There is a story in every house, from the people who commissioned, designed and built them, to those who lived in them.
Since building began, 100 years of passion, energy and experiment have endowed Canberra with houses that reveal every face of modern design. This clever and beautiful selection has an architecture of its own. It tells the story of urban culture—the story of a nation, and the life of a city.
“It is true that a home is more than a house, but not all homes are houses.“
The houses here include a wide variety of residential types including apartments, hostels and colleges—temporary homes as well as permanent. Some combine living and working; some reflect the development of architectural types, new technologies and principles of industrial organisation; some the development of specific urban precincts. Some here are known from newspaper front pages, like the Petrovs’ house and The Lodge. Some are spectacular, some are ordinary. There are handsome houses and ugly houses. A number are masterpieces by Australia’s best architects, including those who deserve a wider audience. They raise questions about priorities in architecture: should it be approached as an art, or a way of relating to the physical world, or of promoting particular social values? What, essentially, is a house and what does a house necessarily look like?
100 Canberra Houses was launched to wide acclaim in 2013 as part of Canberra’s centenary celebrations. Authors Tim Reeves and Alan Roberts were awarded the 2017 Clem Cummings Medal by the ACT Institute of Architects in recognition of the book’s contribution to architecture and the public interest. Now this new edition of the much-loved book continues to tell the story of how a new national capital was created through its housing.
RRP $44.95
235mm x 215mm
Paperback, 224pp. Illustrated in colour.
ISBN: 9 781925 0436 31