Page:Ian Charlton.ogg/8



Reload page to restart the player. (Ian, were you aware of the Exhibition of Australian Architecture in 1956. Were you aware of that being on at the RBA?) I think I caught up with it later. Yeah. No, it's not in my mind at the moment. (I think it was early in '56 so you might have been settling in London). We probably might have been on the continent to at that stage.

(You mentioned that you visited offices. You remember which Architectural offices you visited during your trip?)  Not specifically, no. In Rome someone mentioned, I forget who it was now, no more a general sort of thing. They were all prepared to ... Later on when I did the Brick award, I had pre-organised the whole trips and that so you could go somewhere and it was a Brick award and you know they would line up tours around Brickworks and brick buildings and all the rest of it but that was a different kettle of fish altogether.

(Were the buildings on that first trip that you sought out that you knew about that you wanted to see?) Yes. (Remember what they are?) Well I suppose the main one would be Corb's (la Corbusier) big Marseilles (Unité d'habitation) and subsequently another Corb building was the Ronchomp Chapel which probably wasn't built at that stage and then cities like Rotterdam were more general things because Rotterdam had been flattened and you just had all this sheet of modern buildings which was really something. And the other one, that Penny's always said that, things like the older buildings like the cathedrals and things that you knew were in towns, Cologne or wherever, Spain, you know to go to those because the average person could be one block away from some significant building and miss it. You miss so many things of course don't you.

(Well, unless you have a good guide book and they are hard to come by.) Yes. (What about la Corbusier's and other things around Paris?) Well in those days, no, we were running around a lot of the touristy things as well, you know. We'd only have a week or something there and we were trying to absorb all that. Actually, we are going back to Paris in September. I made a point that I'd like to see a bit more than I have to date, you know.

(What about things like Hilversum Town Hall there in Holland?) No. You are going to embarrass me now because ... (Well it's interesting because some Australian Architects who knew about that building and obviously went there) Yeah. (You can see it in, I think Charlie Fulton must have been one of the ones) Yeah. Yes. Yeah. (but I am mystified as to know how they knew about it) Yeah. Yes. The Stockholm Town Hall I have been back to that twice because that was in Sweden Builds and you know and your remember all those sorts of things (and the library? In Stockholm? Was it built then?) No. No. The other one that I remember in Stockholm is the Brick Cathedral, I forget the Architect there but Gunnar Asplund's Crematorium. (You went there?) Those sort of thing. Yeah. Marvellous.

(And those things were being shown in the courses that you took here at the University? They showed all these modern buildings back in Europe or work that was done here?) Probably. Well you heard about them probably through reading things but in those days there weren't the slideshows that there are now where it's all on top isn't it. You know.

(It's such a big field. Not everything's on tap.  We can't possibly do it. It has to be selective.) No. No. Yeah. That's one thing I admired about Professor Cummings that he was sort of a bauhaus man, Walter Gropius and all that sort of thing. He instilled that straight down the line sort of approach that I think it was great that in fact I am going back to Berlin on the same thing and I have never been to the Bauhaus for example, and I have never been to Berlin before.

(I mean you realise as a student that where Karl Langer fitted into all this?)