My father was demobilised in Dec 1945 and returned to Melbourne without any savings. Unable to buy a house of their own, my parents postponed having babies, lived with my grandparents and then rented a rent-controlled flat from a cousin.
By 1946 the Department of Information acknowledged that there was an acute housing shortage in post-WW2 Australia; it was the most pressing problem facing this country. Luckily two important events occurred that changed the home-owning landscape for couples who had married straight after the war. 1] The State Bank offered low-interest housing loans for ex-servicemen and 2] the Small Homes Service started up.
From Jan 1945 until March 1949, 132,000 new houses were built across the country. c600,000 people were living in these new homes of which 65% had been allocated to ex-servicemen and their dependants. My parents were delighted to move into a small, 2 bedroom house, on the outer fringes of the Melbourne suburbs in 1948. The neighbours were in similarly small homes, planning to build a third bedroom and a second toilet whenever finances allowed.
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A typical small house had one big living-dining room, 2 bedrooms, a small but functional kitchen and glass sliding doors leading to the outside gardens.
By 1946 the Department of Information acknowledged that there was an acute housing shortage in post-WW2 Australia; it was the most pressing problem facing this country. Luckily two important events occurred that changed the home-owning landscape for couples who had married straight after the war. 1] The State Bank offered low-interest housing loans for ex-servicemen and 2] the Small Homes Service started up.
From Jan 1945 until March 1949, 132,000 new houses were built across the country. c600,000 people were living in these new homes of which 65% had been allocated to ex-servicemen and their dependants. My parents were delighted to move into a small, 2 bedroom house, on the outer fringes of the Melbourne suburbs in 1948. The neighbours were in similarly small homes, planning to build a third bedroom and a second toilet whenever finances allowed.
Sydney Living Museums, 1953.
Robin Boyd (1919–1971) was the most famous Melbourne architect in the post-war era. Boyd was a proponent of an environmentally sensitive and locally specific adaptation of modernist design. Though his design career included a number of larger public works, Boyd’s fame lay in family homes. Working mainly with lower-income families, his plans were the result of an egalitarian commitment to quality homes. In a country previously devoted to housing designs that were poorly suited to local culture and climate, Boyd utilised Australian-suitable designs, simple materials and new prefabrication methods. His houses fitted the natural landscape and were respectful of their neighbours and the built environment.
The Small Homes Service was Robin Boyd’s brainchild when it was launched in Melbourne in July 1947, with backing from the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects and The Age newspaper. It was a cheap way for Melburnians to build a new home; for just £5 a family could chose from a range of architect's plans, complete with working drawings and specifications. The architects produced standard designs for houses, then each week in The Age, Boyd wrote an explanatory article about each design. A typical small homes article might have described the house as an “economical design for a larger family - only 10.5 squares, saves labour as well as space”. The house would have “grouped plumbing and simple roof”.
As I mentioned, the designs were available for members of the public to purchase, irrespective of their wealth or background. Boyd accompanied each submission with articles offering comment on design and lifestyle ideas that resonated with his modernist values. His ideas of Modernism consisted of open plan layouts, big windows, solar and site-responsive orientation and low-profile roofs. The indoor-outdoor link would be established via large, glass sliding doors leading to a veranda and gardens.
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This grand plan for small homes may have been unprecedented in other parts of Australia and the world. Only in the late 1940s did the Sydney Morning Herald and Home Beautiful lobby to establish a Small Homes Service in NSW, similar to that established in Victoria.
Boyd was a creative architect, with 200+ designs completely during his relatively short career, solely or jointly. A number of early commissions (1945–47) were jointly designed with colleagues; later (1953–62) there were others jointly designed with his partners Roy Grounds and Frederick Romberg. After Grounds left the practice in 1962, Romberg continued in partnership with Boyd until Boyd died.
Boyd was equally prolific and influential as a writer, educator and public speaker. He lectured in architecture at the University of Melbourne, and in 1956-57 he took up a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston offered by Walter Gropius, a friend of Boyd’s and a Director at MIT. [It is often said that Boyd’s lecturing posts at his various universities influenced architects and consumers, long after he died in 1971 at 51].
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Robin Boyd
Back in Australia, Boyd vigorously supporting modernism and attacking visual pollution in his book The Australian Ugliness (1960). His work was documented and promoted by photographers Mark Strizic and Wolfgang Sievers, to the mutual benefit of both architecture and art photography.
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The Small Homes Service was Robin Boyd’s brainchild when it was launched in Melbourne in July 1947, with backing from the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects and The Age newspaper. It was a cheap way for Melburnians to build a new home; for just £5 a family could chose from a range of architect's plans, complete with working drawings and specifications. The architects produced standard designs for houses, then each week in The Age, Boyd wrote an explanatory article about each design. A typical small homes article might have described the house as an “economical design for a larger family - only 10.5 squares, saves labour as well as space”. The house would have “grouped plumbing and simple roof”.
As I mentioned, the designs were available for members of the public to purchase, irrespective of their wealth or background. Boyd accompanied each submission with articles offering comment on design and lifestyle ideas that resonated with his modernist values. His ideas of Modernism consisted of open plan layouts, big windows, solar and site-responsive orientation and low-profile roofs. The indoor-outdoor link would be established via large, glass sliding doors leading to a veranda and gardens.
Once the choice was made, the family had merely to find a builder to build it. Each new house would be special since only 50 versions of each plan could be built, 25 in the Melbourne suburbs and 25 in the Victorian countryside. Then the design would no longer be promoted.
Cover of a Small Homes Service booklet, 1948
Plans and advice were published in The Age every Wednesday.
Plans and advice were published in The Age every Wednesday.
Boyd was the first Director of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects Small Homes Service from 1947–1953. And from 1948 he was also the editor of this service for The Age, for which he wrote weekly articles. The Small Homes Service provided designs of small houses which a] incorporated modern architectural aesthetics & functional planning and b] were sold to the public for a small fee. Through this work Boyd became a household name in Melbourne.
This grand plan for small homes may have been unprecedented in other parts of Australia and the world. Only in the late 1940s did the Sydney Morning Herald and Home Beautiful lobby to establish a Small Homes Service in NSW, similar to that established in Victoria.
Boyd was a creative architect, with 200+ designs completely during his relatively short career, solely or jointly. A number of early commissions (1945–47) were jointly designed with colleagues; later (1953–62) there were others jointly designed with his partners Roy Grounds and Frederick Romberg. After Grounds left the practice in 1962, Romberg continued in partnership with Boyd until Boyd died.
Boyd was equally prolific and influential as a writer, educator and public speaker. He lectured in architecture at the University of Melbourne, and in 1956-57 he took up a teaching position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston offered by Walter Gropius, a friend of Boyd’s and a Director at MIT. [It is often said that Boyd’s lecturing posts at his various universities influenced architects and consumers, long after he died in 1971 at 51].
Back in Australia, Boyd vigorously supporting modernism and attacking visual pollution in his book The Australian Ugliness (1960). His work was documented and promoted by photographers Mark Strizic and Wolfgang Sievers, to the mutual benefit of both architecture and art photography.
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The Robin Boyd Foundation, originally established by the Institute and the National Trust, has run as a not-for-profit organisation since 2005. Beginning with the purchase of Boyd’s own house in Walsh Street South Yarra, the Foundation is still committed to the continuation of Boyd’s legacy. It now runs open days each year, providing access into modernist houses, and runs seminars for architects and their clients at Walsh Street. The Foundation’s executive director, Tony Lee, also produces annual publications, republishing Boyd’s writings and architectural treasures.
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The Boyds' first family home in Camberwell, 1947
Note the internal space is divided according to usage, but not by walls.
And note the garden continues right up to ceiling-to-floor windows.
Perhaps the reincarnation of the Small Homes Service as the New Homes Service will reinvigorate Boyd’s original success. Considering the legacy he has left behind, it is disconcerting to realise how many of the changes experienced by housing in the intervening decades have been negative. We may have planning regulations requiring consideration of neighbourhood character and amenity issues, but that has not stopped the bulk of housing becoming larger, neglectful of the natural environment, less climate-appropriate and less well designed.
Note the internal space is divided according to usage, but not by walls.
And note the garden continues right up to ceiling-to-floor windows.
Perhaps the reincarnation of the Small Homes Service as the New Homes Service will reinvigorate Boyd’s original success. Considering the legacy he has left behind, it is disconcerting to realise how many of the changes experienced by housing in the intervening decades have been negative. We may have planning regulations requiring consideration of neighbourhood character and amenity issues, but that has not stopped the bulk of housing becoming larger, neglectful of the natural environment, less climate-appropriate and less well designed.