John Dalton

Subtropical Modernism and the Turn to Environment in Australian Architecture

Elizabeth Musgrave

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781350291515
• eBook ISBN: 9781350291539
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Ensayos y monografías sobre arquitectura

This book addresses the work of architect John Dalton (1927-2007), an important voice in mid-century modernism in Australia whose work, despite his being exhibited and published internationally and also winning several awards for his designs, is woefully little known. Published as part of the Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture series, which brings to light the work of significant yet overlooked modernist architects, the book draws on previously unpublished archival documents, including Dalton's drawings and paintings, transcripts of lectures, letters and articles, plans and photographic images of built works, to characterize the architect not only as a very talented designer, but also as a pioneer of environmentalist thinking in Australia. The book reveals how Dalton's architectural preoccupations parallel a transition in mid-century modern architecture globally from functional efficiency and material rationalism, to a concern with being in dialogue with the environment, confirming a wider 'environmental turn' that involved the integration of environmental with cultural considerations through relational thinking, and which preceded and transcends the discipline's fascination with theoretical paradigms such as Critical Regionalism. John Dalton: Subtropical Modernism and the Turn to Environment in Australian Architecture is thus not only an important contribution to the existing scholarship on 20th century modernism, but also to the current renewed interest in environmental design across the globe.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Introducing John Dalton and the Landscape of Post-War Australia
• 2 Discovering the Idiomatic: Detail in Art and Architecture
• 3 Form and its Experience: Designs for ‘Sunlight, Shade and Shadow’
• 4 Environment as Provocation and Narrative: Dalton the Activist
• 5 Ecologies in Practice: Structuring the Interactions of Individual and Community
• 6 Synthesizing Environmental and Architectural Perspectives
• Conclusion: Legacies of ‘Sunlight Shade and Shadow’
• Notes
• General Bibiography
• Index
• Imprint