Page:Ian Charlton.ogg/10



Reload page to restart the player. (So in terms of when you came back to Brisbane, I guess working at Hase and Scott. Do you remember the projects you worked on at Hase and Scott or?)  Now, it might get a bit blurred from when I was a student and when I was working (You worked at Hase and Scott as a student as well?) Yeah. In 5th Year, and I think there I might have done the rehash of the working drawings of the waterside workers building which I think that was done the first time when I was just in 5th year actually. But it had been designed and I think they had to, that they were developing the working drawings and I forget the name of the other bloke that was mainly involved in that went to Hase and Scott. I, what did I start on? (Well they were doing mainly houses were they not?) Yeah. Well there was a house for Sir George Green at Hamilton (Yes) Yeah. (You worked on that one, its kind of a compressed concrete frame house?) Yes. Eddy Hase designed that one (with a pop up in the roof?) Two story light. Yes. I think its been wrecked a bit now because one of the Watkins boys bought it and improved it or something. So that might have been one of the first ones and then I got involved in, there's a housing scheme for the housing commission at Red Hill in Wellington Road and that was for the Housing Commission and they were terrible clients. I used to go along to the meetings with Campbell and actually I had a pretty free hand in designing that and it had sort of, blocks had to be squeezed on, and I had to get as many units as they could, and they squeezed them on but I had a sort of little brick things sticking out of the end to sort of help block out views and all the rest of it and I sat down there and this ignorant bloody commissioner was sitting there and he chopped off all the fins and all the things that you know that were making a little bit of difference to save money you know. Why are we doing this? No, we can save money there, and looking at it now, its a very English type design. Have you ever seen it? It's .. (I'm not aware of it) Yeah. (Its still there?) Still there. Yeah. (And relatively unchanged? or?) I think its relatively unchanged. I think its just aged badly I would think that it was brick and concrete but at the same time, Malcolm Cumming was designing the housing commission block of units at Dutton Park. That's as you are going out, its on the top (Gladstone Road?) of Gladstone Road. Yeah. So that was that. And then I got involved in what else?

(So you were working on larger projects in the office? I guess?) Hase and Scott? (Yes.) I suppose those 2 were larger ones. The Housing Commission. They must have made a big impression on me. (It seems like when you set up Curro, Nutter and Charleton, you were quite successful early on, you won an award for the Glen Eagle project.) I started there in 1960 (at the practise). Yeah well went to Curro and Nutter, they'd been going and they were designing a small block of flats for John Curro's father and I was gettting a little bit restless at Hase and Scott and they sort of said well come and join us. Typical sort of thing. So anyway, I took the plunge and I didn't have any money and was terrible. I had to borrow money from the parents and my brothers. They had to wait until the money came in to pay the bills and things and but then we got going and we got some good jobs and places that you did houses for, Fred Taylor who was the boss of Myers Taylor, they wanted a little office block out at Virginia and you know and so you do that and you go from one to the other and the Glen Eagle was a bit of a one off because we had this salesman who came in with an idea and he was a bit of a con man I have to say. We took a plunge, we knew we probably wouldn't get paid any money at all but I went home one weekend and did a sort of comsat design, 2 blocks on the site and put it in cardboard and he came back and started hawking that round and tried to get various people interested and that's how that one came about. At that stage where the Buffalo lodge were interested. Dave Watkins got involved and he sort of, he also went out on a limb and did a whole lot of work, priced it and did quantities and various things and that's how it came about. But I would have worked on the design of that in about 1962 and the award was in 1965. (Yes) Which was, it was, those days it was the Building of the Year award where there was one main award (Yes) and since then, there are so many awards. (Yes, that's right). They all get lost in the end don't they. And then later on when we got the Building of the Year for the Commercial job with William Adams, in those days it was known as The Bronze Medal. I remember ringing up Ted Jones at the building site and saying "We've won the Bronze medal!" , there was a bit of a pause and Ted Jones says "Who got the silver and the gold?" (Laughter).

(So that William Adams one is the one out on Beaudesert Road? or?) That's the one, yeah. Yes.