Biography/Architecture, Art and Photography
Book Details

Harold Desbrowe-Annear

A Life in Architecture

Harriet Edquist

A beautifully illustrated biography of Harold Desbrowe-Annear, exploring both the multifaceted architecture and unconventional life of this intriguing man.

Opinion

‘Until the publication of this book [Desbrowe-Annear] was something of an enigma and legend. Now, almost overnight, he has become one of Australia’s best-researched architects, where we have a comprehensive catalogue of his buildings, an excellent discussion of his developing ideas on architecture, a detailed analysis of the social context within which his ideas took root, as well as an insightful portrait of the man with his occasional misogynist outbursts. This is a wonderful model monograph on an architect.’ (Canberra Times, 15/5/2004)

'Desbrowe-Annear: A Life in Architecture brings together for the first time the urban thinking and built work of one of our earliest architectural thinkers in a remarkably beautiful book.'
The Age (Domain), 16/6/2004

About this Title

‘Harold Desbrowe-Annear was an iconoclast and maverick; a friend of a great number of artists and writers; a bohemian who never outgrew the desire to shock.’ —Harriet Edquist

Harold Desbrowe-Annear was an enigma: an architect who counted among his clients some of Melbourne’s wealthiest families and among his friends a wide range of bohemian artists and writers. In this beautifully illustrated and highly readable biography, Harriet Edquist explores both the multifaceted work and unconventional life of this intriguing man, a life that was sometimes scandalous and always eventful.

Trained during the heady days of Melbourne’s 1880s land boom and imbued with the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, Desbrowe-Annear embraced the power of architecture to improve people’s lives. He promoted the idea of an ‘architecture of democracy’: an art available to everyone. From 1889 to 1933, he was responsible for some of the most innovative houses in Melbourne and on the Mornington Peninsula. Adopting a variety of styles, the houses were nonetheless all planned for comfort and functional efficiency, as well as good design. These qualities also featured strongly in the furniture and gardens he designed to accompany his houses and in the significant contributions he made to the future of the city as an urban designer.

For Robin Boyd, Desbrowe-Annear was a ‘pioneer modernist’ whose best works deserved recognition alongside his European and American contemporaries. Harold Desbrowe-Annear brings the charm and innovation of that work to the fore.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Making of an Architect 1865-1889
Chapter 2: Reform and Innovation: the 1890s
Chapter 3: The Arts and Crafts House 1902-1916
Chapter 4: The City 1901-1927
Chapter 5: The Town Houses 1919-1933
Chapter 6: The Country Houses 1919-1928
Chapter 7: The Gardens
Chapter 8: Portrait of the Architect at Home 1920-1928

About the Author

Harriet Edquist is Professor of Architectural History and Head of the School of Architecture and Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. She has published widely on Australian architecture and art and was editor of Transition: Discourse on Architecture from 1987 to 1992. She is the author and editor of a number of books, including The Culture of Landscape Architecture and Frederick Romberg: The Architecture of Migration 1938–1975.

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978-0-522-85052-9