RESEARCH SEMINAR SERIES

Professor Philip Goad - Architecture, Building and Planning, The University of Melbourne

New Education and the New Architecture: Modernism at Koornong School

Thursday 14 April

The story of Koornong School is unique in Australia: an experiment that combined progressive education with progressive architecture. At Warrandyte, 25 kilometres from Melbourne, there took place between September 1939 and February 1947 an experiment in psychoanalysis as applied to the care and education of children within, for the first time, a series of purpose-built buildings that was similarly experimental, but in aesthetics and construction. The whole site became an environmental laboratory. In the history of Australian modernism, Koornong School represents a rare meeting of local and émigré educators, artists and architects in the unspoilt setting of the Australian bush. This research seminar explores the context of and architect Best Overend's response to this challenging commission, which was formulated by Clive and Janet Nield, pioneers in experimental education in 1930s Australia.

Professor Philip Goad is Chair of Architecture in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning. An honours graduate in architecture and PhD in architectural history from the University of Melbourne, he has held visiting scholar positions at UC Berkeley, UCLA, MIT, ETH (Zurich), Columbia University and the Bartlett School of Architecture. His most recent publications include as editor and contributor Bates Smart: 150 Years of Australian architecture (2004) and with Dr Anoma Pieris, New Directions in Tropical Asian Architecture (2005).