Architecture and Arts and the Mediation of American Architecture in Post-war Australia

Abstract

In May 1956 Frank Lloyd Wright wrote to Kenneth McDonald, editor of the Australian magazine Architecture and Arts, to express his gratitude to McDonald for recent issues of the magazine, one of which was devoted to Wright's work and philosophy, and another which featured schemes by Sydney architect Peter Muller. Wright was encouraged by what the magazine represented as occurring “down below there” and wrote, “Organic Architecture is for Australia so why not Australia for Organic Architecture?” McDonald would have been pleased to receive such an endorsement from the “master” architect and continued to publish articles on Wright along with the work of local Australian architects who were experimenting with aspects of organic design within their buildings. The magazine, however, was not an exclusive instrument for the promotion of organic architecture; it also published the work of other American architects and European émigré architects resident in the United States, namely Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer and Richard Neutra. It published news and images of their projects, and theoretical articles authored by them, and even used extracts from their writings and speeches as editorial statements. Other Australian architectural and building periodicals also contained coverage of the work of these architects, but Architecture and Arts stands out for the amount of space and attention it gave their work and their discourse as a context for the presentation and discussion of local buildings. This paper examines the attachment this magazine had to the architectural elite of the United States in the post-war years and the critical and promotional interests at play.