Elizabeth Farrelly on Robin Dods
In her column for The Sydney Morning Herald, Elizabeth Farrelly had a few words to say about the under-appreciated legacy of Robin Dods, and our book Robin Dods: Collected Works:
Robin Dods insisted - like Beaven - on traditional continuity as a means of accommodating the human animal. Yet Dods was largely forgotten until a new and scholarly book, Robert Riddel's Robin Dods, Selected Works, appeared last month. Born in Dunedin in 1868, Dods worked in London for the great Arts and Crafts maestro Sir Aston Webb and practised in Brisbane from 1894 to 1920.
He produced some of the finest, most gracious and sophisticated buildings this country has seen; inventing a language that was locally responsive and internationally admired. Riddel's claim that Dods is "up there" with Edwin Lutyens, Robert Lorimer, Walter Tapper and Charles Voysey is no overstatement.