Public Lecture | The Trouble with Hardy Wilson

A century ago, architect William Hardy Wilson published his folio Old Colonial Architecture in New South Wales and Tasmania. A collection of some fifty plates, the collection of drawings has been celebrated as sparking wide appreciation for Australia’s early colonial buildings. The pencil and crayon drawings showed extraordinary artistry, presenting the Georgian facades through carefully delineated brick and stonework amongst encroaching foliage and dappled with shadow.

Although credited with great influence, Wilson’s relationship with architecture in Australia was evidently an ambivalent one, and aspects of his legacy troubling. Over time, his interests increasingly lay largely outside of the practise of architecture, focusing on illustrating, writing and publishing his own books. His work took a distinctly racist and eugenicist turn after the publication of Old Colonial Architecture, and he became increasingly disdainful of architectural trends, disparaging modernism. Yet, the very characteristics celebrated in his drawings of Australian buildings – simple, poised, well-proportioned and relatively unadorned structures over which the play of light enhanced their elegance – were seen by some to be aligned with progressive architectural sensibilities.

Wilson’s work has endured, in part, because of its rarity. Few books were published on Australian architecture or by Australian architects at the time, fewer still were focused on the aesthetic and artistic possibilities of Australia’s architectural past. This talk will explore Wilson’s experiences leading to the publication of Old Colonial Architecture, situating him and his work within the context of the Australian architecture profession and the reappraisal of its built past.

Date: Thursday, 19th of September 
Time: 6.00pm reception for 6.30pm lecture
Venue: Charles Perkins Centre, B1900, Auditorium
Speaker: Professor Julie Willis, University of Melbourne

Professor Julie Willis is Dean of the Faculty of Architecture Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne where she is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Architecture. She was the co-editor of the Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture (2012), and has a particular expertise in buildings for health. She is currently engaged in mapping and understanding networks of Australian architects globally in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Exhibition Tour
This public lecture is part of a series of events linked to the exhibition Hardy Wilson’s Old Colonial Architecture 1924-2024. Co-curator of the exhibition Hector Abrahams will lead a tour of the exhibition before the talk. Spaces for this tour are limited. 

Time: 5.00pm - 5.40pm

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