A Tale of Inconsistency: The Absence and Presence of Australia in the Historiography of Modern Architecture

Abstract

This essay addresses the following question: How has Australia been portrayed in the historiography of modern architecture? From the early twentieth to the twenty-first century, from Henry-Russell Hitchcock to Jean-Louis Cohen, the presence of Australia in histories of modern architecture is inconsistent, with intermittent periods of absence. The historians’ choices of modern buildings and architects in Australia are similarly inconsistent. This essay investigates the different editions and expansions of the histories of modern architecture with a focus on those published after 1957, the year of the competition for the Sydney Opera House designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon. Just as the different buildings and architects are relevant for the argument of this essay, it is necessary to discuss the differences in the historians’ own first-hand experience in Australia, as well as their inconsistent use of limited sources. It is precisely this inconsistency in references, both built and written, that gives an idea of the lack of connection between the general historiography of modern architecture and the research that has been undertaken in Australia on the history of the country’s modern architecture since 1984.