Arthur Baldwinson

Arthur Baldwinson (b.1908 Kalgoorlie WA, d. 1969 Sydney NSW) is one of Australia's earliest modernist architects. He belongs to Australia’s first generation of prominent modernists including such figures as Roy Grounds (b.1905) and Frederick Romberg (b.1910) in Victoria and Sydney Ancher (b.1904) and Walter Bunning (b. 1912) in NSW. Their respective Australian architectural careers in modernism began in the late 1930s.

Baldwinson trained in architecture (1925-29) at the Gordon Institute of Technology, Geelong, Victoria under architect George R. King, head of the architecture programme. Baldwinson’s work, especially in the areas of drawing and rendering, was exemplary and George R. King asked him to stay on as an “Architectural Instructor.” Baldwinson held this position from 1930-32 when left for London for further architectural experience.

In London, he was employed in the office of the Sydney University architecture graduate Raymond McGrath (b.1903). McGrath’s practise was then designing the interiors for the BBC’s studios in Portland Place, London. Baldwinson worked with talents like Serge Chermayeff and Wells Coates. Most importantly, McGrath was assembling his international survey of residential modernism, Twentieth Century Houses. The plans that accompany many of the book’s photographs appear to be Baldwinson’s.

In mid-1934, Baldwinson also worked for Adams Thompson and Fry while one of the principals, Maxwell Fry (b.1899) was designing his famous commission with Elizabeth Denby, the Kensal House flats. Maxwell Fry had been a co-founder of MARS (Modern Architectural Research group) in 1933.

In October 1934, Walter Gropius formed a partnership with Maxwell Fry and Baldwinson worked with Gropius until his departure for the USA in March 1937. Baldwinson was actively involved in the design and drawings for his Isokon 3 medium density project, Windsor; the E. W. Levy House, Chelsea; the Donaldson House, Sevenoaks; the Impington Village College, Cambridgeshire and the Christ’s College project for Cambridge University.

In January 1937, Baldwinson returned to Australia to take up a position with Stephenson & Meldrum, later Stephenson & Turner, working first in their Melbourne office, later in Sydney. Although two Stephenson & Turner works have been assigned to Baldwinson, the ACI Building, William Street, Sydney and the portico for the King George V Hospital, Camperdown, there is no supporting evidence for the attributions to be found in the Baldwinson papers.

Baldwinson prepared entries for the annual Victorian Timber Development Association (TDA) prize for residential timber buildings and won in three categories in early 1938. With this public profile, he quickly established a practice in Pitt Street, Sydney. In 1938-39, Baldwinson formed a brief design partnership with fellow-West Australian John Oldham (Oldham & Baldwinson) for a workers' housing project at Port Kembla (Coomaditchy). Oldham was a noted member of the Australian communist party.

In 1938, Baldwinson had his first commission, the Collins House, Palm Beach. The Collins House site was a difficult location on a steep north-facing sandstone and clay slope with long views of Barrenjoey Head and Broken Bay. The red-stained weatherboard house on a sandstone plinth also provided an external stair ramp, two bedrooms, upper level verandah and a “playroom” on the lower level. The house received considerable media attention.

During the 1939-45 War, Baldwinson worked for the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory designing and constructing buildings for the manufacture of the Beaufort Bomber. By 1943, he was Chief Architect for the Beaufort Division. Baldwinson later developed an all-steel pre-fabricated “Beaufort” house for post-war sale to the Victorian Housing Commission in 1946.

Baldwinson returned to Sydney in 1946 in partnership with the Melbourne engineer Eric Gibson. Gibson managed the office in Melbourne and Baldwinson oversaw the Sydney office. As Gibson and Baldwinson, he produced and built some of his best residential designs. His clients including Alistair Morrison, William Dobell (project), Harold Clay, Geoff and Dahl Collings, James Andriesse, Max Dupain and Elaine Haxton. These works form a group best described as the “Artists’ Houses”.

He concluded his partnership with Gibson in 1950 and applied for a lectureship at Sydney University early in 1951. By 1952, he was a Senior Lecturer in the architecture faculty where he remained until his death.

After the appointment, he formed a partnership with Charles Vernon Sylvester-Booth in 1953; later Charles Peters joined them in 1956 to form Baldwinson, Booth and Peters. This practice lasted until 1958. While Baldwinson proceeded with his favoured residential design practice, Booth and Peters pursued commercial work. Their Hotel Belmont, in the Newcastle suburb of Belmont won the 1956 NSW RAIA Sulman Award for a public building.

Baldwinson also designed the Mandl House, Wahroonga (1953) and the Simpson-Lee House, Wahroonga (1957) during this partnership. Supported by his teaching salary, Baldwinson designed and built his own residence at 79 Carlotta Street, Greenwich (1954). This white cement-bagged brick house with tallow-wood tongue & groove siding is an essay in Baldwinson’s restrained modernist philosophy.

Internal disputes forced the suspension of the Baldwinson, Booth and Peters partnership and Baldwinson quickly formed a new partnership with recent Sydney University graduate Geoffrey Twibill until late 1959. Twibill played a major role in the partnership’s design of the Commonwealth Film Studios, Roseville and the prefabrication design of the Overseas Telecommunications Commission’s (OTC) modular housing in the Cocos Islands.

In 1960, Baldwinson closed his formal practice but continued to work on commissions. He designed the Hauslaib House, Point Piper (1960), the Pennington House, Whale Beach (1960), the Robinson House, Castle Cove (1963) and his last completed house for the artist Desiderius Orban, Northwood (1968).

In his later years, Baldwinson devoted himself to teaching and travel. In 1969 he died in Sydney from congestive heart failure (associated with flu).

Baldwinson’s professional career as an active architect was short (1937-1960). As a member of the first Australian generation of modernist architects, he experienced the European modernist movement first hand. Baldwinson returned to Australia in 1937 determined to plant the flag of “the new architecture”. Before the 1939-45 War disrupted his career, he played a pioneer role in the formation of an Australian MARS group, the “Design and Industries Association” and the design of modernist houses drawing on his London experience with Raymond McGrath and Gropius and Fry.

Baldwinson’s palette of materials was consistent throughout his practice: bagged brick, weatherboard or tongue & groove cladding, irregular ashlar-laid sandstone and concrete. Although his practice was occasionally involved in commercial commissions, his greatest accomplishments lie in the adaptation of the principles and materials of European modernism for the small-scale suburban Australian house. He helped to pioneer free-plan concepts, the “scientific kitchen”, flat roof treatments and function-derived placement of windows and doors.

References

Selected Images.

www.atmitchell.com/journeys/arts/ modern/ baldwinson.cfm
www.baldwinsonaustralianmodernism.blogspot.com/

Baldwinson Papers.

State Library of NSW. PXD 356 (includes Architectural & technical drawings, 2,686 architectural plans and private papers.)

Biography.

Arthur Baldwinson. www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130117b.htm
Greg Holman. “Arthur Baldwinson, His Houses and Works (B.Arch. thesis, University of NSW, 1980
Michael Bogle. The Career of Arthur Baldwinson. (work in progress 2006-2007). RMIT School of Architecture, PhD Thesis.