1958 THE WALSH STREET HOUSE / ROBIN BOYD

IT IS NOT HARD TO SEE WHY VISITING JAPANESE ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS IN THE LATE SIXTIES IDENTIFIED STRONGLY WITH ITS AESTHETIC AND WHY AN APPRECIATION OF BOYD’S WORK DEVELOPED IN JAPAN.

The main living area is decorated simply with furniture designed by Boyd himself, and a button-backed two-seater sofa by Grant Featherston. The bagged brick walls are painted a warm mottled grey and the boldly coloured carpet was chosen by Patricia Boyd.

Looking back towards the street, something of the structure of the house is revealed; notably, the ceiling with its woven steel cables overlaid with timber boards, and the windows set under the eaves, which allow natural light into the bathroom (behind the jarrah-clad wall) and beyond into the living area.

Not only was Robin Boyd a partner in one of Melbourne’s leading postwar architectural firms, Grounds Romberg & Boyd (or Gromboyd, as it was wittily known), but he was also a highly respected architectural critic and social commentator. It is no surprise then, given his facility with words, that he once described with great clarity what it is for an architect to be his own client. ‘In his own home all his philosophy of building must surely blossom, if ever it is so. Here he is both playwright and actor, composer and executant. What manner of architect he is will be laid bare for all the world to see…’

Examining Boyd’s Walsh Street residence does just that – it illustrates many of the traits that define one of Australia’s most influential architects of the period.

In 1957, Boyd and his wife, Patricia, had just returned from a year-long trip to the USA. As a visiting professor to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boyd had the opportunity to reconnect with architect and Bauhaus movement founder Walter Gropius, whom he had written about in 1953, and to meet other luminaries of American architecture such as Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. (It is worth noting that Boyd’s erudite writing on Gropius’ work ensured an ongoing friendship, and Gropius was to champion Boyd in years to come.) Boyd even had the opportunity to attend an American Institute of Architects (AIA) convention where he noted that all the influential architects spoke with a European accent, confirming the significance of émigrés on the US architectural landscape in the 1950s.

Returning to Melbourne from the States, the Boyds were keen to move to a more central location than their house at Camberwell. Patricia saw a newspaper advertisement for land for sale in the upmarket suburb of South Yarra. The owner, Mrs Bishop, anxious about rising land taxes, was keen to subdivide her property and sell the long, narrow block that was originally the rose garden. Boyd, no stranger to awkward sites, saw the land, bought it on the spot and designed this, the second house he had built for himself and his family.

An early proponent of modernism, he saw the technical developments in materials and engineering as the way forward. It was with a great sense of optimism that he talked about the ability to ‘make great open spaces without visible means of support, to throw out parts in cantilever and to open up entire walls to the outdoors through sheets of glass’. But Boyd was also very grounded in a belief that well-designed, functional housing was for all, and a decade earlier had devoted many years to the development and operation of the highly successful Small Homes Service, run by the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects in conjunction with The Age newspaper.

Opening postwar in 1947 with Boyd as director, the service offered 40 different house plans for sale at £5 each. An astonishing 1000 plans were sold, mostly to young couples, in the first nine days, and by 1951 the service was providing plans for more than 10 percent of all new housing in Victoria. From 1948, Boyd wrote weekly articles for The Age newspaper, which served to increase his public profile. Recruited as a lecturer by Brian Lewis, professor of architecture at the University of Melbourne, Boyd was immersed in architecture in all its facets – practising it, teaching it and writing about it. In 1952, he published his second influential book, Australia’s Home.

Boyd’s work was primarily residential and it is said that he yearned for those large-scale commissions that gave broad recognition to an architect’s career. In 1953, when he was on the jury to select a design for Melbourne’s Olympic Pool, he championed his friends and contemporaries Kevin Borland, Peter McIntyre and John and Phyllis Murphy in their submission. Genuinely thrilled at the successful outcome of such a bold, modernist scheme, it did cause Boyd, understandably, to question whether his role was always to be that of persuader on behalf of others rather than take centre stage himself.

As an architect, Boyd was a subtle practitioner. In fact, writer Peter Blake commented that his houses were often ‘almost invisible from the outside: it was the quality of the space inside that counted not some heroic architectural gestures towards an impressionable world’.

In Boyd’s Walsh Street House, there is little sense from the street of what lies behind, as it turns its back to the road and looks inward. A wall with some high windows set behind a majestic pine (that Boyd was at pains to retain from the original garden) is the only visible clue. The house is set back from the street, and wide, open jarrah steps, tapering as they rise to the front door, are protected from the elements by a boldly striped canvas awning. This bridge-style entrance sets the tone for the rest of the house, which feels sensitive and considered, simply designed with a quiet integrity. It is not hard to see why visiting Japanese architecture students in the late Sixties identified strongly with its aesthetic and why an appreciation of Boyd’s work developed in Japan.

A red gate and tea-tree fence were added later to stop local dogs using the forecourt as a toilet stop.

Boyd’s original plan was for a three-storey house, but having spent one particularly noisy school holidays at home with the children, he radically revised the scheme. In Boyd’s own words, this is how the house was planned. ‘The device adopted was to divide the house in two by a garden square, forty feet deep, two-storey parents’ block at the front, single storey children’s block at the back. Tall glass walls, partly obscure, partly hooded, were erected on each side of the garden to protect it from wind and most of the rain, but not sun.’

Boyd’s contemporary, architect Peter McIntyre, commented on his ‘sheer inventiveness’ and his ability as a designer to come up with fresh solutions every time. Walsh Street is a case in point. Its construction can only be described as ingeniously simple. A wall two storeys high at the street side and a lower wall near the rear of the block, where the old rose garden finished at a retaining wall, were connected by woven steel cables, slung between the two. Onto these cables were laid timber boards, butted against one another and held in place with nails pierced through the cables, and bent flush underneath. This innovative tension roof structure was protected externally by a bituminous layer which became molten on the day of pouring. Boyd’s practical solution was to add slim timber battens at random to prevent the roof bitumen seeping through any oversized gaps.

In 1947, Boyd had used builder John Murphy to construct his first home in Camberwell, and he was called on again for Walsh Street. A fellow modernist and jazz aficionado, Murphy was the perfect choice. Boyd left drawings sketchy enough that the council wouldn’t ask too many questions, enabling him to push the boundaries of how a home should look and function.

The layout of the house is far from conventional, and must have seemed even more so at the time. It was, however, perfect for the lifestyle of the Boyd family. From the entrance, a long thin dressing room and bathroom lies to the left. Daylight pours in from the row of west-facing windows sitting under the eaves, creating a source of light for both the bathroom and the main living area beyond. Separating these two rooms is a partial wall which stops at the base of the windows. A door in the timber wall leads to the main living area. As with their previous house, Patricia and Robin used this room as a bedroom by night and living space by day – something their friends found highly amusing.

The furnishings are pleasingly spare. There’s a bed which becomes a generous day bed with fitted cover and cushions; twin Featherston two-seater sofas with elegant button backs, which moved with them from their previous home in Camberwell; timber bookshelves, which flank both sides of the room, and a cork-topped coffee table designed by Boyd running parallel to an equally long, low sofa. Furniture was always simple and sparely used but very much in the taste of the period. He mixed his own designs with seating locally designed and made by Grant Featherston, alongside the architects’ favourite – the Butterfly chair by Ferrari-Hardoy. Art played a big part in the Boyds’ lives. Robin Boyd came from a line of distinguished writers and artists and so a variety of artworks decorated the walls. In the dining area, ‘Winter Triumphant’ by Robin’s father, Penleigh Boyd, originally hung above the table, while a portrait of Boyd’s mother by E. Phillips Fox was placed at the top of the stairs. Work by Arthur Boyd, John Brack, Don Laycock, Asher Bilu, Kevin Connor and Tony Woods added to the artistic ambience of the space.

The kitchen, dining and family room are located on ground level. Limed mountain ash cabinetry faces into the room and was designed to house audio speakers and, unusually for the period, a TV.

Exposed beams speak for the honesty of the building’s construction. The Boyds were great collectors of art and shown here is ‘Solstar’ by Asher Bilu.

The colour palette, chosen by Patricia Boyd with renowned interior designer Marion Hall Best, is warm and recessive. The internal rear wall was clad in jarrah boards and left unstained, while the bagged brick has been painted a warm mottled grey. The hit of colour comes from the deep red carpet. The entire breadth of the living area opens to the deck. ‘It is a platform independently supported, emphasising that the whole space enclosed here is one, and in it conventional segregations are neither necessary nor desirable,’ explained Boyd.

An active couple in the cultural life of the city, the Boyds were very sociable and Patricia was a celebrated cook. This room and deck were the main entertaining area and on one occasion Boyd, standing below, was alarmed to see the degree of flex in the joists and ushered all but 12 guests back into the living room. Apparently, feeling that structural engineers were somewhat over-zealous in their specifications, he was in the habit of reducing their recommendations.

The corresponding room below the living area is the family/dining/kitchen area. A wall of windows facing the garden illustrates Boyd’s great sense of proportion. The raw timber beams, treated only with a light grey stain, owe a debt to the Japanese vernacular he admired, while the exposure of the structural elements emphasises the honesty of the building’s construction. The limed timber kitchen is discreetly placed at the back of this space, separated from the main living/dining area by the open-tread staircase and a built-in cabinet in limed mountain ash. The cabinet, facing into the room, was designed to house audio speakers and, radically for the period, a TV set.

While the structure for the adults, family living and entertaining provided the hub of the house, at the opposite side of the block, a single storey building was given over to the children’s quarters. It later became known by the children as the ‘other side’, and at mealtimes they were called from their homework by a short ring on the telephone extension. The children’s zone comprised two dedicated bedrooms, a guest room, bathroom and a sitting room/study facing out to the courtyard. The rooms, with the same bagged walls painted warm mottled grey and timber partitions, are simply furnished with built-in desks and neat single beds. Robin’s son, Penleigh Boyd, recalls a degree of enviable freedom in having their own end of the house. ‘We had our own access through the rear lane, a TV room and study space and a view into the marvellous courtyard. We even had a secret basement which was used for storage. Robin also had a passion for cars and we were one of the first families in Melbourne to own a Citroen Goddess. People looked at it as though it was a spaceship. So, all in all, we were a thoroughly modern family.’

Between the two areas of the house lies a garden. As Boyd said, ‘One of the principal objectives in planning was to create a private indoor-outdoor environment despite the narrowness of the allotment and the congested surroundings of an inner suburb.’ These days we talk of the courtyard as an outdoor room and an extension of our living space as if it’s something new, but Boyd had thoroughly embraced the concept in 1958.

Looking back towards the main part of the house, the cables stretching from one structure to the other are visible. The courtyard was Boyd’s solution to creating a private outdoor space on a narrow block in a suburban setting.

The deck extends from the main living space to create an entertaining area overlooking the courtyard garden.

The plan for Walsh Street inspired Mary and Grant Featherston to commission Boyd to design their house a decade later. The Featherston House is a tour de force with its completely integrated indoor garden, floating platforms and translucent fibreglass roof.

Boyd’s ingenuity, illustrated by the Walsh Street House, is an example of his ability to think laterally, to be aesthetically inventive and to solve problems of difficult sites. The James House in Kew (1956) is semi-underground; the Lloyd House in Brighton (1959) is fan-shaped to work around a pear tree, while the Richardson House in Toorak (1953) was designed as a bridge over a dry creek bed. He produced an enormous range of housing in his career and embraced the possibilities of new methods of construction to realise his concepts. His writings on architecture and society challenged and shaped popular opinion, and his work The Australian Ugliness (1960) pulled no punches in its attack on certain aspects of popular taste. A man of principle, he wasn’t afraid to take Australia to task, especially in its increasing Americanisation, and endeavoured to make the country strive for its own, distinctive cultural identity.

Internationally, his reputation as a writer grew when, at the recommendation of Walter Gropius, a New York publisher commissioned Boyd to write a short biography of Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. Tange’s comment, ‘I could not help admiring you for your deep understanding and correct criticism on Japanese culture as well as my own work’, goes some way to show Boyd’s extraordinary sensitivity and ability to tune in to the work of another architect in another culture. Boyd may have felt disappointed that his career did not embrace large-scale commissions but in many ways he played an even more significant role in the development of Australian architecture. He acted as the gatekeeper for aesthetic standards and played a crucial intermediary role, through his writing, between the profession and the public. As Joseph Burke said of Boyd after his untimely death in 1971 at the age of only 52, he was ‘the artistic conscience of his country, in the future of which he passionately believed’.

The Walsh Street House is the property of the Robin Boyd Foundation. The Robin Boyd Foundation has been established by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria).

The study area in the children’s section featured the same bagged brick walls and simple functional furniture as used elsewhere. As Penleigh Boyd recalls, there was an enviable degree of freedom in having their own end of the house.

DETAILS THE WALSH STREET HOUSE

ENTRANCE Boyd’s appreciation of the Japanese aesthetic is evident from the entrance to his house. Despite the modest size of the block, Boyd chose to set the house back from the street to ensure an enormous pine tree, from the original garden, was left in situ. The timber steps are open treads and have a measured, proportionally pleasing quality. In profile, it can be seen that the steps form a bridge from the ground level to the first floor entrance. Simple, circular brass door furniture has the number of the house and the name of its owner engraved in the discs. A striped awning provides protection from the elements.

FEATHERSTON SOFA The R160 lounge chair and the matching R161 settee by Grant Featherston were designed in 1952 and produced until 1956 by local Melbourne manufacturer, Emerson Brothers. Also known as the Contour chair to describe its form fitting shape, the range was a great success in Australia as it encapsulated a ‘modern’ look seen overseas in the work of Charles and Ray Eames and Eero Saarinen. Using bent plywood, Featherston was able to create a comfortable organic-shaped chair without the traditional bulkiness of upholstered furniture. Grant and Mary Featherston were friends of the Boyds, and Boyd designed a house for them in 1967, in which Mary Featherston lives to this day.

KITCHEN From formal to family room is via an open staircase from the first floor entry level to the ground floor where the kitchen, dining area and family room are located. The kitchen is long and slim, tucked behind the staircase. The rustic effect of the exposed beams is reflected in the treatment of the glazed brick floor. A large throw-down carpet covers much of the brick floor in the dining and living area, but the brick floor was left exposed in the kitchen space, except for a strip of cushioned flooring in front of the appliances. The limed plywood kitchen is economical and functional. It is properly planned with a place for everything – including pots.

BOYD-DESIGNED FURNITURE In addition to pieces of furniture by Grant Featherston and Clement Meadmore, Boyd designed his own furniture specifically for the house at Walsh Street, including the long, low sofa and complementary coffee table. They are simple, clean designs that reflect the Fifties aesthetic for streamlined shapes with little extraneous detailing. The Boyds, unconventionally, used the living space as a bedroom by night, but by day the bed had its own slip cover and cushions to transform it into a furniture piece smart enough for visitors. Celebrated interior designer Marion Hall Best advised Patricia Boyd on the interior décor of the house, in particular recommending the deep red carpet.

BATHROOM The bathroom/dressing room is positioned between the wall that faces the street and the three-quarter height wall that divides it from the living room. It is a long slim space naturally lit by the bank of high windows under the eaves. Cupboards flank one side, and a large mirror and basin are built in on the other. The side wall is a mix of the bagged brick painted dark grey on the upper half and mosaic tiles shot with bronze on the lower half. A large copper shroud extends to the ceiling and conceals all bathroom plumbing, including vents from the kitchen below.

CEILING It is interesting to see close-up the structure of the ceiling. Woven steel cables provide the tensile strength for the timber boards to be placed, side-by-side, upon them and held in place with nails. Slim timber battens were added at random during construction to prevent the roof bitumen seeping through oversized gaps. The raw timber was left unpainted and exposed, reinforcing Boyd’s philosophy that the integrity of materials and honesty of construction should be seen rather than covered up. The cables ran from inside to out, through the courtyard, and were used in the same way to form the structural support for the ceiling in the children’s quarters.

The north-facing tiled terrace adjoins both the living area, to the left, and the flyscreened breezeway. The use of terracotta tiles inside and out and the floor-to-ceiling sliding doors from the living room blur the lines between the two spaces. Furniture designed by David McGlashan complements the structure of the building.