Robin Boyd: Australian Architect, International Critic

Robin Boyd was Australia’s foremost architectural writer and critic from the late 1940s until his death in 1971. He was also a talented architect, designing houses, apartments, commercial and university buildings, as well as exhibits to represent Australia overseas.

This book situates his architecture and writings within the context of post-WWII global architectural discourse and production. A voice from the margins, yet one intimately engaged with contemporary US and European architecture, Boyd’s geographic impartiality also drew architectures from Australia and Japan into global dialogue. He also had a local mission: to build an architecture culture and discourse for his own country. But his acuity in design criticism, widely admired at the time, has been overlooked by subsequent historiography. This book will fill that gap - placing Boyd’s work and writing into an international context for the first time.

The book is structured into three parts: Dwelling; Discourse and Australia. The first, Dwelling, focuses on Boyd’s development of his theoretical ideas based on the laboratory of the single-family house. The second, Discourse, outlines Boyd’s fight to find a voice for Australian architecture and create a local pedigree for modernism and finally the third, Australia, focuses on Boyd’s commitment to a broader national project and the shaping of Australian identity.