Abstract
This paper explores the practices of illicit, low-tech shelter construction that proliferated during the 1960s and 1970s back-to-the-land movement. More specifically, it considers the conflict over unauthorised rural settlements in Australia's Rainbow Region during the 1970s and the related production of the Low Cost Country Home Building manual by the University of Sydney's Department of Architecture. The rudimentary, off-grid architecture of the settlements was at the heart of conflicts over ways of living, property regimes and sites of institutional recognition. Ventures in “dropping out” across the Rainbow Region involved creative negotiation, the formation of new social and political collectivities, and the exploitation of contingency in the forming of state controls. The interactions of progressive architectural practitioners, educators and students, self-builders, politicians, planners and building inspectors, will be investigated in relation to their shaping of legislation to afford the settlements' extralegal living arrangements and non-pedigreed architecture. The paper's exploration of this historical episode contributes to a growing historical scholarship on Australian countercultural architecture, and situates the Australian experience within an international context.
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Schedule a callMore From: Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand
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