Kitchen with built-in cupboards and timber benchtops
architectureau
Joseph Eichler’s (1900-74) 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
classic atrium that melded indoor-outdoor living. The post-&-beam construction, and open floor plans were designed around the central atrium. The California Modern style was indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright & Mies van der Rohe.
After Eichler in the USA, Robin Boyd (1919-71) started to design his version of Californian Modern in Australia, mainly from the early 1950s on. One home over 2 lots in Tannock St in Balwyn, in Melbourne’s leafy east, was an 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.
Some 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 written by Research by Built Heritage in 2015 for Boroondara City councillors. This heritage study noted the house was an early, innovative & intact example of Boyd’s work from the austere early post-war period. They urged that Wood House was an architecturally significant heritage site that needed protection. Yet an application to subdivide the land was soon made, on hold because there was no demolition application.
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.
In 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.
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.
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.
Some 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 written by Research by Built Heritage in 2015 for Boroondara City councillors. This heritage study noted the house was an early, innovative & intact example of Boyd’s work from the austere early post-war period. They urged that Wood House was an architecturally significant heritage site that needed protection. Yet an application to subdivide the land was soon made, on hold because there was no demolition application.
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
In 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
Hello Hels, Boyd's Wood House is an attractive example of the post-war Modern style. There are still a number of these in California and they are considered attractive and livable, in addition to their historic merit. The problem with denying demolition permits is that developers will often demolish anyway and just pay a fine. I am glad that the local authorities have turned around on this issue, and I hope that the Wood house's future will be secure. Better than a legal protection is a general attitude that living in a famous designer house is a status symbol that people should fight over and pay for, then fewer of these houses will be lost.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Parnassus
DeleteI did not know of any private families who wanted to buy an old protected home for themselves to rebuild. But I have known about lawyered-up builders who sneakily pulled down old homes at _3 am_ to rebuild new houses on well located blocks of land. Now that doesn't happen, but owners put guards around the houses _to ensure_ that they are protected for ever.
I didn't know about Boyd's Wood House. His South Yarra house is often open to the public but I've never visited.
ReplyDeleteAndrew
Deleteyou may have been a bit remote from Balwyn, right on the border at the end of Melbourne's suburbs.
If you do visit the Balwyn house, remember that your parents would have loved it, even if it reminds you of the 1950s. My parents loved it.
My parents had wood panel in our rec room in the basement.
ReplyDeletepeppylady
DeleteYour parents were smart! After the darkness and misery of WW2, light wooden panels were enormously admired by the ex-servicemen who returned home, married and had babies.
I remember when split level and open planning was popular, but as I get older and prices get higher I can't begin to imagine the cost of heating and cooling those places, let alone cleaning all the window glass. Rooms that can be closed to warm effectively in winter and left open for airflow in summer are better I think. And don't forget the all-important verandah, now forgotten-in-new-builds.
ReplyDeleteRiver
Deletearchitectural tastes change every 2 generations or so, usually to the delight of the generation who had left their parents' homes and wanted something new that reflected their tastes. My parents loved split level and open planning, but they quickly added Venetian blinds to keep the summer heat out, even though Joseph Eichler would never have heard of them.
The Manning Clark House was the home of historian Professor Manning Clark and linguist/educator Dymphna Clark at 11 Tasmania Circle, Canberra. This house was designed by Robin Boyd in 1952. Although Boyd was a Victorian architect, his design for the Clark home provided an ideal environment to support the principles Manning and Dymphna valued: hospitality, hard work, rigorous debate and a connection to nature.
ReplyDeleteRobin
DeleteI think the designs matched California, Victoria and Canberra because we have warm summers, cool winters and not much humidity. I understand why only one Boyd house was ever built in Sydney and none in sub tropical, humid Brisbane.
There are a few of his houses about which is good, so not all is lost, Hels.
ReplyDeleteMargaret
Deleteyou are so correct.. Robin Boyd designed c150 residential houses, with c100 still standing today. But since we don't know which of his earlier houses were extensively altered on purpose, clad over or destroyed for modernisation, it is difficult to find out which houses did _not_ survive.
Peter Raisbeck's analysis revealed Boyd’s works and writings in The demise of Robin Boyd:
https://peterraisbeck.com/2017/07/12/the-destruction-of-our-1960s-and-1970s-architectural-heritage-the-demise-of-robin-boyd/.
My Dad was an architect, and I love reading about the history of design. This one really spoke to me because if I ever move, I want a bright kitchen like these. I love mine, but my whole house, kitchen included, is kind of dark.
ReplyDeleteErika
DeleteYou can design the interior of a house, exactly as you want it. White paint? Big glass windows without curtains? Timber floors without carpets? Go for it :)
This was such and interesting read
ReplyDeleteJo-Anne
DeleteFamilies living in housing styles of the present often love examining housing styles of past generations. That doesn't mean you would buy a 1955 house for yourselves, but you may love some of its attributes.
Interesting information. Our first house that my husband and I bought was a split level. We lived in It for 13 years before moving to a two story. I like the moderns of Boyd's Wood House. That was quite modern for that time period. Too bad about the demolition of historical homes.
ReplyDeletegluten free
Deletethe first home of a married couple usually depends on their age and salary. You were fortunate to enjoy your tasteful first home for 13 years.
Spouse and I were graduates without savings, and moved into a room-and-a-half in hospital facilities for young doctors.
It is remarkable and deeply frustrating how a house that embodied Robin Boyd’s early architectural optimism could be reduced in a real estate listing to nothing more than “vacant land,” as though cultural memory itself were expendable.
ReplyDeleteroentare
DeleteBoyd made an important difference to Australian home design by introducing informal taste, open-plans and easy indoor-outdoor transitions. Cultural significance was important as seen in his home documents: history, upward mobility and lifestyle shifts of Australians specifically in the post-war period.
How could people destroy our preserved cultural heritage??