Living the Modern - architeria.eu

MUSEUM OF FINNISH ARCHITECTURE
HELSINKI, FINLAND

LIVING THE MODERN – AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITION
8 October – 30 November 2008


This exhibition of modern housing architecture in Australia displays 48 buildings from 1990 to 2007.
The material is organised under six themes characterising contemporary trends in Australia: Minimal,
Sculptural, Frame, Interaction, Landscape, East/West. The buildings share high architectural quality
and innovative solutions as well as the label given to the unique form of modern architecture
developed in Australia: Progressive Modernism.

The exhibition presents examples from 25 offices that have transformed, interpreted, used, reformed
and converted aspects of modernism within the past 15 years, and delivers insight to their buildings
as well as to the culturally and environmentally specific development of modern architecture in Australia.
The review is supplemented by prior examples of modernism from the 1950s to the 1980s. The intriguing
examples prove that the adventuresome and enduring Australian spirit is one with a progressive modern
architecture.

By focusing on residential architecture, from free standing homes to high-rise apartment housing, one
is invited to have a look at personal, cultural and climate specific aspects and private spaces of life and
living in Australia. Architects' primary concerns in the building of living spaces in Melbourne, Sydney,
Brisbane, Perth and Tasmania consider the balance of public and private spaces, a site-specific architecture,
and the utilization of alternative energy sources to create successful homes in the fascinating and very
different regions of Australia.

The architects represented in the exhibition follow different theories and are exposed to influences from
all over the world, but still remain bound to the location in which they build. No matter if right in the middle,
on top, dug in, or lifted up, their houses are never closed off from the surroundings. Australian architects
have developed a completely extraordinary and strong sense of their environment and its wild and urban
landscape. Each house reacts and interacts differently with its specific surroundings, and would not
function in another location. For this reason Australian architecture cannot be "internationalized", but is
better described as "Contemporary Progressive Modernism". However, Australian architecture provides
forward thinking solutions, especially in regard to sustainable and climate specific design, which deserve
wider international professional recognition.

Exhibition publication:
Living the Modern - Australian Architecture (240 pages, ed. Claudia Perren and Kristien Ring,
publisher Hatje Cantz), available from the museum bookshop (35 euros).

The exhibition has been produced by Deutsches Architektur Zentrum DAZ


CREDITS:
Text: Museum of Finnish Architecture
Photography:

> Collins and Turner
Bombala Farmhouse
Bombola, New South Wales, 1998
Nordansicht
Photo: Ross Honeysett

> Ian Moore Architects
Air
Broadbeach, Queensland, 2005
Photo: Rocket Mattler

> McBride Charles Ryan
Dome House
Hawthorn, Victoria, 2004
Photo: John Gollings

> Lippmann Associates
Butterfly House
Sydney, New South Wales, 2005
Photo: Willem Rethmeier