Importing Expertise: Australian-US Architects and the Large-scale, 1945-1990

• Published in: Fabrications : the journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand Australia and New Zealand, 2016-09, Vol.26 (3), p.357-391
• Main Author: Goad, Philip
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1033-1867; 2164-4756
• DOI: 10.1080/10331867.2016.1236442

After World War II, Australia turned - politically, socially and culturally - more and more to its strongest ally across the Pacific, the United States of America. In architecture, this turn was not only aesthetic but also based on the deliberate gaining of expertise to achieve large-scale projects like factories, skyscrapers and international chain hotels. Australian architects actively sought out American corporate firms, forming associations that would help their practices capture ever-larger commissions as part of Australia's galloping US-styled post-war urbanisation. This acquisition of 'expertise' was one way, a relatively uncritical but focused business strategy and it was a habit that continued into the 1970s. While many Australian architects were designing buildings for Pacific nations and Australian presence in Southeast Asia was growing, no Australians were designing or building in the United States outside the completion of the Australian Chancery in Washington DC (1968). The exception was Canadian-Australian architect John Andrews, whose 'expertise' and reputation were key to his 1969 return to Australia. This paper charts the trans-Pacific relationship between Australian and American architecture during the Cold War as one part of a much longer connection that had been proceeding since the early nineteenth century.