Bringing SA's architectural history to life
by Vincent Ciccarello
Three
projects at UniSA’s Architecture Museum are bringing the State’s
architectural history to life.
Researchers are documenting the lives of 100 of the State’s most significant architects from colonial times to the present to create the online Database of SA Architects and their Works, with $80,000 in funding from the State Government’s Department for Environment and Heritage (DEH).
The DEH (Heritage Branch) SA Built Heritage Fellowship is allowing other researchers to undertake in-depth studies into various aspects of SA’s built environment.
And the Architecture Museum Monograph Series, which includes publications generated through the Fellowship, will present surveys of SA architects for professionals and the wider public.
Museum Director, Dr Christine Garnaut said the projects would address the dearth of quality information about SA’s architectural heritage.
"We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of 4000 architects who were active in SA between 1836 and 2006 for the Database," Dr Garnaut said.
"And we have already completed 30 of 100 planned biographies, giving detailed, scholarly information about the architect’s life and education, with information about key works, further reading lists and links to useful sites."
The first SA Built Heritage Fellow, Louise Bird, has created a three-volume report on pioneer modernist architect Russell S Ellis. The report was condensed to create the first in the Monograph series and was launched at Bird’s Fellowship seminar.
"The DEH Fellowships aim to support research and scholarship into topics such as building types, interior design and materials that will be of value to historians, and conservation and landscape architects," Dr Garnaut said.
Dr Adam Dutkiewicz, the second Fellowship winner, is currently working on the work of Brian Claridge between the 1950s and ‘70s.
DEH has funded the $10,000 annual Fellowships until 2010.
Dr Garnaut said the DEH’s support is helping the museum fulfil its mission to make information about SA’s built environment more publicly accessible.
"As the repository of more than 200,000 items relating to the State’s architecture – the only archive of its kind in Australia – it is important for the museum to make information about the heritage of our built environment as widely available as possible," she said.
"The generous support of the DEH is helping us do that."