POST-WAR MODERNITY 1946–1975

Austerity crippled Australian culture during and beyond World War II, but the national mood turned optimistic after the Allied victories in 1945, to control Europe and the Pacific. After the Japanese attacks on Darwin and Sydney in 1942 and the loss of 27,000 servicemen during the war, the government accelerated a ‘populate or perish’ policy, which underpinned a long boom for architects.

Topics surveyed in Chapter 8 of Australian Architecture are:

—Designing the United Nations complex in New York

—Post-war reconstruction policies

—Emergency shelters and small homes

—Desert conditions

—Influxes of emigrés

—Architecture in the late 1940s

—Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme

—Genesis of a mega-developer

—The Seidler tsunami

—Daring modern residences

—Sydney School

—Brutalism

—Government modernism

—Modernist churches

—Catenary concepts

—Commercial buildings

—Tourism, travel and leisure architecture

—Conservative reactions against modern destructions

—’Designer’ project homes and villages

—High-rise home units

—Car parks

—Education and communications

—Sydney Opera House

—Metric conversion