Walkley House 1957 ( H. Cullen)
Gillison House, Robin Boyd 1961 ( Mark Strizic)
Published Serle 1998 (pg 132)
The Ruination of the Modern
The conservation of a modernist icon
Conservation of Modern Architecture in Australia
Walkley House, Palmer Place, North Adelaide
Honours thesis by Paul Cooksey
Louis Laybourne Smith School of Architecture and Design
University of South Australia
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Excerpt from the introduction
" The Walkley House is one of many innovative domestic projects that Boyd designed during his career. It was designed for Gavin Walkley and his family in 1955 and completed in September 1956. At the time of writing this paper the house is approaching its 50th anniversary and in need of considerable conservation work. Recently the significance of the Walkley House has been recognised through State Heritage Listing and listing on the National Trust Register, labelled broadly as a “highly significant example of the ‘International Style.’” This categorization recognises the innovative structural system of the Walkley House and ties it into the international implications of Modernist principles. Whilst the house does vaguely adhere to the defining principles of the ‘International Style’ as set out by Johnson, Hitchcock and Barr in their 1933 exhibition publication which launched the ‘Style,’ it is more significant as a document of Robin Boyd’s interpretation of Modernism in relation to Australian conditions. At the time the Walkley House was being built, Boyd was preoccupied with the notion of Functionalist domestic design as a vehicle for Australian Modernist architecture.
Functional architecture (and the broader notion of Modern architecture) comes with a whole set of beliefs and ideals about the role of buildings in society. The validity of these beliefs is not at question here, but rather how you adhere to those beliefs in an attempted authentic conservation process. The doctrine of the Conservation movement sits uncomfortably against the propositions of Modernism. The Conservation movement sprouted in reaction to Modernist development and the Modern movement’s anti-historic stance, and as such the notion of conservation is at odds with the ideas of ‘newness’ and ‘functional clarity’ that the Modern movement supported. The Functionalist and Rationalist branch of Modernism is particularly resistant to Conservationist ideals. This makes the challenge of the conservation of the Walkley House, an example of late-Modern Functionalism, a more prudent exercise for investigating how an authentic restoration of Modernist architecture may proceed, and what, if anything, can be done to ensure a accurate representation of the architectural intention remains after the conservation process is complete."