JJ Clark: Architect of the Australian Renaissance

Colonial architect John James Clark was fourteen when he began practising as an architect. By the age of nineteen he had designed the Melbourne Treasury, Australia’s finest Renaissance Revival building, which celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2012. Over six decades, he designed some of the most beautiful buildings in Australia and New Zealand - Melbourne’s Government House, City Baths and Royal Mint as well as the Treasury Building in Brisbane and the Auckland Town Hall. While he is little-known today, when he died in 1915 he was described as ‘Australia’s greatest architect’. This fascinating biography reveals the inspiration and drama of Clark’s controversial career, and contains original plans, elevations and previously unpublished sketches.