Modern in Melbourne

Structuralism is a mode of thinking and a method of analysis practiced in 20th-century social sciences and humanities.Methodologically, it analyzes large-scale systems by examining the relations and functions of the smallest constituent elements of such systems, which range from human languages and cultural practices to folktales and literary texts.
In the field of linguistics the structuralist work of Ferdinand de Saussure, undertaken just prior to World War I, long served as model and inspiration. Characteristic of structuralist thinking, Saussure's linguistic inquiry was centered not on speech itself but on the underlying rules and conventions enabling language to operate. In analyzing the social or collective dimension of language rather than individual speech, he pioneered and promoted study of grammar rather than usage, rules rather than expressions, models rather than data, langue (language) rather than parole (speech). Saussure was interested in the infrastructure of language that is common to all speakers and that functions on an unconscious level. His inquiry was concerned with deep structures rather than surface phenomena and made no reference to historical evolution. (In structuralist terminology, it was synchronic, existing now, rather than diachronic, existing and changing over time.)

In the domain of anthropology and myth studies, the work done in the immediate post-World War II period by Claude Levi-Strauss introduced structuralist principles to a wide audience. Following the ideas of Saussure and of the Slavic linguists N. S. Trubetzkoy and Roman Jakobson, Levi-Strauss specified four procedures basic to structuralism. First, structural analysis examines unconscious infrastructures of cultural phenomena; second, it regards the elements of infrastructures as "relational," not as independent entities; third, it attends singlemindedly to system; and fourth, it propounds general laws accounting for the underlying organizing patterns of phenomena.

In humanistic and literary studies, structuralism is applied most effectively in the field of "narratology." This nascent discipline studies all narratives, whether or not they use language: myths and legends, novels and news accounts, histories, relief sculptures and stained-glass windows, pantomimes and psychological case studies. Using structuralist methods and principles, narratologists analyze the systematic features and functions of narratives, attempting to isolate a finite set of rules to account for the infinite set of real and possible narratives. Starting in the 1960s, the #French critic Roland Barthes and several other French narratologists popularized the field, which has since become an important method of analysis in the United States as well.
Because structuralism values deep structures over surface phenomena, it parallels, in part, the views of Marx and Freud, both of whom were concerned with underlying causes, unconscious motivations, and transpersonal forces, shifting attention away from individual human consciousness and choice. Like Marxism and Freudianism, therefore, structuralism furthers the ongoing modern diminishment of the individual, portraying the self largely as a construct and consequence of impersonal systems. Individuals neither originate nor control the codes and conventions of their social existence, mental life, or linguistic experience. As a result of its demotion of the person, or subject, structuralism is widely regarded as "antihumanistic."

Saussure envisaged a new discipline, a science of signs and sign systems that he named semiology, and for which he believed structural linguistics could provide a principal methodology. The American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce, Saussure's contemporary, sketched a similar science labeled semiotic. In 1961, Levi-Strauss situated structural anthropology within the domain of "semiology." Increasingly, the terms semiology and Semiotics came to designate a field of study that analyzes sign systems, codes, and conventions of all kinds, from human to animal and sign languages, from the jargon of fashion to the lexicon of food, from the rules of folk narrative to those of phonological systems, from codes of architectureand medicine to the conventions of myth and literature. The term semiotics has gradually replaced structuralism, and the formation of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in the 1960s has solidified the trend.
At the moment when structuralist methodology was expanding into the discipline of semiotics, critical reaction occurred, particularly in France, where it led to such antithetical and schismatic projects as #Gilles Deleuze's "schizoanalysis," Jacques Derrida's Deconstruction, Michel Foucault's "genealogy," and Julia Kristeva's "semanalysis." These critical schools were lumped together and labeled poststructuralism in the United States.
Despite the various critiques of structuralism, it has generated much important work and holds promise of continuing to do so.

Structuralism in Architecture - the Structuralist Diagram

The Arrival of Structuralism in Architecture

With the third and final stage of CIAM liberal idealism triumphed completely over the materialism of the early period. In 1947, at CIAM 6 held at Bridgwater in England, CIAM attempted to transcend the abstract sterility of the 'functional' city by affirming that ' the aim of CIAM is to work for the creation of a physical environment that will satisfy man's emotional and material needs. ' This theme was developed further under the auspices of the English MARS group which prepared the topic 'The Core'[meaning the urban core - presumed to be the source of identity and community] for CIAM 8 held at Hoddeson, England in 1951. In choosing the theme 'The Heart of the City', MARS caused the congress to address itself to a topic that had already been broached by Siegfried Giedion, José Luis Sert and Fernand Léger in their manifesto of 1943, where they wrote: ' The people want buildings that represent their social and community life to give more functional fulfilment. they want their aspiration to monumentality, joy, pride and excitement to be satisfied. ' However ' the old guard of CIAM gave no indication that they were capable of realistically appraising the complexities of the post-war urban predicament; with the result that new affiliates drawn from the younger generation became increasingly disillusioned and restless.

At CIAM 8 Giedion praised the playground designs of the young Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck. about whom I will say more later. The decisive split between the old-guard and the young 'turks', came with CIAM 9 held at Aix-en-Provence in 1953 when this generation led by Alison and Peter Smithson and Aldo van Eyck, challenged the four Functionalist categories of the Athens Charter. Dwelling, Work, Recreation and Transportation. Instead of proffering an alternative set of abstractions, the Smithson's, van Eyck, Jacob Bakema, Georges Candilis, Shadrach Woods, John Voelcker and William and Jill Howell searched for the structural principles of urban growth and for the next significant unit above the family cell. their dissatisfaction with the modified functionalism of the old guard - with the idealism of le Corbusier, van Eesteren, Sert, Ernesto Rogers, Alfred Roth, Kunio Mayekawa and Gropius - is refelcted in their critical reaction to the CIAM 8 report. They wrote : ' Man may readily identify himself with his own hearth, but not easily with the town within which it is placed. 'Belonging' is a basic emotional need - its associations are of the simplest order. From 'belonging' - identity - comes the enriched sense of neighborliness. The short narrow street of the slum succeeds where spacious redevelopment frequently fails. ' With this they dismissed both what Frampton described as the 'Sittesque sentimentality' of the old guard and the rationalism of the 'functional city'. In short they established a clear position for themselves within the field based on the re-assertion of the importance of both the social and symbolic aspects of the built environment.

The position was based on the assertion of the importance of vernacular values and building form whether in the form of Nigel Henderson's photos of London street life [exhibited at Aix-en-Provence by the Smithson's] or the Algerian housing scheme presented by Georges Candilis [based on vernacular housing types]. At CIAM 9 the Smithson's and John Voelcker presented designs for a range of housing types intended to address issues of community. Candilis presented his Algerian mass-housing scheme. These concerns struck an instant chord with van Eyck, who in the company of wife Hannie and friends had undertaken two trips to the Sahara and published his photographs of the vernacular settlements he encountered there. This group of young tearaways was to become the core of Team X the successor to CIAM which dissolved itself after the next and last Congress, number 11 at Otterloo in Belgium.
Without persuing unnecessarily the history of the development of Team X it is apparent that the intitial unity of purpose within the group was shortlived and while they were still in the process of disposing of the old-guard of CIAM their disparate interests caused an ideological split between the Smithson's and Bakema on the one hand whose interest in mediating the alienating effects of universal mobility via the creation of 'place' ironically [initially at least] through the use of megastructural housing blocks and elevated pedestrian decks - and van Eyck who addressed himself to issues which the majority of Team X would hve preferred to have left unformulated. No other Team X member seems to have been prepared to attack the alienating abstraction of modern architecture.

In the 1950's and 1960's in both the United States and Europe the influence of structuralist thought already prevalent in linguistics and anthropology began to inflect the most adventurous architecture of the period. The work of De Saussure in Linguistics and Levi-Strauss in anthropology led to the idea of the existence of 'deep structures' in their respective fields of study. In general, as I have noted, structuralism was characterised by the attempt to study the relationships linking phenomena rather than the phenomena themselves in isolation. This led to a realisation that individual phenomena are both part-cause and effect of a larger mutually interactive web or matrix of phenomena rather than the outcome of a linear chain of cause and effect. Levi-Strauss' studies of traditional cultures drew attention to the built form of these cultures and drew attention to their additive nature. A limited range of related components arranged in a limited range of variations according to a particular set of rules.

Just as there seemed to be deep structures shaping the social patterns of these cultures there seemed to be 'deep structures' defining the organisation of their traditional built environment. This realisation made a deep impact on important European and north American, architects of the time and one or two of them at least began to speculate on the possible existence of deep structures linking late twentieth century western society and its built environment with those of 'traditional' African and Asian cultures.

This interest in deep structures manifested itself in architecture in two main ways. Firstly, the observation of deep structures in language led to the establishment of a methodology for studying them. This new science of semiology, later known as semiotics, was first proposed by De Saussure early in the twentieth century. By the 1960's the speculation that there might also exist a corresponding language of architecture, the structure of which might be uncovered and analysed, led to a semiotic analysis of the built environment.

The leading figure in this research was perhaps the English architectural academic Geoffrey Broadbent and its most notable outcome was the development of a 'pattern Language' approach to architectural form by the English mathematician turned architectural theoretician Christopher Alexander whose group working from the University of California at Berkeley produced a number of publications of a variety of Pattern Languages for a range of urban configurations and architectural types. Notable were the Group's entry for the PREVI Lima housing competition [1967?], their Pattern Language for 'Multi Service Centres' and the three volumes simply titled a Pattern Language which attempted to set out a range of general guidelines for urban form from the broadest to the finest scale. This work produced a predictable backlash from architects and theoreticians who perhaps unreasonably, resented what they saw as the prescriptive dimension to this work and correctly [and more reasonably] noted the covert aesthetic dimension to the work. This might be characterised as a combination of medieval village and the hippy wood-butcher reaction to the rampant materialism of late modernist society. This research petered out by the mid-seventies and resulted in few built projects to permit the evaluation of its effectiveness.

The more obvious result of structuralism in architecture came from the interest of a number of architects who simply grafted onto the traditional architectural project a set of formal gestures which simply symbolised the broader shift in thought in western society which structuralism represented. In the broadest formal sense, the upshot of this was architecture organised as more or less flexible arrangements of interchangeable but generally clearly defined modules. Space was categorised and divided according to use patterns and combined according to devised sets of rules. The component of architectural form were generally clearly articulated - one could always tell, for example, where column became beam and load bearing became non-load bearing.

The Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck who, for a while edited the influential magazine Forum vigorously pursued his interest in the relationship between the social structures and the built form of traditional cultures, making several field trips to the Dogon people of north West Africa to study their indigenous shelter. He published and lectured very widely on what he saw as the lessons for western architects and urban planners to learn from the Dogon. I heard him lecture on this as an architecture student in Perth in 1966.

Van Eyck was interested in the dwelling as a microcosmic analogy for the city and the city as a macrocosmic analogy for the dwelling; so passage ways in dwellings were analogous to streets and public squares in cities analogous to living rooms. Here I might say a little about van Eyck and his work to set the scene. He was also interested in the psychological importance of archaic aspects of built form such as the hearth and the thresh-hold.

Aldo van Eyck was born in Driebergen, Holland in 1918. He lived with his family in Golders Green in London from October 1919 to July 1935. Educated in England at Prince Alfred Primary School in Hampstead, London from 1924-32 and at Sidcot School in Winscombe near Wells from 1932-35. He returned to Holland to study at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts in the Hague 1935-38 He studied architecture at the Eidgennössische Technische Hochschule Zurich from 1938-42. He remained in Zurich until the end of the war where he married his fellow ex-student Hannie van Roojen in 1943. Children Tess [1945] and Quinten [1948]. While living in Zurich they met Carola Giedion-Welcker who introduced them to the twentieth century art avant-garde.

The Van Eyck's moved to Amsterdam in 1946 where Aldo worked as an architectural designer in the Town Planning section of the Amsterdam Public Works Department from 1946-51. He participated in the COBRA movement 1948-51. From 1951-54 he lectured in Art History at the Academy of Art and Industry in Enschede. From 1947 he was a member of the Dutch CIAM group 'de 8 en opbouw', a participant in the Nagele project [1948-58] and Dutch delegate at a string of international congresses from 1947-59. He commenced private practice in partnership in 1951, in association with Theo Bosch 1971-2 and in association with his wife Hannie from 1983 to his death in 1999.

From 1951-66 he tutored in Interior Design at the Institute for Applied Art Education in Amstredam and from 1954-59 he tutored in architectural design at the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam. Aldo Van Eyck co-founded "Team 10" with J. Bakema, G. Candilis, A. & P. Smithson and J. Voelcker in 1954. Van Eyck lectured throughout Europe and northern America stressing the need to reject Functionalism and attacking the lack of originality in most post-war Modernism.

Van Eyck's position as co-editor of the Dutch magazine Forum helped publicize the "Team 10" call for a return to humanism within architectural design. He co-edited Forum with Apon, Bakema, Boon, Hardy, Hertzberger and Schrofer 1959-63 and 1967. He joined the Delft Technical College as a professor in 1966 retiring in 1984. He lectured ceaselessly at universities and congresses, twice visiting Australia; first for the Perth Architecture Students Convention in May 1966 where he lectured together with Jacob Bakema, John Voelcker and Buckminster-Fuller and in 1984 in Sydney and Melbourne for the Architects' International Series. Although van Eyck demanded an empirical search for original solutions in most of his written works, he showed a distinct preference for Structuralist values within his completed projects. He received the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 1990 and died in 1998.

Among van Eycks important buildings from the period were:
Amsterdam Orphanage, at Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1955 to 1960.
Temporary Sculpture Pavilion, at Sonsbeek, Netherlands, 1965 to 1966.
Wheels of Heaven Church, project, 1966.
Catholic Church for Pastor van Ars, at the Hague, Netherlands, 1963 to 1969.
PREVI Housing, at Lima, Peru, 1969 to 1972.
I will illustrate just three of these to give a feel for the look of this important re-working of the modernist project.

Amsterdam Orphanage, at Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1955 to 1960.
Discussion
This building made Van Eyck's reputation world wide. It became the icon of the structuralist - Team 10 revision of modernism. It was however not universally admired with some people finding it more expressive of the idea of humanism than its actuality. Sharp described it thus " A cult building in the 1960s, Van Eyck's orphanage brought to the surface an idiosyncratic interpretation of modern architectural ideas enriched by pattern and forms and by balancing repetitive pavilions. Constructed in reinforced concrete panels and glass bricks, it has undoubtedly worn badly. It now houses the Berlage Institute. "-Sharp, D.,. Twentieth Century Architecture: a Visual History. p240. Norwich was kinder: " Van Eyck's reputation as an original designer was enhanced by the low-profile brick-built orphanage on a site in the Amsterdam suburbs. It has had an influence on school buildings throughout the world. " Norwich, J. J., [ed]. Great Architecture of the World. p235. Kultermann kinder still: " The most important personality in Holland is Aldo van Eyck...whose orphanage in Amsterdam (1958-1960) became known all over the world, due to the exemplary concept of this building. A home for 125 children of all ages was created here, articulating a revolutionary synthesis in the consideration of the individual and the group, inner and outer space, extended and small areas...Aldo van Eyck re-adopted a previously formulated concept of L. B. Alberti, when realizing the house for children in Amsterdam...the analogy of city and house: a small world within a large , a large world within a small one, a house as a city, a city as a house, a home for children-to create that was my goal. " -Udo Kultermann. Architecture in the 20th Century. p138.

The architect had this to say: " The building was conceived as a configuration of intermediary places clearly defined. This does not imply continual transition or endless postponement with respect to place and occasion. On the contrary, it implies a break away from the contemporary concept (call it sickness) of spatial continuity and the tendency to erase every articulation between spaces, i.e., between outside and inside, between one space and another. Instead, I tried to articulate the transition by means of defined in-between places which induce simultaneous awareness of what is signified on either ." Kultermann, U., Architecture in the 20th Century. p138.

Wheels of Heaven Church, [project], 1966.
The church was described by Joseph Rykwert who published it in Domus as a design which " exemplified an architecture that expressed itself with an eloquence which moves the spectator by the clarity of a formal statement and through the shock of recognition, a shock which ocurred 'when he has read an order in the building through which he has walked and he has recognised this order as the plan of his being. " [Strauven, F., 'Aldo Van Eyck the Shape of Relativity', Architectura & Natura, 1998]

Catholic Church for Pastor van Ars

images only

Van Eyck taught at Penn State for several years during this period along with Louis Kahn whose tartan gridded plans and ideas of servant and served space paralleled the development of Van Eyck's own architecture during his Team X days. Kahn who shared much with van Eyck [but also differed in important ways, is important so it is necessary to say something about him and his work before continuing.

Louis I. Kahn

Louis Kahn was born in Saarama, Estonia in 1901. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1905. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a thorough grounding the the Beaux Art school of architecture. During the 1920s and 1930s he worked as a draughtsman and, later, as a head designer for several Philadelphia-based firms.
In 1925-26 Kahn acted as the Chief of Design for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition. During the Depression, he was active in the design of public assisted housing. Beginning in 1935 Kahn worked with a series of partners, but from 1948 until his death in 1974, Kahn worked alone. From 1947 to 1957 he was Design Critic and Professor of Architecture at Yale University, after which he was Dean at the University of Pennsylvania.
Kahn's architecture is notable for its simple, platonic forms and compositions. Through the use of brick and poured-in place concrete masonry, he developed a contemporary and monumental architecture that maintained a sympathy for the site. While rooted in the International Style, Kahn's architecture was an amalgam of his Beaux Arts education and a personal aesthetic impulse to develop his own architectural forms.
Considered one of the foremost architects of the late twentieth century, Kahn received the AIA Gold Medal in 1971 and the RIBA Gold Medal in 1972. He was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1971. He died in New York, in 1974.
Kahn's many important buildings included:
Esherick House, at Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania, 1959 to 1961.
Erdman Hall Dormitories, at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, 1960 to 1965.
Exeter Library, at Exeter, New Hampshire, 1967 to 1972.
First Unitarian Church, at Rochester, New York, 1959 to 1967.
Institute of Public Administration, at Ahmedabad, India, 1963.
Kimbell Museum, at Fort Worth, Texas, 1967 to 1972.
National Assembly in Dacca, at Dacca, Bangladesh, 1962 to 1974.
Norman Fisher House, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1960.
Richards Medical Center, at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1957 to 1961.
Salk Institute, at La Jolla, California, 1959 to 1966.
Trenton Bath House, at Trenton, New Jersey, 1954 to 1959.
University Art Center, at New Haven, Connecticut, 1951 to 1954.
Yale Center for British Art, at New Haven, Connecticut, 1969 to 1974.

Kimbell Museum, at Fort Worth, Texas, 1967 to 1972.
Commentary
" The Kimbell Art Museum by Louis Kahn is also a disciplined, coherent, and visually clear statement, but here the aesthetics derive from the more classically oriented sensiblity of its architect. It has an austere yet rich simplicity that comes from the repetition of a vaultlike form, given a dull sheen from its lead-covered exterior, and a beautifully articulated concrete structural frame with infill paneled walls of travertine. Its classic sense of timelessness is ennobled by a reverence for material and detail. Its interior form, bathed in a diffused natural light that enters the space via continuous interior suspended screen and reflected downward off the curve of the vault. " Paul Heyer. American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century. p278-279.
"...Louis Kahn...was perhaps the best among the architects of this century to illustrate expressive honesty and integrity with regard to the coordination of materials with a total architectural vision. "
" Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art museum in Fort Worth is a masterpiece in this respect. A survey of the numerous studies of the building demonstrate a care for 'fit' that can only be compared to the perfection of the classics, especially the Greek classics. Kahn put the use of tools and machines to the ultimate architectonic end; with them he produced buildings that were composites of parts working in total harmony among themselves and with the whole. There is no Kahn building that does not give evidence of his genius in the use of materials. He has achieved perfection in buildings with all sorts of budgetary constraints, from the most modest to the monumental. "
-Anthony C. Antoniades. Poetics of Architecture: Theory of Design. p220.
Details American Institute of Architects 25 Year Award, 1990

Salk Institute, La Jolla, California, 1959 to 1966
Commentary
" In the laboratories the vertical ducts of the Richards Building have been turned on their sides, housed in the hollows of spanning box girders and vented from huge hoods at the flanks of the building. The pre-cast units of structure have thus continued to become larger as the crane can lift them. Order, once an affair of repetitive crystals for Kahn, is now felt in grand components, space-making themselves.... All utilities are now directly channeled through the structure,...(the result being that) 'served' spaces, and 'servant' spaces are entirely integrated,...this 'meaningful order' was almost instantly arrived at in Kahn's design. "
-Vincent Scully, Jr.. Louis I. Kahn. p36-37.
" Materials used are concrete, wood, marble and water. Concrete is left with exposed joints and formwork markings. Teak and glass infill in the office and common room walls....The laboratories may be characterized as the architecture of air cleanliness and area adjustability. The architecture of the oak table and the rug is that of the studies. "
-Louis I. Kahn. from Heinz Ronner, with Sharad Jhaveri and Alessandro Vasella Louis I. Kahn: Complete Works 1935-74. p164.165.
" Louis Kahn's Salk Institute for Biological Studies on the Pacific coast near La Jolla aspires within its own spirit to an order achieved through clarity, definition, and consistency of application. It stands as a testament to Kahn's word, 'Order is. ' Two parallel laboratories, each an uninterrupted 65- foot wide and 245-feet long and encircled by a perimeter corridor, flank a central court. The support elements to these totally flexible spaces are placed in a peripheral relationship to this corridor. They are the studies and offices for scientist, fractured in profile and vertical in rhythm, which line this central court, connected by bridges to the perimeter corridor and receiving views of the ocean by virtue of exterior walls angles toward it. The idea of simple and strong; the served space of laboratories where research is performed, the serving space of offices where thought initiates....Clearly, in the institute at La Jolla, a new level of realization and accomplishment is evident for this ides....The institute manifests beauty of mind and act; of the resolution and articulation of the major elements of the building...being what it wants to and needs to be, to the precise detail and execution of beautiful concrete surfaces. Even the component of structure derives from the need to enclose specific spaces, specifically and pertinently, rather than offer a general envelope within which specific space might then be designated. The central court, as a typical Kahn-like space of shimmering blue water, a band pointing toward the ocean epitomizing what human endeavor can accomplish at one scale with geometric clarity and authoritative but modest deliberation, to give to the scaleless sweep of the ocean, here the Pacific, a poignant gesture. "
-Paul Heyer. American Architecture: Ideas and Ideologies in the Late Twentieth Century. p195.

Perhaps most important of Kahn's works in the context of this lecture is the less well known Trenton Bath House 1955-7. This design for a ritual cleansing facility for a Jewish community in Trenton New Jersey, based on the earlier unbuilt Adler House (1954-5) was seminal for Kahn, marking his break with the modernist framework exemplified by Mies which had defined his earlier work. At the time Kahn commented that " If the world discovered me after I designed the Richards tower building, I discovered myself after designing that little concrete block bath-house in Trenton. "At the time of the design of the Trenton bath-house Kahn commented in a section of his notebooks entitled 'Compartmented Spaces' " Space made by a dome then divided by walls is not the same space. A room should bea constructed entity or an ordered segment of a construction system. Mies' sensitivities with creation of space reacts to impose structural order with little inspiration drawn from what a building 'wants to be'. Corbusier feels what a space wants to be, passes through order impatiently and huries to form ;" Kahn's intent was clearly to give equal weight to order and form in his work. The resonances between the thinking and buildings of Kahn and van Eyck are striking.

This impact of Kahn's approach in general and the Trenton bath-house in particular, on later architecture in Australia were profound.

Of similar persuasion was Van Eyck's country-man Hermann Hertzberger, and their contemporary, the Dane Jørn Utzon who developed an architectural language based on the careful articulation of each constituent element. Hertzberger was central as a younger collaborator with van Eyck on the editorial team of the critical issues of FORUM magazine between 1959 and 1961? Perhaps most important of Hertzberger's many buildings in this context is the famous Central Beheer Office block in Apeldoorn in Holland constructed between 1967 and 1972.

Central Beheer Apeldoorn Holland 1967 - 72
Commentary
" The idea...is that of a building as a sort of settlement, consisting of a larger number of equal spatial units, like so many islands strung together. These spatial units constitute the basic building blocks; they are comparatively small and can accommodate the different programme components (or 'functions'), because their dimensions as well as their form and spatial organization are geared to that purpose. They are therefore polyvalent...
The basic requirements of an office building may well be simple enough in principle, but it was this need for adaptability that led to the complexity of the commission. Constant changes occur within the organization, thereby requiring frequent adjustments to the size of the different departments. The building must be capable of accommodating these internal forces, while the building as a whole must continue to function in every respect and at all times. " - Arnulf Lüchinger. Herman Hertzberger Buildings and Projects. p87.

Structuralism in Australian Architecture

In Australia generally and Melbourne specifically, the most progressive architecture seemed to mirror the structuralist shift although as far as I know it was never discussed in those terms at the time. The re-awakening of interest in monumentality also propelled architecture towards closed forms and the expression of mass and solidity. The social program explicit in the work of some of the TEAM X structuralist architects was most clearly exemplified by Kevin Borland in the 1960's although formally his work was not easily linked with the European and North American structuralists. Here some background on Borland - still alive but largely forgotten in the new millennium - seems appropriate.

The final architect I will mention here is Graeme Gunn. Born in Hamilton studied architecture at RMTC but never completed the course - a registered architect but without academic qualification - Gunn became for a decade mid 60's to mid 70's one of the most influential design architects in Melbourne and also exterted a major influence on the development of the city's urban form via his co-authorhip of the influential 'A Mansion or No House' I will represent him with some images of two of his projects. The award winning Molesworth Street town houses and his holiday house for David Yencken at Baronda on the south coast of New South Wales.

Structuralism and Architecture - Europe and North America
1. Broadbent, G., Bunt, R. & Jencks, C. [eds] Signs Symbols and Architecture, John Wiley and sons 1980.
2. Lüchinger, A., Structuralism in Architecture and Urban Planning, Karl Krämer verlag, Stuttgart 1981
3. van der Heuvel, Wim, J. A., Structuralism in Dutch Architecture, 1992
4. Strauven, F., ldo van Eyck - the Shape of Relativity,, Architectura & Natura, Amsterdam, 1998.
5. Colquhoun, A., Post-modernism and Structuralism a Retrospective Glance, in Colquhoun A., Modernity and the Classical Tradition, Architectural Essays 1980 - 1987 MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts 1989, or Assemblage 5, February 1988.
6. Hertzberger, H., Lessons for Students in Architecture, Rotterdam, Uitgiverij 010, 1991.
7. Frampton, K. Modern Architecture, A Critical History, Thames & Hudson, London 1980.
8. Alexander, C., The Timeless Way of Building, Oxford University Press, New York 1979.
9. Alexander, C., et al, A Pattern Language, , Oxford University Press, New York 1977.
10. Alexander, C., et al, Houses Generated by Patterns, The Centre for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, California 1971. [competition entry for the PREVI Lima Housing Competition.
11. Alexander, C., et al, A Pattern Language which Generates Multi-Service Centers, The Centre for Environmental Structure, Berkeley, California 1968

Structuralism and Architecture - Australia - General background
12. McKay, I., Mant, J., et al [eds] Living and Partly Living, - Housing in Australia, Nelson [ca] 1975
13. Gunn, G., Yencken, D., Paterson, J., A Mansion or No House, Melbourne [ca] 1982
14. See also the web site Modern in Melbourne - Lectures"Tthe 60's and 70's" - access RMIT Architecture Web page>People>Doug Evans>Homepage

Structuralism and Architecture - Further Reading for the committed and/or multi-lingual - Europe and North America
"Otterlo Kongress NL - CIAM ´59 in Otterlo" O. Newman: Dokumente der modernen Architektur, Band 1, Stuttgart 1961
"Forum" Zeitschrift der Strukturalisten und ehem. CIAM Beiträge von H.Herzberger, A. van Eyck, B. Bakema, usw.: Architectura et Amicitia, Amsterdam, Hilversum seit 1947
"Kenzo Tange - Funktion, Struktur und Symbol,1966" Kenzo Tange: U. Kulturmann, Zürich 1970
"Strukturalismus" Arnulf Lüchinger: Bauen + Wohnen Nr.5, München 1974 S.209-212
"Strukturalismus eine neue Strömung in der Architektur" u.a. Arnulf Lüchinger, Herman Herzberger: Bauen + Wohnen Nr.1, München Januar 1976 , S.5-11; 21-24
" Geschichte der Architektur des 19. und 20. Jahrhundert" L. Benevolo "Die holländischen Strukturalisten" P.Peters: München 1978
"Strukturalismus eine der Hauptströmungen unserer Zeit" J. Joedicke: Stuttart 1980
"Strukturalismus in Architektur und Städtebau" Arnulf Lüchinger: Karl Krämer Verlag, Stuttgart 1981
"Structuralism in Dutch Architecture" Wim J. van Heuvel: Uitgeverij 010, Rotterdam 1992
"Aldo van Eyck" Francis Straufen: Meulenhoff bv, Amsterdam 1994

Hertzberger

"Herman Hertzberger - Bauten und Projekte, 1959-1986" Arnulf Lüchinger: Arch-Edition, Den Haag
"Herman Herzberger 1959-1990" in Architecture and Urbanism (a+u), Tokyo 1991 April Extra Edition
"Herman Herzberger " Herman van Bergeijk: Birkenhäuser Verlag, Basel, Bosten, Berlin 1997 (Studiopaperback)
"Vom Bauen" Herman Herzberger: HAries Verlag, München 1995
"In Opposition zur Moderne" u.a. P.Eisenman, A.van Eyck, H.Herzberger: Vieweg, Braunschweig Wiesbaden 1980
"New Structure und das Informelle" von Cecil Balmond: Arch+ Nr.139/140 S.129 -
"Der architektonische Raum" Philippe Boudon: Birkenhäuser Verlag, Basel, Berlin, Boston 1991
"Peter Eisenman" El Croquis Nr. 83: Madrid, 1997
"Peter Eisenman" Luca Galaforo: Birkenhäuser, Basel 1999
"Other Spaces - Die Affaire der Heterotopie" u.a. Michel Foucault: HDA Dokumente zur Architektur 10, Haus der Architektur, Graz April 1998
Domus (Zeitschrift) Jan 2000 (u.a.Greg Lynn, Lars Spuybroek,...)

Architects' Biographies

Peter and Allison Smithson

Biography
Peter Smithson was born in Stockton-on-Tees, England in 1923. Allison Smithson was born in Sheffield, England in 1928. Both studied at the University of Durham. They worked with the LCC before joining forces as a design team.
Borrowing from a "bare bones" aesthetic dictated by Mies Van DerRohe, the team generated a revolutionary architectural style based on technological minimalism. While the idea of place acts as the central focus of all their designs, the minimalism directing their designs - both in terms of form and material - has often placed their work within the realms of Brutalist architecture.
While their buildings exhibited some key architectural ideas, the Smithsons gained most of their recognition through their involvement with Team 10 and the overthrow of old CIAM philosophies. In 1956, as members of the Independent Group, the Smithsons contributed to the This is Tomorrow exhibition which was revised in 1990 for an ICA travelling exhibition on their work.

James Stirling

Works
Engineering Building, at Leicester University, Leicester, England, 1959.
History Faculty Library, at Cambridge University, England, 1968 (1964?).
Neue Staatsgalerie, at Stuttgart, Germany, 1977 to 1983.

Biography
(b. Glasgow, Scotland 1926)
James Stirling was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1926. From 1945 to 1950 he trained in the Beaux Arts tradition at Liverpool University. He worked with Lyons, Israel & Ellis in London for several years before he formed a partnership with James Gowan. Influenced by the later designs of Le Corbusier and the theories of the Smithsons, Stirling and Gowan produced several influential buildings which started a trend toward brick and exposed concrete.
Stirling's early designs, especially for Cambridge and Oxford, often emphasized concept over aesthetic and utilitarian needs. His later works appeared more formal due to their influence from Post-Modern classicism. Criticized for his ability to continually alter his fundamental architectural principles, Stirling uses an experimental design approach that shows little commitment to one particular style.
Dennis Sharp. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Architects and Architecture. New York: Quatro Publishing, 1991. ISBN 0-8230-2539-X. NA40.I45. p148.
Details
Recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, 1981.

Australian Architects

Bernard Joyce
Biography
Place of Birth: Chiswick London
Date of Birth: Jan 13th 1929
Higher Education: Regent Street Polytechnic and University of Melbourne
Qualifications: Dip. ARCH (Des) MELBOURNE
Affiliations:
Registered architect, 16 Sept 1955 F.R.A.I.A. A.P.A.M. Malaysia M.S.I.A.
Experience: P.W.D. Victoria Australia Stephenson & Turner Australia Westwood Sons & Harrison England Hilton Wright England Bogle Banfield & Associates Pty Ltd Australia
Principal Bernard Joyce Associates Australia
Principal Joyce Nankivell Associates Australia, 1974-
Principal Joyce Nankivell Associates Pty Ltd Australia, 1976-
Committees:
Council Member National Trust of Victoria 1966 ­ 1968 Committee Member RAIA Victorian Chapter 1966 ­ 1968 Stramit Research Scholarship Award 1970
Lecture Experience Senior Lecturer Architectural Design, Interior Design RMIT 1961 ­ 1975 Guest Lecturer UNESCO Conference Melbourne 1972 Guest Lecturer Melbourne University Guest Lecturer Design Institute of Australia 1972 Guest Lecturer Building Centre Melbourne
Competition Awards: Housing:
Age Small Homes Service Competition Section B, First prize 1952
Womans Weekly Housing Competition National, First Prize 1954
Herald Ideal Home Competition, First prize 1956
Tasmanian Timber Association Competition First Prize 1963
Mason House Age Small Homes Service, Citation 1970
International:
Sydney Opera House Competition, citation 1956
Perak Turf Club Racecourse Complex, Malaysia, First Prize 1964
Amsterdam Town Hall Holland, entry 1967
Manila Low cost housing, entry 1976
Industrial Design
1954 Furniture Guild of Victoria Competition Bedroom furniture 5 pieces, first prize
Lounge furniture 5 pieces, first prize 1954
NSW Forestry Commision Competition Adjustable Chair System, Prize, 1956
Awards:
Stramit Research Scholarship Award 1970
Meritorious Lighting Award, 1968, Japanese Restaurant Alfred Place
RAIA Vic Chapter Citation, Housing Category 1972, Mason House, Chavasse Street Brighton.

Bernard Joyce was born in London in 1929. He studied architecture at the Regent Street Polytechnic before emigrating to Australia in 1950 and completing his studies at The University of Melbourne. In 1958 while employed with Bogle Banfield and Associates he was design architect for the distinguished Total Building in Russell Street in central Melbourne. During his early period of practice in Melbourne Bernard Joyce received the following awards for domestic projects. 1952 winner The Age Small Homes Service competition, 1954 winner The Women's Weekly national Housing Competition, 1956 winner of The Herald Ideal Home competition, 1963 winner of the Tasmanian Timber Small Homes Competition. In 1961 he commenced practice in partnership with William Nankivell a fellow english architectural emigre who had studied at the Architectural Association. In 1964 Joyce - Nankivell won the competition for the Perak Turf Club competition for a new race course complex in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This was the breakthrough that the practice needed to establish itself in Australia. The practice designed several distinguished large commissions including the Australian Embassy complex in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia [19??] and the new Sandown Race course facilities in Melbourne [19??]. The residential work of the practice was considered ground-breaking for the period. Characteristic of the residential work was its use of courtyards, a device pioneered by Joyce - Nankivell, and the careful relationship of interior and exterior spaces. The residential plans are generally very compact with large living spaces opening onto courtyard gardens. At its peak the practice employed as many as 16 people with offices in Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur. Joyce - Nankivell received an Honourable mention in the competition for the Sydney Opera House. Bernard Joyce died in 1994.

The influence of structuralism is most strongly reflected in Bernard's work in his innumerable residential projects - The checquerboard courtyard planning of his suburban villas, the careful division of internal space, the relatively closed building envelopes and staccato repetition of building form link this work far more closely to Louis Kahn than to Mies with whom it has become locally but carelessly fashionable to compare him.

Daryl Jackson
Biography
born 1937 in Clunes, a small Victorian country town.
Educated Essendon High School and Wesley College
Dip Arch RMIT B. Arch University of Melbourne 1958, [difficult as that may be to believe].
Travelled Europe and North America 1962 - 64. Worked for John Andrews in Canada, [Scarborough College]. Both Jackson & John Andrews had worked for Col Madigan in Sydney around 1960 before both of them departed for the 'mandatory' stint working in the cultural power centres of the northern hemisphere. Jackson also spent a period working for the san Francisco office of Skidmore Owings & Merrill during which he worked under Richard Foster on the AMP St James project which still stands on the corner of.Willisam and Bourke Streets. Jackson's early work [which concerns us here] was uncompromisingly brutalist showing an affinity at times with the Smithson's and Stirling [Lauriston] and at other times as he developed wht Goad has described as the chamfer style, with Hertzberger. Around 1960 when the impact of the Smithson's was at its peak Jackson was in England working as a young architect directly exposed to the work of Alison and Peter Smithson, and the young James Stirling [Engineering Faculty at Leicester University 1959 - 64, - and after Jackson's return to Australia, - the Florey Building at Queen's College Oxford 1968 -71]. Just over the English Channel in Holland Aldo van Eyck and particularly Herman Hertzberger [Het Studentenhuis 1958 - 66, Die Drie Hoven - old people's housing - 1967 - 75] had risen to prominence. In particular [it seems to me] the muscular hulking forms of Stirling's educational designs, and the late work of le Corbusier, especially the seminally important Carpenter Centre seem to have been important.

Important Buildings
Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool [with Kevin Borland] 1968? RAIA VIC Chapter Bronze Medal 1969. Lauriston Girls School, RAIA Vic Chapter Bronze Medal, 1970. [Jackson & Walker] Canberra School of Music 1972. City Edge Medium density housing. Kingsway South Melbourne . RAIA Vic Chapter Bronze Medal 1976. Jackson House Shoreham 1978

Kevin Borland
1926 Kevin Borland was born to working class parents in West Melbourne.
After part time architectural studies at Melbourne Technical College and the University of Melbourne and war service in the naval reserve at the end of the war Borland graduated B. Arch. in 1950 from Melbourne University.
In 1952 he participated unsuccessfully with the older Boyd and Grounds in a competition for the Track and Field Stadium for the Olympic Games and also with Peter McIntyre, J&P Murphy and W. L. Irwin the engineer in the competition for the Olympic Swimming stadium. The team won this latter competition.
It is clear that within three or four years of his graduation, Borland was regarded as a significant talent. In 1954 he was invited along with five other architects to enter limited competition for Academy of Science Building Canberra [won by Roy Grounds]
In 1956, the Olympic Year Borland's Biography claims that he was awarded the RAIA Bronze Medal for Domestic Architecture [for the Rice House?] and Architecture & Arts award for Building of the Year for the Olympic Swimming Pool. In 1963 Borland received the Architecture & Arts Award for best Building for Preshil School Hall. Nominated as one of the ten best Australian buildings for 1963. In 1969 Vic Chapter RAIA Citation for Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool in association with Daryl Jackson. Borland's work was widely published and by the mid 1960's he was becoming internationally known and began to travel widely.

In 1966 he was invited to Perth by Architecture Students of Australia to attend Student convention in which Jacob Bakema, Aldo van Eyck, Buckminster Fuller and John Voelcker were the main speakers. Subsequent to this he was a guest of John Voelcker in London and Aldo van Eyck in Holland and invited by Buckminster Fuller to lecture in the U.S.A. Borland was invited by Doxiadis to attend Ekistics conference in Athens July In 1966 he undertook an extended tour of Asia and Europe studying architecture and architectural education. His social conscience - he never forgot his working class background, meant that he increasingly involved himself in community groups of various sorts. This brought him to the attention of the Trade Union movement.

Thus by the beginning of the 1970's Borland was a major figure, an award winning architect at the height of his powers, and he became perhaps the major figure for this decade under discussion. He presided over the scene in the 1970's in much the same way his older mentor Roy Grounds presided over the 1950's.
In 1972 He was appointed Honorary Architect for Aboriginal Advancement League and residents at Cummeragunja, N.S.W. [near Barmah].Requested by President of the A.C.T.U. R. J. Hawke to convene and prepare a report on the Housing Industry for the A.C.T.U. He continued to win awards for his work. In 1972 the RAIA Vic. Chapter Bronze Medal for new buildings and site development at Preshil School. House of the year Award of Merit from the RAIA Vic Chapter for the Paton House. In 1974 the RAIA Vic Chapter Bronze Medal for Nichols House, Eltham. Citation for Crossman Flats Launching Place. In 1977 RAIA Vic Chapter Citation for Brief for North Melbourne Community Centre, Citation for New Gordon House. In 1978 RAIA Vic Chapter Citation - Mt Eliza North Primary School.
Borland developed two distinct modes of architecture. For educational and residential commissions he drew on his early connections with the bush bohemians of Eltham, Cottles Bridge and Warrandyte and indulged what Metcalf called the bush romance. For larger commissions like the Clyde Cameron Training College, and the New Gordon House he utilised an architectural language which had much in common with contemporary British work - the brutalists and early Stirling.

If Borland was perhaps the strongest local example of the social-cultural dimension of the structuralist program, the characteristic structuralist plans and forms of [especially] the early van Eyck of Team X, Kahn and Hertzberger were strongly paralleled by contemporary Australian work. Projects from the late 1960's and early 1970's of both Daryl Jackson [in Melbourne] and John Andrews [in Sydney] clearly show traces of this influence as do the residential projects of Bernard Joyce and Graeme Gunn in which one can trace a similar kit-of-parts-variations-on-a-theme approach to designing and planning.

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