Roy Grounds 1905 - 1981
Graduate of the University of Melbourne Architectural Atelier at the time under the direction of Leighton Irwin, ca 1928?
Articled to the Georgian Revival architects Blackett Forster and Craig. Travelled to England and the United States between 1929 and 1932 working first in New York and then in Los Angeles at RKO and MGM as a set designer.
Returning to Melbourne in 1932 he commenced practice in partnership with his draftsman friend Geoffrey Mewton with whom he had travelled to England. A shortage of architectural commissions resulting from the Great Depression meant that the partners survived designing furniture and light fittings until commissions for houses began to arrive.
Mewton and Grounds shared office space and facilities but worked separately on their individual design projects. Grounds' own house Ranelagh at Mt Eliza (1933 - 34) and Mewton's Stooke House in Brighton (1934), now unfortunately demolished, were among the first international style modernist buildings to be erected in Australia, let alone Melbourne. In 1935 the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects voted both these houses the best house designs in Victoria this century.
During this period Grounds developed a domestic architectural style which clearly showed the influence of the contemporary Bay Region architects of the United States west coast, particularly William Wurster, of whose work he had had direct experience while working as a set designer in Los Angeles. Significant examples of this period of Grounds' practice include the first Henty House 'Portland Lodge' in Frankston (1933 - 34),'Lyncroft' in Shoreham (1934), Fairbairn House, Toorak (1936) and the Ramsay House in Mount Eliza (1937).
Mewton and Grounds dissolved their partnership in 1936 and Grounds travelled to Europe, working for a year with expatriate Australian modernist architect Raymond McGrath. Returning once more to Australia Grounds practised alone from 1939 - 42 during which period he was responsible for a string of significant apartment blocks in Toorak all of which are still standing. These are, Clendon (1939 - 40) and Clendon Corner (1940) in Clendon Road, Moonbria, (1941) in Mathoura Road and Quamby (1941) in Glover Court.
These designs reflect Grounds' new-found interest in contemporary Scandinavian housing design and in the work of Raymond McGrath for whom Grounds had worked in London.
Quamby was Grounds' last project before Japan entered the war halting private architecture in Australia. In the immediate post war period Grounds earlier 'Bay Region' influenced designs began to exert an influence on other important contemporary Melbourne modernist like Norman Seabrook, most famous for his Dudok inspired design for MacRobertson Girl's High School, (1934) and Best Overend, best known for his block of apartments 'Cairo' opposite the Exhibition buildings in Nicholson Street Melbourne. Both of these architects began to produce designs in a softer contextualised modernism utilising 'natural' materials, exposed brickwork and stained rather than painted woodwork.
At this time despite his regionalist tendencies Grounds was associated with the 'Angry Penguins group of painters and writers. This group included John Reed, later to commission 'Heide' now the Museum of Modern Art in Templestowe, Max Harris, Sidney Nolan and Albert Tucker.
Grounds was something of a mentor and hero to the generation of architects emerging after the world war. This was enhanced by his appointment as a lecturer in the new degree course in Architecture at Melbourne University in 1946. He retained the right of private practice and produced at least eighteen new projects in the next seven years. During this time his work displayed an increasing interest in the use of 'platonic forms', circles, squares and triangles, in the organisation of his plans. Typical of this period are the second Henty House 'The Round House' in Frankston (1950 - 53) - circle, The Grounds House and apartments in Hill Street Toorak (1954) - square plan with circular courtyard, and the Leyser House in Kew (1951) - a triangle.
Grounds' geometric concerns imparted a certain monumentality to his work, somewhat at odds with the contemporary striving after lightness and transparency which characterised much contemporary work at the time, and of which he was openly sceptical. grounds' interest in platonic geometry also encouraged other younger architects to experiment with the strategy notably Peter McIntyre, Robin Boyd and John Mockridge.
During his time as a lecturer at Melbourne University Grounds appointed the expatriate German, Swiss trained architect Frederick Romberg and the young Robin Boyd as tutors. In July 1953 they formed the partnership Grounds, Romberg and Boyd, surely one of the most influential and important of Australian architectural practices.
As in the earlier partnership with Geoffrey Mewton the principals worked for the most part, individually on their design commissions. In 1957 Grounds, to some extent influenced by Saarinen's Kresge auditorium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, designed the circular Academy of Science building in Canberra, affectionately dubbed the 'Martian Embassy'.
In 1959 having worked assiduously to obtain the job, Grounds was awarded the commission to design the Victorian Art Centre - National Gallery of Victoria complex in St. Kilda Road Melbourne. Relations between the partners soured somewhat after this and in 1962 Grounds left the partnership taking the Arts Centre job with him and devoted the last twenty years of his life to completing this commission.
Roy Grounds, probably the most influential Melbourne architect of the decades straddling the Second World War, died in 1981.
References
Goad, P. Melbourne Architecture, The Watermark Press Sydney 1999.
Serle, G., Robin Boyd - A Life, Melbourne University Press, 1996.
Hamann, C. Grounds, Romberg & Boyd, in ??????, pp129 - 139
Selected Projects