BRISBANE RETRO

BRISBANE RETRO: POST-WAR HOUSES OF BRISBANE

In 2015 I received the Lord Mayor's Helen Taylor Research Award to undertake the Brisbane Retro project.

I photographed, researched and recorded 23 houses, built between 1940 and 1980. The examples I chose were ones that survived in near original condition, as I wanted to capture evidence of what these houses were like when first built. I tried to select a range of houses reflecting the huge variety of styles, locations, materials and costs of housing built during the era. 

I researched the history of each house and established a context for the physical evidence I documented in each, such as whether they were privately built, social or government housing, architect or non-architect designed and high or low budget. Based on this, I tried to draw some generalisations about what an "average" house was during this period. The only conclusion I came to was that there was no such thing! 

I presented the outcome of my project at an exhibition in April 2016 and have produced an e-book. You can download it here.

My collection of photographs, the histories of each house and the exhibition panels have since been acquired into the collection of the State Library of Queensland. You can view the full collection here.

Also check out the Brisbane Retro Facebook page and follow me on Insta.