Jackie Cooper

Glen Murcutt has emerged in recent years as a very Australian hero, an apparently sincere and unassuming man, a loner in his practice, and in tune with the environment - a sort of Crocodile Dundee of architecture. He has also achieved an improbable international stature. He is almost better known in Finland than at home, and has now been recognised by the Pritzker Architecture Prize, an international award which is presumably important, even though most of us had never heard of it before. Here, for once, is an Australian architect who deserves to be studied and documented.

Ours is not a visually literate culture – architects and designers are not the household names they are in countries such as Spain, nor is design understood or appreciated to any discernible degree – so it is always a particular pleasure when a publication appears that celebrates design. However, it is therefore also doubly important that such a publication should enliven or enlighten a public already so impervious to what design has to offer.