Out of the square: Beach architecture on the Mornington Peninsula

peter

<p>Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery</p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);"><b><span style="font-size: larger;">Out of the square: Beach architecture on the Mornington Peninsula</span></b></span></p>
<p>13 November 2008 - 22 February 2009

An MPRG exhibition, curated by Rodney James</p>
<p>

An architectural exhibition that brings together past, present and future designs for coastal living and features 35 exemplary projects by Victoria’s leading architects, including visionary projects for the future.



Three of the last four prestigious RAIA ‘Robin Boyd awards for residential architecture’ have been presented to homes on the Mornington Peninsula and McBride Charles Ryan have recently been awarded the State’s highest honor: the Harold Desbrowe-Annear Award for their radical Klein bottle house in Rye. While there may be something in the air, the Peninsula has long been considered a fertile breeding ground for innovative architecture in Australia. From the 1920s, modern movements in architecture have been played out on the shores and hinterland of the Mornington Peninsula by the likes of Walter Burley Griffin, Roy Grounds, Robin Boyd and McGlashan Everist and numerous younger architects around the millennium including Sean Godsell, Jackson Clements Burrows, Kerstin Thompson and John Wardle.



Out of the square: Beach architecture on the Mornington Peninsula is the first exhibition to survey the rich traditions of coastal architecture on the Peninsula. Arranged geographically so that modern and contemporary projects rub shoulders, the exhibition considers the way in which architecture has developed under the rubric of form, patronage and place.



Visit: <a href="http://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au">http://mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au</a> for more details.



Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Civic Reserve, Dunns Rd, Mornington



Phone 03 5975 4395</p>
<p>tags: [Mornington] [Victoria] [Australia]</p>
<p><i><span style="font-size: smaller;">Sean Godsell Architects

St Andrews Beach House 2006

Exterior view

Photograph: Earl Carter

Reproduced courtesy of Sean Godsell Architects and Earl Carter</span></i></p>

sod

baby boomer heaven - they should be quarantined down there

info

any humpies in the exhibition?

mark_melb

<p>Yes, where are the real beach houses. Don't blame the Baby Boomers. They are not the ones commissioning or designing these boxes. The McBride Charles Ryan object was laughably alien.</p>

hairdresser

who do you blame then mark? gen x?
don't think its them financing the trophies.
though Godsell and McBride qualify as cusp of bb/x = lackies of BBs.

re MCR alien - take photo in AA of interior shot from deck. put your hands over exterior around window and edit image. interior minus "klein bottle" laughably ordinary rather than alien.

Godsell's brand of Elwood is charming like SOM's version of Van der Rohe.

Show looks like it has some history in exhibition from link. McGlashan did some clean stuff for the elite back in the 60s. wonder what they pulled out of past decades as exemplars. G Burgess did an interesting little brick house on poles down at Shoreham in the 80s. unusual for him.

sod

mark, i blame the BB's for everthing.

the mcr rye house isn't too alienating - i buy the line about the house relating to old fibro beach shacks, you don't have to look hard to see it.

HD - the reversion to the ordinary in the interiors is pretty apparent - you can see where the money went.

found a unstudio project that monaco house and klien bottle could have been extracted from
http://www.unstudio.com/projects/workfield/public%20buildings/2/142#img4

hairdresser

interesting building in that link sod. might be a bit of take on Berlin Philharmonic.

what i wonder about in regard to MCR (and similarly ARM) is whether this is basically beaux arts architecture - in contrast to V. Berkel - whatever one may think of the triangular faceting language.
has the axis simply been transferred to the front or the skin yielding the same end result - poche.
for sure MCR and ARM would roll out their logic that separates architecture from building, concept from program, etc etc and explains the disjunction between the extraordinary contemporary exterior and the ordinary dated interior - like the difference is historically culturally correct or is perhaps even appropriate to this nation - but I think its a shortfall.

------you got to blame the BBs for it all.
I hope they eat dog food in their old age.

sod

i wouldn't lump MCR in with ARM - they don't have the same all knowing cynisim running thru their work. MCR might be abit more concerned with the physical properties of their buildings and certainly operate with a higher degree of formal skill. the detachment of idea/building might be more about a stragetic response to budget than being enamoured with illustrating ideas. ARM would never do a 'good building' - to much of an affront to their sense of intellectual integrity.

hairdresser

fair point. MCR certainly does not cover their bases in the suffocatingly smart arse way of ARM.

Its an interesting thought that ARM have intellectual integrity?

I want to stay with my assessment of 19th century beaux arts thinking running rife in melbourne.
I'd like to see someone do a shit foyer in melbourne and spend the money on a great bin enclosure.
Guess only corrigan did that?

sod

more the type of integrity a used car salesman might possess

did corrigan do a great bin enclosure somewhere?

sod

HD - does the beaux art poche reading hold for the ricital centre - the main corners have some depth but i came away thinking it's a flat/grahic type of building.

hairdresser

what i would be thinking with recital hall is that the axis method of the beaux arts (architecture is found around the axis and not further away) has been replaced by programmatic assumptions as appropriate places for the architecture. Its a grading method. and its about being conventional - and digestable.
even "buildable" - in a very conventional way. ie layers of crappy furring channels.
facade. foyer. main circulation. halls.
the rest is assumed to be non architecture/no place for the concept. ie office space, service areas, loading docks and so on.
Lyon are best at this poverty stricken propriety.

I need to see interior of Recital Centre. only seen it outside.
I'd guess its obvious programmatic beaux arts like Lyons.
I did note it appeared to have the most shithouse door I've ever seen on a public building.
but a friend tells me the toilets are seriously good.

it is as you say - flat and graphic. unappealing. the black will fade?
its blankness must be a pissweak take on Grounds next door?
(A building I no longer visit when in melbounre after BLOTta ripped the guts out of it years ago.)

Contrast this with corrigan's bizarre attention to everything in an equally shithouse but very personal way. the complete architect.