Heritage architecture: Robin Boyd Aus

Kitchen with built-in cupboards and timber benchtops 

architectureau

Joseph Eichler’s name became synonymous with the single-family, modern homes that helped define suburban Los Angeles and San Fran­cisco from 1949 on. Hiring progressive archit­ects, his designs fo­cused both on modern Californian taste and on pleasant Calif­ornian climates. So his designs grab­bed attent­ion: streamlined kitchen built-ins, multi-purpose room adjoining the kitchen, radiant-heated floors, wood panelling, gabled ceilings, floor-to-ceiling glass walls and the classic atrium that melded indoor-outdoor living. NB the post-&-beam construction, and open floor plans de­signed around the cen­tral atrium. The California Modern style was indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright & Mies van der Rohe

Soon after Eichler in the USA, Robin Boyd started to de­sign his version of Californian Modern in Australia, mainly from the mid 1950s on. But one home over 2 lots in Tannock St in Bal­wyn, in Mel­b­ourne’s leafy east, was a very early example of Boyd's influent­ial work (1949). The house was originally de­signed for pharmacist Don Wood and was called Wood House. The home is one of the few sur­viving examples of Boyd’s early work as a sole practit­ioner, prior to his famous partner­ship with Roy Grounds and Frederick Romberg .

 As published in Australian Home Beautiful in Oct 1950, Boyd’s Wood House became famous for its split level planning and its small foot­print that maximised the space and out­look. The Wood family com­missioned Boyd to sympathetically ex­tend the house in 1959 with two more bed­rooms, a re­creation room and a flat-roofed garage. The second sympathetic extension occurred in 1971 when Boyd added across the street frontage.

A few years ago, this innovative Melbourne house by Boyd was at risk of demol­it­ion, after the property was listed for sale and described as an opp­ortunity to buy vacant land by the estate agent. Note that no images, no architectural details and no historic information about the house were included in the listing.

A detailed report was prepared by Research by Built Heritage in 2015 for the City of Boroondara councillors. This heritage study noted the house was an early, innovative and in­t­act example of Boyd’s work from the austere early post-war period. They recommended that Wood House was an architecturally significant heritage site that needed protection. Yet an ap­plic­ation to subdivide the land was made soon after, curr­ently on hold because there was no demolition app­lic­ation re the subdivision.

So why did the councillors reject the advice to protect the home? They rejected the Heritage Study’s recommendations re protecting prop­erties, citing "the financial impact of the proposed herit­age cont­rols". So although the house was one of the first projects Boyd undertook after opening his own solo practice, and was among relatively few surv­iving examples from his special work, the Council would not give Wood House heritage protection.

TV room with a glass wall and glass doors to the patio

The Age

This year (Aug 2020) an online pet­it­ion called for the home to be pro­tect­ed, started by senior lecturer at Monash Architecture Dr Jacqui Alexander. It said: it was one of three outstanding early and sub­st­antially intact houses by Robin Boyd in the study area which coll­ectively provided rare and valuable evid­ence of the in­novation and bold design approach­es of a young architect starting an illus­trious career. Archit­ect­ur­ally the house was a signif­icant achieve­ment in modern home-building at a time when materials and labour were still due to war-time restrict­ions. The house showed many ideas eg open-planning, split-levels and window walls that were very inn­ov­ative in 1949. Later adopted by others, these elements recurred throughout Boyd's own career.

Dr Al­exander called on Boor­an­dara Council to heritage protect the home and prevent it from demolition. “It is a tragedy that this important exam­ple of post-war Australian modernism looks likely to succumb to the same fate as many other significant homes in Bor­oon­dara. From the social and cultural perspective, it documents the kind of upward mobility of families in the post-war period".

The petition encouraged the Council to officially recog­nise this home and prot­ect it from potential demolition, hoping to raise awareness of this house’s existence, att­racting a buyer who saw its architectural value. She described the house as ‘an important ex­am­ple of mid-century modernism in Melbourne, and in spite of material shortages at the time it was built, the de­s­ign was innovative and ambitious.’ The house incorporated fine ideas that revolutionised Aust­ral­ian domestic design, promoting a new, optim­is­tic image of the suburbs of Melb­ourne. It offered the prom­ise of affordable and dignified design for working Australian families.

Looking into the open-planned family room from the tv room

Wood House by Robin Boyd, 1949

architectureau

Protected homes in Boroondara had been demolished under a controv­ersial 2018 state planning amendment that allowed property owners with an existing council building permit to demolish buildings, de­spite interim heritage orders. Happily the govern­ment has since reversed the amendment; hopefully the new heritage will stop hist­orically significant properties being demolished. Bor­oondara coun­cillors un­anim­ously agreed to write to Planning Min­ist­er Richard Wynne to ask that inter­im and permanent protect­ions be extended to the home. I think Joseph Eichler would have been proud.