The Historical Literature of Australian Domestic Interior Design 1945-1975

ABSTRACT

This article surveys the formation of the historiography of Australian domestic interior design and decoration from 1945 to 1975. The review aims to understand the inclusions and omissions of Australian interior design history, indicate their possible causes and propose methods for re-evaluation. From its inception, the history of interior design in Australia was framed on architectural lines and its practitioners viewed as tangential to the central disciplines of the built environment and decorative arts. Despite a subsequent flowering of community and museum interest in mid-century design, scholarship on professionally designed interiors has been limited. Amongst thousands of post-war Australian practitioners, all but Marion Hall Best have escaped substantial attention. Diminished by a lower status in history’s hierarchies of practice, professional interior design in Australia remains largely unstudied. It is ripe for mining by scholars open to new perspectives on global debates and the shaping of contemporary practice.

Acknowledgments

This paper is drawn from the author’s PhD thesis at UNSW Sydney, which was funded by a Commonwealth Research Training Scholarship. My thanks to my supervisors Dr Paul Hogben and Dr Judith O’Callaghan.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Howard Tanner, “Interior Design of the 20th Century,” in Historic Interiors: A Collection of Papers, ed. Maisy Stapleton (Glebe, NSW: Sydney College of the Arts Press, 1983), 64.

2. Catriona Quinn, “Margo’s Interior Design Practice,” in Margo Lewers: No Limits (Mosman, NSW: Grasstree Press, 2022), 83–121.

3. Sing D’Arcy, “Sky-High Ambitions: Sydney’s Restaurants,” in Leisure Space: The Transformation of Sydney 1945–1970, ed. Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2014), 105–107; Peter O’Brien, Ralph Rembel, Sam Marshall, Davina Jackson and Billi Hayes, “George Freedman: Interior Architect 1936–2016.” accessed April 26, 2023, https://georgefreedman.com

4. Michaela Richards, The Best Style: Marion Hall Best and Australian Interior Design, 1935–1975 (East Roseville, NSW: Craftsman House, 1993).

5. Penny Sparke, “The Modern Interior: A Place, a Space or a Matter of Taste?,” Interiors 1, no. 1 (2010): 8. https://doi.org/10.2752/204191210791602276.

6. Penny Sparke, “Introduction,” in Interior Design and Identity, ed. Susie McKellar and Penny Sparke (Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 2004), 4; John Potvin, “The Velvet Masquerade: Fashion, Interior Design and the Furnished Body,” in Fashion, Interior Design and the Contours of Modern Identity, ed. Alla Myzelev and John Potvin (Abingdon, Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2016), 1; Anne Massey, “Ephemeral,” in Interior Wor(l)ds, ed. Chiara Rubessi et al. (Torino: U. Allemandi, 2010), 161.

7. Daniel Huppatz, “Reframing Australian Design History,” 216; Daniel Huppatz, “Theses on Australian Design,” The Design History Australia Research Network, accessed October 10, 2017, http://dharn.org.au/theses-on-australian-design/showed the few dissertations to address interior design did so from the margins of architectural history, craft or through gender as the primary perspective.

8. The terms interior designer and interior decorator are understood according to post-war Australian usage, concurrently and interchangeably denoting the same service, captured by the Society of Interior Designers of Australia (SIDA) as “the planning and advisory for whole interiors.” Catriona Quinn, “SIDA: Advocate and Caretaker for a New Profession: The Society of Interior Designers of Australia (SIDA) And Its Role as a Professional Body.” accessed May 8, 2023. https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/sida-advocate-and-caretaker-new-profession/.

9. Penny Sparke, As Long as it’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste (London: Pandora, 1995), 2–3.

10. Massey, “Ephemeral,” 161.

11. See, for example, John Potvin, Bachelors of a Different Sort - Queer Aesthetics, Material Culture and the: Queer Aesthetics, Material Culture and the Modern Interior in Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015); John Potvin, “The Pink Elephant in the Room: What Ever Happened to Queer Theory in the Study of Interior Design 25 Years on?” Journal of Interior Design 41, no. 1 (2016): 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/joid.12068.

12. Peter McNeil, “Designing Women: Gender, Sexuality and the Interior Decorator, c 1890–1940.” Art History 17, no 4 (1997): 101. https://doi.org/10.111/j1467–8365.1994.tb00599.x.

13. Karen Burns, Karen and Lori Brown, “Telling Transnational Histories of Women in Architecture, 1960–2015,” Architectural Histories 8, no.1, Article 15 (2020): 1,6.

14. Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan, “Leisure in Sydney During ‘The Long Boom,’” in Leisure Space: The Transformation of Sydney 1945–1970, eds. Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan (Sydney: NewSouth Publishing, 2014), 25.

15. Catriona Quinn, “The Society of Interior Designers of Australia (SIDA): An Introduction to the Founding, Role and Objectives of SIDA.” accessed May 8, 2023, https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/society-interior-designers-australia-sida.

16. Peter McNeil, “Designing Women: Gender, Sexuality and the Interior Decorator, c 1890–1940.” Art History 17, no. 4 (December 1994): 631.

17. Peter McNeil, “Designing Women: Gender, Modernism and Interior Decoration in Sydney, c1920–1940” (Master’s diss., Australian National University, 1993). https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/11028/4/McNeil_P_1993.pdf.

18. Peter McNeil, “Rarely Looking in: The Writing of Australian Design History, C. 1900–1990,” Journal of Australian Studies 19, no. 44 (1995): 48. https://doi.org/10.1080/14443059509387217.

19. Peter McNeil, “What’s the Matter? The Object in Australian Art History.” Journal of Art Historiography 1, no. 4: 2.

20. McNeil, “Designing Women” 101.

21. Ibid., 28.

22. For example, Gitte Weise, “En Garde: Hera Roberts and the Burdekin House Exhibition,” in Sydney Moderns: Art for a New World, eds. Deborah Edwards and Denise Mimmocchi (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2013), 126.

23. Nanette Carter, Savage Luxury: Modernist Design in Melbourne 1930–1939 (Bulleen, Vic: Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2007); John McPhee, “Modern Melbourne Interiors: Fred Ward and Sam Atyeo,” in Brave New World: Australia 1930s, eds. Isobel Crombie and Elena Taylor (Melbourne, Victoria: National Gallery of Victoria, 2017); Bryan Fitzgerald, Peter McNeil, and Allan Walpole, eds., Women of Influence: Marion Hall Best, Margaret Jaye and Margo Lewers (Paddington, NSW: Ivan Dougherty Gallery, College of the Arts, University of New South Wales, 2005).

24. Harriet Elvin, Sarah Schmidt, Margaret Betteridge and Jennifer Sanders, Ruth Lane Poole: A Woman of Influence 10 July − 02 October 2021 (Canberra: Canberra Museum and Gallery, 2021).

25. Carol Morrow, “Women and Modernity in Interior Design: A Legacy of Design in Sydney, Australia from the 1920s to the 1960s” (PhD diss., University of New South Wales, 2005). https://doi.org/10.26190/unsworks/23108.

26. Penny Sparke, “Introduction,” in Flow: Interior, Landscape and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity, ed. Penny Sparke et al. (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018), xvi.

27. Philip Goad, “Robin Boyd and the Art of Writing Architecture,” in Semi-Detached: Writing, Representation and Criticism in Architecture, ed. Naomi Stead (Melbourne: Uro Media, 2012), 186.

28. Ibid.

29. Robin Boyd, “Victorian Scene,” Architecture 37, no. 4 (1949): 52.

30. Julie Willis and Philip Goad, “A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural History,” Fabrications 18, no. 1 (2008): 17.

31. Robin Boyd, Victorian Modern: One Hundred and Eleven Years of Modern Architecture in Victoria, Australia (Melbourne: Architectural Students’ Society of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architects, 1947), 12.

32. Goad, “Robin Boyd and the Art of Writing Architecture,” 185.

33. Robin Boyd, Australia’s Home: Its Origins, Builders and Occupiers (Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1961), 85, 176–183.

34. Goad, “Robin Boyd and the Art of Writing Architecture,” 186.

35. Robin Boyd, The Australian Ugliness (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1960).

36. Conrad Hamann and Chris Hamann, “Anger and the New Order: Some Aspects of Robin Boyd’s Career,” Transition, no. 38 (1992): 27.

37. Ibid., 27, 32.

38. Boyd, Australia’s Home, 85, 176–183.

39. Neil Clerehan, “Victorian Scene,” Architecture 39, no. 1 (1951): 31; Robin Boyd, “Victorian Scene,” Architecture 39, no. 3 (1951): 89; Robin Boyd, “The Look of Australia,” in Australian Civilisation: A Symposium, ed. Peter Coleman (Melbourne, Vic.: FW Cheshire, 1962), 76.

40. Peter McNeil, “From Oatmeal Sweaters to Rainbow Blouses: Robin Boyd and Australian Fashion,” in After the Australian Ugliness, ed. Naomi Stead, Tom Lee, Ewan McEoin and Megan Patty (Melbourne: NGV, Thames and Hudson, 2021), 231.

41. Boyd’s relationship with the term was complex, “good taste” initially standing for “good design,” later a critical representation of a preference for nice, polite architecture. Hamann and Hamann, “Anger and the New Order,” 24.

42. Rebecca Hawcroft, “Introduction,” in The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, ed. Rebecca Hawcroft (Sydney: NewSouth, 2017), 15.

43. Harry Seidler, Houses, Interiors, and Projects (Sydney: Associated General Publications, 1954).

44. An extensive literature on the work of Harry Seidler positioned the architect as pre-eminent author of the interiors and International Style modernism as the preferred idiom for historical study. See Harry Seidler, Harry Seidler: Selected and Current Works (Mulgrave, Vic., North Ryde, NSW: Images Publishing; Craftsman House, 1997); Vladimir Belogolovskiĭ, Harry Seidler: Lifework (New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc, 2014); Peter Blake, Architecture for the New World: The Work of Harry Seidler (Sydney New York Stuttgart: Horwitz; Wittenborn & Co; Karl Kraemer, 1973); “Heroic Architecture,” Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Newsletter, no. 15 (1988), 1; “A Sydney Showpiece,” Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Newsletter, no. 27 (1991), 1; Michael Bogle, “Modernism and the Media: the Rose Seidler House 1948–52,” in Nuts or Bolts or Berries: SAHANZ Conference Proceedings, ed. Ian P. Kelly (Perth: Society of Architectural Historians Australia & New Zealand, 1993), 30–38.

45. Walter Bunning, Homes in the Sun: The Past, Present and Future of Australian Housing (Sydney: W.J. Nesbit, 1945), 32.

46. Ibid., 68–69.

47. Kenneth McConnel, Planning the Australian Homestead (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1947), 3–7.

48. George Beiers, Houses of Australia: A Survey of Domestic Architecture (Sydney: Ure Smith, 1948), 83.

49. Robert Irving, “Freeland, Max,” in The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, ed. Philip Goad and Julie Willis (Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press 2012), 263.

50. JM Freeland, Architecture in Australia: A History (Ringwood, Vic: Penguin Books Australia, 1972), 285–286.

51. Architecture and Arts (later Architecture and Arts and the Modern Home, later the Journal of Architecture and Arts) surveyed here from 1952 to 1967.

52. For example, mention of Marion Hall Best with Moore, Walker and Croker, W.E. Lucas in “Elizabeth Arden Salon,” Architecture 45, no. 1 (1956): 14–16 was exceptional. Decorator Mary White was listed amongst trade suppliers in “House of the Year: Douglas Snelling Architect,” Architecture and Arts, no. 46 (June 1956): 34–39. Architects Robin Boyd, Harry Seidler, Hugh Buhrich, Sydney Ancher, Arthur Baldwinson, Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell, Grounds, Romberg and Boyd, Neil Clerehan, Yuncken Freeman Bros, Griffiths and Simpson, Peter Muller, Kenneth McDonald and Ancher Mortlock and Murray were regularly credited for interiors.

53. Margaret Lord, “Problems of Interior Decoration,” Architecture 38, no. 4 (1950): 56–58.

54. For example, “Architecture Today and Tomorrow,” Architecture 40, no. 2 (1952): 54. For a discussion see Paul Hogben, “Architecture and Arts and the Mediation of American Architecture in Post-war Australia,” Fabrications 22, no. 1 (2012): 30–57, https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2012.685634.

55. Caroline Butler-Bowdon and Charles Pickett, Homes in the Sky: Apartment Living in Australia (Carlton, Vic., Sydney: Miegunyah Press in association with Historic Houses Trust, 2007), 79.

56. Photographs by Wolfgang Sievers in public collections, incorrectly catalogued as interiors of Stanhill, were taken in Stanley and Sylvia Korman’s flat in “Rameta” 67 Queens Rd, Albert Park. Leon Korman stated his parents never had a flat in Stanhill and never lived in the building. Leon Korman, Sheryl Kauffman and Tina Korman, interview by Catriona Quinn, 26 April 2018, Melbourne, Vic.

57. Advertisement for Riddell Interiors from Beiers, Houses of Australia.

58. See Margaret Maile Petty, “Curtaining the Curtain Wall: Traversing the Boundaries of the American Postwar Domestic Environment,” in Flow: Interior, Landscape and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity, ed. Penny Sparke et al. (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018), 252–61.

59. See for example, Grace Lees‐Maffei, “Accommodating ‘Mrs. Three‐in‐One:’ Homemaking, Home Entertaining and Domestic Advice Literature in Post‐War Britain,” Women’s History Review 16, no. 5 (2007): 723–54. https://doi.org/10.1080/09612020701447772; Grace Lees-Maffei, Design at Home: Domestic Advice Books in Britain and the USA Since 1945 (New York: Routledge, 2014). https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781135075835; Ben Highmore, Lifestyle Revolution: How Taste Changed Class in Late-20th Century Britain (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2022).

60. As a result of agencies with American publishers established during World War II several key design and architecture magazines circulated in Australia in book shops and public libraries. These magazines themselves are under researched by design historians, with Architectural Digest rarely referenced by scholars of the modern interior. For The House Beautiful, see Monica Penick, Tastemaker: Elizabeth Gordon, House Beautiful, and the Postwar American Home (New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 2017).

61. Grace Lees-Maffei, Design at Home, 13.

62. For example, scrapbooks compiled in the firms of Marion Hall Best, Leslie Walford, Decor Associates and Mary White held at the Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Museums of History and the MAAS.

63. Morrow, “Women and Modernity in Interior Design,” 178; Howard Tanner, “Guertner, Beryl,” National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, accessed June 27, 2018, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/guertner-beryl-annie-blanche-12573/text22639; Steven Kalmar, You and Your Home (Sydney: Shakespeare Head Press, 1964); Margaret Lord, Interior Decoration: A Guide to Furnishing the Australian Home (Sydney, Australia: Ure Smith, 1944); Margaret Lord, An Interior Decorator’s World (Sydney, London: Ure Smith, 1969).

64. Clive Carney, Furnishing Art and Practice (London, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1950).

65. Ed. Clive Carney, International Interiors and Design. Outstanding Achievements by Leading Architects, Interior Designers and Decorators of the World (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1959); Clive Carney, Impact of Design (Sydney: Lawson Press, 1959).

66. Morrow, “Women and Modernity in Interior Design,” 167.

67. Denise Whitehouse, “A Decorator’s World: Margaret Lord (1909–1972) Case Study,” DHARN, accessed December 11, 2020, http://dharn.org.au/a-decorators-world-margaret-lord-1909–1972-case-study/.

68. Sydney Living Museums, “Kalmar Interiors,” Sydney Living Museums, accessed December 11, 2020, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/exhibitions/kalmar-interiors.

69. Michael Bogle, “White, Mary,” Design & Art Australia Online, accessed December 11, 2020, https://www.daao.org.au/bio/mary-white/biography/.

70. Michael Bogle and Davina Jackson, “Hayes, Babette,” Design & Art Australia Online, accessed December 11, 2020, https://www.daao.org.au/bio/babette-hayes/biography/.

71. Morrow, “Women and Modernity in Interior Design,” 202.

72. Dawn N. Burns, “Your Job as Family Decorator,” Australian House and Garden, (August 1964): 16.

73. Anne Watson, “Kafka and Kalmar,” The Furniture History Society Australasia Journal, no. 2 (2004): 13.

74. Carney, Furnishing Art and Practice, 1–2.

75. Judith O’Callaghan, “The Australian Interior: The Importance of Being Contemporary,” in The Australian Dream: Design of the Fifties, ed. Judith O’Callaghan (Haymarket NSW: Powerhouse Publishing, 1993), 160–161.

76. Noelle Brennan, “The Trend in Artistic Furnishing,” Australian House and Garden, (December 1949): 60; Edmund Dykes, “Minimum scale Maximum Living,” Australian House and Garden, (July 1949): 28–29.

77. TH Robsjohn-Gibbings, “Kiss the Junk Goodbye,” Australian House and Garden, (April 1949): 40.

78. “Smart Solutions for Small Home Decorators,” Australian House and Garden, (June 1960): 18; Dawn N. Burns, “Barbara McKewan Introduces Decorating with Elegance,” Australian House and Garden, (June 1960): 16–17; Mary Somers, “Melbourne Modern with Traditional Charm,” Australian House and Garden, (December 1949): 20–21; Beryl Guertner, “Color is the Keynote,” Australian House and Garden, (August 1949): 20–21, 33; Ruth Quigley, “How to Succeed in Being Different,” Australian House and Garden (July 1964): 24–25.

79. Alma Somers, “Melbourne House is Ultimate in Privacy-planning,” Australian House and Garden (October 1961): 40–42.

80. Guertner, Australian Book of Furnishing and Decorating.

81. Watson, “Kafka and Kalmar,” 13.

82. Babette Hayes and April Hersey, Australian Style (Sydney, New York: Hamlyn, 1970), 11–12.

83. Babette Hayes, Design for Living in Australia, with April Hersey (Sydney: Hodder and Stoughton (Australia), 1978), 7.

84. Interiors by Merlin Cunliffe, Ray Siede, Dennis Bellotte, Tom Gillies Joyce Tebbutt, Decor Associates, Joan Devey, Cabana, Barbara McKewan, John Lock, Robin Duleiu, Deric Deane, John Amory, Gail English and Margaret Panton were also illustrated. Archives for Little and Walford are in CSL&RC, White’s and Lord’s at MAAS and Freedman’s at the SLNSW; “Design and Art Australia Online: Database and E-Research Tool for Art and Design Researchers,” accessed July 7, 2020, https://www.daao.org.au/.

85. RD Russell, “Book Review. Clive Carney,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 109, no. 5056 (1961): 311–12.

86. Terry Smith, “Writing the History of Australian Art: Its Past, Present and Possible Future,” Australian Journal of Art 3 (1983): 20.

87. Daniel Huppatz, “Reframing Australian Design History,” Journal of Design History 27, no. 2 (2014): 207.

88. Tony Fry, Design History Australia: A Source Text in Methods and Resources (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1988),13.

89. Nikolaus Pevsner, Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin, 1960); Reyner Banham, Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (Cambridge Mass.: MIT Press, 1980).

90. Anne-Marie Willis, “Preface” in Tony Fry, Old Worlds, New Visions (Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1989).

91. See Jeffrey Trask, Things American: Art Museums and Civic Culture in the Progressive Era (Philadelphia, Penn.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); Hal Opperman, “The Thinking Eye, the Mind that Sees: The Art Historian as Connoisseur,” Artibus et Historiae 11, no. 21 (1990): 9–13, https://doi.org/10.2307/1483380. Opperman’s list of the presumed qualities of connoisseurship included exclusivist purity, aestheticism over function, judgement as a form of taste (therefore superficial and socially contingent), anti-historicism discredited by modernism, subjective and therefore invalid, contaminated by market forces and unscientific and intuitive.

92. Trevor Keeble, Brenda Martin and Penny Sparke, The Modern Period Room: The Construction of the Exhibited Interior, 1870 to 1950 (London: Routledge, 2006).

93. Fry, Design History Australia, 43.

94. For example, John McPhee, Australian Decorative Arts in the Australian National Gallery (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1982); John McPhee, Helen Maxwell and Christopher Menz, Australian Decorative Arts Checklist (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1985); Australian National Gallery and John McPhee, Australian Art in the Collection of the Australian National Gallery (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1988); John McPhee, Australian Folk and Popular Art in the Australian National Gallery (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1988); John McPhee and Christopher Menz, Australian Decorative Arts, 1900–1985 (Canberra: Australian National Gallery, 1988).

95. Robert S. Bell, “Collection: Decorative Arts and Design,” National Gallery of Australia, accessed November 27, 2017, https://nga.gov.au/decorativearts/essay.cfm; Robert S. Bell, “Material Culture,” National Gallery of Australia, https://nga.gov.au/Material/Index.cfm.

96. RI Downing, Krimper: A Memorial Exhibition of the Furniture and Woodworks of Schulim Krimper (1893–1971) (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1975); Terence Lane, Mark Strizic and Schulim Krimper, Schulim Krimper Cabinet-maker: a Tribute (South Yarra, Vic.: Gryphon Books, 1987); Terence Lane, “Schulim Krimper and Fred Lowen: Two Melbourne furniture makers,” in The Europeans: Emigre Artists in Australia, 1930–1960, ed. Roger Butler (Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 1997); Anne Watson, “Sideboard by Schulim Krimper,” in Decorative Arts and Design from the Powerhouse Museum, 127; Christopher Menz, Australian Decorative Arts 1820s − 1990s: Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide: Art Gallery of South Australia, 1996).

97. Terence Lane, Grant Featherston and Mary Featherston, Featherston Chairs (Melbourne: The Gallery, 1988); Terence Lane, “Grant Featherston Furniture,” in Bogle, Designing Australia, 161–165.

98. See Powerhouse Museum, “Style and the Decorative Arts,” Powerline, no. 2 (1988): 8; Powerhouse Museum, “Why Chairs,” Powerline, no. 8 (1989): 3; Powerhouse Museum, A Material World: Fibre, Colour & Pattern (Haymarket, NSW: Powerhouse Publishing, 1990), 35; Decorative Arts and Design from the Powerhouse Museum (Haymarket: Powerhouse Publishing, 1991).

99. Judith O’Callaghan, “A New Direction: 1940–1980,” in Decorative Arts and Design from the Powerhouse Museum, 112–143.

100. O’Callaghan, “The Australian Interior,” 160–161.

101. Ann Stephen, Philip Goad and Andrew McNamara, eds., Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia (Carlton Vic.: Miegunyah Press, 2008).

102. Scott Hill, “Talk of the Town: Living Layers,” Sydney Living Museums, accessed July 3, 2020, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/stories/talk-of-the-town.

103. James Broadbent, “Colonial Interiors,” in Stapleton, Historic Interiors, 17–18.

104. James Broadbent, “What Is Feltex?” in For the Public Good: Crimes, Follies and Misfortunes, Demolished Houses of New South Wales, ed. James Broadbent and Joy Hughes (Glebe, NSW: Historic Houses Trust, New South Wales, 1989), 30–31.

105. Sydney Living Museums. “Caroline Simpson Library and Research Collection.” accessed June 3, 2020, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/research-collections/library; James Broadbent and Catriona Quinn, The Craft of Home Furnishing 1830–1930 (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 1994); Lyndhurst Conservation Resource Centre Brochure. CSL&RC articles arch file, Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Museums of History.

106. For example, Broadbent and Quinn, The Craft of Home Furnishing 1830–1930; Louise Mitchell and Catriona Quinn, Federation to Bungalow: An Exhibition of Early 20th Century House Furnishings (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 1990); Sally Webster, Underfoot: Floorcoverings in Australia 1800–1950 (Sydney: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 1994); Robert Griffin and Roanna Ovenden, The Making of the Australian Home 1800–1930 (Glebe, NSW: Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales, 1993).

107. Catriona Quinn, “Rawhide,” Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Newsletter, no. 25 (1990): 1; Catriona Quinn, “Sydney Style,” Insites. The Newsletter of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW, no. 8 (1993): 1; James Broadbent, “Marimekko at Lyndhurst,” Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Newsletter, no. 20 (1989): 1; Catriona Quinn, “Living in the Seventies,” Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales Newsletter, no. 27 (1991): 1.

108. “A Sydney Showpiece,” 1; “Heroic Architecture,” 1.

109. Quinn, Sydney Style, 19.

110. Richards, The Best Style,13; Best’s training was framed as “The Education of an Artist,”17; the development of the professional body SIDA was a “struggle for artistic acceptance,” 53.

111. Ibid., 61.

112. Michael Bogle, Design in Australia, 1880–1970 (Sydney: Craftsman House G+B Arts International, 1998), 79.

113. Peter McNeil, “Rarely Looking In: The Writing of Australian Design History c1900–1990,” in Bogle, Designing Australia, 14–23.

114. Kirsty Grant, ed., Mid-century Modern: Australian Furniture Design (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2014).

115. Geoff Isaac, Featherston (Port Melbourne, Vic.: Thames & Hudson Australia, 2017), Denise Whitehouse, Design for Life: Grant & Mary Featherston (Bulleen, Vic.: Heide Museum of Modern Art, 2018). Derek F. Wrigley, Fred Ward: Australian Pioneer Designer, 1900–1990 (Canberra: Derek F. Wrigley, 2013); Davina Jackson, Douglas Snelling: Pan-Pacific Modern Design and Architecture (Abingdon, Oxon, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 201).; Simon Reeves, “Meadmore Originals,” RMIT Design Archives Journal 5, no. 2 (2015): 4–25; Nanette Carter and Robyn Oswald-Jacobs, Frances Burke: Designer of Modern Textiles (Carlton, Victoria, Australia: The Miegunyah Press, 2021).

116. Sydney Living Museums, “Recorded for the Future: Documenting NSW Homes,” Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, accessed October 25, 2017, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/documenting-nsw-homes.

117. Quinn, “SIDA: Advocate and Caretaker for a New Profession”; Quinn, “The Society of Interior Designers of Australia”; Catriona Quinn, “Rooms on View: S.I.D.A.‘s Exhibitions, 1953–1986,” Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Sydney Living Museums, accessed March 10, 2020, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/stories/rooms-view-S.I.D.A.s-exhibitions-1953–1986.

118. Fitzgerald et al., Women of Influence; Sydney Living Museums, “Marion Hall Best Interiors,” Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, accessed November 6, 2017, https://sydneylivingmuseums.com.au/exhibitions/marion-hall-best-interiors.

119. Noni Boyd, “Book Review: The Other Moderns, Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy,” Historic Environment 30, no. 1 (2018): 95.

120. Hawcroft, “Introduction,” 14–15.

121. Peter McNeil, “From Oatmeal Sweaters to Rainbow Blouses,” 231.

122. See Rebecca Hawcroft, “From the Margins to the Mainstream,” in Hawcroft, The Other Moderns, 165–190; Michael Bogle, “Lessons from Things,” in Hawcroft, The Other Moderns, 25–46.

123. Catriona Quinn, “Custom-made for European Tastes: The Gerstl Furniture story,” in Hawcroft, The Other Moderns, 89–120.

124. Harriet Edquist, “Vienna Abroad: Viennese Interior Design in Australia,” RMIT Design Archives Journal 9, no. 1 (2019): 9–37; Philip Goad, “NUCLEUS Meets the Minimum: Ernest Fooks, the Small House and the Flat in Post-war Melbourne,” RMIT Design Archives Journal 9, no. 1 (2019): 39–59; Harriet Edquist, “George Kral (1928–1978). Graphic Designer and Interior Designer,” RMIT Design Archives Journal 3, no. 3 (2013): 12–23.

125. Catriona Quinn, “Krimper in Context: The Place of Provenance in Design Research,” RMIT Design Archives Journal 5, no. 2 (2015): 28–43.

126. Megan Martin, “Harrington Park: A Scholar’s Garden Pavilion,” Unlocked: The Sydney Living Museums Gazette, no. 25 (2020): 25–27.

127. Alan Pert, ed., Ernest Fooks: the House Talks Back (Melbourne: Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, 2016), 11. For the continuity of Lane’s narrative on Krimper’s clients, see Lane, “Schulim Krimper and Fred Lowen” and Lane, Strizic and Krimper, Schulim Krimper Cabinet-<aker.

128. Harriet Edquist, “The Shaping of Design,” in Goad et al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 197–199. See also Zena O’Connor, “The Shillito Design School: Australia’s link with the Bauhaus,” International Journal of Design and Nature 6, no. 3 (2013): 149–159. https://doi.org/10.18848/2325–1328/CGP/v06i03/38512.

129. Julian Goddard, “David Foulkes Taylor (1929–1966),” in Goad et al., Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond, 202.

130. See Georgina Downey, “’In Quiet Pursuit of a New Language: Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Modern Adelaide Domestic Interiors in the 1950s,” in Adelaide Art Scene, ed. Margot Osborne, (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, forthcoming) and Paul Hogben, “‘Lust for Lifestyle: Modern Adelaide Homes 1950–1965,’ at the State Library of South Australia, 3 December 2021–24 July 2022.” Fabrications, 32, no. 2 (2022): 317–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2022.2093453.

131. Douglas Lloyd-Jenkins, At Home: A Century of New Zealand Design (Auckland: Godwit, 2006).

132. Jessica Kelly and Claire Jamieson, “Practice, Discourse and Experience: The Relationship Between Design History and Architectural History” Journal of Design History 33, no.1 (2020) 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epz045,1.

133. Judith O’Callaghan, “Interiors,” in Australia Modern: Architecture, Landscape & Design, ed. Hannah Lewi and Philip Goad (Port Melbourne, Vic.: Thames & Hudson, 2019), 122.

134. Discussed in S. N. Eisenstadt, “Multiple Modernities,” Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 1–29. The expression was the theme of a dedicated issue of Daedalus, in which the editor stated it was then “not in common usage.” Stephen R. Graubard, “Preface,” Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): v.

135. Pat Kirkham and Susan Weber, History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 (New York: Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, 2013), 629.

136. Peter Smithson named such groupings “extra-cultural surprise.” Kirkham and Weber, History of Design, 633.

137. Ibid., 633.

138. Judith O’Callaghan, “Modern Baroque: The Designs of George Surtees,” MAAS, accessed October 24, 2017, https://www.dhub.org/modern-baroque-the-designs-of-george-surtees/.

139. Simon Reeves, “Gold Plated Doors if You Want Them: Holgar and Holgar and the Architecture of Opulence,” in Gold: SAHANZ Conference Proceedings 33, ed. Annmarie Brennan and Philip Goad (Melbourne: SAHANZ, 2016), 569–577. Simon Reeves, “Gold Plated Doors if You Want Them: Holgar and Holgar and the Architecture of Opulence,” in Gold: SAHANZ Conference Proceedings 33, ed. Annmarie Brennan and Philip Goad (Melbourne: SAHANZ, 2016), 569–577. Georgina Downey, “Hayward Hollywood,” in Carrick Hill: A Portrait, ed. Richard Heathcote, (Kent Town, S. Aust.: Wakefield Press, 2023), 24–38.

140. Catriona Quinn, “Noel Coulson and Decor Associates (1950–1970): The Role of the Client in an Alternative Framework for Understanding Modernity in Australian Interior Design” (PhD diss., UNSW Sydney, 2021), 369. http://hdl.handle.net/1959.4/100061.

141. Catherine Townsend and Philip Goad, “Looking inside Design: Crossing and Connecting the Disciplinary Boundaries of Architecture, Design, and Exhibition,” Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand 32, no.1 (2022):1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2022.2061647.

142. Catriona Quinn, “Re-Evaluating Post-War Interior Design Practices Through Client Histories: Loti Smorgon and Her Architect/Decorator Noel Coulson.” Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand 32, no. 1 (2022): 54–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/10331867.2022.2087271.

143. Catriona Quinn, “Noel Coulson and Decor Associates (1950–1970).”

144. Philip Goad, “Designed Diplomacy: Furniture, Furnishings and Art in Australian Embassies for Washington, DC and Paris,” in The Politics of Furniture: Identity, Diplomacy and Persuasion in Post-War Interiors, ed. Fredie Floré and Cammie D. McAtee (Abingdon, Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2017), 182.

145. See, for example, Alice T. Friedman, Women and the Making of the Modern House: A Social and Architectural History (New York: Abrams, 1998); and “Home on the Avocado-Green Range: Notes on Suburban Decor in the 1950s.” Interiors 1, no. 1 (2010): 45–60. https://doi.org/10.2752/204191210791602320.

146. Kirkham and Weber, History of Design, xii.

147. Victor Margolin, World History of Design (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015), 581–585.

148. Daniel Huppatz, “Australian Design” in The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Design, ed. Clive Edwards (London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 98, 101.

149. DJ Huppatz, “A Chronological History of Australian Design,” in History of Design and Design Law: An International and Interdisciplinary Perspective, ed. Tsukasa Aso, (Singapore, Springer, 2022), 487–503.

150. Peter McNeil, “Designing Women: Gender, Sexuality and the Interior Decorator, C. 1890–1940,” Art History 17, no. 4 (1994): 631–57, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–8365.1994.tb00599.x; Judith O’Callaghan, “‘Individuality’ and the Standardised House: The Display Home Interiors of Australian Builder Pettit & Sevitt, 1961–1978.” Interiors 8, no. 3 (2017): 141–58, https://doi.org/10.1080/20419112.2017.1400815.; Charles Rice, “The geography of the diagram: The Rose Seidler House” in Designing the Modern Interior. From the Victorians to Today, ed. Penny Sparke (Oxford, New York: Berg, 2009).

151. Mark Ian Jones MI, “Nordic Design Down Under. Swedish Modern and Scandinavian design in Australia” in Nordic Design in Translation: The Circulation of Objects, Ideas and Practices, ed. Shona Kallestrup and Charlotte Ashby (Bern: Peter Lang, 2023). Important precursors that investigated the broader topic include Robert Bell’s PhD thesis “Nordic Wave: A Study of the Reception and Influence of Scandinavian Design in Australia.” Australian National University, College of Arts and Social Sciences, 2007 and Eugenie Keefer Bell, “Messengers of Modernism: Japan and Scandinavia in Post-WWII Australia.” in Panorama to Paradise: Scopic Regimes in Architectural and Urban History and Theory, ed. Stephen Loo and Katharine Bartsch (Adelaide: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, 2007), 1–10.

152. DJ Huppatz, Modern Asian Design (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). https://doi.org/10.5040/9781474296854?locatt=label:secondary_bloomsburyCollections; Charles Rice, “Rethinking Histories of the Interior.” The Journal of Architecture 9, no. 3 (2004): 275–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602360412331296107; Charles Rice, The Emergence of the Interior: Architecture, Modernity, Domesticity. Abingdon, (Oxon: Routledge, 2007); Barbara Penner and Charles Rice, “The Many Lives of Red House,” in Biography, Identity and the Modern Interior, ed. Penny Sparke and Anne Massey (Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2013).

153. Georgina Downey and Mark Taylor, “The Emotional Power of Space: What the Interior Meant to Bonnard,” in Pierre Bonnard, 196–183 (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2023); Mark Taylor, Georgina Downey and Terry Meade, Domesticity Under Siege: Threatened Spaces of the Modern Home (London: Bloomsbury Publishing USA 2023) https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kxp/detail.action?docID=7129762; Penny Sparke, Patricia Brown, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, Gini Lee and Mark Taylor, eds., Flow: Interior, Landscape and Architecture in the Era of Liquid Modernity (London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2018); Anca Lasc, Georgina Downey and Mark Taylor, eds. Designing the French Interior: The Modern Home and Mass Media, (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015); Mark Taylor, “Hidden Spaces: Cavities, attics and cellars: Morbid secrets and threatening discoveries,” in Domestic Interiors: Representing Homes from the Victorians to the Moderns, ed. Georgina Downey (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 147–158.