Are we still ugly?

By Rhonda Dredge

The Art Book Fair was held at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) last month with a feature wall in the Great Hall dedicated to advertising the fair’s return to the arts calendar.

Those who turned up expecting stands of art books by small publishers might have been disappointed.

The fair was decentralised this year because of the pandemic with just one stand at the NGV.

Luckily one of the NGV’s own publications had just been released, a critical appraisal of The Australian Ugliness, in itself a critical appraisal of architecture and design in 1960.

In this latest iteration titled After The Australian Ugliness, various writers, architects and academics assess the legacy of the original book by Robin Boyd and rethink his stinging attack on Australia’s built form.

The book is actually older than the NGV building and it is still in print, so it is considered to be something of a classic.

Boyd’s main argument in 1960 was that Australians were too addicted to “featurism”, a word he invented to describe tack-on “here I am” parts to buildings that dominated the overall integrity of the design.

The early Moderns wanted “honesty” in expression of functions, “truth” in construction and “integrity” in the whole and so did Boyd.

The houses he designed in Melbourne are still treasured. One had no spouting, the water running directly off the roof to water the native garden.

The book follows a similar high-minded principle, ranging as it does from an analysis of the awful behaviour of authorities during the building of Canberra, through the unnecessary addition of masonry pillars to the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the Americanisation of our built form.

Old controversies are not necessarily that interesting to contemporary readers, as many critics in this new study have pointed out, and even though the original book was aimed at the general public, most were too busy enjoying the pleasures of their half-acre blocks in the 1960s to worry about principles of design.

One clever piece by Naomi Stead reads the original text as an attack on what would be called Bogan culture and which would be lovingly embraced by a different medium 40 years later – the comedy series Kath and Kim.

Her point is that Boyd, who emulated English architectural criticism down to the inclusions of satirical drawings, was buying into a class issue.

Bogans, as represented by Kath and Kim, flaunt their tack-on features in a way that has been absorbed into the culture, she claims. A feature wall is a talking point as is a front lawn and garden ornaments.

Boyd’s criticism bought into the cultural cringe. It is fair to say that in the ‘60s we did feel ugly and were perhaps more susceptible to criticism but not any more.

One American writer makes the point that Boyd’s idea of “Austerica” (the emulation of all things American) is no longer relevant. He says that many of the best architectural ideas are coming from our more protected island.

The first edition of The Australian Ugliness was released with the title “NGV education officer” under the author’s name and the style is rather staid. There is too much information and repetition for today’s reader.

Boyd was mounting an argument in favour of architects and he wanted to be thorough. The profession was often dismissed in the bad old days by vested interests in the government and construction industry.

It’s hoped that the competition for the new NGV gallery in the Arts Precinct will support architectural vision rather than stymie its practice but if the precinct is anything to go by, decorative elements and features are still very much a part of the landscape •