In Australia, between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification: The Melbourne University Architectural Atelier, 1919–1947

JULIE WILLIS University of Melbourne In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification: The Melbourne University Architectural Atelier, 1919–1947 The role of architectural education in facilitating the international flow of ideas and developing the local profession during the interwar period is relatively underexplored. In Australia, the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier (1919–1947) was instrumental in introducing foreign methodologies while promoting a locally inflected paradigm of modern architecture. Based initially on the Ecole des Beaux Arts, the atelier’s emphasis on composition and form, rather than a single accepted architectural style, fostered a culture of experimentation among Australian architects. But its focus on scholarship instead of professional qualification led to its eventual demise, highlighting the complex relationship between global design culture and local architectural practice. Introduction: Modes of Exchange and Dissemination Before the advent of mass air transportation and synchronous communication technologies, direct interaction between the architectural professions of distant parts of the world impinged on five factors, some more controllable than others: education, publications, travel, war, and immigration. This is also the case in the history of modern Australia. If one excludes the cultural ties with Britain, war and immigration were important catalysts for the flow of ideas and the exchange of experiences with Europe and America. World War I brought the Australian architects and architectural students drafted by the army into physical contact with old Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. World War II saw the following generation at work in those theaters, as well as Australia and throughout Southeast Asia, alongside their colleagues in the Anglo-American allied forces. Immigration followed suit in both cases. Between 1930 and 1960, scores of architects migrated from their own countries to Australia, in ways that are remi- 13 willis niscent of the better-known professional diaspora that took place from central-eastern Europe toward America. These two contingent developments were integrated by equally important pedagogical overtures to the global architecture scene. Architectural education between the two world wars provided distant antipodean Australia with a sophisticated and critical way to approach and filter international trends. Still relatively unexplored in its cultural strategies and outcomes, such education has been criticized and dismissed as a corruption of the established overseas models of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Bauhaus, which it was ostensibly trying to reproduce. But, as this paper seeks to demonstrate, such criticism is unfair. Despite Australia’s physical isolation, the country’s architectural educators were cognizant of and interested in international developments, yet purposely elected not to follow them slavishly. Instead of a dedicated adoption, overseas pedagogies and developments were subject to a blend of intellectual and practical scrutiny that privileged those aspects that suited the local situation Journal of Architectural Education, pp. 13–22 © 2005 Julie Willis and could assist in the formation of a regional culture of design. This strategy allowed Australian students to adapt the aesthetic refinement and compositional technique of the beaux arts as well as the technical and functional tactics of European modernism to the requirements of the local profession. Nowhere was this more evident than at the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier, an institution that, formed at a key juncture in the history of the country’s profession and the contemporary world, went on to become an influential model for Australian architectural education and a key player in the local dissemination of modern ideas in architecture. Professional Transition The atelier was created in 1919, a time when the Australian profession was in an important transition phase. By 1900, formal degree courses in architecture had become an expected part of an architect’s education in the United States.1 In Australia, by contrast, although there had been attempts to formalize the practice of architecture from the 1890s, it was not until after the war that any of these gained significant support from outside the profession.2 As a British colony until 1901, Australia looked to Britain for its cultural lead. And Britain’s relatively slow adoption of formal architectural courses resulting in qualifications as well as statutory registration—exemplified, for example, by the extended philosophical struggle over whether architecture was an artistic pursuit or a business-like endeavor—encouraged the long survival of the apprenticeship method in Australia.3 Up until WWI, Australian architects worked in an unregulated profession, entry to which was gained predominantly through the serving of articles with a practicing architect. The end of the war would precipitate changes. In the years after the conflict, architects started to gain unprecedented access to new ideas in architecture, with growing numbers of publications that included, for the first time, building photographs. International travel to research latest developments for new projects, or gain experience after qualification, would become commonplace in the incoming decade. The speed and methods of communication were also rapidly changing, with corresponding changes in construction and other technologies, which wrought profound modifications on the practices and production of the profession. Within five years of the end of the hostilities in Europe, and following a number of unsuccessful attempts at establishing it, registration would be required in the key Australian states of New South Wales, Western Australia, and Victoria (which gained only noncompulsory registration). The two planks of professionalization—statutory registration and formal architectural education— were intertwined: activity in one area invariably prompted activity in the other. Australia had seen significant advances in formal architectural education since 1908, and the forced hiatus of World War I allowed further invigoration of the system.4 The University of Melbourne’s Diploma of Architecture course had been on the books since 1907, but there had been no enrollments until 1911. In 1913, its first graduate, Edward Fielder Billson (whose father, a member of Parliament, would introduce a number of registration bills around that time) completed the diploma; the following year the course attracted fifty-one students and enjoyed steady attendance throughout the war. By 1918, it became apparent that there was a demand for further education in architecture. A number of courses that led to formal qualifications were now well established. Most of them included study of natural philosophy (physics), chemistry, surveying, materials, building construction, drawing, and history of architecture but offered no specific study of architectural design. The Idea of Design: The Atelier’s Creation The atelier responded directly to this gap by placing the teaching of architectural composition at the center of its mission—one of the first institutions in Australia to incorporate the study of design in the curriculum. In this way, the atelier became a point of encounter for diploma and articled students alike, and a crucial element for the completion of their architectural training.5 From its inception to World War II, the atelier profoundly changed the direction of architectural education in Australia, attracting almost every young architect and student in the country’s second-largest city, Melbourne, as well as many from interstate.6 Through its unwavering concentration on architectural design, it also became a critical hinge in the discussion and dissemination of ideas about what the nature of contemporary architecture might be. Consequently, its contribution to Australian architecture was enormous. Not only did it foster the design skills of young architects in Melbourne over a period of nearly thirty years; it also pursued a consciously international design agenda that was an integral part of the evolution of modern architecture in Australia. Its legacy would be an enduring spirit of design experimentation that continued well into the 1950s and still remains a hallmark of Melbourne architecture. The creation of the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier was proposed in March 1918 by Rodney Alsop (1881–1932), an established Melbourne architect who had been recently appointed acting lecturer in charge of the Diploma of Architecture. Alsop called for the formation of an Atelier or Architectural Studio, such as is adopted in all the principal European Countries and very extensively in the United States of America. These Ateliers are for the encouragement and advancement of the younger Architects, Draftsmen and Senior Students, who have attained proficiency in the draftsmanship [sic] and Building Construction and who wish to turn their attention to the finer problems of design, composition and rendering, in competition with their fellow members, and under criticism and assistance from the Instructor in charge, and from leading practitioners, who support the atelier.7 The atelier would hold night classes, but students could work in the studio at any time. The classes would be based about set design problems, with students expected to produce both preliminary (esquisse) and final design (projet rendu) proposals for critique. Although part of the University’s School of Architecture, the atelier offered no formal qualifications, just further education that young architects could take up as they saw fit. The Faculty of Engineering, of which the School of Architecture was then a part, encouraged the proposal, adding a management committee representing both the Faculty and the local professional body, the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects (RVIA), and it was duly passed by University Council in May 1918. The atelier opened its doors in temporary accommodation in early 1919.8 Educating the Profession: The Finishing School From the start, the atelier could be seen as a joint creation of the university and the RVIA. The involve- In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification 14 ment of the RVIA was an important element in both the structure of the atelier and its position within architectural education in the state of Victoria. Apart from various calls for a professorial chair in architecture, the profession had previously had little involvement with formal curricula. Indeed (and albeit now in combination with official academic training), it continued strongly to support articles as the preferred method for cultivating architects.9 Yet, the sponsorship of the RVIA gave the atelier crucial professional recognition and would bring benefits to its students through the waiving of key state institute and RIBA entrance examinations. Beside strong involvement by the profession, a number of factors set the education offered at the atelier apart from ordinary formal degree or diploma courses in Australia. The atelier was the only Australian institution that offered intensive architectural studies at (the equivalent of a) graduate level. It thus drew on a large pool of prospective students, from those undertaking articles alone, to those who had attended classes at one of several institutions in Victoria offering various forms of architectural study. Initially only about a third of atelier students had undertaken the university’s diploma course, the remainder being articled students seeking further education in design. A self-directed program of study and the natural independence of the articled students helped forge and maintain the atelier’s standards throughout its existence. For many, the atelier became a finishing school in design, allowing students a variety of ways of gaining architectural education to suit their circumstances, but with a common end point, recognized for its high quality and standing within the profession. The atelier also enjoyed relatively independent status. As an institution that was formed between the profession and the university, it was under neither group’s complete control. The type of students it attracted, its interest in the pursuit of scholarship rather than qualification, and its collective nature, gave it a club-like atmosphere, akin to London’s 15 willis Architectural Association. Its independence and selfsufficiency allowed it to pursue a curriculum that could quickly respond to changing ideas and trends in architecture. Local Conditions: The Beaux Arts and Architectural Association in Melbourne The atelier was to be based on the teaching methods of the Ecole des Beaux Arts and beaux arts–inspired schools in the United States, but there is little evidence to suggest that those promoting and creating the atelier had ever attended European or American schools. Britain’s Royal Academy was also cited regularly in atelier publications as a source of educational curricula, but few atelier instructors had the opportunity to attend. Thus, the atelier’s understanding of beaux arts teaching principles was gleaned from journal articles, remote professional contact, and brief visits to British schools, taking the basic principles of problem-based design and open critique to meld its own version of the beaux arts in Melbourne.10 The result was a school that, through its isolation and mixture of antecedents, encouraged a range of design methodologies rather than a single ideal. The atelier’s opening at the end of World War I provided the ideal opportunity for recently demobilized young men to return to their architectural studies. In London, the Architectural Association (AA) was providing the same opportunity, and a number of Australian architects attended AA classes en route to Australia. These included Leighton Irwin (1892– 1962), whom, appointed as assistant director to the atelier in 1920, would bring firsthand knowledge of British architectural education to Australia. At the AA, Howard Robertson had just replaced the old evening school with an atelier that, as one of a number of ateliers affiliated to the Royal Academy, was very similar in aim and style to its Melbourne counterpart.11 In its early days, the atelier was relatively relaxed and informal, although greater structure and qualifications were brought in over time. Some of the changes evident in the atelier were the creation of separate grades for students. The Prospectus of 1921 showed that students were divided into two grades to allow “more advanced students to progress rapidly and to give those who have had less experience the opportunity of picking up the methods.”12 The following year, the prospectus noted three grades, known “for the sake of convenience as First, Second and Third Years.”13 Within the grades, the curriculum was separated, giving each year a different focus. First Year concentrated on the “application of Architectural History to Design” as well as “composition and advanced drafting methods”; Second Year concentrated on the “Architectural treatment of the Elevations and Section of Buildings, in any Style, in conjunction with a well composed plan”; and Third Year required an “advanced knowledge of planning and the principles of decoration.”14 Like the Ecole des Beaux Arts, students were expected to pass a certain number of projects before proceeding into the next grade, but the atelier offered no grand final competition or prize to strive toward. The education was an end in itself. Diversity in Design: The 1920s The student work was profiled in the atelier’s Prospectus (later Bulletin) and showed a significant diversity of design methods. Although the designs were clearly related to Australian architectural tastes of the day, they demonstrated progressive ideas. As was frequently noted in the Bulletin’s commentary, beyond First Year, students were not expected to conform to a particular style; instead, “imaginative design on sound lines is fostered.”15 Until the mid-1930s, the First Year work involved preparing small projects in a particular historical style, such as “An Entrance to a Museum” in the Romanesque style or an Egyptian “Electric SubStation.” These were meant to demonstrate the appropriate use of historic styles “when applied to modern conditions,” but the lesson learnt seemed to be that these styles were inappropriate for such conditions, as they rarely if ever appeared in the work of more senior students. 1. J.C. Aisbett, “A Court House,” 1923. Source: Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1924): 9. The atelier work of second- and third-year students was more indicative of the varied and changing approaches to design encouraged by the atelier. Depending on the nature or type of the project, students would adopt specific styles, methods, or presentation techniques. Beaux arts compositional techniques, for instance, were common but usually applied to specific urban or civic projects (Figure 1). Large urban design projects, usually referred to as town planning, used the bird’s-eye perspective of the City Beautiful movement. Domestic projects, on the other hand, used picturesque planning and Arts and Crafts vernaculars. During the 1920s, restrained formal classicism (from Greek through to French Second Empire), as well as stripped versions of Egyptian, Assyrian, and other ancient styles, were generally reserved for the most important and urban projects, like banks, hotels, and court houses. Less prominent civic projects such as schools often used the Australian Colonial (Georgian) Revival or similar plain styles. These were formal symmetrical compositions that owed much to the beaux arts approach but could also exhibit picturesque qualities, depending on the interests of the student. Evident in all the early work is a subtle grading of the type of project and its appropriate style and composition. It is important to understand the atelier work in the context of the broader trends in Australian architecture at the time. Although forms were less elaborate than pre–World War I work, with a move toward more restrained styles and designs, Australian architecture did not immediately embrace the modern architecture being developed in Europe. Throughout the 1920s, architects looked to a multitude of past styles for their inspiration, with an emphasis on taste, strength, and simplicity.16 Like the atelier work, the style chosen was dependent on the building type; thus, domestic designs drew on bungalow, Mediterranean, and English Domestic Revival styles, while civic and commercial work looked to classical precedents and their derivatives, including the Greek, Roman, Renaissance, and Georgian revivals. In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification 16 2. D.B. White, “A Study in Interior Decoration,” 1924. Source: University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Bulletin (1925): 12. The local profession may have been slow to respond to new international design ideas, but, from the mid-1920s, the students were demonstrating familiarity with overseas trends. In 1924, secondyear student D.B. White contributed a jazz moderne interior (Figure 2) to the atelier Bulletin, predating any built versions of the style in Melbourne by at least five years.17 Even when employing styles that bore correlation with those being used by Australian architects at the time, the student projects were generally more controlled, placing greater emphasis on plain expanses of wall as well as reduced and simple detailing, and strong emphasis on composition and massing. Driving Force: Leighton Irwin The figure of Leighton Irwin played a pivotal role in the success and design agenda of the atelier. Appointed assistant director in 1920, he quickly became the atelier’s driving force, succeeding Rodney Alsop as director in 1926. Irwin, by all accounts, was a humorless and exacting master who pushed his students to produce the best work they could. Apart from being the atelier director, he was also a successful architect. Irwin’s early work was mostly domestic, but from the 1930s he gained a number of important large commissions, including the modernist Mildura Base Hospital (1930) and the severe stripped classicism of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (1935).18 Later, Irwin would design a number of acclaimed hospitals, including Prince Henry’s Hospital (1940–1955, now demolished) and the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital (c. 1940s), both of which owed much to European precedents. His built work was usually at the leading edge of Australian architecture and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to modernity, only tempered by respect for classical repose. Through his contribution to local journals, Irwin promoted the ideas of modern architecture to a broad audience. His hand in the atelier was unmistakable. Upon his return from traveling in Europe in 1929, both his 17 willis 3. A.J. Ralton, “A Control Tower for an Air-Port,” 1930. Source: University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Bulletin (1931): 21. own design work and that of the atelier would change radically in favor of European modernism.19 The New Aesthetic: Modernism in the Atelier Irwin’s influence over his students was clear by the change in atelier work during his absence. Student work of 1929 was far more conservative than it had been before Irwin’s sabbatical in its choice of style and composition, leaning back to beaux arts formalism. From Irwin’s return in 1930, the influence of Erich Mendelsohn was evident in the atelier’s work, and many projects had elements in common with Bijvoet & Duiker’s Zonnestraal Sanatorium (1928), work by J.J.P. Oud, and the most recent Europeaninspired British architecture.20 Stripped and formal classicism was quickly replaced with horizontal stretches of glass, curving balconies and unadorned expanses of wall, as demonstrated through an increasing number of industrial projects (Figures 3 and 4). Methods of presentation also changed: instead of elevations, students chose to illustrate perspectives (Figure 5), and working drawings became more prevalent. The Bulletin’s commentary echoed the new ideas: “The development of [student’s] own imagination and powers is aimed at Functional design. Where precedence is absent a knowledge of principles is the only substitute.”21 One of Australia’s key architectural historians, Robin Boyd, has declared that “up to 1934 everything modern that happened was an isolated phenomenon.”22 But, at the atelier, modernism was the dominant laguage from 1930, and its leading students were destined to become important design architects of the new generation. Importantly, even though new inspirations, forms, and presentation techniques had swept the atelier, the underlying pedagogical method remained beaux arts. The local version of the beaux arts basic formula had always allowed for the consideration of design canons other than formal classicism. The diversity of approaches and styles encouraged within the atelier allowed the immediate adoption of new ideas, without necessarily affecting the method by which design was taught. The lessons of modernism came as an imported new language to the atelier (courtesy of Irwin’s photographs and newly published journals and books) rather than a complete design ethos, and thus carried few political or social associations. Housing, so key to European modernism, remained almost untouched by the new forms, and encouraged instead as a genuinely Australian result: “The aim of the Atelier is to support the development of a domestic architecture which is the natural outcome of the climate, materials, and social conditions of our own country.”23 The atelier culture of working with In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification 18 4. R. Schmerberg, “A Factory,” 1935. Source: University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Bulletin (1936): 23. different architectural languages, depending on the student’s interest and the type of project would also persist. Imagination and experimentation were highly valued, above any particular style or direction: “The stimulation of a student’s imagination tends to counteract the herd instinct liable to modern design.”24 Modernizing the Method: Encouraging Experimentation Irwin would again instigate significant change on the direction of the atelier in the mid-1930s.25 Although it is not evident as to whether this was a result of experience garnered from further European travels or from published sources, the shift in both the description of the curriculum and published projects 5. “A Small Pavilion,” 1930. Delineator unknown. Source: University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Bulletin (1931): 26. 19 willis was clear. Two 1936 first-year projects by Grenfell Ruddock indicate beginnings of the shift, with the first (“The Evolution of the Opening”) being described as an “example of the new method of studying Design being developed at the Atelier.” The second project was a massing study that was “a study of fundamentals, going backwards to move forward.”26 Much of the functionalist modernism emanating from Europe had its origins in the tradition of European technical universities, where the emphasis was on good building combined with sophisticated engineering rather than the conscious aestheticism of the beaux arts or the Arts and Crafts movement. At the Bauhaus, the emphasis was on making rather than drawing. But, at the atelier, drawing remained the principal medium for design and thus there appeared to be little interest in wholeheartedly adopting European methods of architectural education. Yet the atelier students’ work strongly reflected the functional modernism exemplified in Bauhaus imagery. Le Corbusier’s recommendations in Vers une Architecture (available in English translation from 1927) offered a method for modernism that was more relevant for the local situation. Le Corbusier’s description of mass, surface, and plan reads like a written instruction for a typical atelier esquisse of the late 1930s. The atelier’s approach to new meth- ods of teaching in the 1930s emerged beneath the mantle of beaux arts representational techniques but were fully cognizant of Le Corbusier’s prescriptions. Technique, and in some respect the analytique drawing, tempered the revolutionary aspects of the new architecture’s aesthetic. Over time, first-year exercises in historical styles were replaced by investigations into the development of a building material or structural element. Vestiges of the beaux arts heritage of the atelier were quietly removed, with short exercises no longer referred to as esquisse, and emphasis placed on massing rather than stylistic composition. In 1937, the Bulletin’s text further demonstrated change, declaring “An understanding of the fundamentals of massing, scale and proportion are of more importance than a knowledge of style,” and “Good design has no period. It is the successful application of the purpose and the circumstances which called it into being.”27 The greater attention paid to functionalism and fundamental design principles in the atelier from the 1930s was not at odds with the basic philosophy of the school, which had always encouraged experimentation, imagination, and the best response for the project at hand, regardless of the changing nature of project types or design exercises. As the fears, then realities, of war grew stronger, students experimented with the limits of functional form, 6. A Mealand, “A Grandstand,” 1940. Source: University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Bulletin (1940–1941): 20. structure, and materials. The designs illustrated in the last of the Bulletins in the early 1940s showed design proposals that would be later realized in post–World War II Australia. (Figure 6.) These included high-rise buildings, houses, and other structures that embraced the inventiveness and economical use of materials and structure that characterized Australian architecture in the late 1940s and 1950s. Architecture at War Again, the projects undertaken within the atelier right before and into the first years of the war betrayed the practical concerns, if not the ingenuity, that were to pervade Australian architects’ work during the war. With the escalation of the conflict because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, architectural practice and education were severely disrupted as eligible architects and students enlisted for service. The war would have three key effects: architects who were enlisted military personnel would have exposure to lightweight, temporary, and inventive structures, built expressly for war purposes; architects whose war service was in designing and providing such structures would have exposure to military efficiency and standardized practice; and the combination of these and other wartime exigencies would make the pursuit of conscious aestheticism in architecture unsustainable.28 The strategic position of Australia, particularly from 1942 in the Pacific war, meant the arrival of large number of U.S. Army troops. The southern continent became the main air base from which the allies sought to force the Japanese into retreat from their push southward. With the growing proximity of major conflict, the need to provide adequate infrastructure to fight in the Pacific became urgent. The creation of numerous U.S. military bases on Australian soil required the services of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to coordinate the necessary construction. The corps, already stretched by ongoing participation in the European theater, immediately co-opted Australian architects to carry out the required works. Local conditions, particularly limited availability of construction materials, required extensive reworking of the corps’ standardized plans. For the Australian architects involved, exposure to the highly disciplined and organized corps’ design and construction practice, which relied heavily on standardization, would have a profound effect on their subsequent modes of practice. However, brought to the mix of efficiency and proper procedure was the Australian characteristic of “making do”—an attitude attributed also to the Australian Army equivalent of the Corps of Engineers—which would be evident in the construction of the U.S. bases. The invention of the “igloo” arched truss that could be quickly fabricated on site using short scrap lengths of untreated green hardwood was one such meeting point between American and Australian influences.29 Postwar Rationalism: The Atelier’s Demise The collaborative events of the war were the harbinger of things to come. Post–World War II material re- strictions and housing shortages demanded efficient structures and practice. These factors in turn promoted rationalist approaches to architectural education. But so did the achieving of other landmarks in the professionalization of architecture. With Britain enacting statutory registration in 1938, Victoria moved to make registration compulsory in 1939. Although the new legislation did not change the qualifications required for registration, in practice articles and diploma courses were deemed to be insufficient means of getting adequate training; thus, extra extensive practice-based experience and the passing of special examinations were now required. As John Summerson predicted in 1939, a result of registration would be “a closer relationship between the teaching in the schools of architecture and the idioms of current practice.”30 Indeed, postwar architectural education in Melbourne took up a much more professionally structured approach, which culminated in the creation of a chair of architecture at the University of Melbourne, an event signaling the end of the local profession’s long quest for professionalization. Significantly, the atelier’s post-WWII demise came at the hands of Brian Lewis, the University’s inaugural Professor of Architecture and one of the atelier’s former students. Lewis, who had clashed with Irwin as a student, had subsequently completed a master’s degree at Liverpool and had firm ideas on the way architecture should be taught at Melbourne, even though these did not necessarily reflect Liverpool’s well-known beaux arts pedagogy.31 The anomaly of the atelier in its exclusive study of architectural design, its independence and relevant isolation from the rest of the School (then Faculty) of Architecture, as well as Irwin’s forceful personality, had no place in the new order. The atelier closed in the same year of Lewis’s 1947 arrival. Scientific rationalism and the integration of all aspects of architecture, from construction to design, soon replaced the critical aestheticism that the atelier had sought to instill and pursue.32 In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification 20 Lessons from the Atelier: International Inspiration and Local Conditions The experience of the atelier allows us to point out a number of important elements in the relationship between education and practice, and between local needs and international trends. In stepping beyond basic training in architecture, the atelier sought inspiration from pedagogies that had international status and had been developed elsewhere. Yet, to make them relevant to its students, it filtered such pedagogies in a way that responded to the local conditions. The adaptation was made possible by a relaxed notion of design instruction, which fitted its basic ethos mainly through transmitting an understanding of composition, form, and massing. Far more than simply providing imported and predetermined models of education to young architects, the atelier was a place for people to acquire fundamentals that would be eventually used to conceive modern building in Australia. Moreover, its unwavering concentration upon design allowed and encouraged its students to imagine and experiment, building confidence and skills that enabled them to continue to push the boundaries of contemporary architecture long into practice. In implementing its agenda, the atelier also did not promote complete or rigid translation of the ideas (and ideals) embedded in the models selected. For instance, it did not to follow the social goals of European modernism, instead seeking the cultivation of taste and urban civility within a modern idiom, and deliberately advocating local domestic forms. The absence of a preordained ideology gave it the ability to evolve over time and reflect changing directions in architectural culture and taste, locally as well as internationally. Student work at the atelier could consistently preempt built versions of the same styles or ideas in Australia, thus providing a demonstration that architectural education, and individual architectural pedagogues in their mediating role, can indeed be a driving force in the dissemina- 21 willis tion of ideas and the ongoing development of disciplinary debate. It would be a mistake, however, to consider the activities and the influence of the atelier entirely independent of practice. The atelier’s ability to inform and affect local architectural trends was in fact predicated upon the type of building work going on in Melbourne (and Australia) at the time, which made the training received by the students not only relevant but also applicable. The strengthening of a modernist aesthetic might have found an incisive educational sponsor in Leighton Irwin, but it was cemented through the opportunities provided by the local situation in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Changes in the way hospitals were funded and advancements in hospital-based medical technologies, for example, prompted a boom in health-care construction in Australian cities, which continued also throughout the Great Depression.33 This meant that, upon graduation, Irwin’s students could practice the lessons learned in the atelier on quintessential modern projects and assess the validity of the references acquired in school. Indeed, these types of building opportunities turned the educational journey of the atelier into a possible model for the developing profession. Firms such as Stephenson & Meldrum, for example, at the cutting edge of Australian architectural practice at the time, followed professional development paths that literally resembled (and possibly built upon) those of the atelier, with research trips overseas, distinct cultural references, and a significant number of their young architects either atelier graduates or attendees.34 Together with the parallel development of formally recognized architectural degrees at the university, firms’ incorporation of international frames of reference could be seen as surmising the completion of the historical project of the atelier. The separation of local professional training from not-necessarilylocal architectural scholarship did in fact premise the closing of the institution that, first in Australia, had attempted to provide both. Adoption and Adaptation Today, the situation seems to be reverting back to the days of the atelier, with graduate programs and undergraduate degrees in architecture at the center of a global debate on professional versus liberal education.35 Although completely different in their quantitative dimensions and socioeconomic repercussions, the contextual issues that inform such debate are still essentially the same as the ones that brought the atelier into being: architectural internship, demand for education, inability of existing degrees to provide satisfactory levels of preparation, and international transfer of ideas from cultural centers to geographical peripheries.36 Maybe for this reason, the story of the atelier can still inspire and help understand their intersection. It shows that the adoption of architectural trends must not necessarily be true to their origins but must be employable. Its value does not reside in adaptation per se but rather in the possibility to use the knowledge acquired toward the construction of a locally relevant practice. This shifts attention from our contemporary ability to access and borrow information, which may have little or no need for firsthand experience, to our ability to make use of new ideas within established cultural and practical frameworks. In today’s architectural education and practice, isolation and distance may no longer be an issue, and the latest trends adoptable at once without corruption or interpretation. But the challenges of translation still concern, and possibly more than ever, one’s critical understanding of the material acquired. Notes 1. Joan Draper, “The Ecole des Beaux Arts and Architectural Profession in the United States: The Case of John Galen Howard,” in Spiro Kostof, ed., The Architect: Chapters in the History of the Profession (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 216. 2. Discussion of the issues of education and registration for architects began in 1887 with a discussion paper presented to the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects. It prompted the drafting of a registration bill in 1890 that would be eventually presented to Parliament in 1892 but failed to win support. In North America, registration was similarly a concern, with Ontario gaining (albeit noncompulsory) registration in 1890, Illinois in 1897, Quebec in 1898, with other U.S. states and Canadian territories quickly following suit. Western Australia would attempt a registration bill in 1897, but fail, like New South Wales in 1908. At the same time in Britain, the Society of Architects were agitating for but failing to gain statutory registration. 3. This philosophical case is argued particularly in R.N. Shaw and T.G. Jackson, Architecture: A Profession or an Art (London: John Murray, 1892). 4. For a description of these, see J. Willis and B. Hanna, Women Architects in Australia 1900–1950 (Canberra: Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 2001), 17–18; and J.M. Freeland, The Making of a Profession: A History of the Growth and Work of the Architectural Institutes in Australia (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1971). 5. The research for this paper was conducted using the archives of the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier (MUAA), held in the Leighton Irwin (Architecture & Planning) Library, University of Melbourne. The archive consists of original student works, associated documents and the atelier’s yearly publication, the MUAA Prospectus, later MUAA Bulletin. The Bulletin illustrated a representative cross-section of student work from the previous year, with examples from first to third year, with accompanying commentary. The Bulletin illustrations demonstrate a wide range of stylistic interpretations by students of the Atelier and considerable interest in new trends in architecture. 6. The established land and sea transport routes for the southern part of the country all passed through Melbourne rather than Sydney, making Melbourne the city of choice for many wishing to undertake further studies in architecture. 7. Rodney Alsop, “The University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier” (c. 1918), as reproduced in Miles Lewis, “The Development of Architectural Teaching in the University of Melbourne,” unpublished report (1970), p. 66, held Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning, University of Melbourne. 8. Australia’s creation as a nation in 1901 from six separate colonies did not necessarily mean that colonial or state-based institutions disappeared. Each state maintained a separate institute of architects for decades after 1901, with the national Royal Australian Institute of Architects created only in the late 1920s. Even then, some states maintained their independence, the RVIA being the last to join the RAIA in 1968. 9. For a full description of the development of architectural education in Australia, see the chapter on education in Freeland, The Making of a Profession. 10. This is noted in a contemporary newspaper article on the atelier, which stated that “local conditions make slight modifications in the system necessary.” “Training Architects: Atelier at the University,” unreferenced newspaper article (c. 1919), held Melbourne University Architectural Atelier archives, University of Melbourne Library. 11. John Summerson, The Architectural Association 1847–1947 (London: Pleiades Books, 1947), 44. 12. The University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier Prospectus (1921). 13. Ibid. (1922). 14. Ibid. (1922). 15. Ibid. (1924): 9. 16. Bryce Rayworth, “A Question of Style: Inter-war Domestic Architecture in Melbourne,” master’s thesis, University of Melbourne, 1993, p. 7. 17. Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1925): 12. Atelier work was published in the following year’s Bulletin. 18. Graeme Butler, “Irwin, Leighton Major Francis (1892–1962),” in Australian Dictionary of Biography, 1891–1939 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1986), 443–44. 19. Lewis, “The Development of Architectural Teaching in the University of Melbourne,” 73. 20. For instance, Stanley Hall, Easton & Robertson’s Royal Horticultural Society Hall at Westminster (c. 1927) with its distinctive parabolic vaulted ceiling in reinforced concrete, echoed Max Berg’s Jahrhunderthalle in Breslau (1913). The spectacular arched ribs and clerestory windows would find their way into a number of atelier projects. The modern British work was clearly very influential and examples that the atelier students would have seen are included in Recent English Architecture 1920–1940 (London: Country Life), 1947. 21. Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1931): 20–21. 22. Robin Boyd, Victorian Modern (Melbourne: Victorian Architectural Students Society, 1947), 17. 23. Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1931): 22. This statement would be repeated verbatim in subsequent Bulletins, including 1934. 24. Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1935): 25. 25. Lewis, “The Development of Architectural Teaching in the University of Melbourne,” 103. 26. Bulletin of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier (1937): 12–13. 27. Ibid. (1938–1939): 14–15. 28. Arguably, the experience of those whose frame of reference was the European theater (such as Le Corbusier) was formed instead by the heavy off-form concrete bunkers of the Atlantic Line and other places. See Paul Virilio, Bunker Archeology (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1994), 12. 29. For an extended description of this, see Philip Goad and Julie Willis, “Invention from War: A Circumstantial Modernism for Australian Architecture,” Journal of Architecture, 8 (2003): 41–62. 30. John Summerson, “Architecture: A Changing Profession,” Listener (20 April 1939): 832. 31. Lewis, “The Development of Architectural Teaching in the University of Melbourne,” 92. 32. For a discussion of the rise of scientific rationalism in Australian ar- chitecture see Richard Blythe, “Science Enthusiasts: A Threat to BeauxArts Architectural Education in Australia in the 1950s,” Fabrications 8 (July 1997): 117–28. 33. Victor Hurley, “The Hospital System in Victoria,” The Book of Melbourne Australia, 1935 (Melbourne: British Medical Association, Victorian Branch, 1935). 34. The Australian development of the modern hospital took inspiration from the functional language of Aalto and other European architects but melded it with American ideas of service, efficiency, and equipment, and Australian sensibilities of materials and climate. Stephenson and Meldrum (later Stephenson and Turner) would be at the forefront of hospital design from the 1930s to the 1960s. The firm’s founder, Sir Arthur Stephenson, undertook research trips in 1927 and 1932 to support the firm’s hospital projects, visiting the United States, Britain, and, on the latter trip, Europe. He would visit and be greatly influenced by some of the key exemplars of European modernism, including the Weissenhofsiedlung, and, in the area of health, Aalto’s Sanatorium at Paimio, Bijvoet and Duiker’s Zonnestraal Sanatorium, and Richard Döcker’s small Waiblingen hospital near Stuttgart, all appearing at the close of the 1920s. The firm’s expertise was recognized by the invitation to design hospitals for the Kingdom of Iraq in the late 1950s, as one of a number of internationally renowned architects commissioned to design projects for the Kingdom, including Frank Lloyd Wright and Walter Gropius and the Architects’ Collective (TAC). Stephenson’s contribution to the field of hospital architecture was acknowledged with a series of prestigious accolades, including the RIBA Gold Medal (1954) and the RAIA Gold Medal (1963), elected an Honorary Fellow of the AIA (1964) and made a Knight of the British Empire (1964). See J. Willis, “The Health of Modernism: Expression and Efficiency in Hospital Architecture 1925–1967,” in P. Goad, R. Wilken, and J. Willis, Australian Modern: The Architecture of Stephenson and Turner (Melbourne: The Miegunyah Press, 2004). 35. In Australia, the discussion on the possible restructuring of architectural curricula, with the division of professional bachelors in preprofessional degrees and master’s degrees, follows lines that are similar to those implied by Michael Crosbie in “Why Can’t Johnny Size a Beam?” Progressive Architecture 6 (1995): 92–95, and described by Andrea Oppenheimer Dean in “B.Arch? M.Arch? Educators Discuss What All the Controversy Really Means,” Architectural Record 8 (2002): 84–92, or in “Tomorrow’s Architects,” the September 2003 issue of the AIA Journal of Architecture. 36. On this, see Thomas Fisher, “Bridging Education and Practice,” in In the Scheme of Things: Alternative Thinking in the Practice of Architecture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), p. 115–22; and Paolo Tombesi, “Super Market: The Globalization of Architectural Production,” Harvard Design Magazine 17 (2002–2003): 26–31. In Australia, Between America and Europe, Beaux Arts and Modernism, Scholarship and Qualification 22