Historic Houses Trust
Philip Goad reviews 'Public Sydney: Drawing the City' edited by Philip Thalis and Peter John Cantrill
Public Sydney: Drawing the City is a large and beautiful book. Its size recalls William Hardy Wilson’s Old Colonial Architecture in New South Wales and Tasmania (1924) and other folio-sized books produced by architect–authors such as Andrea Palladio, James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, and Richard Phené Spiers. Their luxurious size was dictated by the reproduction of drawings at a scale where maximum information might be imparted – like the encyclopedic data provided by a map or an atlas, or an architect’s working drawing. The size of Public Sydney has been determined by the scale of Sydney’s plan view, and special note should be made of the book’s consistent placement of historic drawings – very carefully done – so that, at various moments, one can deduce a longitudinal account of the city’s development.
... (read more)Christopher Menz reviews 'Government House Sydney' by Ann Toy and Robert Griffin
Not that many Australian houses lend themselves to being the subject of a 240-page monograph. Whatever their architectural or historical merit, usually there is not enough material to warrant more than a chapter in a larger volume. Our government houses are different: not only do numerous documents and photographs survive in public records, but furnishings survive, and there is also the history of the occupants and visitors to enliven the story.
... (read more)