The Career of an Architect-Planner: Colin Ernest Philp in Tasmania 1925-1960

Abstract

ABSTRACT Architects were closely connected with the town planning movement in the first sixty years of the twentieth century. In Tasmania a leading architect-planner was Colin Ernest Philp (1906–95), who trained as an architect in Hobart and practiced in Launceston from 1925 to 1936, in Hobart from 1936 to 1960 and in Fiji from about 1961. Initially influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Philp later applied new methods to an eclectic range of buildings. This article selectively discusses examples of his architectural work, partly influenced by some overseas visits, and his role as “one of the entrepreneurial leaders of Modernism in Tasmania.” But Philp commands our attention for being Tasmania’s most outspoken architect-planner to advocate the application of town planning principles, first in Launceston in the 1930s, but more emphatically from the 1940s in Hobart, where he was prominent on numerous professional and community bodies, advocating better housing and metropolitan planning and tackling problems caused by the motor car. While serving on the Hobart City Council as an alderman from 1956 to 1960, Philp was strategically placed to further his town planning agenda, but was only partially successful. This paper assesses his career as architect, planner and alderman until 1960.