Modernist Adelaide at NGV's Melbourne Art Book Fair

Join Stuart Symons to discover how modernist architecture was at the heart of the physical, cultural and social transformation of postwar Adelaide. Through this engaging talk through time, Stuart will examine a diverse range of modernist buildings from Adelaide, with a focus on Robin Boyd’s only Adelaide commission, Walkley House.

In 1956, Adelaide’s architectural imagination was flying. Robin Boyd’s Walkley House, with its striking glass box design, definitely challenged its heritage surroundings in conservative North Adelaide. Bates Smart McCutcheon’s MLC Building was rising above Victoria Square as the city’s first international style high-rise. And Adelaide’s own young meteors – including Brian Claridge, Newell Platten, Keith Neighbour and John Morphett – publicly announced their challenge to orthodoxy with an exhibition of 12 temporary modernist buildings at the Royal Australian Institute of Architects’ Sixth Australian Architectural Convention.

Stuart Symons is a mid-century architecture historian, the founder of Modernist Adelaide and the author of Modernist Adelaide: 100 Buildings 1940s–1970s. Unique to Adelaide, Stuart’s city walking tours, house tours, exhibitions, presentations, media articles and an active online community provide broad reach to a diverse audience, raise public appreciation and debate on the retention and reuse of the city’s heritage fabric, and contribute to the economic growth of the city through heritage tourism. Stuart was awarded the City of Adelaide Prize Commendation 2021 and South Australian Emerging Historian of the Year 2019. He is a member of the Society of Architectural Historians and Docomomo Australia.

This event is generously supported by Konpira Maru Wines and Molly Rose Brewing.

This event is presented in partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria as part of the Melbourne Art Book Fair and Melbourne Design Week 2024.

Melbourne Design Week and the Victorian Design Program are initiatives of the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria.

Doors will open at 1.00 pm to allow attendees to explore Walsh Street and enjoy refreshments in the courtyard. The talk will commence promptly at 1.30 pm.