If you think of Adelaide’s architectural style, stately Victorian and Edwardian buildings are probably what comes to mind for most people. But mid-century aficionados see beyond that, and they’ll soon tell you that the South Australian capital certainly didn’t escape the Modernist movement that swept the world after the Second World War.
As the post-war industrial boom saw Adelaide’s footprint expand, architects embraced the movement’s functional style, while migrant tradesmen arrived with the skills to construct it. By the time an Australian Architectural Convention in Adelaide’s Botanic Park in 1956 showcased these new designs and techniques, this bold new movement was here to stay.
Adelaide historian Tim Reeves has dutifully gone through the records to come up with 101 houses for his book, Adelaide Modernism 101 Houses, published by Wakefield Press. The houses represent a cross-section of homes built between 1939 and 1974, each design telling a story of its architect and owner and the context in which it was built.
Blocks of flats and public housing are included, along with competition designs and designs by organizations such as the Small Homes Service. Floor plans, newspaper clippings, and a generous collection of imagesdemonstrate that Adelaide produced houses that were on par with those elsewhere in Australia.
Sadly, however, some of the houses were demolished, while many more have been renovated to the point where they are practically unrecognisable, causing Reeves to lament how few of the book’s houses have been heritage-listed and how important it is to act to save what little is left.
Chappel archive at the State Library
Reeves extracted much of the material for Adelaide Modernism 101 Houses from the Chappel archive at the State Library of South Australia. The archive is named for architect John Chappel who is integral to Adelaide’s Modernist story and whose designs are in the book. The library’s director, Geoff Strempel, wrote the book’s foreword.
This is Reeves’s fourth book and the third he has written about residential architecture. He co-authored 100 Canberra Houses: A century of capital architecture, highlighting the National Capital’s many mid-century treasures that also tend to fly under the radar.
Buy your copy of Adelaide Modernism 101 Houses from Amazon.
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Watch this State Library of South Australia video on You Tube in which Tim Reeves shares the journey behind his book Adelaide Modernism 101 Houses.
