Italy/Australia: Postmodern Architecture in Translation reconstructs the critical passage of Italian postmodern ideas into Australian architectural culture during the 1970s and 1980s, when Italy held an outsized influence on the direction of international design discourse.
About This Book
At a pivotal moment in Australia's architectural internationalisation, Italy functioned as a primary reference point — a source of theoretical ambition, formal experimentation, and cultural prestige. This essay collection and conversation series maps those relationships with rigour and specificity, tracing how Italian postmodernism was received, adapted, and contested within Australian practice. Edited by two leading scholars from the University of Queensland, the volume brings together fourteen contributors to produce the first sustained critical assessment of postmodern architecture in Australia. Illustrated with archival sketches, plans, and photographs, it is an essential resource for architectural historians and anyone engaged with the longer genealogy of Australian architectural identity.
Key Features
- 239 pages of essays, conversations, colour photographs, drawings, and archival materials including original sketches and plans for the 1979 Melbourne Landmark Ideas competition
- Edited by Silvia Micheli, Lecturer at the University of Queensland, and John Macarthur FAHA, Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland; contributions from Lea-Catherine Szacka, Philip Goad, Francesco Vitelli, Paul Walker, Karen Burns, Antony Moulis, Elizabeth Musgrave, Peter Kohane, Gevork Hartoonian, Ian McDougall, Rex Addison, Mauro Baracco, Conrad Hamann, and Enrico Taglietti
- Dedicated to the memory of Romaldo Giurgola; completed by a poem by Enrico Taglietti
- Published by Uro Publications, 2018
What You'll Discover
- How Italy's cultural authority shaped the professional and intellectual formation of Australian architects during the postmodern period
- A multi-voiced critical framework for understanding postmodern architecture in Australia through the lens of transnational exchange rather than isolated local development
- Archival insight into the 1979 Melbourne Landmark Ideas competition, with original sketches and plans reproduced within the volume
- The European intellectual currents — aesthetic, theoretical, and disciplinary — that inflected Australian architectural production in ways still underexamined by the discipline
About the Author
Silvia Micheli is a Lecturer at the University of Queensland with research interests in postmodern architecture and its transnational histories. John Macarthur FAHA is Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a recognised authority on architectural aesthetics and criticism.
Specifications
- Format: Softcover
- Pages: 239
- Dimensions: 230 x 150mm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9780994396624
- Publisher: Uro Publications
- Publication Date: 2018
Perfect For: Architectural historians, postmodernism researchers, Australian architecture scholars, and practitioners interested in the transnational currents that shaped local design culture.