place’ more broadly, beyond the recognition of monuments and sites. This concept of place is more inclusive of a range of elements beyond structures, such as ground, objects and visual and sensorial elements. The Charter was endorsed in 1979 at a conference of Australia iCOMOS (international Council on Monuments and Sites) held in the small historic mining town of Burra, South Australia. The formulation of the Burra Charter was significant in terms of landscape architecture in that it provided a formal (scientific) instrument for the analysis and description of cultural significance, ultimately giving credence to a sense of place. This was revolutionary and yet today its existence is somewhat taken for granted. Although the Burra Charter has not eliminated debate and controversy in identifying and protecting places of cultural significance, the solid basis of its formulation has been acknowledged internationally. The Burra Charter led to the evolution of conservation practice, and the State of Victoria was among the most active across Australia in the charter’s formulation and application.14

A parallel event in cultural assessment and conservation of landscape was the formation of the Australian Heritage Commission in 1975, with David Yencken as chairman for its first six years. The commission sponsored work on assessing historic landscapes in all states in a bid to establish the register of the national estate, and the establishment of the Australian garden History Society was one of the outcomes. in western Australia, architect and landscape architect team Duncan and Oline richards carried out the first comprehensive historic garden study,15 Miranda Morris-nunn and landscape architect Phyllis Simons commenced similar work in Tasmania,16 as did Ken Taylor in the Aus-tralian Capital Territory. Peter watts, an architect who had studied landscape design at rMiT, completed a two-year survey of historic gardens in Victoria, publishing the results in Historic Gardens of Victoria: A Reconnaissance in 1983.


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The work stimulated by the commission rapidly changed understanding of cultural landscape assessment; until then a clear understanding of acceptable heritage practice had not yet evolved.

The case of the national Trust of Australia (Victoria) property, Como House in Melbourne’s South Yarra, demonstrates the naivety with which early heritage practitioners approached the management of historical and cultural values of a site. when the Trust took ownership in 1959, much of the garden was in a state of disrepair. ellis Stones was brought in to design and build a new water garden in 1968, which he did in his own particular landscape style without any apparent reference to the historical significance of the garden. His garden design still exists today, possibly because of his significance as a land-scape architect, but other changes to Como made by the Trust in the 1960s and 1970s were ultimately reversed in the late 1990s.

There was a distinct architectural bias in the conservation movement for cultural landscapes around this time. The design of gardens associated with historic houses had been an obvious focus and one that was at least potentially manageable in terms of conservation action. in the mid-1980s landscapes beyond the garden began to be recognised. Janet Schapper at the University of Melbourne made moves to establish education in landscape heritage. in the Australian Capital Territory, Ken Taylor led a team that included landscape architect John van Pelt and they developed methods for assessing and evalu-ating the Lanyon historic landscape. Lanyon’s homestead had been added to the register of the national estate in 1978 but it was not until 1987 that the battle for the larger-scale rural landscape surrounding the homestead was also added to the register. Taylor called for a greater recognition of vernacular landscapes, particularly in rural communities, stating that the movement away from the perception of cultural heritage as being solely buildings and places around buildings had been slow.17 Architect and landscape architect nicholas Safstrom, who had completed the landscape design course at rMiT, was on the Landscape Committee of the national Trust of Australia (Victoria) and was one of a very few landscape architects who did become involved in assess-ment of cultural heritage in the late 1970s (which formed part of the reason for his receiving a Medal of the Order of Australia in 2007). Likewise, land-scape architect richard Dare at the national Trust of South Australia worked


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with Maude McBriar in assessing historic landscapes in that state. isolated attempts to raise the AiLA’s awareness of, and support for, cultural landscape heritage were made at events such as AiLA conferences but the response to heritage landscapes was reputedly demur. into the 1990s the furthering of cultural heritage from within landscape circles grew mildly but with important contributions from David Jones in South Australia, Janet Seto, Jeannie Sim and glenn S Thomas in Queensland and Craig Burton and Helen Armstrong in new South wales. in stark contrast was the level of active engagement in

A landscape tea party held at historic Lanyon Homestead, ACT, during the XX World Congress IFLA + AILA, Friday 10 September 1982 (Photograph by Ralph Neale)


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the assessment of the natural landscape, indicating perhaps that, as a platform for professional practice, the public’s sensitivity to the visual impact of powerlines and logging coups on landscape values presented stronger and more pressing needs.

thenaturallandscape

The expectation in the 1970s was that a declared large-scale landscape-plan-ning framework would help guide the manner in which humans shape and interact with the land. This had implications far beyond determining the location of powerlines and logging coups; it included all forms of develop-ment and, alternatively, conservation of ecological, scenic, recreational and other attributes. The core issues were determining what is valued and defin-ing and elevating landscape values in terms other than narrowly economic. ian McHarg’s Design With Nature (1971) was a breakthrough in respond-ing to these issues. His book was a major catalyst for promoting landscape planning and had an international impact that filtered through to Austral-ian practitioners of the time. Lindsay robertson studied under and worked with ian McHarg at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s, returning in 1969 to become the first landscape architect within the State Planning Authority in new South wales. in the five years before his untimely death in 1974, robertson introduced state-of-the-art landscape planning from the United States to his work, showing particular concern for the visual quality of the Australian coast and of Sydney Harbour. He developed landscape evalu-ation methods, applicable to the major centres of urban growth in Australia, and this led to new types of zoning based on scenic quality, particularly for the Campbelltown–Camden–Appin and gosford–wyong growth areas. The importance of his work was that it raised a new awareness of landscape values in state government and filled a theoretical vacuum in Australia at the time. in July 1986, McHarg visited Melbourne, addressing a packed hall within the national gallery of Victoria and spending time with staff and students at the University of Melbourne.

The person who at this time did more than anyone else in raising the theoretical arguments underpinning values related to the perception of the


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Australian landscape, cultural and natural, was george Seddon. in Sense of Place he wrote:

Are western Australian wildflowers more valuable to the world than western Australian wheat? Again, there can be no answer without specification. Valuable to whom, and under what conditions of trade? if the value is not economic, then how is it to be assessed against the value of wheat, which is?18

He argued in Sense of Place that the perception of landscape could be informed by a deep understanding of all the ways of knowing place, which encompassed everything from soils to vegetation to architecture and from patterns of development to human behaviour. in his view, cultural and nat-ural worlds were deeply interconnected and what we made of these worlds depended on what we were told, what we had learnt and where we learnt. His early landscape assessment reports were largely based on an intuitive response and expert opinion, as demonstrated in his assessment of the southern Morn-ington Peninsula in Victoria that was aided with important contributions from winty Calder.19 Despite Seddon’s holistic outlook, which was inclusive of the multiple perceptions of cultural and natural worlds, research in the field began to focus more on assessing ecological and natural scenic values than cultural heritage or other considerations. The reasons for this stem partly from the way research and teaching revolved around george Seddon’s intellectual pull.

in 1974 Seddon took up the position of professor and first director of the Centre for environmental Studies (CeS) at the University of Melbourne. The centre, with some initial federal funding, was set up as a short-term autono-mous department within the university to foster complementary studies in environmental science and landscape architecture and pursue research into the management of natural and human environments. Seddon and the CeS were instrumental in raising awareness of landscape perception and landscape architecture in many different forums. in late 1975 the ellis Stones Memo-rial Appeal for a Chair of Landscape Architecture at the university was initi-ated with the consent of the university’s council. This probably came partly in response to the University of new South wales appointing Peter Spooner as


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professor in landscape architecture in 1974. After the appeal secured a limited fund (a major donor being Merchant Builders), the campaign was pursued more vigorously by an appeal committee chaired by Dr HnD wettenhall with members including Dame elisabeth Murdoch, Lady Law-Smith, Sir Thomas ramsay and george Seddon. By October 1980 it had raised sufficient funds for endowing a Chair of Landscape Architecture, later the elisabeth Murdoch Chair of Landscape Architecture at the University of Melbourne, with the major donor being the Murdoch family. This position endured for more than three decades and continues to this day. Such was the resourcefulness, deter-mination and political clout that underpinned environmental studies and the formulation of landscape assessment ideology at that time.

Seddon was pivotal in organising a symposium in 1974 under the auspices of the Australian UneSCO Committee for Man and the Biosphere in Can-berra, ‘Man and landscape in Australia: towards an ecological vision’ (pub-lished under this title in 1976), in which discussions over changing perceptions of Australian landscape featured prominently. eminent landscape architects, including Bruce Mackenzie, presented papers alongside a diverse array of people from other disciplines. This symposium really was a landmark in the coalition of conservation-minded people in Australia, yet it has largely escaped attention, particularly from the point of view of landscape architecture. in 1975, Seddon was involved in the ACF symposium on landscape conservation with particular reference to the rural-urban fringe. Among the delegates at this conference was David Yencken, then chairman of the newly formed Austral-ian Heritage Commission, who spoke of early measures to secure the national estate. Developments in landscape assessment and planning were extensively discussed and Stuart w Calder reported on developments in scenic perception in north America.20

Australia followed the United States in applying research into visual man-agement systems towards development of better landscape practices. These ideas had been flowing sporadically since at least 1967, when practitioners such as raymond Margules and John gray returned to Australia armed with knowl-edge of landscape planning and gradually introduced this knowledge in writ-ing and in practice in Canberra. American research into the quantification of scenery prevailed for two reasons: early protest over the dramatic visual scarring


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of clear-fell timber-harvesting practices in national forests, and the introduc-tion of national environmental acts, namely, the USA National Environmental Policy Act of 1970, which called for the preparation of environmental impact statements. From the research emerged a new vocabulary for describing and assessing forest landscapes, which was used to inform decision-making pro-cesses surrounding the location of logging coups and the estimation of public acceptability of clear-felling. research by landscape architects, such as Uni-versity of California Berkeley professor r Burton Litton Jr in the late 1960s, published descriptions and inventories of forest landscape types, and work by landscape architects working in the USDA Forest Service led to the develop-ment of the Visual Management System (VMS).21 The notion of establishing different landscape character types, each containing ‘Variety Classes’ or delin-eated landscape areas of high, medium and low scenic quality, was based on the presence or absence of interesting landform, water, vegetation types and patterns and a combination of these. Landscapes were then further classified and subjected to composite assessment methods with the aim of determining relative degrees of acceptable alteration upon which to base planning decisions.

in some respects, the American investigations into landscape percep-tions of the time were based on the expert judgments of landscape architects who were attempting to define principles of visual aesthetics for landscape scenery – judgments that had not been rigorously tested in public landscape perception studies.22 Another body of research in environmental psychology by American academics such as ervin Zube, Joachim wohlwill and Stephen and rachael Kaplan further refined composite landscape assessment procedures and was also developed in Australia. Practitioners were attempting to bridge a gap between the descriptive or qualitative aspects of assessment and results that were rigorous and statistically valid. what people working in this field were attempting to establish was the relationship between perception of scenic quality and the influence of physical and abstract features in the landscape. Crucially, it was by mapping the results that landscape architects might have a more powerful agent for influencing decision-making in projects with which they were involved.

in Australia the Forests Commission of Victoria (FCV) anticipated poten-tial negative public reaction to clear-fell timber harvesting in much of Victoria’s


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6 million hectares of state forest during the 1970s. At Stuart Calder’s instiga-tion, the commission adapted the US Forest Services’ Visual Management Sys-tems for application in Victoria, encouraging richard Hammond, Ken Keefe and Dennis williamson to take up three-year contracts with the FCV starting in 1977. The three formed the Landscape Management Section of the FCV’s Forest environment and recreation Branch. Much of their work was initially concerned with raising awareness of landscape assessment and management (or VMS) practice and with developing a close liaison with lecturers and research-ers at the CeS, namely through winty Calder, ian Bishop and Julius Fabos. Bishop’s doctoral studies included mathematical modelling of land use and he brought a wide range of computer applications to landscape assessment and planning in the mid-1970s in association with the CSirO’s Douglas Cocks and the Division of water and Land resources. The FCV adapted the Visual Management System for use in scenic landscape assessment in Australian con-ditions, developing landscape character types and refining scenic assessment criteria.23 An important publication on this work was Landscape Character Types of Victoria: With Frames of Reference for Scenic Quality Assessment (1984) by Mike Leonard and richard Hammond and the Forests Commission of Victoria.

Hammond, williamson and Keefe were effective and by their departure at the end of 1984 other landscape architects, engineers and foresters in the FCV were trained and the VMS had been applied across Victoria, while agencies and universities in Queensland, new South wales, Tasmania and western Australia were also indoctrinated, ensuring widespread take-up of the FCV methodology across Australia. Practitioners within the Forestry Commis-sion of Tasmania include Phillip Horning and Bruce Chetwynd and in west-ern Australia’s Department of environment and Conservation (previously CALM), wayne Schmidt. Post 1984, Michael Sandford and Steve Moss took over the VMS work for the then Victorian Department of Conservation, For-ests and Lands while richard Hammond moved to CALM to assist Schmidt. Hammond was later joined by John Cleary and Tracey Churchill while Keefe returned to the US Forest Service and williamson began applying the VMS procedures through his own consultancy at Scenic Spectrums Pty Ltd.

Melbourne University’s Centre for environmental Studies, whose exist-ence had been extended to 1978 largely because of Seddon’s successful advances


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in environmental studies, was charged with providing a Master of Landscape Architecture program, administered by the Faculty of Architecture, Build-ing and Town and regional Planning. The centre led the field in landscape management, planning and assessment and was at the time compared with its counterpart, the Centre for resource and environmental Studies (CreS) at the Australian national University. The CeS produced a range of studies on topics as diverse as the impact of power transmission lines on landscape values24 to the quality and protection of the urban fabric of the middle-ring suburb of Hawthorn.25 Seddon produced a policy review of open space systems in Canberra for the Department of the Capital Territory and the national Capital Development Commission (nCDC) which, although essentially a technical paper, was lavishly produced, including extensive illustrations by Shibu Dutta.26 During 1979, robert itami, Terry Brown and gerner Sander-son Faggetter Cheesman applied an extensive landscape assessment procedure to the Upper Yarra Valley and Dandenong ranges region, which incorporated scenic and cultural landscape elements. All of these tested the application of landscape assessment and planning methodologies, and the expertise of CeS staff such as ross King (architect and planner), Jeremy Pike (architect and landscape architect) and Alan Atkins (economist) coalesced to satisfy growing demand from government departments for landscape assessment and planning consultancies at various levels.

Contributions came from other fields, including ecology. winty Calder wrote Beyond the View: Our Changing Landscapes (1981) and forged important links between education and practice in landscape planning. research by ian Bishop in association with robert Mitcheltree and others into effective map-ping of land suitability began to be applied to the planning of transmission-line corridors from 1982. An important aspect of these advances stemmed from the initiative of Seddon to invite a succession of influential north Amer-ican academics as visiting professors to the CeS, particularly those with exper-tise in landscape assessment and planning. They brought their knowledge of scenic perception and landscape assessment methodologies for adaptation and application to Australian conditions.

Between 1975 and 1977, Professor Kenneth Polakowski from the School of natural resources at the University of Michigan was Visiting Professor


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of Landscape Architecture at the CeS, followed by Professor Julius g Fabos of the Department of Landscape Architecture and regional Planning at University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1978 and 1979. Others followed, including roger Martin, william (Bill) Havens and robert Toth, but Pola-kowski and Fabos achieved prominence through their research reports and articles advocating scenic perception research as an important component of

Master Development Plan: Park Concept of the Maribyrnong Valley Metropolitan Park [Keilor] for the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works, January 1977 by the Centre for Environmental Studies (CES) and Kenneth J Polakowski (landscape architect) (‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’, School of Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne, 1982)


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landscape assessment methodology. Fabos and Mcgregor prepared a report for the Australian Heritage Commission on assessment of visual and aesthetic landscape qualities, claiming the need for rigorous assessment procedures so as to move beyond expert opinion as a basis for selecting landscapes for the register of the national estate.27 in preparing a scheme for the Maribyrnong Valley Metropolitan Park for the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of works in 1977, Polakowski claimed that the park’s conceptual design was based on the creative integration of multiple forms of landscape assessment, including assessment of the site’s recreational and natural attributes, contextual informa-tion and landscape perception.28 The Master Development Plan that the CeS and Polakowski prepared was a complex diagrammatic representation that was intended to pull together functional relationships and spatial qualities. it was often difficult to interpret the overall intent of plans such as this, given the complexity and level of conceptual thinking represented in the plans’ graphic. Unlike the landscape representation in drawings that attempted to show the bird’s-eye view with masses of green plantings and lawns, these landscape-assessment-driven concept diagrams were almost ‘anatomical’.

The University of Melbourne invested in a range of computer mapping equipment with mixed success. The computer programs of the era included ViewiT and PreView, and some of the first Tektronix graphics terminals to have been used in Australia occurred in late 1977. These programs were used for landscape evaluation and design and, as the use of PCs and Macin-tosh computers expanded rapidly in the early 1980s, so did the software avail-able for use. in 1983 Michael Martin McCarthy, who held a doctorate from the University of wisconsin (1973), became the inaugural elisabeth Murdoch Chair of Landscape Architecture. in his professorial lecture he spoke at length about the implications of the ‘information-Communication Age’ on landscape architecture, advocating the exploration of computer-aided analysis packages in the bid to establish effective methods for valuing landscape.29 The expensive Measuronics system, procured in 1987 by McCarthy, had a rAMTeK 6211 Colour graphics Terminal; although promising much, it had limited success.

in the CeS, which in the early 1980s became the School of environ-mental Planning, projects focused on such things as landfill refuse disposal systems (for example, in the Melbourne suburb of Park Orchards) as testing


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grounds for the new computer technology. The field of geographic informa-tion Systems (giS) at this time was essentially a computer-aided mechanism for applying the analytical principles established by McHarg to contemporary land-use problems. The earliest giS system to be used at the University of Melbourne was Map Analysis Package (MAP) developed by C Dana Tomlin of Harvard University in the late 1970s. A decade later MAP was being adapted by organisations such as the State electricity Commission of Victoria for assessing the impacts of power lines. Practitioners such as robert itami, an early graduate of the Master of Landscape Architecture program, became involved in developing new map analysis computer packages, eventually revis-ing and updating the work of Tomlin to support improved viewshed analysis, colour graphics and three-dimensional visualisation.30

Other states in Australia also saw developments in landscape assessment. in 1978, landscape architects Kinhill Planners Pty Ltd and Allan Correy completed a visual study for the State Pollution Control Commission of new South wales on visual catchment and quality of scenic views in Botany Bay. in

An operator works the Measuronics hardware, a system that occupied a whole room at the School of Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne, 1987 (Author collection;



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1980, Kinhill collaborated with landscape architects edmond Bull and Cork-ery Pty Ltd and Yuncken Freeman Pty Ltd to prepare large-scale landscape and public access strategies for sites such as the Port of Melbourne, which included the analysis and characterisation of industrial landscape form. in 1982, Allan Correy presented the findings of his Masters of environmen-tal Studies thesis, ‘Sydney Harbour Scenic Assessment Study’, in which he concluded that ‘different people like different views for a variety of different reasons’.31 Correy questioned growing support for the validity of scenic per-ception and visual preference models, stressing the difficulty of assessment and the need for holistic analysis that took account of a range of senses and other criteria.32 The methodological rigor of studies by Dennis williamson provided further statistical evidence in support of common agreement of scenic quality whilst simultaneously identifying need for more research.33 Correy’s claim that rigorous and systematic approaches still did not make landscape assessment a science echoed what george Perkins Marsh had written a century earlier. Aesthetic judgment, in spite of efforts to establish it as a measured and proven fact, was still open to conjecture. nonetheless, in their bid to find a place in landscape planning and design decisions within responsible agencies, land-scape architects were in the mix with potential to shape large-scale landscape and, ultimately, to protect environmental values within a spectrum of other development decisions that needed to be made.

Public and private practice were both developing approaches for landscape assessment and planning in large-scale projects. But landscape planning still only constituted a small proportion of work by landscape architects (govern-ment and non-government) compared to site planning and site design. in new South wales, landscape architects roger Bartlett and Barbara Stockton col-laborated with ecologist neil Urwin to prepare the Lower Hunter Landscape improvement Study for the new South wales Department of environment and Planning in 1982. The site under examination was more than 4000 square kilometres in area and the aims of the project were landscape protection and improvement. Detailed assessment plans for the Port Stephens sub-unit of the area involved visual assessment for suitable green corridors and vegetation assessments for determining conservation areas of high botanical and habitat value. Firms such as Tract Consultants in the late 1970s produced landscape


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evaluation reports for the Town and Country Planning Board in rural and coastal areas and these led to further studies for design and siting guidelines. Projects like this had a direct impact on local authorities in the preparation of environmental planning documents and, ultimately, in the process of deter-mining development applications. Despite the protectionist intentions, in the long term not all such consultancies had a binding influence, as the case of the wanneroo coast demonstrated.

in 1979 landscape architects under the direction of ian Moad and gerard Dale of the Landscape Division of the engineering firm Scott and Furphy Consulting group prepared a ‘Coastal nodes Development Plan’ for a 5- kilometre coastal strip at wanneroo, 20 kilometres north-west of Perth in western Australia. Dale had completed a Master of Landscape Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1977 and, equipped with McHargian training, he was keen to put sound landscape assessment and planning into practice. The consultants needed to report back to a state parliamentary sub-committee on a project complicated by private land development and strong public concerns over environmental values. A matrix system of analysis pro-duced four alternatives for development, ranging from extensive foreshore conservation areas through to gradual increases in areas available for building upon. The landscape architects’ involvement ceased at the planning stage and only parts of the suggestions for conserving the foreshore zone appear to have been respected; by 1988 the southern, large portion of the conservation area had been developed as Hillarys Boat Harbour, a marine facility catering for around 700 vessels and 3000 parking bays, shops, entertainment facilities and more. Landscape assessment and planning was still subject to manipulation in the hustle of land development – and no doubt politics – and ultimately the compromises required in arguing for the use of resources. The attributing of infinite values to landscape and cultural resources, despite every attempt to utilise a rational system of assessment, was not necessarily a relevant line of defence and, many would argue, nor should it be.

By 1985 the School of environmental Planning at the University of Mel-bourne was conducting research into visual simulation and assessment tech-niques of national and international significance. The work of ian Bishop, r Bruce Hull and Philip Leahy in relation to electricity transmission towers34


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and of Brian Orland, a visiting professor from the University of illinois who developed methodologies and technology for measuring, visualising and pre-dicting visual impacts in rural and forested landscapes, were particularly note-worthy. Thus the University of Melbourne nurtured, and became known for, the establishment of landscape assessment, landscape planning and scenic per-ception in Australia, an identification that persists to the current day, despite a simultaneous broadening into other research fields. Codification and the assembling of empirical evidence enabled expert assessments to be used as evidence in wide-ranging forums. in public practice during the late 1980s, the Landscape Management Section of the Victorian Department of Conserva-tion and environment (under various department names) grew until a change of government in the mid-1990s brought its work, including the Victorian VMS program, to a halt. regardless, research in the field continued to advance methods of assessment that were essentially ‘born of a desire to use maps as the source material for aesthetic analysis’.35 The combined analytical powers of giS and visual simulation techniques explored the impacts of changes of land use on the quality of scenic beauty.36 Studies in environmental psychology broadened these methodologies but, despite the buoyant academic discourse, the extent to which the landscape profession put this research into practice is less clear. The School of environmental Planning finally closed as a conse-quence of faculty restructuring at the end of 1994.

As a result of developments in landscape assessment and scenic perception, however, by the 1980s the profession was certainly better informed and appre-ciative of the complex factors that contribute to the assessment of the scenic quality of landscape and the visual impacts of alterations. There was a greater realisation of the gap between expert and public opinion and of the need to support more careful, long-term research. There were successes in influencing decision-making within government departments regarding, for instance, the undergrounding or relocation of some powerlines in sensitive environments such as creek corridors in Melbourne. Another outcome was that the AiLA did not attempt to co-ordinate the growing segment of landscape assessment and planning procedures in professional practice. A field that had potential as a fundamental tool for exerting influence over other professions in shaping landscape and protecting environment was left open to international influ-


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ence and alternative methodologies. Training in visual resource assessment and planning techniques generally did not advance in Australia, resulting in a proliferation of procedures and approaches, but the acceptance by government departments that landscape assessment is an important component of land management and decision-making is a legacy of the people and events who introduced it to, and tested it on, the Australian scene.

sitepLanninganddesignin parallel with developments in landscape reclamation and landscape assess-ment, there was a renewed interest in the way that land was being used in cities. Modern architecture in Australia had produced stark and often visually powerful forms that tended to dominate their site. The demand for quality housing, schools and external environments led to more thoughtful ways of arranging urban space. Site planning was the art of arranging the many facets of an external physical environment in a way that attempted a harmonious balance between buildings, structures and landscape. in north America, Kevin Lynch’s influential book Site Planning (1962) articulated its principles which, among other things, involved careful site analysis followed by the placement of buildings in relation to land use, circulation, open space and a range of environmental criteria including visual form, light, noise and ultimately the detailed design of planting, grading, and so on. He said site planning was not city planning or urban design, nor was it the design of buildings, bridges or gardens, but rather:

… a design problem that lies on the boundaries between architecture, engineering, city planning, and landscape architecture, and is practiced by professionals of all these groups.37

He also advocated the benefits of good site planning and bemoaned specifically engineers, architects and builders who, he claimed, often treated the site plan as a ‘minor accompaniment’,38 to the project’s detriment. while perhaps not intending to do so, Lynch was clearly articulating a need for landscape architecture that no doubt the newly formed group of Australian landscape


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architects had imagined for themselves. Site planning aided their mission to move beyond the stigma of garden design and become involved in design at a larger scale and on public land. The responsibility for advancing that role for fledgling AiLA members was the nCDC in Canberra, for it was the nCDC’s modus operandi that emulated Lynch’s claim that site planning was ‘carried out in one continuous foreseeable process, according to one original design, under the control of one agency, inclusive of all the details of engineering, landscaping, and architecture’.39 Over a decade, site planning became a common way for landscape architects to refer to their work, and by 1981 a survey of 125 landscape professionals revealed that site planning and site design (including planting design) constituted the most common type of work for most professional landscape architects.40

Canberra in many respects became the exemplar of site planning in Aus-tralia. it has without doubt the most extensively designed and planned resi-dential landscapes of all the major cities. The metropolitan form of Canberra most successfully reflected garden city principles, requiring green belts and planned neighbourhood developments replete with tree-lined streets and the classification of roads and open spaces into clearly defined hierarchies. This came as a result of careful site planning that was possible because of the nCDC’s internal structure. The professional relationships between landscape architects and planners forged by richard Clough and others in the 1960s and 1970s meant that site planning became deeply entrenched in all new work. The professional territory flowed on to private landscape practices when land-scape architects such as Bruce Mackenzie became involved in planning and designing Canberra’s new suburb of Kambah in Tuggeranong (from 1970). raymond Margules, who began private practice in Canberra in 1967, teamed up with John Deverson and they were involved in the very early planning stages (on site) of new towns around Canberra. From 1968 onwards their staff grew, and included landscape architects such as Paul rochford, Tony McCor-mick and James weirick. in 1979, the landscape architectural firm Dever-son, Scholtens and Bombardier (with Paul Bombardier and Paul Scholtens) were active in designing sites around Canberra including parts of the national Botanic gardens and playground features in Commonwealth Park (1979) and weston Park (1982), all of which made extensive use of stone detailing, requir-


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ing careful design documentation and supervision on site. Firms such as Scott and Furphy Pty Ltd were among the other landscape architects who played important roles in planning and designing Canberra’s suburbs; the work was ongoing, with many others, including glen wilson, who between 1986 and the mid-1990s completed landscape design at Ainslie Village.

Landscape architecture gained professional ground through site planning although early contributions were often embedded within architecture com-missions and came from those who were both landscape architects and profes-sional architects. Beryl Mann’s relatively unique position within Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell resulted in the site planning and design for buildings the firm designed. She planned and designed the environs of Victoria’s second motel in Bairnsdale (the first to be built in country Victoria) in 1957, the landscape of which included a pool and planting. She developed site plans for many primary schools in Canberra between 1960 and 1975 as well as schemes for institutional environments such as the HC Coombs building at the Aus-tralian national University. Mann’s contribution was met with considerable professional recognition and, again, other landscape practitioners were drawn in to help satisfy growing demand. Mann was highly influential in the site planning of the Lake ginninderra Parklands (Canberra) in 1974, where she worked with grace Fraser to determine structures, uses, circulation, bounda-ries, services and ultimately extensive plantings on promontories around the lake where people would congregate, pass through or intersect. The amount of thought given to the quality of institutional and broadscale landscapes set some design practices a notch above the rest in terms of the services they could provide. Other architects in the 1960s, such as Harry Howard, also added site planning to their architectural practice, particularly with regard to schools, resulting in access to and control over projects that were significantly larger and more complex than those taken on previously with the design of single buildings or structures.

Site planning consultancies in large institutional environments often spanned many years, and site-planning roles for landscape architects could be very intuitive and direct. Landscape consultants brought in by architects gave advice on site, often concerning existing and proposed planting, and in this way they were valued more for the opinions they gave rather than as people to


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whom sole responsibility for drafting the site plan would be delegated. richard Clough played a vital role as site planner at Macquarie University from 1964 to the early 1980s. Although an employee of the nCDC in Canberra, Clough was permitted to work on other public service projects and provided site plan-

David Yencken’s first motel development project (Victoria’s second motel), the Mitchell Valley Motel in Bairnsdale (1957) designed by John Mockridge of Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell with landscape designed by Beryl Mann (Cross-Section Archive, Architecture

Library, University of Melbourne; photographer unknown)


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ning and design advice to wV Abraham, Macquarie’s architect-planner, who had studied under Clough and worked for Denis winston at the University of Sydney. The development of Macquarie University, north ryde, a site of some 135 hectares, was a major project that demanded attention to horticul-tural, aesthetic, functional, spatial, social and other considerations in its site planning. Clough sketched designs that were further developed by the uni-versity’s in-house design team. One of Clough’s contributions was his plant-ing advice and the procurement of plants for the campus. The original plane trees in the central east–west pathway were sourced by Clough from Canberra

The main east–west pathway consisting of an avenue of plane trees that landscape consultant Richard Clough sourced from Canberra and had planted at Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, completed 1982 (‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’, School of

Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne; Architect-Planner’s office, Macquarie University)


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and descended from trees brought from Cyprus by Lindsay Pryor in the early 1950s.

ideas such as those realised at Macquarie University filtered through to the planning outcomes of institutional environments in ways that were so subtle that, decades later, the impact of landscape architects as site planners is some-times imperceptible. This makes early site planning work difficult to docu-ment, photograph and, ultimately, to value from a conservation point of view. Clough’s achievements were in the way he structured his employment within organisations and the decision-making power that gave him. This differed from an important contemporary, Peter Spooner, whose employment as an academic within the University of new South wales led to commissions for campus landscaping at various sites, including the Chancellor’s Courtyard constructed in 1961–62, the Joe Bourke Memorial fountain in 1966 (in collaboration with sculptor Tom Bass) and the Broadwalk (1960s), which involved experimenta-tion with growing poplars in soils that had proven difficult to manage. Around Australia, involvement of academic staff, who were simultaneously landscape architecture academics, in site planning within grounds committees persisted. One notable example includes the campus at Queensland University of Tech-nology, Brisbane (then Queensland institute of Technology) commencing in 1984. Catherin Bull, John Bedford and landscape staff were involved in nego-tiation among multiple players including the Brisbane City Council and City Botanic gardens.

in a different mode again, Jean Verschuer was employed in 1970 by the University of western Australia to report on vehicular and pedestrian circula-tion in response to the construction of an underpass north of the main campus at Stirling Highway. when the university’s curator retired in 1974, Verschuer became the inaugural landscape architect within the Office of the University Architect, a team that was extremely effective under the leadership of architect Arthur Bunbury. This was an in-house site planning and design role that not only guided the design of open space in the context of all new construction work, but was also inextricably linked to the daily management of the grounds (and the grounds staff ), thus ensuring a direct and effective mode of practice. Verschuer fulfilled this role until 1980 when she remarried and retired; she was replaced by landscape architect Tony Morgan but has continued in an honor-


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ary capacity until the present. Concurrently, in other parts of Australia, Bruce Mackenzie and others were forging a different kind of site-planning role.

The william Balmain Teachers’ College in Lindfield, new South wales (1970–71) currently University of Technology Sydney, Ku-ring-gai Campus, saw the realisation of Mackenzie’s prime aim in putting people in daily contact with the sensorial qualities of the Australian ‘bush’ landscape. in achieving this objective, Mackenzie cited Allan Correy, in his role as landscape architect in the government Architect’s office at that time, as encouraging an ecological response early in the planning stages of the development so as to minimise disruption to the pre-existing vegetation and landscape forms.41 Mackenzie attempted in his design to make the buildings look as if they had been ‘lowered into the setting’;42 he was able to achieve this goal by working with architect David Donald Turner, who was also aiming at minimal impact, having been struck by the site’s unique landscape qualities. The success of site planning at other institutions, such as griffith University in Queensland in the 1970s, where the relationship between landscape and buildings was so crucial, came from the power and resources of the organisational environment. As the uni-versity site planner roger Johnson noted, griffith’s success were a result of a ‘dedicated band’ including Alan Cole, Sam ragusa, neil Thyer, project offic-ers, curator, grounds staff and gardeners.43

The Australian natural landscape held great currency in the profession’s attempts to gain territory as it undertook work on urban sites. Also in the late 1970s, another significant project, the Sculpture gardens of the national gal-lery of Australia, was designed by Harry Howard and Associates (and impor-tantly, Barbara Buchanan) in collaboration with architects edwards Madigan Torzillo and Briggs international, for whom Howard had worked in the early 1960s. The Sculpture gardens (1978) was a creative expression of the Austral-ian native garden style and was duly recognised as such when it was added to the register of the national estate in 1994. The success of the scheme has partly to do with the expression of architecture within the broader landscape. The internal combination of the buildings and gardens became a distinguish-ing feature of the Sculpture gardens. Howard concluded that the strongest aspect of the design was the way the main avenue connected the main sculp-ture court and gallery building visually and physically to Lake Burley griffin.44


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The idea of connecting designed sites beyond the immediate bounds of the project, in this case to the urban character and setting of the city of Canberra and the lake that the nCDC had so carefully developed over many years, ush-ered in a new way of thinking. Urban spaces, at least in terms of institutional environments, were being thought of in ways that celebrated architecture and

garden and city in a bid to create a continuous sense of landscape. Claiming comparable positions of control or influence in private practice, particularly concerning speculative land developments, was another course to chart.

Above A landscape designed in 1970 by Bruce Mackenzie for the William Balmain Teachers College (now University of Technology Sydney), Lindfield (Sydney): by 1975 the buildings looked as if they had been lowered into the setting (G Wilson (1975)

Landscaping with Australian Plants, Thomas Nelson Australia Ltd, Melbourne, p. 51; photograph by

Glen Wilson)

Right The Sculpture Gardens (photographed in 2003), Australian National Gallery Canberra, designed by Harry Howard and Associates, 1978 (Photograph by Andrew Saniga)

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residentialsubdivisions

The need for site planning and site design in the private sector became most pressing in association with experimentation in residential subdivision in the early 1970s. For example, developments on swampy and other marginal lands in parts of Queensland’s gold Coast were shaped by the dream of palm-tree boulevards and lush waterside lawns. How this could be achieved via layout and detail design was less clear, as landscaping tended to be more a by-product of engineering decisions rather than planning, ecology or aesthetics. At Pat-terson Lakes in Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs civil engineers Donald Cameron Consultants and gladesville Developments converted 400 hectares of land on McCleod road, Carrum into residential allotments, each with a waterfront. Patterson Lakes attracted the attention of conservationists because of the massive earthworks required and the engineering required to maintain water quality in the lakes. Landscape architect glen wilson was engaged in 1972 and immediately set up a plant nursery to support the landscaping of the site. His landscape proposal included the recommendation of an upper canopy of native vegetation, a design initiative that was eroded over time but nonetheless is still evident in earlier stages of the subdivision. in the years between 1976 and 1979, designers Merilyn evans and Paul Thompson con-tinued stages 2 to 4 which involved the control of all structural planting on the site with the provision of free plants to residents. Landscape and planting design following in the wake of site engineering works, however, was not ideal. The challenge for the profession was to gain more involvement earlier in the site planning and site design process.

A good part of the responsibility for invigorating landscape architecture’s role in the planning and design of residential sites can be attributed to Merchant Builders, whose cluster-style subdivisions, elliston and winter Park, had set an important example. David Yencken was looking for landscape architects to continue the work of ellis Stones, who was approaching the end of his career, and decided to seek out landscape architects with a standard of professional training that was not yet available in Australia. Yencken was familiar with the work of Hideo Sasaki and Peter walker of the Californian firm Sasaki walker and of the Harvard graduate School of Design, to which some of the strongest


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developments in modern site planning and multidisciplinary design environ-ments have been attributed. Kevin Lynch himself ranked Sasaki as one of the expert site planners of the 1960s and Sasaki made significant contributions to Lynch’s 1962 book on the subject. in 1973 David Yencken established Tract Consultants as a professional group to work with Merchant Builders. Yencken approached architect and planner Howard McCorkell to be the group’s town planner and rodney wulff (in 1974) to be its landscape architect. McCor-kell had been working for the nCDC in Canberra and wulff, an Australian, trained in Oregon and Harvard. After two years at Tract, wulff completed one year of doctoral studies at Cornell University in the United States. Yencken approached walker to help recruit an American-trained landscape architect who could fill in while wulff was abroad finishing his doctorate at Cornell (completed in 1977), thus procuring Steve Calhoun in 1976, who held degrees in landscape architecture from iowa State University and Harvard. Tract became an important conduit for the transmission of American site planning and site design to Australia.

in 1977, Merchant Builders and Tract developed a small residential clus-ter subdivision, Vermont Park in nunawading, one of Melbourne’s east-ern suburbs. earlier in 1974 they had been commissioned to report on new forms of housing subdivision at gungahlin new Town in Canberra (1974) for the nCDC which made extensive use of the cluster subdivision model. At nunawading, they converted a 4-hectare site, formerly an orchard, into a carefully planned residential complex of 43 homes with shared access, open space and a community centre that had barbecues and a swimming pool. Pres-ervation of trees during construction was a vital aspect of the project, as the character of the design was supposed to be of houses set in a forest. Five access courts formed the structure around which houses were grouped and pedestrian paths, native planting and a multitude of small garden spaces were all intended to envelop the buildings. Other cities had comparable residential develop-ments with accompanying involvement of landscape architects. For example, in Sydney, architects Ancher Mortlock and woolley and landscape architects edmond Bull and Corkery completed Linley Cove, at Lane Cove. This also commenced in 1977 and was a development for over 300 town houses and units for developer Lend Lease. Site planning was a key part of the approach:


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The park-like setting of Vermont Park as evident in the site plan of 1977 and soon after construction in September 1978 (Plan from ‘Landscape Australia: An Exhibition’, School of

Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne; design by Merchant Builders and Tract Consultants;

photograph by Ralph Neale)


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landscape architects Catherin Bull, Jane Coleman and Helen evans used plants endemic to the region and strove to carefully integrate the development on a steep site of Hawkesbury sandstone whilst also dealing with issues of post-industrial contamination.

diversifyingcontexts

in due course, Tract became a separate entity from Merchant Builders, expand-ing its offices to other states and broadening the professional scope of land-scape architecture in Australia. Planning and site planning, underpinned as it was with careful analysis of functional and spatial relationships, had an impor-tant role to play in sorting out urban development problems and naturally the 1970s saw a range of consultants enter the market. Tract’s larger consultancies on waterfront development gave new impetus to the profession. in the 1930s and 1940s coastal areas of Australia’s major cities had slipped into a state of decay, with mixed industrial and residential sites alongside despoiled public foreshore margins. in Melbourne, Tract’s Foreshore Landscape Master Plan for the City of St Kilda (commenced 1977) proposed a dramatic increase in the use of foreshore land, the most striking evidence of which was the redevel-opment of several kilometres of Upper and Lower esplanade and Beaconsfield Parade, unifying surrounding residential land and the waterfront with avenue planting of mature Canary island palms to the west of Catani gardens. Tract was eager to launch a market for landscape architecture on the large scale and the Landscape Master Plan preferred option was indeed bold, propos-ing large areas of reclaimed land and significant alterations to the line of the foreshore. The final master plan was paired back and based largely on ‘a “soft” landscape approach utilisting planting techniques to enhance continuity and harmony throughout the whole area’.45 However, this commission led to suc-cess in larger commissions and ever-increasing scales of work for Tract.

A pivotal element in reading the expansion of site planning and design was the way in which open space, shared space and public access became more intrinsically linked to buildings and urban form. in Sydney, the Housing Com-mission of new South wales developed housing at woolloomooloo in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which included retrofitting inner suburban streets and


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buildings as parks and shared spaces for new housing. The landscape design-ers were Sydney consultants environmental Landscapes Pty Ltd, established in 1977 and headed by landscape architect Michael ewings. woolloomooloo was described as landscape master planning. it was retrofitting the city with public open space, an expression of the trend of dissolving streets in an attempt to blend green spaces with other functional and circulation requirements. The demand for fully integrated developments, where open space and buildings were conceived as one, led to site planning being applied in the most even-handed ways and in the furthest of places.

Michael ewings became involved with the development of the Yulara Tourist Village in the northern Territory under the direction of Philip Cox and Partners, who designed and planned the resort settlement in the early 1980s. ewings described his role as ‘multidisciplinary planning’.46 The design-ers had a strong commitment to establishing a sense of place based upon spe-cial qualities of the physical landscape of the desert environment. Cox’s design was low and stretched horizontally to nestle into a shallow valley created by a serpentine sand-dune system. Ochre colours in buildings and paving matched the sands that surrounded the development and clusters of buildings contained a staggered spine of pedestrian paths throughout. ewings’ response was to develop a series of landscape zones and management guidelines for protection, restoration and amenity landscaping in order to encourage as much desert landscape flora as possible within the resort. The project was acclaimed for its sensitivity to its arid context and its subservience to the great rock Uluru. From the approach roads to Yulara today, much of the development, although not hidden, is subdued behind dunes while, paradoxically, the vibrant growth of plants within the resort now signifies the village’s existence and distinguishes it from the surrounding landscape views. The site planning of Yulara, evident by its internal ensemble of trees, shrubs and lawns and the structure of its cir-cuitous pattern of roads, made it a place not unlike many an Australian suburb. Other firms, such as Land Systems Pty Ltd and Hassell, completed like devel-opments. For instance, Leigh Creek (1980), a new town 600 kilometres from Adelaide, was built for the electricity Trust of South Australia (eTSA) to replace the original Leigh Creek township, which sat atop a profitable coal deposit. Land Systems’ site planning was almost entirely based upon prevailing


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conditions of climate, soils and vegetation, topography and geographic loca-tion, and general environmental characteristics. The outcomes led to effective greening of the town but, as at Yulara, effective site planning does not neces-sarily produce vibrant town characters of the type that organically evolve over time.

Launchingtheoffshoremarket

Tract believed that incorporating landscape architecture, planning and site planning into their business model differentiated them from other large architecturally-based firms. it is difficult to determine the extent to which they led others by example or whether there was a simultaneous move towards multidisciplinarity in other Australian practices, as discussion of the trajectory of Hassell in South Australia might suggest. Firms such as Bates, Smart & McCutcheon (BSM) and Yuncken Freeman were predominantly architecture firms, yet they sought out people like robin edmond (1943–2008) who, having trained as an architect at the University of Melbourne and in landscape design at rMiT, was able to engage in multidisciplinary environments. edmond spent nearly two years working for Merchant Builders alongside ellis Stones and graeme gunn and claims they were the most formative years of his career.47 He worked closely with Andrew McCutcheon at BSM between 1970 and 1974 on numerous housing projects across Australia. He then moved to Yuncken Freeman, at that time one of the largest architectural firms in Australia, with offices in most major centres and international outposts in China. He became involved in large master-planning projects, including residential subdivisions, university campuses and tourist resorts. edmond worked with Chris Seddon on the initial site-planning report for Yulara Tourist resort in 1975, on which

Above left The internalised green spaces of the Yulara Tourist Resort, with occasional views to Uluru (Photograph by Andrew Saniga, 2008)

Below left The successful plantings at new town of Leigh Creek, South Australia, set within a layout of curvilinear streets and zoned use areas, design by Land Systems Pty Ltd and Hassell 1980 (Photograph by Andrew Saniga, 2008)


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the later design by Philip Cox and Partners with ewings’ landscape proposals was partly based.

One of edmond’s most significant career achievements was his leadership in 1975 of a small team from Yuncken Freeman in master-planning Hong Kong’s first new town, Sha Tin. This was a significant development for the Australian profession because it signalled involvement in the expansion of modern landscape architecture practice offshore. Yuncken Freeman had also brought in other landscape architects from Australia such as Tract Consultants (Melbourne) and Catherin Bull Landscape Architects (Sydney) for design intensives at the inception of some of their projects. The scale and demands reflected the enormous pressure for development in Hong Kong at levels that were not often seen in Australia. Designing new towns on reclaimed land gave Australian landscape architects opportunities to broaden their profes-sional experience.48 The success of the Sha Tin project led to commissions for two further new towns, Tsuen wan and Tuen Mun. in 1988 Denton Corker Marshall Pty Ltd (ACT) and Yuncken Freeman Hong Kong won an AiLA national project award for Tsuen wan Parks and Playgrounds.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the firm of Yuncken Freeman was chang-ing in structure and in 1980 robin edmond, Catherin Bull and noel Cork-ery established edmond, Bull and Corkery in Hong Kong and in Sydney, absorbing Catherin Bull Landscape Architects (established 1976). eventu-ally, eBC took over the new town site-planning and master-planning com-missions from Yuncken Freeman. They acquired further commissions for the development of parks within the new towns, including Tuen Mun Town Park, gin Drinkers Bay Park at Tsuen wan new Town and Ocean Park and broad-ened their staff to include landscape architects such as Paul Laycock. At gin Drinkers Bay Park, eBC’s scheme to develop a 27-hectare tip site for inten-sive recreation facilities within the Tsuen wan new Town was ambitious and set an important precedent for their specialising in this kind of work. Col-lectively the work in Hong Kong signified some of the largest projects done by Australian landscape architecture and urban design firms in the 1970s. in the mid-1980s eBC’s experience in China and Hong Kong aided their ability to compete for commissions at larger scales and in the professional market of urban design.


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The export of site planning and site design skills in the 1970s and 1980s – particularly to Asia but also to the Middle east, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere – with firms such as Bruce Mackenzie and Associates (Australian embassies – Hong Kong and Paris), Tract Consultants (Australian Chancery in association with architects Daryl Jackson and Meldrum Burrows) and landscape architect geoff Sanderson, produced important legacies. Australian landscape archi-tects are continuing to expand in the Middle east and China.49 For example, in 2003 robin edmond was the director in charge of HASSeLL’s winning entry for ningbo, China, a new city for 300 000 people. Maunsell and Australian representatives of eDAw (later AeCOM) have in recent years expanded in Abu Dhabi, United Arab emirates.

The landfill site in 1982 that became Gin Drinkers Bay Park at Tsuen Wan New Town, New Territories, Hong Kong by Edmond, Bull and Corkery Pty Ltd (Landscape Architects) and EBC Hong Kong (Architects and Landscape Architects) (‘Landscape

Australia: An Exhibition’, School of Environmental Planning, University of Melbourne, 1982;



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siteplanningintransition

Back in Australia, site planning and site design by landscape architects of the late 1970s and the 1980s was in a state of transition in being relabelled ‘urban design’. The clearest evidence of this change occurred in 1981 when the land-scape architecture firm Tract Consultants successfully competed against archi-tecture firms in winning the national newcastle Foreshore Landscape and Urban Design Competition. A year earlier, Tract Consultants’ St Kilda Fore-shore report had been completely devoid of mention of ‘urban design’. new-castle changed all this and from 1981 onwards, ‘landscape’ concerns became ‘urban’ ones.

The newcastle Harbour Foreshore Project (new South wales) incorpo-rated not only foreshore open space but also the fabric of streets, malls and commercial areas of newcastle itself. Tract Consultants recorded their work as incorporating master-planning, urban design and design guidelines for archi-tecture and engineering consultants. The competition was won in 1981 with a design by Steve Calhoun and rodney wulff, with landscape architect Chris Dance as team leader for the project. The judges included American landscape architect and urban designer Lawrence Halprin, architect Professor Peter webber from the University of Sydney, landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie and architect and planner of Sydney, David Chesterman. reinvigoration of the water’s edge and the renewal of public access to the Hunter river from newcastle’s city hall and Civic Park area underpinned Tract’s proposal for a reconfigured waterfront. Functional relationships were established by utilis-ing avenues and creating visual and activity nodes and corresponding linkages along axes. The decision-making and implementation of the newcastle pro-ject was largely driven by a Foreshore Committee of the City Council which, according to Tract, meant that a good part of their design intent was lost. Some in the newcastle community voiced concerns over the way the scheme was integrated into the broader newcastle landscape, with a local critic describ-ing one of the spaces as ‘a boring, big space [with] an axis going nowhere’.50 The planning and design intent underpinning the reordering of public open space, taken to such a large scale in site planning and implemented in stages over time, had the possibility of being misunderstood at early stages of its


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Perspective sketch from Tract Consultants’ winning design entry for the Newcastle Foreshore, NSW, October 1981 (Landscape Australia Report, (1982) ‘Newcastle Foreshore

Landscape and Urban Design Competition’, in Landscape Australia, vol. 1, p. 13. Landscape

Australia; design by Tract Consultants)

initial implementation. This was often the case with public works, such as civic centres, which involved many vested interests and were prone to broken starts. Twenty years on, however, and no doubt with many other planning and design decisions having been taken, the newcastle foreshore work and the St Kilda Foreshore project were major catalysts for the ongoing endeavour to revitalise urban areas.


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The major challenge that arose in the 1980s was to incorporate into land-scape architecture the emerging and lucrative field of urban design, an objec-tive with which some Australian practices grappled and which, in a sense, eclipsed the developments that had been taking place in landscape assessment and regional planning. if the subheadings of the official journal of the AiLA, Landscape Australia, are any barometer, the emphasis of the profession’s inter-ests shifted around 1984. The subtitle of the May 1984 edition saw a sudden change from Landscape Architecture, Landscape Construction, Site and Regional Planning to Urban Design, Landscape Architecture, Landscape Construction, only to return three issues later as Landscape Architecture, Land Use Planning, Urban Design, Landscape Construction. The battle to make urban design part of the jurisdiction of landscape architecture was well under way.


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Contested territories

in the 1970s the urban core of Australian cities began to come under more careful scrutiny from planners and designers and even the general public. Crit-icism was not always aimed at the quality of the city’s design but rather at its life-blood and vivacity. Some perceived that Australian cities were uninspiring and lacked activity, while others thought they clearly had different characters; the exact reasons for this were not always very clear. One writer in 1978 cap-tured this well:

Kindly visitors to Melbourne say that the place is dead on Sunday: unkind ones, that the same is true for the other six days of the week … Melbourne tends to be a secretive city, unlike Sydney, which lets it all hang out.1

At least as regards Melbourne, these were harsh words in which there was some truth. Concern for the mechanics underlying the social life of urban spaces, a theme championed since the 1960s by urban researcher william H whyte in the United States, came onto the agenda in Australia. international approaches to urban design were promoted by people such as north American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, whose visit inspired the Australian profession. Progressive european models for pedestrianisation, advocated by people such as Danish architect and urban design consultant Jan gehl, also filtered through to Australian designers and academics, motivating a push to transform Australian cities. into the 1980s, such ideas were helped along by the excesses of business and development. Major redevelopments of post-industrial sites in prime city locations, such as waterfronts, included as


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an objective the creation of urban spaces as venues for city living. Powerful authorities came into being, promoting involvement of multiple professions whilst also mediating between local and state government bodies. By the early 1990s in Melbourne, council-initiated programs such as Postcode 3000 were introduced to invigorate residential living within Melbourne’s central business district. Today the urban design of our cities and suburbs includes thriving cafes, shops, malls and street life. These are qualities that real estate agents love to trumpet but they are also qualities that in the 1980s formed the professional currency of planners and designers.

The challenge for the profession of landscape architecture in Australia from the early 1980s was to claim a piece of the action. By this time ‘urban design’ had been established as a new and distinct area of professional work internationally and information about it appeared in Australia through edito-rials, articles and letters in successive issues of Landscape Australia. Some of the repercussions of the rise of urban design were that the established professions of architecture, planning and landscape architecture competed for dominance of the new territory and wrote and debated publicly their thoughts. The dis-tinctiveness of earlier battles, from landscape architecture’s point of view, was that the trump card in the victories of the 1960s and 1970s was ameliora-tion (greening) of the blight of infrastructure and the reclamation of degraded post-industrial sites. The battle for jurisdiction was now pitched at the quality of urban space and often this did not necessarily require a green complexion. An enabling force in the introduction of urban design was the establishment of multidisciplinary practices in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as was the coming of multinational firms who took control of large projects in the central business districts of Australian cities, not to mention the nation’s new Parlia-ment House.

in the 1970s and 1980s, the definition of urban design was vigorously contested internationally. Civic design, its precursor, had its origins at least as early as 1909 and the term remained in use into the 1980s. Urban design is more generally viewed, however, as a product of late-20th-century urbani-sation and the continuing decline of rural communities in favour of urban living. The practice of urban design was thought to have potential within the domains of several professions, including architecture, planning and landscape


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architecture. Kevin Lynch, in distinguishing the practice of urban design from site planning, suggested that the scale of urban design (and city planning) was such that ‘control is incomplete and development never terminated’.2 Of the Australian debates over the definition of urban design, urban design and plan-ning academic Mario gutjahr wrote:

whereas city planning concerns itself with organisational and procedural issues, decision and policy making, and modern architecture focuses on individual building objects, the role of urban design is to integrate the objectives of planning and architecture into urban space, i.e. it must interpret and resolve the aesthetic, social, cultural, economic and technical problems and forces acting on the spatial structure of the city and create workable 3-dimensional solutions.3

The expanding need for urban design can be traced to professional domains such as architecture and city planning in the expansion of development after world war ii. earlier still, the world’s Columbian exposition in Chicago in 1893 and the subsequent unfurling of the City Beautiful movement also provided visions for the city, civic art and urban spaces as setting for build-ings. gutjahr tracks the emergence of urban design from 1909 and the estab-lishment of the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, england, to the first formal program for urban design at Harvard in north America in 1959–60.4 Urban design in europe had expanded through the 1970s. From 1976 the Joint Centre for Urban Design at Oxford Polytechnic was active in promoting urban design; in 1985 the manual Responsive Environ-ments was first published, and subsequently reprinted nine times, which per-haps gives some indication of its influence. in 1987 the international Centre for the Study of Urban Design was founded in Florence, italy. The need to resolve development pressures in the old urban centres of europe’s cities, many of which had been ravaged in world war ii, perhaps explains the relatively early integration of urban design into european training for architecture and city planning. The influence of european émigrés Fooks, Milston and Langer brought innovative planning and urban design ideas from europe to Australia


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at the time of world war ii. robert Freestone, in discussing the form of the ‘civic centre’ as one lasting trace of the City Beautiful movement, lists Langer’s various design proposals for towns in Queensland.5

Still, Australia lagged behind developments in europe until the 1980s. if one piece of quantitative research is any indication, the Australian landscape architecture profession, generally speaking, was slow off the mark: a survey of the profession in 1981 revealed that urban design as a category of work failed to register.6 Change was imminent, however, because architects, planners and landscape architects had begun to avail themselves of training in postgraduate urban design overseas at institutions such as Manchester University, Oxford Polytechnic (which became Oxford Brookes University in 1992) and Har-vard University. Practitioners returned to Australia and started to use the title of ‘urban design’ when competing for work, labelling work and, importantly, establishing urban design as a distinct category within government bodies and the wider professional domain.

The impetus for rethinking Australian city landscapes in the 1980s came from public servants in government departments and a small number of con-sultant groups (mainly town planners and architect–town planners). They sought to initiate better planning of the core of major cities in response to what was considered to be poor decision-making and ill-conceived developments. government concern for the context of buildings and for the expansion of public spaces in streets, squares, malls, lanes, arcades and other beautification works stimulated a market for professional work in urban design. By the late 1980s however, the title ‘urban design’ was inclusive of a whole range of urban projects even including freeways. in the early 1990s the Bell Banksia Link, north-east of Melbourne, was designed by Steve whitford of Cocks Carmi-chael whitford Architects in association with Jacquelyn ross of Vicroads Landscape Section. it won the 1993 rAiA Urban Design Award and a 1993 national award, the walter Burley griffin Medal, placing the design of roads within the ambit of urban design. Such branding suggests the fluidity of the labelling of professional work that had developed by the 1990s.


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thetransforMativepowerofurBanspaceThe landscape architecture of Canberra served as a model for the push to improve urban form and character in Australia’s major cities in the 1960s. An early attempt to redress the urban character and urban form in Melbourne was stimulated by the central business district’s lack of a civic ‘heart’. Two factors constrained the development of civic space and public parks: the rigidity of the city grid layout, which had been the target of criticism since the 19th cen-tury, and the relentless pursuit of commercial land use over many years. in the first half of the 20th century a number of unsuccessful attempts were made to address the lack of a city square in Melbourne. in the early 1960s eF Borrie, who was until 1959 the chief planner for Melbourne City Council (MCC), advised the council on the best way forward and his concept for a city square was further advanced by architect and city councillor Sir Bernard evans who, in 1956–58 and 1964 and again in 1966–70, was the chairman of the council’s Building and Town Planning Committee.

Between 1966 and 1968 the council purchased property in the middle of Swanston Street, Melbourne’s major axis with the Shrine of remembrance at one end and the Carlton and United Brewery at the other, for a city square bounded by Collins Street, Swanston Street and Flinders Lane. An adjacent property, the regent Theatre on Collins Street, was purchased in 1969 with the intention of redeveloping the site with a multistorey building and a new city square. Plans circulated publicly by the council in May 1970 received objections from many groups, including trade unions, which thwarted plans for the regent’s demolition. in its response the royal Australian institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter) pronounced that Melbourne’s long-awaited city square deserved ‘nothing less than the highest international standards of urban design – incorporating architecture, engineering, city planning and landscape architecture’7 and supported a call for an Advisory Committee, along the lines of Canberra’s nCDC or, failing that, the staging of a national design competition similar to that for the national Art gallery in Canberra. it took a period of ten years to see through a process of transforming the site into a civic square for Melbourne.


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in Sydney, questions of design of the urban landscape arose in high- profile projects, the politics of which, alderman Andrew Briger explained, were often the core of planning and design outcomes.8 The Cahill expressway, first proposed in 1945 and built between 1958 and 1962, was declared to be an eyesore that had destroyed Circular Quay. Soon after its construction strong public reaction precipitated investigations into the planning of Sydney and how design of its city spaces might be improved. Planning adviser walter r Bun-ning (1912–77), an architect of outstanding buildings in Sydney and Canberra and chairman of the new South wales Town and Country Planning Advi-sory Committee from 1945 to 1964, made a particularly notable contribution to these investigations through several reviews of Sydney’s strategic planning and his membership from 1970 to 1977 of the Sydney Cove redevelopment Authority. On 20 July 1971, the Sydney City Council released its strategic plan with ideas for improving access to parts of the city cut off by the Cahill expressway and for the Town Hall Precinct, which included, as a priority, pedestrianisation commencing with the closure of a section of Martin Place to vehicles. These were weighty decisions and in some instances had been hard to enact, particularly in the context of potential change in values related to the interests of commercial enterprise and private property owners. For example, architect and urban designer Donald gazzard, who was based in Sydney, was promoting activities such as restaurants in open space. in coming up against bureaucratic opposition from bodies such as the government ministries, some of whom were against street closures, as a compromise gazzard campaigned as early as the mid 1960s for what he called ‘low-cost streetscape improvements’, which essentially involved widening footpaths to allow for street life to take place. Of street life in Australian cities gazzard said:

there was a thing called gazzard’s Law of Urban Vitality, that it took about ten Australians to create the urban vitality of two italians and that you need a lot more people to generate that, but it’s happening isn’t it, all at once. Suddenly, the whole thing of eating out on the footpath, and so on …9


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incremental changes to the city’s fabric were made through the 1970s, but it was the City of Sydney 1980 Strategic Plan that enabled a small section of Pitt Street in the heart of Sydney’s central business district to be converted into a mall so as to form the ‘backbone of Sydney’s pedestrian network’.10 Similar strategic planning activities aimed at closing off streets and reappor-tioning land to paved malls had been occurring across Australia. in Hobart, Tasmania, a planning scheme circa 1976 specified a landscape bond system

Rundle Mall in Adelaide, one of the earliest malls of its type, designed by Ian Hannaford Architects and opened in September 1976 (photographed here in August 1981) (Photograph by Ralph Neale)


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which required all new commercial or industrial building approvals to spec-ify landscape improvements in properly prepared landscape plans.11 Change, however, brought discontent.

The trial closure of a section of Bourke Street in Melbourne in 1973 drew objections from local traders that the Melbourne Strategy Plan of 1974 could not quell and it was not until 1978 that it was closed again; it was launched as the Bourke Street Mall five years later. Pedestrianisation was more successful in Adelaide, South Australia, where rundle Mall, designed and project managed by ian Hannaford Architects, was opened on 1 September 1976. Although the firm had no landscape architects, ian Hannaford had previously been associ-ated with David Yencken and Tract Consultants so he knew of the potential benefits of engaging someone to consult on landscape matters. in this case, Hannaford turned to ray Holliday and Associates for planting advice. Pedes-trian amenity included brick paving, seating and sculpture. within a couple of years of rundle Mall’s opening it became an exemplar; the ‘malling’ of Australian cities had taken hold. The design of pedestrian malls, in cities and country towns alike, started to demonstrate the potential of urban spaces, even if the beginnings of this process sometimes had mixed results. it is difficult to identify the single-most influential precedent in this sense; each capital city will possibly lay claim to a set of influential works. However, taking the case of the city of Melbourne, it is possible to identify some of the precedent-setting projects and to explore how these may shed light on the developing role for landscape architects in the emerging field known as urban design.

thesouthLawn

An important case for consideration is the design for the South Lawn at the University of Melbourne. in the 1970s, large institutions such as universities sought to improve the quality of the design of spaces as the expansion of campuses kept pace with the expansion of higher education in Australia. established in 1853, the University of Melbourne was built in a park-like setting and became a valued pleasure garden for both the university community and the general public. Despite attempts to master-plan the campus immediately after world war ii, opportunistic and haphazard development prevailed. By


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the 1960s, roads and buildings had obliterated most of the original landscape and car parking had become a major problem.

A grounds Committee chaired by Professor JS Turner was formed in the late 1960s. it identified the need for an integrated approach to planning built form and open space and dealing with pressing issues of parking and campus cir-culation. in 1968, nine architectural and planning practices submitted master- plan concepts in response to guidelines set by the university. Sydney architec-tural and planning consultants Ancher, Mortlock, Murray, and woolley Pty Ltd were selected to prepare a master-plan report. A significant component of their 1970 master plan was the Main Quadrangle, which was to be developed as one of a series of linked spaces, or outdoor rooms, and to form a new centre for the university that would, as the Sydney firm pointed out, compare favour-ably with Sydney University’s quadrangle,12 a campus within which they had previously been engaged as consultants. Consultant engineers Harris, Lange and Partners simultaneously completed a study that proposed the construction of a large underground car park on a valued central open space through which ran the main drive onto the campus. The existing open central space had a windswept look and was surrounded by a diverse array of building facades. The design of a major new car park at the university’s core was seen by master planner Bryce Mortlock as a radical step and a great opportunity to reclaim an open space of great visual quality and usefulness. The designers of the car park, John Loder and John Bayly who had been employees of Harris, Lange and Partners, were therefore required to design a structure that could support trees and landscape on its roof. Loder and Bayly, from the 1970s onwards, embraced an interdisciplinary approach and would go on to employ archi-tects and landscape architects Michael gerner (1972), Jan Martin (1973), Bill Chandler (1974), nicholas Safstrom and Mike Smith (early 1980s) and ross Perrett, among others. The structural design, largely attributed to engi-neer richard (Dick) van der Molen, was an innovative system of hyperbolic paraboloid shells that not only made an elegant and dramatic car park but also allowed for the trees and landscape of the South Lawn to flourish above.

On its completion in 1974 the South Lawn gave the campus an impres-sive new look. roads were abolished and landscape became a unifying ele-ment. The scale and complexity of the project was such that rayment and


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Associates, the firm of landscape architects largely responsible for its landscape design, also managed the project and engaged subcontractors such as John Jackson, who had effectively constructed the designs of landscape architects in the past. Parts of the precinct were designed and built by ellis Stones, with whom ronald rayment had formed a very brief partnership in 1970. Architect and landscape architect nell rickard worked for both rayment and Stones at

The illustrative plan for the South Lawn Area at the University of Melbourne by Rayment and Associates Landscape Architects (undated) (Property and Campus Services, University of

Melbourne)


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this time and was an important contributor to the planting design. The part-nership was highly distinctive and the aesthetic of the South Lawn precinct is in a sense a divided one, in keeping with the different characters of Stones and rayment. Stones’ native garden in the south-west corner, constructed and planted in 1972–73, had massive rock boulders with extensive garden beds amassed against and concealing the western wall of the underground car park structure. wooden seats were perched within the garden, encouraging people to climb into his landscape. Stones used aromatic plants that release their scent when brushed against.

Ellis Stones on site photographing the constructed garden he designed at the South Lawn, University of Melbourne (Liz Anderson (née Stones) and Steve Junghenn; photographer

unknown)


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Parallel to the bush garden design aesthetic, and forming the greater por-tion of the design, was rayment’s distinctly modern landscape atop the car park structure. An important influence for rayment was the design of Cali-fornian gardens, a theme of large areas of mass planting and strong geomet-ric lines. Of equal importance was his experience as an architect in Sweden, where he was exposed to an emphasis on the relationship between building, site and setting. The path alignment was influenced by Bryce Mortlock, who had criticised an earlier proposal,13 and an iconic rectilinear reflecting pool further helped define circulation systems and contributed to a ceremonial approach to the Law Quadrangle. A zigzagging Oregon pine seating arrange-ment divided paving and lawn. The union between Stones and rayment was fortuitous because the contrast between Stones’ bush garden aesthetic and the clean and defined lines of rayment’s South Lawn design ultimately enhanced appreciation of the design approach of both. it also represented the crossroads of two periods in landscape architecture’s history, both equally significant in the launching of the profession.

in unifying the campus landscape in the context of functional pressures such as car parking, the South Lawn project set important precedents for the university. it was a workable three-dimensional solution to a complex urban problem involving architecture, engineering, pedestrians, cars and the social and cultural life of a university. within four years a detailed set of guidelines for the campus landscape, also by Ancher, Mortlock, Murray, and woolley, had been formulated,14 the quality of which has stood the test of time. The use of design guidelines demonstrated how intrusive elements such as paving, rub-bish bins and lampposts could be made invisible through a uniform approach to their design and use. Such a methodology would become commonplace in municipalities around the country, in design guidelines, street furniture and the preparation of consistent standards for landscape detailing.

in 1981 the royal Australian institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter) judged the University of Melbourne an outstanding example of community and urban design and the South Lawn a dramatic example of the trans-formative power of the designed urban landscape. The transformation of the University of Melbourne campus landscape no doubt impressed the parks and gardens staff of the MCC, with whom the university had forged a relationship


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in 1938 when it had sought to pass management responsibility for parts of the campus to the council, resulting in the removal of much of the wrought-iron fencing that had locked the campus grounds away from public reach. This management structure had evolved by the late 1960s but the university’s progressive approach, from a combined force of architects, planners, engineers and landscape architects, became an impressive exemplar for the radical trans-formation of urban spaces.

theMelbournecitysquare

As the development of the South Lawn proceeded, debate about a civic square for Melbourne continued. The rAiA competition in 1969, sponsored by The Age newspaper, produced ideas that addressed the potential for a new civic space for the people of Melbourne rather than just a forecourt for the thwarted Star Holdings’ building proposal for the regent Theatre site. A further competition for the design of a civic square launched by the MCC in 1976 was won by design firm Denton Corker Marshall (DCM). DCM’s overriding aim was to provide a space for various uses, from informal leisure through to large formal occasions, to ‘delight both the passer-by and the user, [and to] reflect both the character of Melbourne and its people’.15 The Melbourne City Square (as it became known) was officially opened in May 1980.

in presenting its aims, DCM referred to them in terms of urban design, claiming that its response to buildings like the Town Hall and St Paul’s Cathe-dral held the key to generating a civic quality.16 DCM’s scheme linked these two iconic buildings with a pedestrianised square, balancing a visual formality with the informality of activities engendered by shops, gathering spaces and fountain courtyards intended to bring vitality to the square. Split between two levels, the design turned its back on the regent Theatre in a bid to reaffirm a civic urban space and to open up and redevelop the lower-level cinema space below the regent. it incorporated features reflective of Melbourne’s history and character, such as formal avenues and planting arrangements in traditional materials including the endemic Victorian bluestone and sand-stone. eventually, pavements in nearby streets – which, apart from pockets of original large-slab slate paving, had been almost entirely bitumenised – were


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Melbourne City Square, Swanston Street, by Denton Corker Marshall, was opened in May 1980 (date of photograph unknown but probably around the summer of 1980/81) (Denton Corker Marshall; photograph by John Gollings)


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transformed into the sawn bluestone paving specified by DCM designer Peter Braden. A mature elm was transplanted to the site from behind the Shrine of remembrance, in itself a significant feat for professional landscapers at the time. A DCM-led design competition resulted in the selection of a yellow metal sculpture by Australian sculptor ron robertson-Swann called Vault, a concept that reflected the emergence of public art (urban sculpture) in squares and plazas in the United States by sculptors such as isamu noguchi. in Mel-bourne, Vault did not win the approval of all, as the opinions of the Deputy Lord Mayor and Councillor Osborne were quoted at the time of the square’s opening as suggesting: ‘it would turn small children blind and would provide a place for sex perverts to hide’.17 within eight months of the City Square’s opening, the dismantling of Vault had begun. To add to the controversy, the shopping arcade struggled, partly because it was set back from the street and purposefully hidden from view so as not to interfere with the square’s civic character. The situation was made worse by what was arguably a poor selec-tion of tenants, which meant that the expected levels of pedestrian traffic were not achieved in some parts of the square, and these areas slid into disrepair. nevertheless, Melbourne City Square represented a step towards rectifying the paucity of open spaces within the city grid, and provided the impetus for debate and raised expectations for the consideration of urban design.

Although DCM was predominantly an architectural firm, it had included landscape architects among its staff; at one stage Adrian Pilton and Andras Kelly had been among its directors. Barrie Marshall and John Denton were the designers on the Melbourne City Square scheme; however, also involved in the design and its documentation was landscape architect and urban designer Bruce echberg, who trained in architecture at the University of Melbourne (1970), followed by a Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture at rMiT (1972) and a Master of Arts (Urban Design) in 1975 at Manchester University in the UK, following in the footsteps of others such as Brian Stafford (1973). Upon Stafford’s return to Australia in the mid-1970s, he worked for state and local government as contract draftsman and architect-planner, respectively – employment under the category of ‘urban designer’ was not an option.

when echberg returned to Australia, he worked on Melbourne City Council projects, including the preparation of a master plan for royal Park in


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1976. DCM was keen to have his input into the square during the three years of its construction. To a degree the design and construction of Melbourne City Square vindicated the rAiA’s 1970 calls for a collaborative approach because it demonstrated that a combination of the efforts of architects, engineers, city planners, urban designers and landscape architects could be achieved even though formally it was an architectural commission. The significance of the project for landscape architecture is reflected in the fact that DCM received an award of merit for civic design for Melbourne City Square at the AiLA’s inau-gural national awards in 1986, for which north American landscape architect robert royston was principal jurist.

MakingcLaiMstoaustraLianurBandesignAs urban design became of increasing concern, the newly launched profession of landscape architecture was faced with the prospect of claiming some territory; yet the scale of major projects increased markedly and their complexity meant that they often included architectural components. As observed as early as 1970 in the design of the South Lawn and a decade later in Melbourne’s City Square, the more established professions of architecture (and in particular, architects who were also planners) tended to take the lead in tendering for large urban design commissions. For landscape architects an obvious path to participation in work of this scale and type was affiliation with architects and other professionals in private practice, an important case in point being the involvement of Land Systems Pty Ltd and eBC Pty Ltd within Hassell. Finding roles within bureaucracies responsible for expenditure on major public works was also a potential avenue to explore. government agencies such as the nCDC and Victoria’s Ministry for Planning and environment became venues for professional collaboration between architects, planners, engineers and others vying for a role in urban design. The competitive mood was not necessarily peculiar to Australia, as a 1979 article in Landscape Australia by north American garrett eckbo suggests:

Landscape architects also participate in, or may lead, urban design programs, whose objective is to improve, renovate, or redevelop


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substantial sections of existing cities, or build new towns or communities. Here again they work in close teamwork with planners, architects, engineers, social and natural scientists.18

The sticking point in eckbo’s suggestion is, of course, in the words ‘partici-pate in, or may lead’, which hark back to Olmsted’s struggle for superordinate power at Central Park. The potential for being marginalised in the context of architecture and planning was clearly an issue for landscape architects in Australia. The oft-bemoaned experience of being brought into the design pro-cess too late and being relegated to the role of merely ‘shrubbing-up’ develop-ment sites was particularly salient in the context of power struggles over urban design. The agitation within the relatively young profession was paralleled by fierce competition from international firms.

parliamenthouse,canberra

Perhaps the most ambitious of projects to get under way in the 1980s was the new Parliament House in Canberra. Commencing with a design competition in 1979 and constructed between 1981 and 1988, this project, more than any other, brought international architecture and landscape architecture practice to Australia, drawing open criticism from some Australian practitioners and sending vibrations throughout various professional spheres.

The design of a new Parliament House was of an impressive scale and status and raised many questions about what it meant to design the urban landscape of Australia’s capital city. The project was symbolic for the nation, but also for the landscape profession, given the AiLA’s recent establishment and the crucial roles landscape architects had forged in the nCDC. Debates included: the choice of the site, which had triggered arguments over the inter-pretation of the legacy of the griffins’ original plan for Canberra; the spend-ing of public money on a new building for politicians; and the suitability of the proposed location atop a very prominent hill. There were 329 submissions from Australia and 28 from other countries after the design competition was launched in April 1979. The winning submission, by architectural firm Mitch-ell, giurgola & Thorp and landscape architect consultants Peter g rolland and


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Associates, assimilated the hill’s topography into the design. The architects’ brief to the landscape architects for Parliament House stated that the inten-tion was to communicate through architecture a ‘simple sense of monumen-tality, linked to the natural landscape’.19 it was praised by the competition assessors for its inconspicuous monumentality, an assessment that others have criticised as inherently contradictory for its inference of a ‘non-monumental monument’.20

Discussion and debate of the design of Parliament House and its landscape by Peter rolland’s practice were mild to begin with but intensified towards the end of the construction period. in 1980 Margaret Hendry wrote an extensive review of the complexity of the project and its relation to the griffins’ plan and Canberra’s landscape21 which, in its polite tone, was consistent with the tendency of professional journals such as Landscape Australia to avoid open criticism of the work of other practitioners. Peter g rolland and Associ-ates opened a Canberra office in January 1981, which he staffed with north American landscape architects Andy Tung, Peter Britz (Australia and USA), richard Horsman and David Kamp and local landscape architects Mervyn Dorrough, Catherine Brouwer, John Michel, Keith reece and Stuart Mac-kenzie. The proceedings of the 1982 iFLA world Congress held in Can-berra suggest there were no formal presentations about the new Parliament House. The bulk of the conference was devoted to themes far removed from the urban context or urban design, which seems odd considering the scale of works looming on the congress’ doorstep. However, in 1984 Tract Consultants did produce a Parliamentary Zone Development Plan, which was a prelimi-nary sketch design for a master plan, in collaboration with architects DCM and Peter rolland, only parts of which were implemented. As the 1980s rolled on, change was imminent in the profession’s attempt to engage in urban issues.

The new focus on urban design and on sites at the core of Australian cities caused reflection on the relevance of the gardens designed to be facsimi-les of Australian indigenous landscapes and plants, often referred to as ‘bush gardens’. The use of Australian native plants, as opposed to exotic species, constituted an Australian design ethos, the legitimacy of which was thrown into question in the context of highly urban situations. Since the early days of the AiLA’s formation many Australian practitioners had staked a claim


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for legitimacy with the promise that landscape architecture would achieve the materialisation of ‘the bush’. This had been a very powerful argument in the decades of destruction of urban landscapes after world war ii. As the number and type of urban projects expanded in the 1980s, Bruce Mackenzie pondered the difficulties inherent in drawing a line between the natural and the urban, and proposed as a fundamental principle that ‘in effect, natural selections and natural geometry shall be respected in natural circumstances, and formal geometry will predominate in the architectural, urbane landscape’.22

Mackenzie was writing largely in response to discussions at the AiLA’s tenth annual conference, ‘Cityscape ’85: The evolution of The City’, in Sydney. its co-convenor, robin edmond, encouraged those present to con-tinue the discussion of potential roles for landscape architects in urban design. As already discussed, edmond’s partnership in the firm eBC had resulted in the involvement of Australian landscape architects in large-scale site planning and design in Hong Kong. Perhaps reflective of this experience, eBC’s pro-posal for Merrylands, an 8-hectare park on a former rubbish tip in Sydney’s western suburbs, contained ‘a more imaginative package of recreational facili-ties’,23 with numerous substantial buildings, amphitheatres, minigolf, roller-skating and even an aviary. The park had axial formality and the new intensity of recreational facilities exemplified its urban quality. Also under way at the time was the design of Bicentennial Park, which had strong axes containing formal structures such as a treillage. Such projects stood in stark contrast to the creation of facsimiles of Australian indigenous landscapes that had pre-vailed. The change was viewed by some as evidence of the infiltration of inter-national design ideas into Australian practice, even a return to classical forms. Mackenzie responded that new landscape design in the 1980s had not taken up the challenge of working innovatively with Australian indigenous land-scape and could even be guilty of ‘the great Australian cringe’ in the way it had employed ‘… the materials and methods reminiscent of, if not actually bor-rowed direct from, a myriad examples of history and, essentially, OVerSeAS [sic] practice’.24

in March 1986 a design seminar to coincide with the inaugural AiLA national Awards was held in Canberra. its participants included luminaries such as Chairman of the Australia Council Professor Donald Horne, Director


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of the national gallery of Victoria Patrick McCaughey, architect richard Leplastrier, geographer Ken Johnson and landscape architects Peter rolland and James weirick. The seminar was reported in Landscape Australia. work-ing from editor ralph neale’s account, weirick reputedly pronounced the new Parliament House a misleading illusion of Australia as a nation living in har-mony with the land and stated that the planned new and expensive landscape was ‘classical in spirit, proclaiming man to be the measure of all things’.25 in neale’s account of weirick’s critique, the new Parliament House design was compared with the design by Howard and Buchanan for the national gallery of Australia’s Sculpture garden, which only slightly predated the Parliament House competition and which weirick thought was a truer representation of the Australian idiom. in 1988, roger Johnson, formerly Head of the School of environmental Design at the Canberra College of Advanced education, wrote an extensive description of the aims, and the design, of the new Parliament House and concluded, ‘it could not have been the easiest of jobs’.26 He criticised the use of the Aboriginal motif, which he felt begged ‘too many questions about the relationship of “western” and Aboriginal beliefs and customs’.

in parallel with the questions pertaining to the design of the new Parlia-ment House, the published discussions of the time also reveal a degree of professional tension. in an interview between ralph neale and Peter rol-land, neale’s initial questions revealed his perception of the state of Australian profession as naive and accommodating of architects, allowing its work to be often relegated to ‘left-over spaces around a building’,27 and he asked rolland whether his experience at Parliament House matched this perception. rol-land’s responses told much about the perceived relative status of the profession in north America and Australia. no doubt for some Australian practitioners it was a bitter pill to swallow when he said:

You could not be further from the truth in such a suggestion. Our firm never accepts commissions anywhere if we are asked to come into a project when the building has already been sited and the ‘hard decisions’ have been made and our services limited to ‘shrubbing it up’. i hope that sooner or later the landscape architecture profession in Australia will also be less accommodating


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and will take a similar stance to the one which we have taken, and which is fairly common in the landscape architecture profession in the USA.28

humanisingourcities

As the massive Canberra project progressed, urban design initiatives of unprec-edented scales of Australia were under way in many of Australia’s major cities. The key objective was to humanise urban space, a strong measure of which was quite simply the increase of pedestrian activity. Cities were gradually being transformed to embrace people-oriented activities and the humanisa-tion of urban spaces led to tree-planting, widening of footpaths and, impor-tantly, the development of forecourts and plazas as incremental steps towards pedestrianisation. Tract’s success in winning the newcastle Foreshore Land-scape and Urban Design Competition almost immediately flowed on to other urban design commissions. The government Precinct Development in Bris-bane by the Queensland Department of works, Lund Hutton ryan Morton Pty Ltd, and landscape architects Tract Consultants in 1982 was a case in which small urban spaces, previously distinct, became enmeshed in a broader scheme of planting and paving aimed at promoting pedestrianisation and acti-vation of a portion of Brisbane’s city fabric. A commission for Forrest Place in Perth followed in the mid-1980s. it was opened in 1988 and had led to the establishment of an office of Tract Consultants in western Australia. in this sense Tract Consultants were pioneering ground for the profession, resulting in many other Australian firms expanding into a market that was fuelled by municipalities around Australia wanting to reconsider their urban landscapes.

in Melbourne, pedestrianisation was promoted by high-profile political figures such as architect evan walker (1935– ), who held the ministerial port-folios of conservation, planning and environment in the Victorian state gov-ernment between 1982 and 1987 and was influential in changing Melbourne’s urban design. in 1982 his ministry, with David Yencken as secretary, took a lead role in promoting the redevelopment of urban spaces within Melbourne City Council. An interim Development Order gave walker, as Minister for


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Planning and environment, power over the granting of planning permits in central Melbourne and requirements for design guidelines and heritage pro-tection came into effect. in Victoria, planning as a discipline was branching out to claim urban design with the support of the state government bureau-cracy. The ministry claimed that one effect of the interim Development Order

Government Precinct Development, Brisbane by the Department of Works (Architectural Branch) in association with Lund Hutton Ryan Morton Pty Ltd Architects and Tract Consultants Australia Pty Ltd 1982 (Tract Consultants and Department of Works, Queensland,

Landscape and Urban Design Report Government Precinct Development – Brisbane, August 1982/

Tract Consultants Australia Pty Ltd)


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The turfing of Swanston Street, by the Ministry for Planning and Environment, only lasted for two days in February 1985 but awakened Melburnians to what a different place the Melbourne CBD could become (Photograph by Ralph Neale)


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was that, ‘Planning became creative and innovative rather than simply regula-tory’.29 Such events are indicative of the processes behind a broader change in city planning, one that was willing to be inclusive of aesthetics if this had the flow-on effect of increasing city vitality.

The ministry initially recruited architects, urban designers and engineers. in 1984 Colin Fudge, an architect-planner trained at the University of Bristol, became Deputy Secretary and geoff Hawkins, also an architect-planner, was made head of the Urban Design Unit. in 1984 the ministry released its report entitled Central Melbourne: Framework for the Future, which included many initiatives: some were acted upon immediately, while others emerged much later in Melbourne’s dramatic office and residential expansion, at sites such as Docklands. The ministry’s Urban Design Unit consisted mainly of architects but included landscape architect Malcolm Snow, consultant landscape archi-tect Jim Lunday (from Scotland) and industrial designer Sonja Peterson (from germany). it proposed frameworks for a range of urban design initiatives including the identification of sites for redevelopment, including Southbank and the Jolimont railyards, and linkages with bayside locations such as Port Melbourne which were not only considered an important approach to the city but also a way to reconnect the city with the Yarra river. At the joint invita-tion of the University of Melbourne’s School of environmental Planning and the ministry, DCM provided two design options for the site that was many years later to be redeveloped as Federation Square. The ministry simultane-ously pushed several grand proposals for pedestrianisation and landscaping of city streets. Hardware Lane and McKillop Street, both circa 1985, were among the earliest examples. it also used an innovative means to promote community awareness of the potential for creating public urban space. For two days in February 1985 Swanston Street was pedestrianised and ‘greened’ for a summer party that was part of Victoria’s sesquicentennial celebrations. The ministry received an AiLA Award of Merit in 1986; perhaps more significantly, the event awakened Melburnians to what a different place the city could become.

Other parts of the city were targeted and the urban design of a number of consultants received critical acclaim. For example, in the inaugural AiLA national Project Awards of 1986, two merit awards in the Civic Design cat-egory were made, the first to DCM for the Melbourne Civic Square and the

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second to gerner Sanderson Faggetter and Partners for their 1984 China-town Precinct redevelopment. The precinct encompassed two blocks of Little Bourke Street in the heart of Melbourne’s central business district, with which Victoria’s Chinese population had a very long association that local and state government authorities wished to formalise. The award citation praised the cohesiveness of the scheme’s urban design strategies in addressing both public and private concerns. waterfronts too were on the agenda. The University of Melbourne’s Centre for environmental Studies, together with landscape archi-tects and planners Kinhill Pty Ltd and landscape architect Larry walker, devel-oped the Lower Yarra Concept Plan from 1981 as an ongoing project. Huge consortia were bidding for a role in large urban redevelopments that initially were linked to the ministry’s agitation for change. in 1987, the urban design for the Port Melbourne Bayside Development (Sandridge), which exceeded 40 hectares, was won by American urban design consultancy Sasaki Associates inc. Boston, among a suite of Melbourne-based consultancies including the office of Tract Consultants, wilson Sayer Core (urban and regional planners), Maunsell and Partners (civil, structural and coastal engineering) and more. The project was eventually developed by Mirvac as Beacon Cove.

Street closures and landscaping were usually targeted at places of intense use. in Sydney, Michael ewings’ firm, environmental Landscapes Pty Ltd, had become involved in the design of Bankstown Mall (from 1977) and was selected for the redevelopment of Pitt Street in 1981. it was not until novem-ber 1987, however, that the redeveloped site was opened. Protracted bureau-cratic wrangling involving the many public and commercial organisations with a vested interest in the site meant that decisions swung continuously between the Sydney City Council, the state government and private inter-ests.30 The design objectives became compromised and reduced to the rather straight-forward qualities of openness and simplicity, leaving little room for design flair and drawing mixed reactions from the profession. Street closures also occurred in association with cultural centres as nodes of activity. The design of James Street Mall in Perth (1985), led by robert Hart of the Build-ing Management Authority of western Australia, is a case in point, as is Sullivans Cove, Hobart (from 1983). in reviewing accounts of such projects, the long-term nature of this work becomes apparent, as does the importance


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of successfully negotiating multiple bureaucracies – a feat that often seems more remarkable than the ubiquitous brick paving and garden beds which, more often than not, took years to feel integrated (if they ever did) within the pre-existing design of the city and its streets.

Lawrencehalprinandurbandesigninsydney

As urban design became more widely discussed in bureaucratic and organi-sational circles, so too did it become a part of the AiLA’s concerns. Perhaps observing the early expansion of urban design as a type of work for land-scape architects, the AiLA attempted to engage in the discussion and invited a spokesperson with international status to advance the debate. in november 1981, eminent American landscape architect Lawrence Halprin (1916–2009) visited Australia to participate in an event organised by representatives of the Australia Council and various members of the new South wales Chapter of AiLA. nicholas Safstrom (AiLA) and Bill Chandler (then Victorian president of the royal Australian Planning institute) invited Halprin to Melbourne for a lecture to be held at the Melbourne City Square. To the Australian public, Halprin described himself as an ‘artist in society’.31 His credentials as a land-scape architect were clearly established in north American projects such as Freeway Park in Seattle, Sea ranch in California and Lovejoy Plaza in Port-land, Oregon, the fountains of which he saw as ‘cousin’ to those in the recently completed Melbourne City Square. Halprin toured Australia from east to west, conducting workshops that for some were a revolutionary experience, mainly because Halprin encouraged participants to engage with city landscapes, to talk about emotions and to express their responses poetically or theatrically. in Melbourne he spoke to a slide show of his north American projects in the City Square garden Lounge and gave an interview on local radio. in Perth he walked the city streets and responded candidly with thoughts about design of Australian cities, such as: ‘nice facade, but these norfolk is. Pine Trees are just wrong. who decides what to plant? Landscaping a city isn’t like landscaping a national park’.32

Halprin’s visit breathed new inspiration into landscape architecture in Australia and was clearly intended to boost the public profile of the profession


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and to proclaim its potential in urban design. This was particularly the case at a workshop Halprin led at Darling Harbour, just west of Sydney’s central business district, a site earmarked for refurbishment as part of the new South wales government’s bicentennial program. The workshop was intended both to kickstart the harbour’s urban renewal and to emphasise the need for thoughtful redevelopment of the site. Many of the landscape architects who participated came away with a sense of empowerment about their possible voice in the project of transforming the degraded post-industrial waterfront into a people-oriented space. Some were particularly taken by the industrial aesthetic of iron and bitumen at the site and felt strongly about its careful inclusion in any redevelopment. Halprin’s visit also occurred at a time when multinational firms began working alongside local practitioners, creating a new sense of urgency for the local profession to become involved in urban design.

Darling Harbour’s 56-hectare precinct was one of the biggest urban re-developments to be undertaken in Australia, heralding a new era for urban

Lawrence Halprin leading discussion among a large group of landscape architects and others at the Darling Harbour workshop, 1981: Lawrence Halprin in centre with glasses dangling (Ralph Neale and Landscape Australia; exact photographer unknown but equal credit to

Catherin Bull, Tony Blackwell, Brian Wilson and other participants of the Halprin workshop)


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design. Unfortunately, much of the idealism of Halprin’s workshop evapo-rated as the cultural grit was wiped from the post-industrial site, apart from a bridge, a pump station, the alignment of the seawall and part of Barker’s Mill. The Darling Harbour Authority, created by a new South wales government Act in 1984, took control of the development of Darling Harbour from other public bodies, such as the City of Sydney. This event and others like it, which were stimulated by legislation and bureaucracy, had the effect of giving the state government control of decisions and brought public protest from the Sydney community about the environmental impacts of development.33 The nCDC in Canberra had a lot to answer for: in terms of the creation of devel-opment authorities, it was the success of the nCDC’s organisational structure in pushing forward the development of Canberra that other bureaucracies in Australian cities were, in a sense, emulating.

The MSJ group was a partnership between MSJ Keys Young Planners Pty Ltd and McConnel Smith and Johnson Pty Ltd Architects. MSJ group took the lead project-design role and controlled the urban design of the public land-scape, including the park buildings, structures and waterfront elements. Barry Young, who had studied under Kevin Lynch at the Massachusetts institute of Technology and had worked as a draftsman in architectural firms in Mon-treal, Canada, was MSJ’s Design Director for the project. in the early stages the design for Darling Harbour received criticism from the rAiA, the royal Australian Planning institute and the new South wales group of the AiLA, to which the Authority’s Quality review Committee, chaired by Professor neville Quarry, and MSJ group responded by reformulating design principles.34 Land-scape architects claimed the project’s shortcomings were in part due to lack of representation of the profession on the Design Directorate, and subsequently consultant landscape architects such as Allan Correy and garry Stanley gave input until the Darling Harbour Authority appointed ronald Powell as land-scape director. He was replaced by Christopher Plummer in 1986.

Mitchell + Clouston were the landscape architects responsible for land-scape design and documentation and its directors, James Mitchell and Alun Chapman, played leading roles in the project. Chapman was trained in geog-raphy and landscape design in the UK and came to Australia in 1984 after a period of working in Hong Kong. Mitchell studied landscape design under


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Peter Spooner at the University of new South wales and established James Mitchell and Associates Pty Ltd in the 1970s before merging with the inter-national practice Clouston in 1984. At the time of its construction, the Dar-ling Harbour project was described as ‘an opportunity that comes once in a lifetime’35 but for Clouston it was one in a string of waterside redevelopment projects they completed, including the London Docklands renewal Project. The influx of urban design ideas from overseas, and the multinational firms that brought them, made some members of the landscape architecture profes-sion in Australia aware of this new and expanding market and one senses a degree of competitive tension within the system of professions at that time.

The quality of the design proposals stimulated debate about the proper place of urban design in shaping the city. The design for Tumbalong Park at Darling Harbour consisted of a series of themed spaces, with origins in an array of landscape forms: Park green, Urban Stream, Terraced gardens, Play Mounds, Lake, Chinese gardens, and gateways. The Urban Stream was to make reference to Sydney’s pre-industrial landscape and Alun Chapman described it as one of the key successes of the project.36 Developed in associa-tion with fountain sub-consultant neville Crocker, the stream was a celebra-tion of water. its siting corresponded to a drainage line that had once run from Haymarket into Cockle Bay. The Chinese garden was the product of col-laboration of Chinese garden designers from guangdong Province and local firm eBC and Patrick Soars of Australian native Landscapes Pty Ltd, and a large fountain was designed by robert woodward. in combining open space, recreation opportunities and a revitalised major tourist destination, the out-come catered strongly to the tourist market. in mid-1986, practitioners such as richard Leplastrier had viewed the plan for Darling Harbour as lacking sensi-tivity to traces of the indigenous landscape and to the disused warehouses that were so characteristic of the harbour foreshore near Sydney’s central business district.37 Perhaps the conceptual basis of the Urban Stream was too subtle a link to the past; the vision for a public park at Darling Harbour of the sort that inspired the heady idealism of the Halprin workshop struggled to find its realisation in the minds of some of those who had taken part.

The importance of Darling Harbour to the image and experience of Sydney gave rise to as many urban design initiatives as it did controversial decisions.


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expectations for the bicentenary made Circular Quay a focus for bringing together a number of architects and urban designers to offer visions for the space between the Opera House and Dawes Point. James weirick commented on the results and pointed out that the ideas produced were ‘intriguing, pro-vocative and occasionally lunatic design solutions’ but also that the magical quality of the quay was such that ‘no amount of peripheral abuse could ever destroy [it]’.38 The new South wales Public works Department (nSw PwD) was swamped with bicentennial works and so, in the end, worked with external consultants to embark on improvements at Circular Quay, in association with Conybeare Morrison and Partners, Allen Jack and Cottier, Hall Bowe and webber and Lawrence nield and Partners, all around 1988. included were improvements to Macquarie Street from Queens Square to the Opera House forecourt, which were documented in association with Conybeare Morrison and Partners circa 1988.

The Urban Stream at Darling Harbour on the opening day, 16 January 1988 (B Young

and C Plummer (1988) ‘Darling Harbour public spaces’, in Landscape Australia, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 13;

photograph by Alun Chapman)


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educationandpromotionofurbandesign

in the late 1980s the major challenge for the professions was to address educa-tion in urban design and, like representatives of other disciplines, landscape architects felt that urban design lay within their domain. One planning and urban design academic bemoaned the lack of attention to urban design in Australian cities: ‘… we blindly import stereotypes from abroad and refuse to develop our very own urban design language and profession’.39 A group of pro-fessionals in Melbourne, including Bill Chandler and Jan Martin (Loder and Bayly), Bruce echberg (Urban initiatives Pty Ltd), Melbourne City Council architect and urban designer robert Adams, and wendy Morris (Department of Planning), met regularly to discuss how urban design could be promoted. The quarterly Urban Design Forum commenced publication in October 1987 as a direct outcome, and still persists today, nearly 100 issues later. in Septem-ber 1987 an open letter with 32 signatories, among them architects, landscape architects, planners and academics, appeared in Landscape Australia calling for the vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne and the director of the royal Melbourne institute of Technology to address immediately the issue of lack of opportunities for postgraduate study in urban design in Victoria.40 The letter noted that there was, at the time, only one postgraduate course in Aus-tralia, set up (by gordon Holden) at the Queensland institute of Technology, and that the University of Sydney was in the process of appointing a Professor of Urban Design and introducing a master’s program, a course that was criti-cised in landscape architecture professional circles because its prerequisite was an architecture degree.41 The letter called for the University of Melbourne and rMiT to establish a joint postgraduate program following the model of the Joint Centre for Urban Studies of Harvard University and the Massachusetts institute of Technology. Two years later, in 1989, gordon rushman, who had trained in architecture and civic design at the University of Liverpool in the UK, co-ordinated a master’s course at rMiT and further promoted discussion on how to train the urban designer.

Some universities simply taught urban design across existing postgraduate programs in architecture, planning and landscape architecture. Professional tensions persisted, nevertheless, and architects and planners tended to dominate


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discussion of who could rightfully claim professional territory in the com-petitive world of urban design contracts.42 Bruce Mackenzie was an outspoken critic of their dominance and in a letter to the editor of Landscape Australia noted that factions in architecture and possibly in the planning profession may have attempted to make urban design exclusively part of their professional domain:

engineers, planners, architects and landscape architects may all be urban designers, though some will be better than others. Obviously all of them are needed contributors … However, i believe it is quite fallacious to imagine that any one undergraduate source should have a primary advantage over the others. in fact, the urban design program which adopts such a premise would itself be most suspect.43

in 1988, robert Adams, at that time manager of Urban Design and Archi-tecture at the City of Melbourne, criticised the state of the art in Australia. Adams had completed a master’s degree in urban design at Oxford Polytech-nic (1975) as did his contemporaries in Melbourne such as wendy Morris (in 1989) so there was an awareness of how Australia compared to developments in other countries. Adams had come to Australia in 1983 and was one of five consultants who had been asked to write the 1985 Strategy Plan for the City of Melbourne, including urban design guidelines, which Adams wrote. He also recruited landscape architect ronald Jones to the Urban Design Branch in 1986. in 1988, Adams suggested that the number one reason for the delay in the advancement of urban design education was professional jealousy.44 The control of urban design seems not necessarily to have been predetermined; rather, it was open to professional competition within the context of major urban redevelopment projects. Between 1992 and 1993 the Prime Minister’s Urban Design Taskforce, an initiative to report on the growth of urban design as a professional endeavour and to promote activity across Australia, provided an impetus for advancing education and professionalism in urban design. new practices began to emerge when, for instance, in 1994 wendy Morris joined with architect and urban planner Chip Kaufman to establish a consultancy


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that advanced the concept of ecologically sustainable design and new Urban-ism in Australia and internationally. One gets the sense of ever-expanding fields within which landscape architecture sought a place, a mood well cap-tured in the papers delivered at the 1994 students of landscape architecture conference ‘The Culture of Landscape Architecture eDge TOO’ held in Melbourne. Landscape architecture as a ‘pure’ discipline was, at the end of the 1980s, becoming subsumed in larger, and perhaps more powerful, operational spheres.

An outcome for education was that stand-alone courses in urban design did eventuate and continue to expand. Some were postgraduate courses that ran in parallel with landscape architecture education. The Australia Award for Urban Design was inaugurated in 1996 by the Commonwealth Department of Transport and regional Development, and in 2012 was managed by the Planning institute of Australia with support from the rAiA, the AiLA, the green Building Council of Australia, the Property Council of Australia, and the group behind Urban Design Forum. Vitality of the street underpinned the assessment of good urban design. The Melbourne CBD revitalisation Project won the inaugural award and in the citation it was noted that: ‘Sydney got its glam, and its dead after-hours streets. Melbourne got to keep its street-life.’45

urbandesignonagrandscale

glam was not the only thing Sydney ‘had got’ – on Friday 24 September 1993 Sydney was announced the successful bidder for the 2000 Olympic games. The development of the site for the 2000 Olympic games at Homebush Bay, Sydney, from 1997 to 1999, was a milestone project and one that sheds light on the degree of power that the Australian landscape architecture profession had achieved and its ability to claim leading roles in projects of such stature. Master plans prepared to support the Olympic bid in the early 1990s were grandiose, considered unbuildable, and avoided any issues that might weaken the bid. in December 1994 a workshop to rethink the master plan was organised by the Homebush Bay Corporation and directed by Lawrence nield, then Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney. Consultants representing various disciplines, including architects, planners, landscape architects, artists and


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urbanists, were assembled for eight days in central Sydney to prepare master plans for the Homebush Bay site, a process described by one landscape architecture academic and practitioner as typically dominated by architects and the ‘… tireless manoeuvring by the power-brokers of the architectural world’.46 Others questioned the merit of the process, claiming that the results were ‘too unsettling to make public’.47 After the workshop a new team was assembled to resolve a revised master plan, again headed by nield and consisting of architects and Australian landscape architects Oi Choong, Ken Maher and Jane irwin, among others. The plan they produced in September 1995 and submitted to the Olympic Co-ordination Authority (OCA, formed in April 1995) consisted of a simple grid surrounded by parkland and with an overriding structure of avenue planting arranged to accentuate the hierarchy of the stadiums.

The OCA was under pressure to deal with ongoing difficulties in recon-ciling evolving building programs. The nield master plan was criticised as ineffective in dealing with the public domain, a criticism that had its roots in observations of the performance of the design of the 1996 Olympics complex in Atlanta.48 The design of a suitable urban environment for the games called for a scheme that brought unity, identity and safety to the spaces around and between the Olympic buildings. There was a sense of urgency surrounding the creation of the ‘public domain’ and international expertise was deemed neces-sary to achieve this quickly and effectively. Late in 1996 the OCA procured internationally recognised landscape architect george Hargreaves from San Francisco to work with the new South wales government’s Architect Design Directorate on further revision of the master plan. with construction already under way on the site, the ability of the master-planning group to generate an effective alternative in a short time was crucial. One reason for engaging Har-greaves was that it was felt that a consultant from abroad would avoid being drawn into local disputes.

For some Australian landscape architects, the decision to engage an inter-national consultant to lead such a significant project as the Olympic site rep-resented broader loss of opportunity for the local profession.49 Multinational firms had already arrived in Australia and international consultants were at the same time winning design competitions for similar high-profile commissions


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in other parts of the country. Melbourne’s Federation Square, a major new space for public use at the south entrance to the Melbourne city grid, was won by Lab Architecture Studio (London) and Bates Smart Architects (Australia) plus a suite of other consultants. its paving design, a visually striking 7500-square-metre ground plan of Kimberley sandstone replete with cobbles engraved with text as an art piece (titled Nearamnew), was the conception of Melbourne-based writer, artist and interdisciplinary scholar Paul Carter, in collaboration with Lab, landscape architects Karres en Brands (netherlands) and a team from Melbourne assisting in the implementation. in addition to these competitions, multinational firms such as eDAw Australia had become established, link-ing with Australian consultancies such as Sinclair Knight (engineering) and Loder and Bayly (planners and designers), developing formidable interdisci-plinary practices that continue to the current day (as AeCOM). Practition-ers swept along in these arrangements were launching into significant roles in large-scale urban design. nicholas Safstrom and Jacinta McCann played lead roles in eDAw, and Bill Chandler became Director of Planning and Urban Design at the Melbourne Docklands Authority. The structure and power of authorities had the potential to eclipse the stand-alone landscape architects operating at this time.

The Hargreaves plan did achieve the OCA’s aim of guiding the timely and effective completion of the complex. This was because it was a plan that was comprehensible to multiple parties and stakeholders. glen Allen of Hargreaves Associates described the simplicity of the scheme in terms of three strategies or ‘moves’. The ‘red move’ was a large central paved area to meet the demands of the Olympic crowds and whose design was led by architects DCM. The ‘green move’ represented a link to the surrounding Millennium Parklands, and the ‘blue move’ was a celebration of water that incorporated the Haslam’s Creek, Boundary Creek and the Parramatta river. in this way urban design around the stadiums was bound to the design of the landscape beyond. environmen-tal amelioration and environmentally sustainable design initiatives were also significant features of the scheme as were traces of cultural heritage. A Design review Panel (DrP) was formed in 1997 under Chris Johnson, new South wales government Architect and included Catherin Bull (to become Profes-sor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Melbourne in 1998) and, for


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a period in the early 2000s, Professor James weirick (University of new South wales). The DrP managed to procure many local designers whilst also over-seeing the implementation of the design strategy. Haslams Creek, designed by the HASSeLL Team in its work on Millennium Parklands, had aspects of planting design completed by consultants Clouston and landscape architects Schaffer and Barnsley. The Brick Pit, a large disused quarry considered an icon of Sydney’s industrial past whilst also being an important habitat for the endangered green and golden bell frog, attracted multiple consultants includ-ing HASSeLL and Pittendrigh, Shinkfield and Bruce. it was not until 2005

Above The Brick Pit Ring (2005) is set within the Brick Pit, a disused quarry landscape at Homebush Bay (Sydney) (Photograph by Andrew Saniga)

Right Oblique aerial view of Millennium Parklands showing the markers in the distance that act as landmarks and storage dumps for excess fill; the Brick Pit Ring is seen centre left (HASSELL (Sydney Office); photograph by Bob Peters)


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that the site’s sensitive redevelopment was completed, eventually by architects Durbach Block with Sue Barnsley as landscape architect. The Brick Pit ring, an elevated circular boardwalk containing information about the natural and cultural histories of the site, is a bold element aiding heritage interpretation. Considering these multiple consultancies, the DrP was thus significant in positioning landscape architects among various other professions.

An important component of the Olympic legacy was the creation of the surrounding Millennium Parklands by HASSeLL in association with Peter walker & Partners and Bruce Mackenzie Design. This signified one of the largest landscape architecture projects at the time, encompassing approxi-mately 450 hectares, eclipsing projects such as Mackenzie’s park at Botany Bay and the Public works Department’s projects of previous decades. The nature of HASSeLL Team’s work, well encapsulated in the title of robert Powell’s 2003 book, Hassell Architects: Poetic Pragmatism, combined ecology with bold geometric, rather than naturalistic, forms. echoing the three-pronged solu-tion that Hargreaves and Associates had adopted for the Olympic Park, Peter walker of the HASSeLL Team proposed the ‘blue move’ in the Lowlands, the ‘green move’ in walls and rooms, and the ‘red move’ in elevated Landforms. The ecological restoration of hydrological systems in the Lowlands and the network of interlacing green corridors implied in walls and rooms responded to issues of toxicity and destructive activity that had afflicted the site. The ele-vated Platforms, which provided a way-finding and landmark device, had the added utilitarian purpose as dumps for storing excess fill. A program of recrea-tion, research, education and interpretation was also a part of the scheme, the successes of which will need to be monitored over time.

Tracking more than a decade of deliberation over Homebush reveals the complex professional systems that landscape architects seek to infiltrate. Their exploits have been met with both success and failure. in practice, distinguish-ing oneself as a ‘landscape architect’ or ‘urban designer’ becomes irrelevant in the context of the power bestowed by large multinational, multidisciplinary firms or by steering committees and ‘authorities’ charged with overseeing com-plex public projects of the scale of Homebush, or any of the other authorities charged with mediating between various levels of government and the like. in one sense this reflects the success of earlier discussions between architects,


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town planners and landscape architects regarding the territory of urban design, at events such as the Annual Urban Design workshop, which celebrates multidisciplinarity in successful urban design.50 Some professionals argue that land-scape architecture is by definition urban design, in a sense overwriting any territorial claims. in Bull’s consideration of landscape architecture in contem-porary Australia the term ‘urban design’ is used only once in the entire text51 even though much of the work that landscape architects did from the 1980s was labelled as urban design in project listings, reviews and job descriptions. which leads to the question: do these names really matter, anyway? in the context of multidisciplinary offices and organisations, perhaps not, but at the heart of the matter there is a distinction between what is valued by the dif-ferent disciplines, how they interpret urban problems and, importantly, the role they believe the designed landscape should play in the scheme of urban development. in the professional contests that occurred towards the end of the 20th century, at least from the small number documented in journals and the like, the extent to which the Australian landscape architecture profession either adopted, controlled or advanced urban design remains open for debate.

what can be said with some certainty, however, is that from the mid-1980s, when urban design became ‘Flavour of the Month’,52 to the present day, land-scape architecture persisted as a distinct professional discipline represented by the institutional framework of the AiLA. Several established professional bodies including landscape architecture, architecture and planning have laid claim to urban design and, more recently, state organisations such as the Urban Design Alliance Queensland have emerged. Save for the various ‘centres’ for urban design that exist internationally, the discipline of urban design in Aus-tralia has never really undergone institutionalisation under one national pro-fessional body. This stands in striking contrast to the formation of the AiLA in the 1970s and the remarkable coalition, in spite of diversity in professional allegiances, among its founders. The AiLA was a product of its time, when social circumstances supported the notion of strict professional boundaries and stand-alone design practices. Urban design remains a discipline that combines several professional bodies. its viability is a product of its usefulness in express-ing the collaborative environments within multidisciplinary practices. in this sense, it could be argued that multidisciplinary firms were and continue to be


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independent of the old world of professions and their institutes. Perhaps this is what edmond was observing when, as convener of the 1985 AiLA national conference, he said:

At a time when much of the professionalism is leaving the professions, and yet landscape architecture in Australia is still an infant but growing profession, my own view was that we should reaffirm our professionalism at the national conference, and at the same time examine and celebrate the very wide range of urban issues with which we are becoming increasingly involved.53

LandscapesofthefutureA great breadth of landscape architectural work developed from the late 1990s with moments of high achievement along the way. in Sunburnt: Landscape Architecture in Australia (2011) the various authors give thoughtful reviews of projects and developments in contemporary practice. Specialist areas of practice have emerged in fields as diverse as play environments and golf course design. A dimension of the profession’s development of the past 30 years that has not received detailed examination here is the impact of educators and researchers and the role they have played particularly in fields that do not immediately present a market for private practice. For example, academics such as grant revell (University of western Australia) and Professor gini Lee (currently University of Melbourne) continue to engage with the landscape and communities of regional and remote parts of the continent. The landscapes of Australia have also featured prominently in designs within cities. in this sense, projects such as the Australian garden at the royal Botanic gardens Cranbourne by Taylor and Cullity Pty Ltd (now Taylor Cullity Lethlean Pty Ltd) and Paul Thompson, and the garden of Australian Dreams at the national Museum of Australia in Canberra by landscape architects room 4.1.3, are notable cases in point, forming important precedents for ongoing discussion and debate.


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australiangardens

The Australian garden at Cranbourne, 43 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, is the centerpiece of a 363-hectare native-plant garden, an annexe to the royal Botanic gardens Melbourne. A profound aspect of the annexe, and one that is often overlooked in reviews of the Australian garden, is the fact that the initial site (160 hectares) was the product of great foresight in the 1960s when a group including Professor John Turner, acting for the Victorian government, and the Maud M gibson Trust undertook a search for such an annexe to the royal Botanic gardens Melbourne. it must have seemed strange back then to be reserving a site so far from Melbourne’s CBD but today hundreds of hectares of natural and rare plant communities exist as a rare resource within striking distance of many Melburnians in the eastern suburbs.

The Australian garden is a 25-hectare exhibition garden within the annexe and was designed in 1995, with the first stages completed in 2006 and the final stages still under construction. its design brief was to explore the nature and culture of Australian landscape and showcase Australian flora, from arid wilderness of the interior to tropical and alpine environments. The effectiveness of the narrative rests largely upon the visual impact of a large red sand core with artificial dunes and sculptural elements including abstractions of the desert, of ephemeral lakes and streams. Visitors cannot walk upon the facsimile of the desert but circumnavigate it while passing through gardens that are vignettes of other natural places. An abstraction of a gorge, Escarpment Wall, by artist greg Clark, is built with weathered (Corten) steel and has at its base the rockpool waterway, the flow of which is variable, with the intention of communicating to the visitor the natural cycles of change in the Australian landscape. Yet the project is built in concrete and steel and plants are man-aged within an inch of their lives. it is a conscious and large-scale attempt to create an external museum of the Australian landscape conceivably based on the designers’ personal experiences. in some senses this makes the experience of the garden for the more reflective visitor something of a theme park and one may also walk the annexe’s remaining 300 or so hectares to obtain a different kind of appreciation of Australian flora and landscape. As an ‘act’ of landscape architecture, the reservation of such a large tract of land will no doubt grow


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The artwork by Greg Clark, Escarpment Wall, built in Corten steel with the Rockpool Waterway that pulses to simulate the natural cycles of water in the Australian landscape, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne Annex, designed by Taylor Cullity Lethlean Pty Ltd and Paul Thompson, photographed in 2006 (Photograph by Andrew Saniga)


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more and more valuable with the passing of time and the parallel loss of natu-ral habitats elsewhere.

At the garden of Australian Dreams in Canberra, the designers explored the possibility of multiple narratives coexisting in the one design and achieved this in highly innovative ways. The design came about as a result of a 1997 international competition for the national Museum of Australia, won by architects Ashton raggatt McDougall and Terragram consisting of landscape architects richard weller and Vladimir Sitta, who became room 4.1.3 in 1998

The Garden of Australian Dreams on Canberra’s Acton Peninsula was designed by Richard Weller and Vladimir Sitta of Room 4.1.3 and opened to the public in March 2001 (Photograph by Andrew Saniga)


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when work on the project got under way. Since the late 1980s, weller and Sitta had been critically reflecting on the state of the art of landscape archi-tecture in Australia in a bid to test new ideas for urban space. The museum was opened in 2001 and it saw the realisation of the theoretical and creative work that weller and Sitta had been developing. Described as a ‘palimpsest, a kaleidoscope of various maps of Australia’,54 the garden includes an irregular concrete surface encircled by the museum buildings and with two maps form-ing a pattern – an english-language map of Australia and David Horton’s map of indigenous linguistic boundaries. Visitors can walk on the mapped surface and explore what they convey. Other iconic Australian symbols, cultural ref-erences, even signatures, are also inscribed on the large concrete surface in ways, weller states, that attempt to ‘find a space between the popular and the academic, the virtual and the real, the political and the poetic, and the playful and the serious’.55

The design’s innovation and its construction techniques pushed the poten-tial of landscape architecture. it is worth contrasting the garden of Austral-ian Dreams with the Sculpture garden at the Australian national gallery designed some 20 years earlier, also adjacent to Lake Burley griffin. in Howard and Buchanan’s landscape, the ‘art’ was placed within the designed landscape whereas in the garden of Australian Dreams the landscape was the ‘art’. For some, including members of the landscape architecture profes-sion, weller and Sitta’s garden was too challenging a physical creation, and lacked a degree of comfort and basic amenity. notably, in weller’s description of the project given above, he made no pretence that the design was trying to be ‘shady and comfortable’, and nor did Sitta in his response to landscape architects who had criticised the scheme.56 A review of exhibitions and public programs of the entire museum complex was undertaken by a panel of four led by Dr John Carroll, a reader in Sociology at Latrobe University, Mel-bourne. For the garden of Australian Dreams it made a few suggestions, including the adding of interpretative materials like rocks (geological history) and ethno-botanically significant trees. The review report also called for the inclusion of conventional landscape features such as lawn, shrubs and other plants suggesting, ‘More vegetation and shaded seating would make this space welcoming – a real garden. it should be a space that is self-explanatory.’57


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Passing judgement on the design in this way fuelled debate about the moral rights of landscape architects in which the AiLA backed room 4.1.3 and the retention of their design. The defence of such a high-profile site in public debate tested the ability of the profession to promote its relevance and its expertise. As richard weller put it, the design of such sites represented a mar-ketplace that landscape architects ‘must seduce and outwit’.58

recent landscape design often consists of constructed elements of a high machine-like quality, placing them at a similar ranking in terms of interna-tional examples of comparable projects. in referring to the projects showcased in Sunburnt, weller quipped that such work was of ‘supermodel’59 status. it is likely that the life span of some of this work will be relatively short as a result of the inevitability of changing fashion and as new materials, some of which have never before been put to the test in landscape applications, fade or deteriorate or simply fail to gain the use for which they were intended. This should not quell experimentation. in contrast, only a small percentage of the design produced by a humble planting plan is also likely to survive a century – but nonetheless there is a likelihood that a fragment will survive a century (or more). The trees set within the fabric of our cities, their parks and streets, often stand as sole testaments to forethought, design, planning or protection, a sobering reminder of the forebears of landscape architecture in Australia.

territorialbattlescontinue

Staking claim to professional territory is not a finite process – rather, landscape architects need to continuously battle to maintain (and expand) professional territory amid the ever-shifting spheres of professional competition. in recent years, new ideals, such as ecologically sustainable design (eSD), have been added to the mix. Architects, planners, landscape architects and urban designers, at different stages and to varying degrees, attempt to embrace sustainability in their domain, as do ecologists and biologists – the competition is fierce. Multidisciplinary design teams seem inevitable in order to meet the expectations of increasingly complex and demanding design briefs. At a higher level, predictions of climate change and looming global environmental destruction have added weight to professions that are able to contribute


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effective solutions with tangible results. if landscape architects are to lead work in this field they must look hard at what it is their profession can provide.

The many territories into which the landscape architect’s expertise strays are often guarded by too few and too tentatively, leaving the profession’s juris-diction open to attack. while precedent is important, stereotypes can be disa-bling. in the context of complex urban design briefs involving urban form, architecture, planning and design guidelines and more, the professional who specifies the plants to be used in designs by others can, inevitably, be placed in a marginalised role. Plant knowledge, particularly about Australian native plants, was a real strength and a powerful currency in the early days of the pro-fession. Today, an in-depth knowledge of plants is often eclipsed by the need for knowledge about a range of things that contribute to successful landscape design with increasingly complex construction materials and details. Land-scape architects find themselves competing with architects and engineers who may not know much about plants but lay claim to the constructed elements of buildings and gardens or control of an urban design brief. At the same time, if landscape architects do not keep up with developments in plant knowledge they risk losing territory to people who do, and thus the possible erosion of expertise.

in the late 1990s the AiLA’s Landscape Professions registration Board introduced the registered Landscape Architect scheme and after 2007 the term ‘Associate’ was abolished outright in favor of ‘registered’. There were doubtless many reasons for the changes but at an institutional level it also sig-nified a jostling for standing in relation to architecture and other professions. Professional associations representing individuals working in horticulture and landscape construction, such as the Landscape Contractors’ Association (formed in 1979) and the Australian Landscape industry Association, rep-resent a degree of competition for landscape architecture, particularly in the small-scale domestic market, in which, generally speaking, many landscape architects are not engaged. This is a lost opportunity for self-promotion: domestic design is visible to the public and through the media and other public forums, the broader public can acquire an understanding of the merits (and existence) of landscape architecture. Small-scale environmental projects such as green walls, green roofs and rooftop gardens are attracting increasing


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public interest and are well within the competitive domain of horticulture and landscape construction industries. At the other end of the scale, landscape assessment and planning (launched in the 1970s and 1980s) is a field into which too few landscape architects are moving but which arguably represents one of the most important activities in dealing with the state of the environ-ment we live in and share.

waysforward

There is much to be appreciated in the environmental achievements of the array of people who constitute the predecessors of landscape architecture in Australia. Many operated outside the occupational definition of ‘landscape architect’ yet made contributions both to landscape architecture and to environmental thinking. The complex ways in which landscape architects in the 1960s negotiated the unfurling of the environmental movement, whilst establishing a profession in response, needs also to be appreciated. And direct engagement – the physical building of gardens – by landscape architects determined to create a renewed appreciation for the distinctiveness of the Australian landscape remains one hallmark in the evolution of Australian landscape design. The very foundations of the AiLA itself, born of the experience of a diverse array of professions and their respective organisations on the one hand, and of heartfelt grassroots artists and environmentalists – fighters – on the other, delivers contemporary landscape architects a heritage of which they could be proud. One thing has remained relatively constant, and that is the tendency for landscape architecture to be practised in the wake of decisions to change landscape, be it infrastructure or other forms of development. Viewed one way, this presents the opportunity and the great challenge for exploring ideas for landscape in the broadest possible sense – the more innovative the better – but it also seldom allows landscape architects to be pre-emptive.

it would be overstating the case to suggest that all landscape architects must be activists if the value of landscape is to be defended and protected. At times some landscape architects felt that activism was a course of action they should have taken but failed to do so. Activism and resistance often sit uneasily within the organised world of professions. The narrative of Papadakis


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Park, with which this book commenced, in some ways reflects my reading of the aspirations many landscape architects hold but fail to fulfil, often not for want of trying.

Landscape architects need to have a strong voice within forums containing multiple professions, especially architecture, planning and engineering. it is in discussions and meetings that the differences in the way professions think are most apparent and where arguments for the value of landscape are best won. in order to do this they require, among other skills, the ability to artfully present ideas that often sit within an abstract world. The people, projects, organi-sations, institutes and events identified in this book suggest how landscape architecture was made in Australia – how it has, or has not, been able to com-pete in the larger system of professions with which it identifies. That system may change as society changes, but the notion that the designed landscape has value and meaning persists and pervades.

Buildings are static; they might fade over time but they generally do not grow and evolve of their own accord. Landscapes, on the other hand, do evolve as their inherent living systems change; there is much about them that is ephemeral and intangible and, likewise, our experience of them is often dif-ficult to place a value on. it is only with an understanding of the ephemeral-ity and intangibility of what landscape architecture seeks to protect, defend, enhance and promote that one can begin to understand fully the significance of the profession. And it is only with an understanding of how the profession evolved that one can appreciate landscape architecture’s battles – recorded in the minutes of meetings and the reports of campaigns and decision-making – as historic markers of the profession’s worth.


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Acknowledgments

Landscape architecture in Australia is an under-researched field. This book attempts to redress the situation by explaining origins and significance. in many cases this has meant charting new ground but it also has meant drawing upon some important sources that, collectively, provided a wealth of information on this topic.

People i have been privileged to meet over the years include Peter Aker-man, Marion Blackwell, Craig Boulter, Jean Brodie-Hall, Peter Cala, richard Clough, Allan Correy, Tim ealey, James earle, robin edmond, robert (Bob) elliot, gordon Ford, gwen Ford, Sue Forrester, Carol Frank-Mas, grace Fraser, Don gazzard, Struan gillfillan, John gray, Lew Harding, robert (Bob) Hart, Margaret Hendry, Frank Keenan, Tom Kneen, richard Leplas-trier, Bruce Mackenzie, ray Margules, Bill Molyneux, Tony Moulds, ralph neale, Patricia newton, Tish Oldham, edna Pollard, Stuart Pullyblank, ron rayment, Oline richards, Bruce rickard, wayne Schmidt, Lorand Sebestyen, george Seddon, Phyl Simons, John Stevens, Mike Tooby, James warren, Trevor westmore, glen wilson and David Yencken.

Many practitioners responded to calls for information or clarification and to all these people i owe a debt of gratitude and trust that the final product is worthy of their support. They include rob Adams, Alan Atkins, ian Bishop, Steve Calhoun, Bill Chandler, Alun Chapman, Oi Choong, Bruce echberg, Craig guthrie, Leonard Lynch, Bruce Mackenzie, Tony McCormick, ian Oelrichs, John van Pelt, ronald Powell, nell rickard, Vladimir Sitta, Paul Thompson, Christopher wren and rodney wulff.


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A number of written sources require acknowledgment. The Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens (2002) was crucial in amassing a wealth of informa-tion on a broad range of people, events and places critical to a history of the designed landscape, although less useful in terms of information on landscape architects of more recent decades. An important source of information was the archives of the Australian institute of Landscape Architects (AiLA), held at its offices in Canberra. The AiLA archive, managed so well by Margaret Hendry, had many valuable primary sources in the form of resumés, newslet-ters, minutes of meetings, letters and surveys. Although the AiLA national Office co-operated in making documents available to me, it had no part in shaping the outcomes of the book. The Cultural Landscape research Centre established in 1985 by Helen Armstrong and Craig Burton provided valuable insight into people such as Harry Howard. Crucial repositories of informa-tion were: the State Library of Victoria; Public records Office, Melbourne; University of Melbourne Archives; Monash University Archives; water Cor-poration Archives (Perth); Battye Library Archives (Perth); University of new South wales Archive; and the University of Melbourne libraries including the Baillieu Library (rare Books and Special Collection), the Leighton irwin Library (Architecture, Building and Planning), the eastern resource Centre and the Land and Food resources Libraries.

A number of individuals gave me access to their private collections of drawings and manuscripts, including John Stevens, Marion Blackwell and Bruce rickard. with great fortune in 1994, before i had embarked on my doctoral research, i stumbled upon a physical collection constituting an exhi-bition of landscape architectural work from across the nation that was curated by students of landscape architecture at the University of Melbourne together with Alex rattray in 1982. it consists of over 150 panels and at the time it was about to be discarded. i saved it from almost certain erasure, not realising at the time that it would be an important part in forming an understanding of the profession’s activities from the 1960s through to the early 1980s.

Australian and overseas writers and historians to whom i am indebted to for their published research and their support include richard Aitken, Cath-erin Bull, richard Clough, Harriet edquist, Paul Fox, robert Freestone, Philip goad, Timothy Hubbard, David Jones, Ulrike Krippner, Anne Latreille, Lilli


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Lička, Phillipa McMahon, warwick Mayne-wilson, Jeannie Sim, Marc Treib, Christopher Vernon, James weirick, georgina whitehead and raymond wright.

The preparedness of colleagues and friends to offer information and insight was absolutely critical in helping me broaden my perspective. in 2004, george Seddon provided the impetus for me to turn my PhD into a book and, years later, Catherin Bull, Julian Millie and Hannah Lewi encouraged me to finish it. rachel Salmond edited an early version of the manuscript and Janice Bird was crucial (and patient) in her role as copy-editor. To both of these people i am most grateful. David Heymann and Jacqueline Monie helped compile the images and Andrius Lipšys worked on the image scans and enhancement. i am indebted to Hamish Freeman who designed the cover and did such an excellent job of it. Many colleagues and friends read part or all of the manuscript prior to publication and offered their thoughts. These include ross King, Hannah Lewi, Lyn Pool, grant revell, Oline richards, Christina Dyson, Kim Dovey, nigel Bertram, Philip goad and Christopher Vernon. Dennis williamson gave substantial assistance in developing the text on Visual Management Systems and scenic perception. ian Bishop, Jan Schapper and Alan Atkins were particularly helpful in clarifying the people and events in the history of landscape assessment and planning. i am indebted to Chris-tian Car and the students of University of natural resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, for working with me on the formative years of Karl Langer and ernst Fuchs in Vienna. Over the years i have been supported by Dai Le, Mary Lewis, Tanya Court, Anne Bourke, Ken Duxbury, John Hawker, Helen Page, Keith D’Agostino, ross wissing, Mary Sullivan, Tri Le, Somchit Ter-rell, Ollie and Lil, Jenny Bottcher, Danius Kesminas, Andrew Hutson, ryland Fox, Mark Vanderwerf, Helen Saniga, neil Kelly, Peter Saniga, Danutė and Bruce Morison, and georges and Jeanne Pool. The Australian garden History Society has been omnipresent over the last fifteen years.

without the considerable financial support of the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning (including the ellis Stones Memorial Fund) and the Melbourne School of Design of the University of Melbourne, this publication would not have been possible. i also owe sincere thanks to the many friends, colleagues and students at the University of Melbourne.


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Finally, it was Lyn Pool and rudi, Stanys and Clyde Saniga who read my work, often prompted me to finish it, put up with my distractedness, and with-out whom this book would not have been possible.


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Notes

introduction1 J Sim and J Seto (1996) Inventory of Historic Cultural Landscapes in Queensland: Final Report: Stage 1,

Queensland Branch, AgHS, Commonwealth of Australia, QUT Digital repository, <eprints.qut.edu.au>, p. xvi.

1Landscapearchitectureincontext1 e Stones (c. 1970) ‘Priority: Landscaping’, unpublished manuscript, Melbourne, p. 5.2 Tr garnett (1990) ‘The natural look that ellis Stones made “happen” ’, in g Seddon (ed.) (2001)

From the Country, Blooming Books, Melbourne, p. 57.3 FL Olmsted (1865) letter from FL Olmsted to C Vaux, 1 August, Bear Valley, in VP ranney (ed.)

(1990) The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: Volume V The California Frontier 1863–1865, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp. 422–23.

4 JC Loudon (1840) The Landscape Gardening and Landscape Architecture of the Late Humphry Repton, Longman, London, p. vii.

5 Ce Beveridge and D Schuyler (eds) (1983) The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: Volume III Creating Central Park 1857–1861, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 64.

6 FL Olmsted (1882) ‘The spoils of the park’ in FL Olmsted Jnr and T Kimball (ed.) 1973, Forty Years of Landscape Architecture: Central Park, MiT Press, Cambridge, pp. 117–55.

7 nT newton (1971) Design on the Land: the Development of Landscape Architecture, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Mass., p. 273

8 A Abbott (1988) The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; AJ Saniga (2004) ‘An uneasy profession: defining the landscape architect in Australia 1912–1972’, PhD thesis, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne.

9 T Mariage (1999) The World of André Le Nôtre, trans. 1999, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, pp. 30–32.

10 e Orsenna (2001) André Le Nôtre: Gardener to the Sun King, george Braziller, new York, p. 24.

11 H walpole (1995[1782]) The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening: Introduction by John Dixon Hunt, Ursus Press, new York, p. 26.

12 H walpole (1995[1782]) The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, p. 8.13 CC McLaughlin (ed.) (1977) The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: Volume 1 The Formative Years 1822–

1852, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, p. 9.

2originsandprecedents1 FL Olmsted (1865) ‘The project of a great park for San Francisco’, in San Francisco Daily Evening

Bulletin, August 4, in VP ranney (ed.) (1990) The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted: Volume V, p. 429.2 FL Olmsted (circa 1860–1870) ‘notes on the pioneer condition’, in VP ranney (ed.) (1990) The

Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, Volume V, p. 753.3 T Shepherd (1836) Lectures on Landscape Gardening in Australia, william Mcgarvie, Sydney.4 r wright (1989) The Bureaucrats’ Domain: Space and the Public Interest in Victoria 1836–84, Oxford

University Press, Melbourne.


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5 wA Sanderson (1932), ‘The alienation of the Melbourne parks’, Victorian Historical Magazine, vol. XiV, no. 4, p. 150.

6 g whitehead (1997) Civilising the City: A History of Melbourne’s Public Gardens, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.

7 g whitehead (2008) ‘The influence of environmental thought in Melbourne’s nineteenth-century public gardens’, Australian Garden History, vol. 20, no. 1, p. 13; gP Marsh (1965 [1864]) Man and Nature, ed. D Lowenthal, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.

8 C Hodgkinson (1845) Australia, from Port Macquarie to Moreton Bay, T & w Boone, London, p. 242.9 r wright (1989) The Bureaucrats’ Domain, p. 99.10 St Kilda Council Minute Books (1867) Meeting Minutes, City of Port Phillip, 10 June, Melbourne.11 r wright (1989) The Bureaucrats’ Domain, p. 255; citing The Age (1893) 7 September; Illustrated

Australian News (1893) 2 October.12 P Fox (2004) Clearings: Six Colonial Gardeners and their Landscapes, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne.13 wr guilfoyle (1909) Australian Plants Suitable for Gardens, Parks, Timber Reserves, etc, whitcombe

and Tombs Ltd, Melbourne, p. 18.14 r Spencer (1986) ‘Fashions in street tree planting in Victoria’ in Landscape Australia, vol. 8, no. 4,

p. 304.15 P Fox (2004) Clearings: Six Colonial Gardeners and their Landscapes.16 r Freestone (2001) ‘imagineering the City Beautiful: Parks, gardens, and town planning thought’, in

g whitehead (ed.) (2001), Planting the Nation, Australian garden History Society, Melbourne, p. 162.

17 L gilbert (2001) The Little Giant: The Life & Work of Joseph Henry Maiden 1859–1925, Kardoorair Press, Sydney.

18 D Jones (2007) Adelaide Parklands and Squares Cultural Landscape Assessment Study Vol 1, Corporation of the City of Adelaide, p. 43.

19 r Blomfield and Fi Thomas (1892) The Formal Garden in England, Macmillan, London, pp. 223–24.20 TH Mawson (1911) Civic Art: Studies in Town Planning, Parks, Boulevards and Open Spaces, BT

Batsford, London, p. 162.21 H edquist (2004) Harold Desbrowe-Annear A Life in Architecture, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne,

p. 196.22 J weirick (1998) ‘Spirituality and symbolism in the work of the griffins’, in A watson (1998)

Beyond Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin – America, Australia, India, Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, p. 64.

23 w reps (1997) Canberra 1912 Plans and Planners of the Australian Capital Competition, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, p. 99.

24 C Vernon (2005) ‘ “The silence of the mountains and the music of the sea”: The landscape artistry of Marion Mahony griffin’, in D wood (ed.) (2005) Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature, northwestern University Press, illinois, p. 16.

25 C Vernon (2005)‘ “The silence of the mountains and the music of the sea” ’, pp. 5–40.26 g wilson, n Onas and M Pape (2004) ‘Herborn House east Hawthorn: A heritage assessment’,

Student research report prepared for Andrew Saniga, University of Melbourne.27 C Vernon (1998) ‘The landscape art of walter Burley griffin’, in A watson (ed.) (1998) Beyond

Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin, pp. 92–100.28 P reid (2002) Canberra Following Griffin: A Design History of Australia’s National Capital, national

Archives, Canberra, p. 115.29 JH Maiden (1919) extract from seven-page report to the Surveyor-general, in Department of the

interior (1970) Canberra Botanic Gardens, The griffin Press, Adelaide, p. 14 & 16.30 J weirick (1998) ‘Spirituality and symbolism in the work of griffins’, in A watson (ed.) (1998) Beyond

Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin, p. 82.31 M walker (1998) ‘The development at Castlecrag’ in J Turnbull and PY navaretti (eds) The Griffins in

Australia and India, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne, p. 81.32 r Freestone & D nichols (2003) ‘recreation, conservation and community: The secret suburban


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spaces of walter Burley and Marion Mahony griffin’, in M Bourke & C Morris (eds) (2003) Studies in Australian Garden History, Australian garden History Society, Canberra, pp. 3–20.

33 M griffin (2005) ‘Angophora lanceolata’ in D wood (ed.) (2005) Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature, p. 87.

34 TH Mawson (1911) Civic Art, p. 16.35 wB griffin (1923) ‘The modern architect’s field: its limits and discouragements’, The Australian Home

Builder, no. 6, p. 38.36 wB griffin (1928) ‘The outdoor arts in Australia’, in Advance! Australia: A Monthly Magazine of

Australian Citizenship and Ideals in Religion, Education, Literature, Science, Art, Music, Social Life, Politics, vol. 4, no. 5, p. 210.

37 wB griffin (1923) ‘The modern architect’s field’, p. 38.38 H edquist (2001) ‘Arts and Crafts gardens in Melbourne and their legacy’, in g whitehead (ed.)

(2001) Planting the Nation, p. 112.39 e walling (1943) Gardens in Australia: Their Design and Care, Oxford University Press, Melbourne,

p. 3.40 r ratcliffe (1990) Australia’s Master Gardener: Paul Sorensen and His Gardens, Kangaroo Press, Sydney.41 C Morris (2008) Lost Gardens of Sydney, Historic Houses Trust, nSw, p. 133.42 e walling (1938) ‘Letters to garden lovers’, Australian Home Beautiful, March 1, in edna walling

(2000) Letters to Garden Lovers 1937 to 1948, new Holland Publishers, Sydney.43 e walling (1945) ‘Letters to garden lovers’, pp. 265–66.44 AP winzenried (1991) Green grows our garden: A centenary history of horticultural education at Burnley,

Hyland House, Melbourne, p. 42 quoting e walling (1966) in College Magazine, p. 31.45 e walling quoted in M Davis ‘Proposed Australian institute of Landscape Architects summary of

questionnaire – 1962–63, opinions given through the questionnaire’ AiLA Archives, Canberra.46 J Mulhauser (2009) ‘Hugh Linaker, landscape gardener to the Lunacy Department: a unique position’,

Australian Garden History, 2009, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 12–13.47 JP Adam and M Bradbury (2004) ‘Fred Tschopp (1905–1980), Landscape architect: new Zealand’s

first modern practitioner, 1929–1932’, in Landscape Review, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 43–59.48 n Bunker, J Mulhauser, g Taylor and M Tirpak (unpub.) (2007) ‘The life and times of Hugh

Linaker’, Student research project prepared for Andrew Saniga, University of Melbourne; Landscape Heritage research group (2009) ‘The Cohuna recreation reserve’, Student research project prepared for Andrew Saniga, University of Melbourne.

49 M Fletcher (1993) ‘Classical symmetry versus geraniums’, Australian Garden History, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 6–10.

50 e Fuchs (Fooks) (1932) Stadt in Streifen (The City in Strips), PhD thesis, Technical University of Vienna, excerpts trans. by C Car, March 2011, Vienna, p. 102.

51 H edquist (2001) Ernest Fooks: Architect, School of Architecture and Design, rMiT University, Melbourne, p. 13.

52 P goad (1996) ‘Mary Kathleen and weipa – Two model mining towns for post-war Australia’, Transition, no. 49/50, p. 45.

53 r Boyd (1960) The Australian Ugliness, Penguin Books, Melbourne, p. 123.

3spiritofthepioneers1 See cover page of rH Patterson (1953) The Climate, Soils, Plant Ecology, Arboricultural Activities and

Vegetative Development LRW Project Areas, North West Arid Interior South Australia, Dept. of works, Melbourne; See also references to ‘Harry Patterson’ and the iLA in H Oakman, 1979, ‘An evening with Harry Oakman’, 16 October 1979, Occasional Paper no. 1, Australian institute of Landscape Architects Queensland group.

2 P Morton (1989) Fire Across the Desert: Woomera and the Anglo-Australian Joint Project 1946–1980, Australian government Publishing Service, Canberra, p. 319.

3 e Pollard & P newton (2000) interview with author, 10 May, reservoir, Vic.4 T Harris (1988) excerpt quoted from ‘My interest in landscape design’ in J webb (1998) Thistle Y


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Harris, Surrey Beatty and Sons, Sydney, p. 191.5 BAL rickard (2007) pers. comm., note to author, 23 March, Melbourne.6 B Mackenzie (2003) interview with author, 1 March, Manly, nSw.7 HM Bloom (1966) ‘Australian institute of Landscape Architects initial Corporate Membership’,

27 August, AiLA Archives.8 J Stevens (2000) interview with author, 31 May, Olinda, Vic.9 Mayne-wilson & Associates (2001) ‘Draft heritage study and review of proposed landscape master

plan of the Mcelhone reserve’, report prepared for South Sydney City Council, section 2.2.2.10 LD Pryor (1992) ‘Transcript of oral history: Lindsay Dixon Pryor interviewed by Matthew Higgins’,

July, Canberra, ACT, p. 203.11 L Sebestyen (2003) interview with author, 9 January, nunawading ,Vic.12 Sun-Herald (c. 1958) ‘A landscapist hates our “tidy” gardens’, courtesy of Margaret Hendry & AiLA

Archives, Canberra.13 C evans & B Buchanan (2003) ‘Conserving post world war ii designed landscapes in Sydney,

Australia: issues and approaches’, in M Bourke and C Morris (eds) Studies in Australian Garden History, Australian garden History Society, Canberra, p. 24.

14 B wright 2001, Expectations of a Better World: Planning Australian Communities, royal Australian Planning institute, Canberra, p. 54; wF Connell et al. (1995) Australia’s First: A History of the University of Sydney, Volume 2 1940–1990, Hale & iremonger, Sydney, p. 277.

15 B Juddery (1969) ‘Modern “tribune” of the people’ in Canberra Times (n.d.) p. 15, from AiLA Archives, Canberra.

16 D winston (1966) ‘Congress iX ’66: Concluding address’, Australian Planning Institute Journal, vol. 4, no. 4, p. 262.

17 i Sinnamon (1985) ‘An educated eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 1, p. 49.

18 i Meder & J eiblmayr (2009) Haus Hoch: Das Hochhaus Herrengasse und seine beruhmten Bewohner, (german) Verlagsburo w.gmbH., Metroverlag, p. 46.

19 Kl Langer (1944) Sub-tropical Housing, Faculty of engineering, University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7.20 D Jones (2000) ‘The evolution of planning education in South Australia: The role of gavin walkley’,

Australian Planner, vol. 37, no. 2, p. 74.21 P Harrison (1966) ‘City planning in Australia: what went wrong?’ in J wilkes (ed.) Australian Cities:

Chaos or Planned Growth?, Angus & robertson, Sydney, pp. 60–87.22 J Owens (n.d.) in M Davis, ‘Proposed Australian institute of Landscape Architects summary of

questionnaire – 1962–63’, AiLA Archives, Canberra, p. 3.23 LT Carron (1985) A History of Forestry in Australia, Australian national University Press, Canberra,

pp. 207–08.24 LD Pryor (1992) ‘Transcript of oral history’, p. 3.25 Sr Margules (1982) ‘Canberra’s landscape’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 4, p. 274.26 LD Pryor (1992) ‘Transcript of oral history’, pp. 40–41.27 LD Pryor (1992) ‘Transcript of oral history’, p. 41.28 BT Dickson (1935) Botanical Gardens in Canberra: A Report Dealing with Scope, Site, Buildings, Cost of

Maintenance, etc., Australian national Botanic gardens, Canberra.29 Tr garnett (1990) ‘The natural look that ellis Stones made “happen” ’, 11 February, in g Seddon

(ed.) (2001) From the Country, p. 55.30 e Stones (1971) Australian Garden Design, Macmillan, Melbourne, p. 10.31 e walling (1938) ‘Letter to garden lovers’, Australian Home Beautiful, 1 December, in edna walling

(2000) Letters to Garden Lovers 1937 to 1948, p. 76.32 A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, Mullaya Publications, Melbourne, p. 9.33 A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, p. 72.34 g Ford (1999) interview with author, 23 March, eltham, Vic.35 D Yencken (1970) ‘Failure’, Architect (Melbourne), vol. 3, no. 9, July/August pp. 20–21; D Yencken

(1970) ‘Failure 2’, Architect (Melbourne), vol. 3, no. 10, September/October pp. 20–22.


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36 P Thompson (2002) Australian Planting Design, Lothian Books, Melbourne.37 g wilson (2011) Landscaping for Australia, glen wilson and Hansen Printing, wangaratta.38 B Mackenzie (1979) ‘Alternative Parkland’, Landscape Australia, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 19–27.

4unevenpaths1 S Crowe (1958) The Landscape of Power, Architectural Press, London; S Crowe (1960) The Landscape

of Roads, Architectural Press, London; S Crowe (1966) Forestry in the Landscape, Architectural Press, London.

2 See K green (1976) ‘History of engineering works on the Australian landscape’, in g Seddon & M Davis (eds) Man and Landscape in Australia: Towards an Ecological Vision, Australian government Publication Service, Canberra, p. 110.

3 P Spooner (1970) ‘The landscape of roads’, in Australian institute of Landscape Architects (1970) Proceedings of the Conference The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment conducted by The Australian Institute of Landscape Architects at the Prince Philip Theatre, the University of Melbourne, 30th August, 1969, AiLA, Canberra, pp. 27–32.

4 P Spooner (1981) ‘The University interviews Project, the University of new South wales’, in V Barker (ed.) ‘Peter Spooner’, interviewed by Laurie Dillon, Faculty of Architecture, University of nSw Archives, Sydney, p. 36.

5 B rickard (2007) interview with author, 8 March, woolloomooloo, nSw.6 A Powers (2002) ‘Landscape in Britain’, in M Treib (ed.)The Architecture of Landscape, pp. 62–63,

quoting g Jellicoe (1983) The Guelph Lectures on Landscape Design, University of guelph, Ontario, p. 130.

7 nT newton (1971) Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape Architecture, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Mass. p. 391.

8 Australian Planning Institute Journal (1970) ‘Honor for Federal Vice-President’, vol. 8, no. 2, p. 56.9 J Oldham (1981) ‘interview with John Oldham and Margaret Pitt Morison’, in Plans for Life Series

with Jane Fleming (1981) transcript of sound recording broadcast on 6nr, 10 november, Battye Library, Perth, wA, p. 5.

10 J Oldham, ‘interview with John Oldham and Margaret Pitt Morison’, in Plans for Life Series with Jane Fleming p. 6.

11 See J goddard (1986) ‘John Oldham’ in D Bromfield (ed.), Aspects of Perth Modernism 1924–1929, pp. 38–39.

12 J Oldham (1959) ‘Home landscaping’, Architect, March, p 28.13 P Spooner (1958) ‘Landscape versus architecture’, Architecture in Australia, January– March, p. 97.14 J Oldham (1959) ‘Home landscaping’, The Architect, March, p. 30.15 J & r Oldham, (1997) interview with S graham-Taylor. Transcription 7 november 2000 by A Saniga.16 New Zealand Gardener (1966) ‘enhancing the beauty of engineering projects: role of the landscape

architect in eliminating scars of progress’, vol. 22, April, p. 368.17 J & r Oldham (1997) interview with Sue graham-Taylor, 24 March, Swanbourne, wA.18 JSH Le Page (1986) Building a State: The Story of the Public Works Department of Western Australia

1829–1985, water Authority of wA, Perth, p. 483.19 Metropolitan water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Department (1961), Serpentine Dam Official

Opening pamphlet, water Corporation, Perth.20 J Oldham (1966) ‘engineering and environment: An address to the 1966 conference of the nZ

institution of engineers’, New Zealand Engineering, vol. 21, p. 207.21 r Hillman (2003) pers. comm., letter to author, 2 July.22 J Oldham (1977) ‘Landscape of water resources,’ Landscape Architecture in the Community, AiLA

Conference Proceedings, Perth, p. 3.23 J Oldham (1966) ‘engineering and environment’, p. 209.24 r (Bob) elliot (2000) interview with author, 27 September 2000, Applecross, wA.25 Metropolitan water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage Department (c. 1961) Serpentine Dam pamphlet.


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26 C Sharkey (1988) ‘robert Juniper’s national Bank mural of 1954’, in D Bromfield, (ed.) (1988) Essays on Art and Architecture in Western Australia, Centre for Fine Arts, University of western Australia, Perth, p. 50.

27 J Oldham (1966) ‘engineering and environment’, p. 210.28 Metropolitan water Supply: Sewerage and Drainage Department (c. 1961) Serpentine Dam pamphlet.29 e Maclagan (1949) The Bayeux Tapestry, Penguin Books, Melbourne, pp 49–50.30 C Sharkey (1988) ‘robert Juniper’s national Bank mural of 1954’, pp. 50–51.31 J & r Oldham (1997) interview with S graham-Taylor.32 J & r Oldham (1997) interview with S graham-Taylor.33 J Brodie-Hall (née Verschuer), interview with author, 26 September 2000, west Perth.34 P Spooner (1981) ‘ The University interviews Project’, p. 33.35 L Matheson (1980) Still Learning, Macmillan, Melbourne, p. 13.36 J Marshall (1998) Jock Marshall: One Armed Warrior, Australian Science Archives Project, ASAPweb

24 February 1998; <www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/exhib/marshall/marshall.htm>.37 L robin (1998) Defending the Little Desert, Melbourne University Press.38 Marshall (1960) letter from Marshall to Matheson, 10 August, MC/O/1 folio 39, Monash University

Archives.39 Bates Smart & McCutcheon (1960), ‘Principles governing landscape development’, rB/LP, Job no

3857, 20.07.1960, MC/O/1, Monash University Archives.40 Bates Smart & McCutcheon (1961), document M425 rB/LP, Job no. 3857, 09.05.1961, MC/O/4.1

folio 1, Monash University Archives.41 J Stevens (2000), interview with author, 31 May 2000, Olinda, Vic.42 J rickard (1986) ‘Monash: The “University-in-a-Hurry” ’ in Fw Kent & DD Cuthbert (eds), Making

Monash: A Twenty-Five Year History, Monash University gallery, Department of Visual Arts, and the Department of History, Monash University, Melbourne, p. 6.

43 Marshall (1961) letter from Marshall to Matheson, 1 September, MOn 22 item 524 folio 29, Monash University Archives.

44 A Latreille (1991) quoting JS Turner in, ‘John Stewart Turner 1908–1991’, Landscape Australia, vol. 13, no. 3, p. 198.

45 Memorandum grounds Committee (1967) ‘Minutes of the Planting Sub-committee 26.06.67’, 26 June, MC/O/4.1, Monash University Archives.

46 Marshall (1966) letter from Marshall to Matheson, 13 September MC/O/1 Part 2, Monash University Archives.

47 Boycott (1966) letter from Boycott to Matheson, ‘Landscaping and planting’, Mon 22 folio 203, 19 April, Monash University Archives.

48 L Matheson (1966) ‘Monash University: Landscape design in the university’, MOn 22, 23 August, Monash University Archives.

49 Marshall (1966) letter from Marshall to Matheson, 30 August, MC/O/1.2, Monash University Archives.

50 Marshall (1966) letter from Marshall to Matheson, 13 September.51 Monash University Property and grounds (1966), ‘VC’s sketch 13/10/66’, sketch plan for the Forum

landscape, Drawing no. XF O 504 66 S, Monash University Property and Buildings Archives.52 T ealey (2000), interview with author, 20 June 2000, Coronet Bay, Vic.53 g Ford (1999) interview with author.54 Memorandum grounds Committee (1967) memorandum dated 29 September, MC/O/1 part 3, folio

30-31 MM/965/0, Monash University Archives.55 Memorandum grounds Committee (1974) ‘Minutes of the grounds Committee meeting’, 16 May

MC/O/1.4 folio 53, Monash University Archives.

5aninstituteforidentity1 Anonymous newspaper clippings circa 1956 included ‘She has £60,000 to spend on gardens’, and ‘Her

plans now are blossoming: girl’s garden is 77 acres’, two unidentified newspaper clippings found in


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scrapbook of Margaret Hendry, AiLA Archives.2 P Spooner (1991) ‘reminiscences of “The Dark Age” ’, Landscape Australia, vol. 13, no. 3, p. 206.3 C Frank-Mas (2000) interview with author, 2 February, Caulfield South, Vic.4 g Jellicoe (1987) ‘Sir geoffrey Jellicoe’, in S Harvey (ed.) (1987) Reflections on Landscape: The Lives

and Work of Six British Landscape Architects, gower Technical Press, england, p. 6.5 B Hackett (1987) ‘Brian Hackett’, in S Harvey (ed.) (1987) Reflections on Landscape, p. 87.6 AP winzenried (1991) Green Grows Our Garden: A Centenary History of Horticultural Education at

Burnley, Hyland House, Melbourne, pp. 91–92.7 M Hendry (2000) interview with author, 27 April, ACT.8 West Australian (c. 1964) ‘Architect wants to unite experts on landscaping’, February.9 J Correy & A Correy (1968) ‘The landscape treatment of Canberra’, Architecture in Australia, August,

pp. 627–29.10 J gray (1994) ‘Commonwealth Park, Canberra: A review of its history 1913 to 1993’, research report

to the ACT Heritage Council, p. 19.11 r Clough (1982) ‘Landscape of Canberra: A review’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 3,

p. 196. 12 P Harrison (1988) ‘The national scene since world war ii: Urban planning and urban issues: 1951–

72’, Australian Planner, vol. 26, no. 3, p. 26.13 J Overall (1995) Canberra; Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, BPr Publishers, ACT, p. 45.14 P Harrison and r Freestone (ed.) (1995) Walter Burley Griffin: Landscape Architect, national Library of

Australia, Canberra.15 B Mackenzie (2003) interview with author.16 A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, Mullaya Publications, Melbourne, pp. 70–71.17 A Latreille (1990) The Natural Garden: Ellis Stones: His Life and Work, Viking O’ neil, Melbourne, p. 118.18 See A Knox (1971) in ALiA & ACF, Landscape Architecture in Conservation: Proceedings of the

Conference of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects Held in Association with the Australian Conservation Foundation, 19–22 August, Adelaide, South Australia, The griffin Press, Adelaide, p. 36

19 e Stones (c. 1970) ‘Priority: Landscaping’, unpublished manuscript, p. 10.20 g Ford (1999) interview with author, 23 March, eltham, Vic.21 D winston (n.d.) ‘Opinion regarding proposed Australian institute of Landscape Architects’, in M

Davis ‘Proposed Australian institute of Landscape Architects summary of questionnaire – 1962–63’, AiLA Archives, Canberra, p. 4.

22 BJ McLoughlin (1988) ‘Origins and development of the royal Australian Planning institute’, Australian Planner, vol. 26, no. 4, p. 16–17.

23 See for example, FL Olmsted (1865) letter from FL Olmsted to C Vaux, 1 August, Bear Valley, in VP ranney (ed.) (1990) The Papers of Frederick Law Olmsted, pp. 422–23.

24 r rayment (1967) ‘The “new” architects’, Architect (Melbourne), March–April, pp. 13–14.

25 B Mackenzie (1966) ‘The landscape environment – a wasted potential’, Architecture in Australia, vol. 55, no. 6, november, pp. 111–20.

26 A Knox (1975) Living in the Environment, pp. 71–72.27 B Mann (1966) ‘Thoughts for consideration of Selection Committee and interim Council’, 14

October, cited in M Jones (unpub.) (1997) ‘Beryl Mann: An investigation into her life, career and involvement in the establishment of landscape architecture in Australia’, unpublished investigation report, Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning, University of Melbourne.

28 B Mann (1968) ‘report on landscape education in Australia for the Australian institute of Landscape Architects’, August, AiLA, Canberra, p. 1.

29 g Barwick (1972) ‘Vice-President’s plea to save landscape’, Australian Conservation Foundation Incorporated Newsletter, vol. 4, no. 4, p. 5.

30 B Mackenzie (1973) ‘Proposed amendments to education policy’, February, AiLA Archives, Canberra. 31 B Hackett (1987) ‘Brian Hackett’, in S Harvey (ed.) (1987) Reflections on Landscape, p. 91.32 See biographical note in g Seddon (1970) ‘The quality of our landscape’, in AiLA Proceedings of the


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Conference: The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment conducted by the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects at the Prince Philip Theatre, the University of Melbourne, 30th August, 1969, AiLA, Canberra, p. 13.

33 g Seddon (1970) ‘The quality of our landscape’, in AiLA Proceedings of the Conference: The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment, p. 18.

34 A Knox & B Mackenzie (1970) ‘The indigenous environment as a concept for applied landscape design’, in AiLA Proceedings of the Conference: The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment, p 48.

35 A Knox & B Mackenzie (1970) ‘The indigenous environment as a concept for applied landscape design’, p. 40.

36 A Knox & B Mackenzie (1970) ‘The indigenous environment as a concept for applied landscape design’, p. 43.

37 A Knox & B Mackenzie (1970) ‘The indigenous environment as a concept for applied landscape design’, pp. 40–41.

38 Sr Margules (1970) ‘Landscape/architecture and forestry’, in AiLA Proceedings of the Conference: The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment, pp. 37–38.

39 L robin (1998) Defending the Little Desert: The Rise of Ecological Consciousness in Australia, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, p. 146.

40 LD Pryor, ‘Summary – education and landscape architecture’, in AiLA (1970) Proceedings of the Conference: The Landscape Architect and the Australian Environment, p. 53.

41 ‘interview with Milo Dunphy’, 6 July 1993, cited in D Hutton & L Connors (1999) A History of the Australian Environment Movement, Cambridge University Press, p. 108.

42 B Mackenzie (1982) ‘The conflicts of conservation’, in Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 177.43 J Brodie-Hall (née Verschuer) (2000) interview with author, 26 September, west Perth, wA.44 AiLA & ACF (1971) ‘recommended action and conclusions’, in AiLA and ACF, Landscape

Architecture in Conservation, p. 59.45 JS Turner (1971) ‘extractive industries and the landscape’, in AiLA & ACF (1971) Landscape

Architecture in Conservation, p. 24.46 g Fraser (1999) interview with author.47 M Dunphy (1956) ‘Up the garden path’, Architecture in Australia, January–March, p. 28.48 P Spooner (1981) ‘The University interviews Project, The University of new South wales’, in V

Barker (ed.) ‘Peter Spooner’, interviewed by Laurie Dillon, Faculty of Architecture, University of nSw Archives, Sydney, p 38.

6Makingground1 B Mackenzie (2003) interview with author, 1 March, Manly, nSw.2 g Seddon (1982) ‘introduction to exhibition’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 4, p. 273.3 See P goad (2002), ‘new land, new language: shifting grounds in Australian attitudes to landscape,

architecture, and modernism’, in M Treib (ed.) The Architecture of Landscape 1940–1960, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, p. 239.

4 B Mackenzie (1981) ‘A park at Botany Bay nSw’, Landscape Australia, no. 4, p. 298.5 See B Mackenzie (2011) Design With Landscape: A 50 Year Journey, BruceMackenzieDesign, Sydney,

pp. 111–12.6 B Mackenzie (1981) ‘A park at Botany Bay nSw’, pp. 298–311.7 See B Mackenzie (2011) Design With Landscape, pp. 75–113.8 B Mackenzie (1986) ‘nothing more relevant than relevance: Part 2 of Artistry, relevance and the

landscape architect’, Landscape Australia, vol. 8, p. 33.9 r Powell (2008) pers. comm., email correspondence with author, 5 February.10 The Public works Department of nSw Bicentennial Park Project Team (1990) ‘Bicentennial Park,

Sydney: A park and a refuge for birdlife formed from suburban wasteland’, Landscape Australia, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 174.

11 D Lowenthal quoting gP Marsh, ‘introduction’, in gP Marsh (1965 [1864]) Man and Nature, ed. D


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Lowenthal, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. x–xi.12 D worster (ed.) (1973) American Environmentalism: The Formative Period, 1860–1915, John wiley and

Sons inc., new York, p. 84.13 JA Schapper (1994), ‘Criteria for the evaluation of landscape as heritage’, PhD thesis, University of

Melbourne, p 46.14 M Lewis (1997) ‘The conservation analysis: An Australian perspective’, APT Bulletin,

vol. XViii, no. 1, p. 48.15 D & O richards (1980) Historic Gardens Study, national Trust of Australia, wA; D &

O richards (1983) Gardens and Trees in the Kimberley, national Trust of Australia, wA.16 PF Simons (1987) Historic Tasmanian Gardens, Mulini Press, Canberra.17 K Taylor (1989) ‘rural cultural landscapes: A case for heritage interpretation, conservation and

management; Lanyon, ACT, a role model’, Landscape Australia, vol. 11, no. 1, p. 32.18 g Seddon (1972) Sense of Place, University of western Australia Press, Perth, p. 254.19 g Seddon, wB Calder & M Davis (1974) A Landscape Assessment of the Southern Mornington

Peninsula, Victoria, Centre for environmental Studies, University of Melbourne.20 Sw Calder (1975) ‘The north American experience’, in AiLA & ACF (1975) Landscape

Conservation, pp. 61–64.21 United States Forest Service (1974) ‘The Visual Management System’, in Department of Agriculture

National Forest Landscape Management, vol. 2, Handbook 462, gPO, washington DC.22 See Dn williamson (1979) ‘Scenic perceptions of Australian landscapes: research needs in a new

frontier’, Landscape Australia, vol. 2, pp. 94–101; rM itami (1989) ‘Scenic perception: research and application in US Visual Management Systems’, in P Dearden and B Sadler (eds) Landscape Evaluation: Approaches and Applications, western geographic Series vol. 25, Dept. of geography, University of Victoria, Canada.

23 Dn williamson & Sw Calder (1979) ‘Visual resource management of Victoria’s forests: A new concept for Australia’, Landscape Planning, no. 6, pp. 313–41.

24 g Seddon, KJ Polakowski & CeS (1977) Power Transmission, South Western Australia: A Review of Route Selection Procedures, CeS, University of Melbourne.

25 r King, J Pike & g Seddon (1979) A Middle-Ring Suburb: A Study of the Urban Fabric of Hawthorn, CeS, University of Melbourne.

26 g Seddon (1977) An Open Space System for Canberra: A Policy Review Prepared for the National Capital Development Commission, CeS, University of Melbourne.

27 J Fabos & A Mcgregor (1979) A Position Paper and Review of Methods for Assessment of Visual/Aesthetic Landscape Qualities, CeS, University of Melbourne, p. 27.

28 KJ Polakowski (1977) Maribyrnong Valley Metropolitan Park, CeS, University of Melbourne.29 M McCarthy (1983) ‘Today, yesterday and tomorrow: Directions in landscape architecture’, Landscape

Australia, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 176–83.30 rM itami & rJ rawlings (1993) SAGE Reference Manual, Digital Land Systems research,

Melbourne; rM itami & rJ rawlings (1993) SAGE Introductory Guidebook, Digital Land Systems research, Melbourne.

31 A Correy (1982) ‘Visual perception and scenic assessment in Australia’, iFLA & AiLA, (1982), ‘Landscape Australia: A Challenge’, Official Programme Conference Papers, XX world Congress iFLA & AiLA, Canberra, p. 180.

32 See research theses that support Correy’s claim: A Saniga (1990)‘experiencing the nonvisual landscape’, unpublished Bachelor of Planning and Design honours thesis, University of Melbourne; A Saniga (1992) ‘experiencing the nonvisual landscape ii’, unpublished Master of Landscape Architecture thesis, University of Melbourne.

33 Dn williamson & JA Chalmers (1982) Perceptions of Forest Scenic Quality in Northeast Victoria: A Technical Report of Research Phases I and II, Forests Commission Victoria, Melbourne.

34 iD Bishop, rB Hull iV & PnA Leahy (1985) ‘Visual simulation and assessment of electricity transmission towers’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 3, pp. 191–99.

35 iD Bishop (1994) ‘introduction’, Landscape and Urban Planning, no. 30, p. 2.


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36 iD Bishop & Dw Hulse (1994) ‘Prediction of scenic beauty using mapped data and geographic information systems’, Landscape and Urban Planning, no. 30, pp. 59–70.

37 K Lynch (1962) Site Planning, The MiT Press, Cambridge, Mass., p. 3.38 K Lynch (1962) Site Planning, p. 5.39 K Lynch (1962) Site Planning, p. 3.40 J Pike & A Atkins (1982) ‘Landscape Architecture in Australia: A profile of the profession in 1981’,

Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 181.41 B Mackenzie (2011) Design With Landscape: A 50 Year Journey, pp. 225–38.42 g wilson (1975) Landscaping with Australian Plants, Thomas nelson, Melbourne, p. 51.43 r Johnson (1981) ‘griffith University and its landscape’, Landscape Australia, no. 1, p. 41.44 H Howard (1982) ‘Landscaping of the High Court of Australia and the Australian national gallery –

the Sculpture gardens’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 3, p. 214.45 Tract Consultants Australia Pty Ltd (1980) ‘Foreshore Landscape Master Plan for the City of St

Kilda’, April 1980, p. i.46 M ewings (1989) ‘Yulara – A Town Like Alice’, Landscape Australia, vol. 11, no. 3, p. 224.47 r edmond (2005) interview with author, 24 november, South Yarra, ViC.48 r edmond (2005) interview with author.49 Y Zhang (2010) ‘international practice in landscape architecture: engaging with the characteristics of

place, A study of Australian practices in China’, PhD thesis, University of Melbourne.50 L Corkery (1989) quoting D Lithgow (President of the northern Parks and Playgrounds Movement),

in L Corkery (1989) ‘newcastle foreshore in hindsight’, Landscape Australia, vol. 11, no. 3, p 235.

7contestedterritories1 Ann Mcgregor and george Seddon (1978) Somewhere To Go On Sunday: A Guide to Outdoor

Melbourne, Centre for environmental Studies, University of Melbourne, pp. 1–2.2 K Lynch (1962) Site Planning, The MiT Press, Cambridge, Mass., p. 3.3 M gutjahr (1988) ‘Forum: Does Melbourne need a post-graduate course in urban design?’, in

Landscape Australia, p. 92.4 M gutjahr (1988) ‘Forum: Does Melbourne need a post-graduate course in urban design?’ p. 94.5 r Freestone (2007) Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful, 1900–1930,

UnSw Press, Sydney, pp. 278–79.6 J Pike & A Atkins (1982) ‘Landscape Architecture in Australia: A profile of the profession in 1981’,

pp. 179–81.7 royal Australian institute of Architects (Victorian Chapter) (1970) ‘Melbourne Civic Square: a report

of the working group appointed by the Chapter Council to investigate the published proposal for buildings to complement the square’, rAiA, Melbourne, p. 7.

8 See extensive discussion in A Briger (1988) ‘The politics of planning: The 1971 City of Sydney Strategic Plan’ in g P webber (ed.) The Design of Sydney: Three Decades of Change in the City Centre, The Law Book Company Ltd, Sydney, pp. 31–53.

9 D gazzard (2003), interview with author, Jamberoo, nSw.10 P webber (1988) ‘The nature of the city’ in g P webber (ed.) The Design of Sydney: Three Decades of

Change in the City Centre, The Law Book Company Ltd, Sydney, p. 27.11 L Pugin (1982) ‘A look at landscape design in Hobart’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 48.12 Ancher, Mortlock, Murray and woolley Pty Ltd Architects and Planners (1970) ‘University of

Melbourne Master Plan report 1970’, AMM & w Pty Ltd, Melbourne, p. 47.13 Lovell Chen Architects & Heritage Consultants (2011) ‘Underground car park and South Lawn, The

University of Melbourne: Conservation Management Plan’, draft, Lovell Chen Architects, Melbourne, p. 31.

14 Ancher, Mortlock, Murray, & woolley Pty Ltd (1974) University of Melbourne Landscape Elements Report, AMM & w Pty Ltd, Melbourne.

15 Denton Corker Marshall (1977) ‘Melbourne Civic Square design development’, report to the Melbourne City Council, February, DCM, Melbourne, p. 3.


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16 Denton Corker Marshall, (1977) ‘Melbourne Civic Square design development’, p. 6.17 The Deputy Lord Mayor and Councillor Osborne quoted in D Jones-evans (1994) ‘Urban art art art’,

Polis: The National Urban Review, no. 2, p. 61 (source of original quote not provided).18 g eckbo (1979) ‘Landscape architecture’, Landscape Australia, no. 3, p. 164.19 Mitchell, giurgola & Thorp quoted in r Johnson (1988) ‘Canberra’s new Parliament House and its

landscape design’, Landscape Australia, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 121.20 A Hutson (2004) ‘ “…a design that is at once natural and monumental”: The political conception of

new Parliament House, Canberra’, Limits: proceedings from the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians Australia & New Zealand, Melbourne, vol. 1, p. 241.

21 M Hendry (1980) ‘The Parliamentary Triangle – Canberra’, Landscape Australia, no. 4, pp. 268–75.22 B Mackenzie (1986) ‘nothing more relevant than relevance: Part 2 of Artistry, relevance and the

landscape architect’, Landscape Australia, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 32.23 L Corkery & n Corkery (1985) ‘From rubbish to recreation in Hong Kong and Sydney – parks from

wasted land’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 4, p. 286.24 B Mackenzie (1986) ‘nothing more relevant than relevance’, p. 31.25 r neale (1986) reporting on J weirick in ‘Condemned to talk about it forever’, Landscape Australia,

vol. 8, no. 2, p. 149.26 r Johnson (1988) ‘Canberra’s new Parliament House and its landscape design’, Landscape Australia,

vol. 10, no. 2, p. 127.27 r neale (1988) ‘An interview with Peter rolland’, Landscape Australia, vol. 10, no. 2, p. 130.28 P rolland as quoted in r neale (1988) ‘An interview with Peter rolland’, p. 130.29 Ministry for Planning and environment Victoria (1986) ‘Central Melbourne: some urban design

opportunities and initiatives’, Landscape Australia, vol. 8, no. 2, p. 128.30 M ewings (1988) ‘Pitt Street – Sydney. Another step to pedestrian priority’, Landscape Australia, vol.

10, no. 4, p. 360.31 Landscape Australia (1982) ‘Lawrence Halprin in Australia’, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 32.32 L Halprin quoted in T Jenkins (1982) ‘Halprin in the press’, Landscape Australia, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 35.33 P webber (1988) ‘The nature of the city’ in gP webber (ed.) The Design of Sydney: Three Decades of

Change in the City Centre, The Law Book Company Ltd, Sydney, p. 29.34 Ken Digby (1985) ‘Darling Harbour: A place for people’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 2, p. 126.35 B Young & C Plummer (1988) ‘Darling Harbour public spaces’, Landscape Australia, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 15.36 A Chapman (1988) ‘Landscape Australia interviews Alun Chapman’, Landscape Australia, vol. 10, no. 1,

p. 23.37 r neale (1986) paraphrasing richard Leplastrier in ‘Condemned to talk about it forever:

A Landscape Australia report by ralph neale’, Landscape Australia, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 144–49.38 J weirick (1983) ‘Commentary’ in K Maher (ed.) Quay Visions: A publication for the CAA/RAIA

Conference 13–17 June 1983 Sydney, nSw Chapter, The royal Australian institute of Architects, north Sydney, pp. 78 & 80.

39 M gutjahr (1988) ‘Forum: Does Melbourne need a post-graduate course in urban design?’ p. 94.40 P Corrigan, et al. (1987) ‘An open letter: course in urban design, Melbourne’, Landscape Australia, vol.

9, no. 4, pp. 272–73.41 Landscape Australia (1988) ‘Bouquets for Canberra professionals’, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 81.42 See dispute documented in Landscape Australia (1985) ‘Queens Square Urban Design and Bicentennial

Monument Competition’, vol. 7, no. 2, p. 158.43 B Mackenzie (1988) ‘Landscape architects can become urban designers too’, Landscape Australia, vol.

10, no. 1, p. 11.44 r Adams (1988) ‘Forum: Does Melbourne need a post-graduate course in urban design?’, p. 101.45 national Capital Planning Authority (1996) Australia Award for Urban Design, nCA for the

Commonwealth Department of Transport and regional Development, Canberra, p. 5.46 e Mossop (1995) ‘The green, green grass of Home(bush)’, Landscape Australia, vol. 17, no. 3, p. 196.47 J weirick (2000) ‘Success of the Sydney 2000-Olympic Master Plan’, Landscape Australia, vol. 22 no. 3,

p. 196.


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Abbreviations

ACF Australian Conservation FoundationAiLA Australian institute of Landscape ArchitectsAPi Australian Planning instituteASLA American Society of Landscape ArchitectsBSM Bates Smart & McCutcheonCCwA Conservation Council of western AustraliaCeS Centre for environmental StudiesCSirO Commonwealth Scientific and industrial research

OrganisationDCM Denton Corker MarshalleBC edmond Bull and CorkeryFCV Forestry Commission of VictoriagiS geographic information SystemsiFLA international Federation of Landscape ArchitectsiLA institute of Landscape Architects (Britain)MAP Map Analysis PackageMCC Melbourne City CouncilMwSS&DD Metropolitan water Supply, Sewerage and Drainage

Department [Perth, western Australia]nCDC national Capital Development CommissionnSw PwD new South wales Public works DepartmentPwD wA Public works Department [western Australia]rAiA royal Australian institute of ArchitectsrAiPr royal Australian institute of Parks and recreationrMiT The royal Melbourne institute of TechnologySMHC Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric CommissionVMS Visual Management System


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Index

Aalto, Alvar 129Abercrombie, neil 98Aboriginal culture

attempts to ‘tame’ 20in Serpentine Dam

138–9, 140, 142–3influence of 191–2

Abraham, wV 237academics 88, 94–8Adams, robert 285–6Adams, Thomas 167,

168Adelaide

Adelaide Hills Freeway 127

colonial-era designs 30

elder Park 30iPeC building 86Linear Park 224O-Bahn Busway 213Pioneer women’s

garden 44, 45river Torrens 213rundle Mall 261,

262Stonyfell Quarry

201–2, 202wills Court 211,

212Agnew Mining Co 146Ainslie Village, Canberra

235Aitken, richard 15Akerman, Peter 133–4Alcoa Australia 145,

196Alexandra gardens,

Melbourne 30, 31Allen, glen 289Allen, Les 100Allen Jack and Cottier

284Allocasuarina equisitifolia

146Alma Park, St Kilda 19,

21–3, 22, 24Alternative Housing 108

alternative housing movement 109–14

‘alternative parkland’ 117

Altona, Melbourne 77Alyxia buxifolia 156American Society of

Landscape Architects 73, 167

Amos, John 117Ancher, Mortlock,

Murray, and woolley 263, 266

Ancher Mortlock and woolley 243

Andrews, gordon 89Andrews, william 174Angophora lanceolata 40apprenticeship system

43Architect magazine 72architects 88, 187, 270Architects Collaborative,

The 211architecture 31–5Architecture Australia 72Architecture of Landscape,

The 97Arcoona Plateau, South

Australia 62Argyle, Stanley 53Armadale High School,

Perth 131–2, 132Armstrong, Helen 220Arthur Mcelhone

reserve, Sydney 83, 84

Arthur’s Seat, Victoria 78

Arts and Crafts movement 31, 35, 50

Ashton, nigel 74, 94–5, 126–7

Ashton raggatt McDougall 297–8

Atkins, Alan 226Austraflora nursery,

Croydon 115

Australasian educators in Landscape Architecture 187

Australiarainforest in 26ugliness of cities 123urban design 270–94

Australia Award for Urban Design 287

Australia Limited 149Australian Capital

Territory, see also Canberra; national Capital Development Commission, becomes self-governing 172

Australian Chancery 251

Australian Conservation Foundation 4, 189–93

Australian exhibition of women’s work 43

Australian Forest League 101

Australian garden, Cranbourne 294–7

Australian Garden Design 106

Australian garden History Society 218

Australian Heritage Commission 49, 218–19

Australian Heritage Commission Act 1975: 215–33

Australian Home Beautiful 44, 67, 69, 106

Australian institute of Landscape Architects

formation of 5–6, 166–72, 176–82, 293–4

national Awards 273–4, 278–9

promotional pamphlets 183–4,

183Sorensen and 52support for cultural

heritage 220walling and 52–3

Australian institute of Park Administration 99–100

Australian institute of Parks and recreation 99

Australian institute of Urban Studies 98, 181

Australian Landscape industry Association 300

Australian national Botanic gardens, Canberra 84, 85

Australian national gallery, Canberra 298

Australian national Trust 217–18

Australian national University, Canberra 78, 84

Australian native Landscapes Pty Ltd 283

Australian Outrage 124Australian Pavilion, nY

world’s Fair 129Australian Planning

institute 94Australian Plants for the

Garden 70Australian Plants Suitable

for Gardens, Parks, Timber Reserves, etc. 27

Australian Roadside, The 52, 72

Award for Design excellence 176

Bachelor of Landscape Architecture, UnSw 186


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Bahaus School 130Bairnsdale Motel 111Ball, erica 75, 166,

168–70bamboo 79Bankstown Mall, Sydney

279Barnsley, Sue 292Barrier Field naturalists’

Club 60Bartlett, roger 230Barwick, garfield 187Barwick, ian 211Basildon new Town

(UK) 170Bass, Tom 238Bateman, edward La

Trobe 21Bates Smart &

McCutcheon 77, 114, 149, 249

Bates Smart Architects 289

Baxter, Philip 148Bayeux Tapestry 139–40Bayly, John 263Beacon Cove,

Melbourne 279Bell, David 195Bell, guilford 109Bell Banksia Link,

Melbourne 258Belmore Park, Sydney

29Bentham, roelof 188–9Berndt, rM 139Berzins, ilmars 82–4, 83Beyond the View: Our

Changing Landscapes 226

Bicentennial anniversary projects 207

Bicentennial Park, Sydney 207–10, 210, 273

Bickleigh Vale, Victoria 50–2, 51

Bishop, ian 225–6, 231–2

Black Dolphin Motel 111

Blackwell, Marion 114–16, 146, 194

Blackwell, Tony 115Blackwell and Cala Pty

Ltd 115, 146Blomfield, reginald

31–2Bloom, Harold 72–5,

189Blue Mountains, nSw

48–9Boboyan road, ACT

202Bombardier, Paul 234Borland, Kevin 109Borrie, eF 259Botanic gardens, Sydney

25, 29Botany Bay foreshore,

Sydney 203–6, 205, 229–30

Boycott, gPH 160–1Boyd, robin 60, 109,

111, 123BP Administration

Building, Melbourne 78

Braden, Peter 269Brick Pit ring, Sydney

290–2, 290Briger, Andrew 260Briggs international 239Brisbane

Botanic gardens 27–8

City Council 87government Precinct

Development 275, 276

van den Broek’s work in 91

British institute of Landscape Architects 63

Britton, geoffrey 207Britz, Peter 272Broadbeach Hotel,

Surfers Paradise 96–7, 97

Broadwalk, UnSw 238Brodie-Hall, Lady ( Jean

Verschuer) 133, 144–5, 182, 194, 238–9

Broken Hill, nSw 60, 201

Brouwer, Catherine 272Brown, Jocelyn 44, 48,

52, 94Brown, John ednie 20Brown, Lancelot

‘Capability’ 11Brown, Terry 226Bruce Mackenzie and

Associates 203–6, 251, see also Mackenzie, Bruce

Bruce Mackenzie Design 292, see also Mackenzie, Bruce

Bruhn, Cameron xBuchan, Laird and

Buchan 116Buchan Caves national

Park, Victoria 55Buchanan, Barbara

90–1, 239Buildings Committee,

Monash University 163–4

Bull, Catherinhorticultural studies

119Linley Cove work

246offshore

consultancies 250Olympic work

289–90writings by 293

Bunbury, Arthur 238Bunce, Daniel 28Bunning, walter r 260Bunzli, Malcolm 89,

168, 182, 186bureaucratic positions,

landscape architects in 18, 37–8, 258

Bureaucrats’ Domain, The 19

Burnham, Daniel Hudson 36

Burnham Beeches, Sherbrooke 53

Burnley School of Horticulture 43, 48, 50, 74, 75

Burra Charter 217–18Burrows, Meldrum 251Burton, Craig 220‘bush gardens’ 272–3bush influences 104–22Bush School 105–9, 116Butcher, gloria 144Butler, walter richmond

32, 35Butterworth, richard

149Byera Hadley Travelling

Scholarship 125

Cahill expressway, Sydney 126–7, 260

Cala, Peter 133Calder, Stuart w 223–5Calder, winty 222, 225,

226Calhoun, Steve 243, 252Canary island palms

246Canberra

Ainslie Village 235Australian national

University 78, 84Commonwealth Park

174, 175, 234garden of Australian

Dreams 294, 297–9, 297

government House 84

griffins’ designs for 16, 35–6

gungahlin new Town 243

Kambah 234Lake Burley griffin

174Lake ginninderra

Parklands 235national Botanic

gardens 84, 85, 103, 234

national gallery 91, 239–40, 241, 274, 298

national rose garden 74

national war Memorial 74

open space systems review 226

Parliament House 271–5

stagnation of growth in 172

The Lodge 84urban space in

259–70westbourne woods

103, 103, 127weston Park 234Yarralumla nursery

38Canberra CAe, School

of environmental Design 173

Canny, MJ 160


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Cant, David 211Carcoola, wA 145Carlton gardens,

Melbourne 27Carmichael, Peter 112Carrington, Charles

robert 18Carroll, John 298Carter, Paul 289Castlecrag, Sydney 40,

129Casuarina

cunninghamiana 156Casuarina torulosa 79Catani, Carlo giorgio

Domenico enrico 30Catani gardens, St

Kilda 30Catherin Bull Landscape

Architects 250, see also Bull, Catherin

Centennial Park, Sydney 18

Central Park, new York 4, 9, 10, 37

‘Centre Five’ 78Centre for

environmental Studies, University of Melbourne ix, 187, 222–3, 225–6, 279

Centre for resource and environmental Studies, AnU 226

Chadstone Shopping Centre, Melbourne 78

Chancellor’s Courtyard, UnSw 238

Chandler, Bill 263, 280, 285, 289

Chapman, Alun 282–3Chesterman, David 252Chetwynd, Bruce 225Chinese garden, Sydney

283Chipping norton Lakes

Scheme, nSw 207, 208

Choong, Oi 206–7, 209, 288

Church, Thomas 86Churchill, Tracey 225City Beautiful

movement 17, 28–9, 257

City of Sydney Strategic Plan 261

Cityhaus Projekt, Vienna 95

Civic Art 32–3civic design, see urban

designClare, Paddy 133Claridge, Hassell &

McConnell 211Clark, greg 295Clarke and gazzard 197Cleary, John 225Clough, richard 175,

182architectural

background 89as landscape

consultant 148campus work 161,

236–8Canberra work 174on AiLA committee

181overseas training

168, 170professional

relationships 234coastal developments

231, 246Cocks, Douglas 225Cocks Carmichael

whitford Architects 258

Cohuna recreation reserve, Victoria 55

Cole, Alan 239Coleman, Jane 246Colvin, Brenda 171Committee for Urban

Action, Melbourne 217

Commonwealth Park, Canberra 174, 175, 234

Commonwealth Public Service Board, recognises landscape architect positions 101

Como House, South Yarra 27, 219

Companies Acts (UK) 217

congresses and conferences

1901: engineers, Architects and Surveyors, Melbourne 28

1907: Australian exhibition of women’s work 43

1971: joint AiLA/ACF conference 189–90, 190

1974: ‘Landscaping Australian Parks’ 100

1974: ‘Man and landscape in Australia’ 223

1982: iFLA world Congress 199, 272

1985: AiLA national Conference 294

1985: Cityscape 2731986: design seminar

273–41994: ‘The Culture

of Landscape Architecture eDge TOO’ 287

Annual Urban Design workshop 293

environmental issues in 189–90

landscape design lectures 179–80

conservation, see environmental issues

Conservation Council of western Australia 144

Conybeare Morrison and Partners 284

Conzinc rio-Tinto Australia Building, Melbourne 79–82, 80, 81

Coombs, Herbert Cole 129

Corkery, noel 250Cornish, elsie Marion

44Correy, Allan

appointed to nSwPA 93

as critic and agitator 171–2

as horticulturalist 75Botany Bay study

229–30campus work 239conservation interests

194in nSw Public

works Department 206

in Total environment Centre 197

on AiLA membership selection committee 184

on Darling Harbour 282

on Sydney Harbour 230

overseas training 168Corser, Syd 112Country roads Board of

Victoria 202Cowie, Arthur 181Craigburn, South

Australia 213Cranlana, Toorak 33, 34Cranwell, John 164Crocker, neville 283Cronin, John 27Crosweller, rodney 206,

209Crowe, Sylvia 124,

167–8, 170–1Cruden Farm,

Langwarrin 120–1, 121

Crust, John 74cultural landscape

assessment 217–21Cumberland County

planning scheme 94

Daceyville, Sydney 29Dale, gerard 231Dalgeish, rod 174Dan, Peter 110Dance, Chris 75, 252Dance, Hilda 75, 76Dare, richard 219–20Darling Harbour 281–4Davis, Mervyn Twynam

Blackwell and 115campus work 148,

158–9Clough and 170–1horticultural interests

75lectures by 180on AiLA

membership selection committee 184

overseas training 168


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role in founding AiLA 177

de Jager, Sye 135de Jong, Leo 112de la Hunty, Shirley 144Demetriou, Savvas 2Denton, John 269Denton Corker Marshall

Pty Ltd 250, 267Department of

Conservation and environment, Victoria 232

Department of Conservation, Forests And Lands, Victoria 225

Department of environment and Conservation, wA 225

Department of Lands, Victoria 21

Department of Main roads, nSw 202

Department of the interior (Cth) 84, 173

Department of works (Cth) 172–3

Desbrowe-Annear, Harold 32–3, 119, 147

Design review Panel 289–92

Design With Landscape 119

Design With Nature 221Designing Australian

Bush Gardens 71Designing Australia’s

Cities 28Deverson, John 104,

234Dexter, Ted 213Dickson, BT 103Diele, Tom 2Dimitroff, Colin 206Diospyros kaki 79Diploma of Landscape

Design (UK) 168–9‘Dom’ 151domestic garden design

32Donald Cameron

Consultants 242Doon Doon Creek Dam,

nSw 207Dorrough, Mervyn 272

Downing, Andrew Jackson 7–8

Drysdale, russell 150Duell, Mr 119Duncan, Charles 111Duncan, John 177,

179–80Dunphy, Milo 193, 197Dunphy, Myles 169Durack Homestead,

wA 143Durbach Block

Architects 292Durrough, Terry 112Dutta, Shibu 226Dysart, Michael 112

ealey, Tim 150, 151, 162

earle, James 89, 93earle greenway Taylor

Pty Ltd 201earthwork manipulation

135eastern Freeway,

Melbourne 202eBC Pty Ltd 270, 283echberg, Bruce 269–70,

285eckbo, garrett 171,

185, 251, 270–1ecologically sustainable

design 299eDAw Australia 289edmond, robin 249–

51, 273, 294edmond Bull and

Corkery Pty Ltd 230, 243, see also Bull, Catherin; edmond, robin

education committee of AiLA 186

elder Park, Adelaide 30electricity transmission

towers 231–2electricity Trust of

South Australia 247–9elisabeth Murdoch

Chair of Landscape Architecture 223

elliot, robert 138elliot, roger and gwen

114, 115ellis Stones Memorial

Appeal 222–3elliston, rosanna 112–

14, 242eltham College,

Melbourne 114eltham Mob 105–9,

177, 178engineering Courtyard,

Monash University 158

engineers 124–5england

architects from 93Australian designers

trained in 168–72cultural landscape

assessment 217early gardens in 11formal gardens in 31

Environment Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974: 215–33

environmental issuesconservation interests

194early struggles

188–97environmental

psychology 224, 232

environmental sculpture 204

tackling 199environmental

Landscapes Pty Ltd 247, 279

er Squibb and Sons building, Melbourne 116–17, 118

ernest e Lord School of Landscape gardening 68

Escarpment Wall 295, 296

eTA factory, Braybrook 78

Eucalyptus citriodora 116europe, influences from

56–60evans, Bernard 90, 259evans, Helen 246evans, Merilyn 242everglades, Leura 49,

50ewings, Michael 247,

279

Fabos, Julius g 225, 227–8

Farrand, Beatrix 33, 73Faulkner, Janne 111Federal Capital, The

28–9Federal Highway, nSw

202Federation Square,

Melbourne 278, 289Feltex House, Sydney

49Fenton, Cicely 214Fenton, John 214Ferguson, Francis 17Ferguson, william 28Fink, Arne 87Fisherman’s Bend,

Melbourne 57Fitzgibbon, edmund

gerald 19Fitzroy gardens,

Melbourne 19, 21, 25Flagstaff gardens,

Melbourne 19Flagstaff Knoll,

Serpentine Dam 138Flinders University,

South Australia 160–2Fooks, ernest 56–9, 58,

95, 257–58Forbes and Fitzhardinge

145Ford, gordon Craig

110, 178campus work 148,

162–3early career 108–9motel designs 111on Stones 180training of 68

Foreshore reserve, Sydney 203–6

Forest Portraits 40forestry 20, 88, 101–4,

192–3, 224Forestry Commission of

Tasmania 225Forests Commission of

Victoria 101, 224–5Formal Garden in

England, The 31Forrest Place, Perth 275Forrester, Susan 114–15Fort, The (Bristol, UK)

13, 14Forum, Monash

University 159–61, 161


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Fountain Terrace, Dumbarton Oaks 33

Fox, Paul 26, 28Franklin, Frederick

Augustus 18Frank-Mas, Carol 104,

166–7Fraser, grace

Canberra work 235conservation interests

194, 196–8consults for Fulton

59horticultural interests

75Melbourne work 78membership of ACF

189on ‘Snake gully’ 152work on Monash

University 155–6work with Stevens

78–9Freestone, robert 28,

258Freiberg garden,

Melbourne 116Fuchs, ernst, see Fooks,

ernestFudge, Colin 278Fulton, Don Hendry

59–60, 78Furth, Victor 59

galbraith, Jean ‘Correa’ 70

garden city principles 234

garden design 66–88garden island, Sydney

115Garden Lovers’ Log,

The 70garden of Australian

Dreams, Canberra 294, 297–9, 297

Garden of Ideas, The 15garden State Committee

ixgardenesque design 12Gardening at Leinster

146Gardens in Australia 50Gardens in Time 128garnett, Tommy 6gazzard, Donald 217,

260

gazzard, Maria 217geelong, Victoria 77gehl, Jan 255gender balance in

landscape architecture 70

geographic information Systems 229

gerner, Michael 263gerner Sanderson

Faggetter and Partners 279

gerner Sanderson Faggetter Cheesman 226

gibson, emily 72–5, 76, 168, 180

gilbert, Lionel 29gin Drinkers Bay Park,

Hong Kong 250, 251gippsland Hospital,

Victoria 76, 77gladesville

Developments 242glass, Peter 109, 162–3glen Helen Highway,

northern Territory 127

glen waverley, Melbourne 111

glendenning, Lionel 209

gold Coast, Qld 242government House,

Canberra 84government Precinct

Development, Brisbane 275, 276

graduate Diploma of Landscape Architecture, QiT 186

graham, Herbert 144grant, robert 107gray, Barry 112gray, John 100, 104,

174, 223gray, richard 173, 174gray, robin T 194Great Extermination, The

150, 155Greening of the Hill,

The 60greenwood property, St

ives 48grey water reticulation

64griffin, Marion

Mahoney 38arrival in Australia

17–18Australian work

35–44gibson employed

by 74influence of 4, 129network of friends 43training of 36

griffin, walter Burley 38

arrival in Australia 17–18

Australian work 35–42

gibson employed by 74

influence of 4, 129griffith University 239grimwade, russell 64,

101gropius, walter 211grounds, romberg and

Boyd 77grounds, roy 79, 86Grow Native: Creating an

Australian Bush Garden 115

‘growing House’ design competition 56

guerrilla gardening 3guilfoyle, John 17, 27guilfoyle, william

robert 4, 25–7gungahlin new Town,

Canberra 243gunn, graeme 111–12,

113, 249gutjahr, Mario 257

Hackett, Brian 125, 168–9, 189

‘half-pergolas’ 77Hall Bowe and webber

284Halprin, Lawrence 252,

254, 280–4, 281Hammond, eric 72–3,

79, 148, 156Hammond, richard 225Hanson, Beverley 107Harding, Lew 138Hardware Lane,

Melbourne 278Hargreaves, george 288Harold Boas gardens,

Perth 115Harris, Lange and

Partners 263Harris, Thistle 70–1,

194Harrison, Lorna 206,

209Harrison, Peter 94–5,

174Harry Howard and

Associates 91, 239–40, see also Howard, Harry

Hart, robert 133, 279Harvard University 32,

242–3, 257Harvey, L 161Haslams Creek, Sydney

290HASSeLL 211, 247–9,

292Hassell Architects: Poetic

Pragmatism 292Haven Valley Scenic

Theatre 40, 40Havens, william ‘Bill’

227Hawkins, geoff 278Hazlewood, David ‘rex’

72–4, 94, 174HC Coombs building,

AnU 235Heath, Charles r 30Heath, Frank 57Heath, Michael 133, 202Heathersett property,

Melbourne 44Heathwood, Cardillo,

wilson Pty Ltd 91Heide residence 120Heirisson island, wA

134Hemiandra pungens 146Hendry, Margaret

horticultural interests 75

on AiLA committees 181, 184

on Parliament House 272

overseas training 168

work on Canberra 176

work with Clough 170–1

Henri iV, King of France 10


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Herborn garden, Melbourne 37

Higgins, Frances georgina ‘ina’ 43

Highway Landscape Design 125

highway planting, see road landscaping

Hill, robin Sinclair 86Hill, walter 27–8Hillarys Boat Harbour,

wA 231Hillman, robert 135Hillview quarry,

Dromana 197, 201Historic Gardens

of Victoria: A Reconnaissance 218

History of the Modern Taste in Gardening, The 11

Hobart 91–3, 261–2Hochhaus Herrengasse,

Vienna 56Hoddle, robert 21Hodgkinson, Clement

19–25, 27, 188, 216Holden, gordon 285Holford, william 167–

8, 173Holliday, ray 114Home magazine 48Homebush Bay, Sydney

207–10, 287–92Homolanthus populifolius

156Hong Kong 250Horne, Donald 273Horning, Phillip 225Horsham, Vic 57Horsman, richard 272horticulture

adaptation of to Australia 16–17

education in ixgarden artists and

43–52need for

understanding of 12

walling critical of 45–6

Horton, David 298Hotham, Charles 18Housing Commission of

nSw 246–7Housing Commission of

Victoria 170Howard, Harry 89–91,

235Howard, Karl 110Hull, r Bruce 231–2humanising urban space

275–80Hunt, John Dixon 11Hunt, KH 158Hutchins, David 101hydromulching 207

ian Barwick and Associates 201–2, see also Barwick, ian

ian Hannaford Architects 262

iCi House, Melbourne 78–9

immigration reception and Processing Centre 62

immigration to Australia 5, 56–60, 82–8

indigenous Australians, see Aboriginal culture

industrialisation 13infrastructure design

124–47institute of Landscape

Architects (UK) 42, 167

internal courtyards, Monash University 155

international Centre for the Study of Urban Design 257

international Federation of Landscape Architects 6, 167

international influences 28–42

international Style 59intuition 125iPeC building, Adelaide

86ironbark gully, Brisbane

91irwin, Jane 288itami, robert 226, 229‘ivan’ 151ivanhoe river Parklands

Protection League 177

Jackson, Daryl 111, 251Jackson, John 264

Jackson, Tony 178James Mitchell and

Associates Pty Ltd 283

James Street Mall, Perth 279

Jekyll, gertrude 33, 44, 48

Jellicoe, geoffrey 127, 167, 171

Jock Marshall reserve 150–3, 153

Joe Bourke Memorial Fountain, UnSw 238

‘John Sunnyman’, see Stevens, John

Johnson, Chris 289Johnson, Ken 274Johnson, roger 93, 173,

239, 274Jomantas, Vincas 78Jones, David 214, 220Jones, James 18Jones, ronald 206, 286Journey Among Men 150

Kambah, Canberra 234Kambalda east, wA

145Kamp, David 272Kaplan, rachael 224Kaplan, Stephen 224Karmel, Peter 161–2Karres en Brands 289Katoomba, nSw 49Kaufman, Chip 286Keast, AJ 60Keefe, Ken 225Keenan, Francis ‘Frank’

99–100Kellett, John 117Kelly, Andras 269Kennedy Memorial,

Treasury gardens 86Kent, william 7, 11Kenworthy, FM 142King, inge 78King, ross 226King’s Domain,

Melbourne 50, 53–4Kinhill Planners Pty Ltd

229–30, 279Kirby, Joan 168Kneen, Thomas H 99,

168Knibbs, george Handley

29

Knox, Alistair 178as consultant 107–8conservation interests

194lectures by 179–80on formation of

AiLA 176–7on indigenous

influences 191–2role in founding

AiLA 184–5Knox, Margot 108–9Koolymilka, South

Australia 63Krantz, Harold 129, 131Ku-ring-gai Chase,

nSw 215Kwinana, wA 145

La gerche, Alan 55–6La Trobe, Charles

Joseph 18Lab Architecture Studio

289Laceworks Landscape

Collaborative 206Lake Burley griffin,

Canberra 174Lake ginninderra

Parklands, Canberra 235

Land Systems Pty Ltd 211, 247–9, 270

landscape, value of 215–33

Landscape Architecture Australia x

landscape architecture, defining 8–9

Landscape Australia 253discussions in 256eckbo article 270–1Mackenzie letter 286on postgraduate

opportunities 285–6

one-off publication 183

tone of ix–x, 272‘Landscape Australia: An

exhibition’ 199–201Landscape Character

Types of Victoria 225Landscape Contractors’

Association 300Landscape For Health

214


340

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Landscape for Living 171Landscape gardening

School 11landscape managers 88,

99–101Landscaping with

Australian Plants 116Lane Cove Council,

nSw 91Langer, Karl 95–7, 96,

97, 257–8Lansdown, robert 175Lanyon homestead,

ACT 219, 220laterite 138–9Latrobe University 148Laurie, Michael 171Lawrence nield and

Partners 284, see also nield, Lawrence

Law-Smith, Lady 223Laycock, Paul 250Le gallienne–Downing

Courtyard 177, 178Le no-circumflextre,

André 10–11Leahy, Philip 231–2Lee, gini 294Leech, David 107Leigh Creek, SA 247–9,

248Leinster Township, wA

146Leith and Bartlett 170lemon-scented gums 5Leonard, Mike 225Leopold, Aldo 216Leplastrier, richard 89,

274, 283Lewers, gerald 77Linaker, Hugh 53–5,

188Lincoln Square,

Melbourne 86Linear Park, Adelaide

213Linley Cove, Sydney

243–5Listen to the People. Listen

to the Land 214Little Bourke Street,

Melbourne 279Littlejohn, eric 180Litton, r Burton 224Liverpool University,

School of Civic Design 173

Living in the Environment 108

Loder, John 263Loder and Bayly 164,

289, see also Bayly, JohnLodge, Canberra 84London Chartered Bank

of Australia 49London Docklands

renewal Project 283Long range weapons

Project 62Loos, Adolf 95Lord, ernest 67, 67,

109, 148Lothian, Thomas robert

‘noel’ 99Loudon, John Claudius

7–8, 11–12Lower Yarra Concept

Plan 279Luffman, Charles Bogue

32Lullfitz, george 146Lund Hutton ryan

Morton Pty Ltd 275Lunday, Jim 278Lutyens, edwin 33Lynch, Kevin 233–4,

243, 257, 282Lynch, Leonard 206

M1 Motorway, england 125

Mackenzie, Bruceas AiLA President

199, 200Canberra work 234conference

presentations 223conservation interests

194home designs 112in Sydney School 89judges newcastle

competition 252on bush gardens 273on education policy

187on indigenous

influences 191–2on nCDC 176on professional

rivalries 286on professionalism

183on walker and

Maloney 71road landscaping

202site planning by 239support for native

plants and landscape 114, 117–19

Mackenzie, Stuart 272Macquarie, Lachlan 18Macquarie University

work 236–8, 237Maher, Ken 288Maiden, Joseph Henry

29, 39Main Quadrangle,

University of Melbourne 263

Mallee region, Victoria 64

Maloney, Betty Florence 71

‘Man and landscape in Australia’ 223

Man and Nature 216Mandeville Hall, Toorak

27Mann, Beryl 182

as architect 89campus work 148,

163in eligibility debate

186–7interest in

horticulture 75Mitchell Valley

Motel 111, 235on AiLA


on education policy 188

teaching by 98Map Analysis Package

229Maranoa gardens,

Melbourne 68Margules, raymond

Canberra work 104, 234

conference presentation 192

on Pryor 102overseas training 223

Maribyrnong Valley Metropolitan Park,

Melbourne 227, 228Markelius, Sven 129Marriott, Jane 75Marsh, george Perkins

20, 216, 230Marshall, Alan John

‘Jock’ 149–55, 151, 156, 160, 162

Marshall, Barrie 269Martin, Jan 263, 285Martin, roger 227Marx, roberto Burle

82, 129Mary Kathleen,

Queensland 59–60, 201

Master of Landscape Architecture, University of Melbourne 226

Mather, ingrid 207Matheson, Louis 148–9,

154, 159–60, 162Matheson gum 149, 150Maud M gibson Trust

154, 295Maunsell & Partners

173, 174Mawson, Thomas H

32–3, 41, 167May, Max 112Mayfield, L 178McBriar, Maude 220McCann, Jacinta 289McCarthy, Michael

Martin 228McCaughey, Patrick

274McCorkell, Howard

243McCormick, Tony

211–13, 234McCoy, Kent 104, 186McCutcheon, Andrew

154, 249McCutcheon, Osborn

149Mcglashan, David 112McHarg, ian 169, 212,

221Mcintyre, Peter 109McKay, ian 89McKillop Street,

Melbourne 278Measuronics system

228, 229Melaleuca linariifolia 26


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Melbourne, see also Monash University; Yarra river

Alexandra gardens 30, 31

Beacon Cove 279Bell Banksia Link

258Bourke St closure

262BP Administration

Building 78Carlton gardens 27Chadstone Shopping

Centre 78City Square 259,

267–70, 268Como House 27,

219Conzinc rio-Tinto

Australia Building 79–82, 80, 81

eastern Freeway 202eltham College 114er Squibb and Sons

building 116–17, 118

Federation Square 278, 289

Fisherman’s Bend 57Fitzroy gardens 19,

21, 25Flagstaff gardens 19Freiberg garden 116Hardware Lane 278Heathersett property

44Herborn garden 37iCi House 78–9King’s Domain 50,

53–4Lincoln Square 86Little Bourke Street

279Maranoa gardens

68Maribyrnong Valley

Metropolitan Park 227, 228

McKillop Street 278Mont Park Hospital

for the insane 53Mount eagle estate

39national gallery of

Victoria 79Olympic Village 5,

166, 170parks and gardens

18–19, 25Parks and gardens

Department 17Patterson Lakes 242pedestrianisation of

275–6Pioneer women’s

garden 54preservation societies

217r5 Metropolitan

ring road 2ringwood 46–7royal Botanic

gardens 25–6, 106, 154

royal Park 100, 206, 269–70

Shrine of remembrance 53, 59

Strategy Plan 262, 286

Studley Park 19Swanston Street

277, 278Talbot Colony for

epileptics 43Treasury gardens

19, 86urban design 255–8Victoria gardens 27winter Park 112,

113, 242writers from 67Yan Yean reservoir

19Melbourne Arts Centre

86–7Melbourne City Council

86Melbourne Cricket

ground 72Melbourne Docklands

Authority 289Melbourne Metropolitan

Board of works 180Mellor, Olive 69–70,

69, 180membership selection

committee, AiLA 183–4

Mens’ retiring room, Fitzroy gardens 86

Menzies, robert 172

Menzies Building, Monash University 161

Merchant Builders 106, 109–14, 147, 242, 249

Merrylands, Sydney 273Mertens Brothers 48Mi Blackwell and

Associates 115, see also Blackwell, Marion

Michel, John 272migrants 5, 56–60, 82–8Millennium Parklands,

Sydney 291, 292Miller, Campbell e

128–30Miller, David 37Milston, ernest edward

59–60, 257–58mining site reclamation

195–6Minty, Bill 174Mitchell, giurgola &

Thorp 271–2Mitchell, James 282–3Mitchell + Clouston

282Mitchell Valley Motel

235, 236Mitcheltree, robert 226Moad, ian 231Mockridge, John 111Mockridge, Stahle and

Mitchell 111, 163, 235Modern Architectural

research Society 129–30

modernism 131–2Moholy-nagy, László

130Molyneux, william ‘Bill’

114–15, 201Monash, John 56Monash University,

Melbourne 147–64Ford’s work on 109grounds Committee

151–2, 155–6, 164site of surveyed 43Stevens’s work on 78

Mont Park Hospital for the insane, Melbourne 53

Montrose quarry, Victoria 201

Mooleric homestead, Victoria 26–7

Moore, Charles 4, 18Moore, David 89moral rights 299More About Bush Gardens

71Morgan, Tony 238Mornington Peninsula,

Victoria 222Morphett, John 211Morris, Albert 60Morris, Margaret 60Morris, wendy 285–7Morris-nunn, Miranda

218Morrison, Michael 119Mortlock, Bryce 263,

266Moss, Steve 225motel designs 111Mount eagle estate,

Melbourne 39Mount nelson, Hobart

91–3MSJ group 282Mt Annan Botanic

garden, nSw 207Mt Tomah Botanic

garden, nSw 207Muir, John 216Muller, Peter 86multidisciplinary

practices 256, 299Munro, Malcolm 78Murdoch, elisabeth

120–1, 223Murdoch University,

Perth 115Murphy, Phin 214Murrumbidgee region,

nSw 43–4Myer, Sidney 33

narangba Quarry 201narrows interchange,

Perth 132–3, 143national Botanic

gardens, Canberra 103, 234

national Capital Authority 172

national Capital Development Commission

formation of 5, 172–6

influence of 259, 282landscape architects


342

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on 103–4ruzicka declines to

join 84–6site planning by

234–5National Capital

Development Commission Act 1957: 173

national Capital Planning Committee 94, 98

National Environmental Policy Act 1970 (US) 223–4

national gallery of Australia, Canberra 91, 239–40, 241, 274, 298

national gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 79

national Museum of Australia, Canberra 294, 297–9, 297

national parks and reserves 215

National Parks and Wildlife Act 1967: 4

national Project Awards 278–9

national rose garden, Canberra 74

national Trust, establishment of 217–18

national war Memorial, Canberra 74

native plantsat Monash University

150–5, 157–8at newman College

37at Perth Airport 171at Qantas House 91at woomera 63–4‘bush gardens’ 114–

22, 272–3griffins’s use of 37growing interest

in 70knowledge of 300royal Park

Australian plant garden 78

writings about 72natural landscape,

preservation of 221–33

neale, ralph ix–x, 38, 183, 274–5

new Melbourne general Cemetery, Fawkner 30

new South wales, see Sydney

new Urbanism 287new York world’s Fair,

1939: 129new Zealand 55, 182new Zealand institute

of Landscape Architects 182

newcastle, nSw 252–3, 253

newman College, Melbourne 37, 74

newton, norman T 8, 128

newton, Patricia 68nicholls, eric Milton

37nicholls, Mary 37nield, Lawrence 287–8niemeyer, Oscar 129ningbo, China 251noguchi, isamu 269north Brisbane

College of Advanced education 91

nurses’ Home, Sale 77

Oakman, Harry 87, 99–101, 176, 181

Oates, neil 206O-Bahn Busway,

Adelaide 213Ocean Park, Hong Kong

250offshore consultancies

249–51Oldham, Boas and

ednie-Brown 129Oldham, John Bramston

russell 5, 89, 128–44, 171

Oldham, ray 144Olmsted, Frederick Law

coins term ‘landscape architect’ 8

correspondence with Vaux 183

exposition work 36influence of 4, 216on expertise 188

on professionalism 7work on Central

Park 37Olympic site, Sydney

207–10, 287–92Olympic Village,

Melbourne 5O’Malley, King 36open space systems

review 226Ord river Dam,

western Australia 143Orland, Brian 232Osborne, Councillor

269Overall, John 173–4Overend, Best 57Overman, Peter 112Owens, John S 99–100Oxford Polytechnic

Joint Centre for Urban Design 257

Paddington Society 217Papadakis, Peter 1–4, 3Papadakis Park 1–4,

301–2Parkes, Henry 18parks and gardens

13–14, 18Parliament House,

Canberra 271–5Parliamentary Zone

Development Plan 272

Parramore, Thomas ingle 74

Patterson, rH 63–4, 65, 99

Patterson Lakes, Melbourne 242

Paxton, Joseph 18Peacock Point, Sydney

119, 120Pease, Paul 110pedestrianisation 255,

262, 275–6Perrett, ross 263Perseverance well,

western Australia 146Perth

Forrest Place 275garden island 115Harold Boas gardens

115James Street Mall

279

Murdoch University 115

narrows interchange 132–3, 143

Perth Airport 171Plan for the

Metropolitan Region, Perth and Fremantle 98

rockingham Park 146

wandana Flats 131Pescott, rTM 99, 180Peter g rolland and

Associates 272, see also rolland, Peter g

Peter walker & Partners 292, see also walker, Peter

Peterson, Sonja 278Pettit and Sevitt 112Philip Cox and Partners

247, 250Pike, Jeremy 226Pilton, Adrian 269Pinchot, gifford 216Pinjarra, western

Australia 145Pioneer women’s

garden, Adelaide 44, 45

Pioneer women’s garden, Melbourne 54

Pitt Street, Sydney 279Plan for the Metropolitan

Region, Perth and Fremantle 98

‘plantsmen’ 66Plischke, Anna 95Plischke, ernst Anton

95Plummer, Christopher

282Podocarpus alpina 156Polakowski, Kenneth

226–8Pollard, edna 68Poole, Charles Lane

101–2Populus trichocarpa 103Port of Melbourne,

Victoria 230Port Stephens, nSw

230Postcode 3000 program

256


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Powell, robert 292Powell, ronald 206–7,

209, 282Powers, Alan 127Preston, Margaret 142PreView system 228Price, Clive 174, 175Prichard, Katherine

Susannah 129Prime Minister’s Urban

Design Taskforce 286professional associations

300professional rivalries 40,

286–7, 299–301promotional pamphlets

183–4, 183Pryor, Lindsay

campus work 148, 161–2

evidence on Canberra development 172

forestry background 101–3

on AiLA committee 181

on forestry 193ruzicka employed

by 84ruzicka’s influence

on 85teaching by 94trees supplied by 238work on Canberra

174public space, gardens in

72–82Public works

Department, nSw 206–10

Public works Department of Victoria 53

Public works Department of western Australia 5, 128, 133

Punch, John 133

Qantas House, Sydney 91, 92

Quarry, neville 282Quarry industries 202Quarterly Bulletin 183Queensland, see Brisbane

r5 Metropolitan ring

road, Melbourne 2ragusa, Sam 239rAiA Urban Design

Awards 258ralton, AJ 149ramsay, Thomas 223ratcliffe, Francis 193rattray, Alexander e

199ray Holliday and

Associates 262, see also Holliday, ray

rayment, ronald 182architectural

background 89in eligibility debate

187road landscaping

202sketches by 183

rayment and Associates 263–4, 266

‘red Books’ of repton 12–13

redmond Barry courtyard, Melbourne University 156–8

reece, Keith 272reed, John 121reed, Sunday 121reform Movement 13register of the national

estate 49, 218, 228registered Landscape

Architect scheme 300reilly, Aub 64religious Centre,

Monash University 163

repton, Humphry 11–15, 13

residential subdivisions 242–6

Responsive Environments 257

restaurant at Serpentine Dam 135–6, 139

revegetation programs 214

revell, grant 294reynolds, Pamela 107richards, Duncan 218richards, griff 144richards, Oline 133,

218rickard, Bruce

architectural interests

89–91conservation interests

194in Total environment

Centre 197on AiLA


on landscape architecture 127

on walker and Maloney 71

teaching by 94rickard, nell 119,

264–5ridge, John 109–11,

113ringwood, Melbourne

46–7ritter, Paul 93river Torrens, Adelaide

213road Construction

Authority of Victoria 1

road landscaping 54, 125–7

roberts, gareth 173roberts, russell 129robertson, Lindsay 93,

221robertson-Swann, ron

269robin, Libby 150rochford, Paul 234rockingham Park, Perth

146rockpool waterway,

Cranbourne 295, 296rohozinski, Stefan 87rolland, Peter g 271–2,

274–5room 4.1.3: 297–8root, John wellborn 36ross, Jacquelyn 258rowse, eAA 169royal Australian

institute of Architects 259, 266–7

royal Botanic gardens Annexe 154

royal Botanic gardens, Cranbourne 115, 294–7

royal Botanic gardens, Melbourne 25–6, 106

royal Melbourne institute of Technology 186

royal national Park, nSw 215

royal Park, Melbourne 78, 100, 206, 269–70

royston, robert 270rudduck, grenfell 174rundle Mall, Adelaide

261, 262rushman, gordon 285ruzicka, Otakar ‘Otto’

84–6, 102ryde School of

Horticulture 43, 74

Safstrom, nicholas 219, 263, 280, 289

Sand County Almanac 216

Sand County Almanac, A 216

Sanderson, geoff 251Sandford, Michael 225Sangster, william 27Sasaki, Hideo 242–3Sasaki Associates inc

279Save the Forests

campaign 101Save the Yarra League

177‘Scandinavian Solution’

170–1Scenic Spectrums Pty

Ltd 225Schaffer and Barnsley

290Schapper, Janet 219Schmidt, wayne 225Scholtens, Paul 234Scholtens and

Bombardier 234, see also Bombardier, Paul

School of environmental Planning, University of Melbourne 228–9, 231–2

Schubert, Bernhardt 116

Schubert, Dulcie 116Science Courtyard,

Monash University 156–7, 157

Scott and Furphy Consulting group


344

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202, 231, 235sculpture, use of 77–8,

269Sculpture garden,

national gallery of Australia 239–40, 241, 274, 298

Sebestyen, Lorand 86–7Seddon, Chris 249–50Seddon, george 187,

190–1, 199, 221–3Senate Select

Committee on Canberra 172

Sense of Place 190, 221–2Serpentine Dam,

western Australia 133–42, 136, 137, 140, 141

Seto, Janet 220Seymour, Victoria 57,

57Sha Tin, Hong Kong

250Shepherd, Thomas

16–17Shepparton Civic Centre

109Sherrard, HM 125Shrine of remembrance,

Melbourne 53, 59Shrubs and Trees for

Australian Gardens 67silver wattle 135Sim, Jeannie 220Simons, Phyllis 91, 218Simons and Salis 91–3Simpson, roy 148Sinatra, James ‘Jim’ 206,

214Sinclair, James 25Sinclair Knight

engineering 289Sir Joseph Banks

reserve, Sydney 203–6

Site Planning 233–4site planning and design

233–54site reclamation work

117, 194–5, 201–15Sitta, Vladimir 297–8Sitte, Camillo 95Skerritt, robert 78,

159–60Skipper, Sonia 178Smith, edwin 30

Smith, Mike 263Smith, russell 89Smith, Sydney Ure 129‘Snake gully’, Monash

University 150–3, 153Snow, Malcolm 278Snowy Mountains

Scheme 130Soars, Patrick 283Society for growing

Australian Plants 91Sodersten, emil 74Sonning house 50Sorensen, Paul 4, 44,

48–9, 52South Australia 44, see

also AdelaideSouth Australian

Housing Trust 97South Australian School

of Mines 97–8South Lawn precinct,

University of Melbourne 262–7, 264, 265

South Melbourne factory, enclosed garden 117, 118

specimen trees 55Spoils of the Park, The 10,

99, 188Spooner, Peter 182

appointed to UnSw chair 222

architectural background 89

campus work 148, 238

conservation interests 197

courses run by 70–1, 186

in eligibility debate 187

influence of 171on founding of AiLA

166on professionalism

185overseas training

168–9road landscaping

125–7Sports Complex,

Monash University 158–9

St ives, nSw 48

St Kilda, Melbourne 30, 246

Stadt in Streifen 56Staff Mess, woomera

65Stafford, Brian 206, 269Standard Vacuum

refinery Company buildings, Altona 77

Stanley, garry 282State electricity

Commission of Victoria 53, 55

State Housing Commission of western Australia 5, 131

State Planning Authority of nSw 93

Stephenson, gordon 98, 161, 181

Stephenson and Turner 77, 129

Stevens, John 175first Landscape

Consultant 5horticultural interests

75McCutcheon and

149on ‘Snake gully’ 152teaching by 98work on Monash

University 148, 154–6, 158–9

work with Fraser 77–82

Stit, Alex 111Stockton, Barbara 206,

230Stones, ellis ‘rocky’

113campus work 264,

265, 266conservation interests

194designs by 105, 108,

219eltham Mob and

106–7, 177–9influence of 249John Turner and 154lectures by 180on destruction 5retirement of 242work for Merchant

Builders 111

work on Squibb building 116

Stonyfell Quarry, Adelaide 201–2, 202

Storey, Keith 175Stranger, ivan 114street plantings 28Strelitzia reginae 79Strewe, Friedrich georg

Theodor ‘Odo’ 95Studley Park, Melbourne

19, 27Sub-Tropical Housing 95Sullivans Cove, Hobart

279Sulman, John 28–9Sunburnt: Landscape

Architecture in Australia 294, 299

Sunset magazine 66Sunshine, Victoria 1–4Swan Hill, Victoria 57Swan River Landscapes

190Swanston Street,

Melbourne 277, 278Sydney

Arthur Mcelhone reserve 83, 84

Bankstown Mall 279Belmore Park 29Bicentennial Park

207–10, 210, 273Botanic gardens

25, 29Botany Bay foreshore

203–6, 205, 229–30Brick Pit ring

290–2, 290Cahill expressway

260Castlecrag 40, 129Centennial Park 18Chinese garden 283Daceyville 29Feltex House 49Foreshore reserve

203–6Haslams Creek 290Homebush Bay

207–10, 287–92Linley Cove 243–5Merrylands 273Millennium

Parklands 291, 292Peacock Point 119,

120


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Pitt Street 279Qantas House 91, 92Sir Joseph Banks

reserve 203–6Strategic Plan 261Tumbalong Park 283urban design in

259–61, 279–84Urban Stream 283,

284warringah

expressway 127william Balmain

Teachers College 239, 240

woolloomooloo 246–7

Sydney City Council 82Sydney Cove

redevelopment Authority 260

Sydney Harbour Bridge 73

Sydney Mechanics School of Arts 17

‘Sydney School’ 89–93Sydney Technical

College School of Horticulture 43

Sydney to newcastle expressway 126, 127

Sydney’s Great Experiment 94

Sylvia Crowe and Associates 174, see also Crowe, Sylvia

Talbot Colony for epileptics, Melbourne 43

Tasmanian College of Advanced education 91–3

Taylor, Ann 180Taylor, Florence Mary

29, 44Taylor, Ken 218–19Taylor, Kevin 112Taylor, william 27Taylor Cullity Lethlean

Pty Ltd 294Technical University of

Vienna 56Temple, John Milroy

117Terragram 297–8The Architects

Collaborative 211The Architecture of

Landscape 97The Australian Roadside

52, 72The Bureaucrats’ Domain

19‘The Democratic City:

Town-Planning in russia’ 58

The Federal Capital 28–9The Formal Garden in

England 31The Fort (Bristol, UK)

13, 14The Garden Lovers’ Log

70The Great Extermination

150, 155The Greening of the Hill

60‘The growing House’

design competition 56The History of the Modern

Taste in Gardening 11The Lodge, Canberra

84The Spoils of the Park 10,

99, 188‘The Theory of City

Design’ 29The Treillage 209Theiss-Jaksch Architects

56‘Theory of City Design’

29Thomas, glenn S 220Thomas, inigo 31Thompson, Paul 114–

15, 242, 294Thoreau, Henry David

216Thorvaldson, Finn 119Thyer, neil 239Tintern Church

of england girls grammar School 78

Tomlin, C Dana 229Tooby, Mike 133–4,

145, 196Tooby, Pamela 133Torzillo, edwards

Madigan 91, 239Total environment

Centre 197Toth, robert 227Town and Country

Planning Board, nSw 231

town planning, see urban design

Town Planning Association of new South wales 29

Town Planning institute (UK) 168–9

Tract ConsultantsBrisbane work 275Canberra work 272establishment of 243landscape evaluation

reports 230–1newcastle work

252–3offshore

consultancies 250–1

separates from Merchant Builders 246

site planning by 147training in landscape

architecture ix, 10, 285–6

Trapnell, george 100–1Treasury gardens,

Melbourne 19, 86Treatise on the Theory and

Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America 8

Tree Planters’ Association of Victoria 99

Tree Society 144Trees in Canberra 102Treillage, The 209trends in landscape

architecture 294–302Trevaskis, Percival 53,

99Tschopp, Fred 55Tsuen wan, Hong Kong

250Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

250Tullamarine Airport,

Melbourne 171Tumbalong Park, Sydney

283Tung, Andy 272Turkeith homestead

26–7Turner, David Donald

239Turner, John Stewart

148, 154–5, 195–6, 263, 295

Ulmus chinensis 79Uluru, northern

Territory 247UneSCO Committee

for Man and the Biosphere 223

United Statesinfluence of 90–1professional

organisations 167University of Liverpool

32, 93, 257University of Melbourne

computer mapping equipment 228

grounds Committee 263

landscaping of 147–8

South Lawn precinct 106, 262–7

University of new South wales 148, 238

University of Sydney 89University of western

Australia 147, 238–9urban design

as branch of architecture 41

humanising 275–80in Melbourne 255–8land use in cities 233promotion of 285–7

Urban Design Alliance Queensland 293

Urban Design Forum 285, 287

Urban Stream, Sydney 283, 284

Urwin, neil 230

van de Velde, Henri 49van den Broek, Barbara

91, 201van der Molen, richard

‘Dick’ 263van Pelt, John 219Vault sculpture 269Vaux, Calvert 4, 8, 183Venice Charter 217–18Vermont Park,

nunawading 243,


346

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244, 245Vernon, Christopher 37Verschuer, Jean 133,

144–5, 182, 194, 238–9Victoria 28, 101, 218,

see also MelbourneVictoria gardens,

Melbourne 27ViewiT system 228visual management

systems 223–5von Mueller, Ferdinand

Jakob Heinrich 20, 25

wagerup, western Australia 145

walker, edith Jean 71walker, evan 276walker, Larry 279walker, Peter 242–3walker, roger 104walkley, gavin 182

at APi conferences 181

environmental interests 189–90

in eligibility debate 187

on AiLA membership selection committee 184

on urban studies 97–8

walling, edna 42–52AiLA and 180Arts and Crafts

influences on 35disliked exotic trees

170eric Hammond

and 72influence of 4John Turner and 154The Australian

Roadside 72wilson’s work for

116writings by 67

walpole, Horace 11walter Burley griffin

Medal 258wandana Flats, Perth

131wanneroo coast,

western Australia 231warringah expressway,

Sydney 127washington DC, as

model for Canberra 102

waterhouse, eg 73, 170

watts, Peter 218We Are What We Stand

On 108weatherhead, Bruce

111webber, Peter 252weirick, James 39, 234,

274, 284, 290weller, richard 297–9welsh, Claire 114werkmeister, Hans 200westbourne woods,

Canberra 38, 103, 103western Australia, see

Perthwestern Mining

Corporation, work for 145

westmore, Trevor 78weston, Thomas

Charles george 27, 38–9, 38, 50

weston Park, Canberra 234

wettenhall, HnD 222–3

whitehead, georgina 19

whitfield, Julie 209whitford, Steve 258whyte, robert 112whyte, william H 255wilga 156william Balmain

Teachers College,

Sydney 239, 240williams, george 89,

168, 182, 186–7williams, Keith 100–1williams, Stephen 211williamson, Dennis

225, 230williamson, Harry 89wills Court, Adelaide

University 211, 212wilson, Alan edward

99, 101, 176wilson, glen 114, 116–

17, 156, 235, 242wilson reserve, ivanhoe

105, 106wimmera region,

Victoria 64winston, Denis 94, 170,

181, 237winter Park, Melbourne

112, 113, 242wohlwill, Joachim 224woodward, robert 283woolley, Ken 112woolloomooloo, Sydney

246–7woomera, South

Australia 62–4, 63, 99workers Art guild 129world war ii Forecourt

59world’s Columbian

exposition, Chicago 1893: 36, 257

worster, Donald 216wren, Christopher

211–13wright, Frank Lloyd 36wright, raymond 18,

23wrigley, Alan 163writings on landscape

architecture 67–72, 94–8

wrixon, Henry John 18–19

wulff, rodney 243, 252

Xanthorrhoea australis 156

X-Ray the City! The Density Diagram 58

Yallourn, Victoria 55–6Yan Yean reservoir,

Melbourne 19Yarra river, Melbourne

conservation schemes 108, 177–9

Lower Yarra Concept Plan 279

realignment of 30–1Yarra Bend national

Park, Melbourne 54–5, 54

Yarralumla nursery, Canberra 38

Yellowstone national Park (US) 215

Yencken, David 113as department head

276chairs AHC 218conference

presentations 223designs by 236founds Merchant

Builders 109–11landscape architects

employed by 242–3

Yeomans, Ke 195Yosemite national Park

(US) 215Young, Barry 282Youngman, Peter 168–9Your New Home Garden

68Yulara Tourist resort,

nT 247, 248, 249–50Yuncken Freeman Pty

Ltd 148, 230, 249–50

Zikaras, Teisutis 77–8zoning regulations 221Zube, ervin 22


Making Landscape Architecture in Australia

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