678 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION H. 



6.— THE POSSIBILITY OF DEVELOPING AN AUSTRALIAN 

 STYLE OP ARCHITECTURE. 



By G. H. M. ADDISON. 



The Athenian desire for some new thing has found an echo in 

 all ages. There are two rocks in the stream of progress — one is the 

 danger of an ultra-conservatism which strenuously fights against all 

 progress on the assumption that knowledge has been perfected in 

 the past, and that all new ideas are therefore dangerous if not 

 impious; the other is the rock of anarchy, bred of the spirit of 

 pessimism, which ignores all past experience and the accumulated 

 knowledge of the ages, contending that our civilisation is rotten to 

 its very base, and can only be regenerated by an absolutely new 

 beginning. Tiiie progress, however, steers between these two extremes. 

 It adopts all that is good in the past, making gradual improvements 

 and adaptations to meet new conditions. Both the conservative and 

 the radical schools have their exponents in architecture. The latter 

 is often an intelligent protest against that monotony which is liable 

 to result from too conservative a spirit. At times, however, it is a 

 youthful protest against definite law; an abuse of the emancipation 

 of the half-trained student who has failed to grasp the difference 

 between liberty and license. Save during exceptional epochs when at 

 the end of an era of civilisation the world has been thrown back into 

 comparative barbarism, all architectural progress has been by gradual 

 development. A new detail has been added here, a detail has been 

 perfected there. A settlement under new climatic conditions has 

 gradually altered the style in one direction, a difference in avail- 

 able material has gradually altered it in another, until from one 

 starting point we eventually find a multiplicity of architectural styles 

 which to the casual observer seem to have no affinity to each other. 



To enable one to gauge on what lines Australian architecture 

 will advance it is necessary to have some idea of the history of past 

 developments. I trust, therefore, you will pardon me if I make as 

 ■ rapid a review as possible of those agencies which have led up to 

 architecture as we find it to-day. Although by no means the 

 beginning of architecture, the Egyptian buildings may be considered 

 the starting point of that progression which has led by easy stages 

 to the present day developments. The first principle of Egyptian 

 architecture is what is known as " Traheated" — viz., beams supported 

 on rows of columns, resulting in an emphasis of the horizontal lines 

 in construction and decoration. At this early stage we find the 

 rudimentaiy form of the ecclesiastical buildings as repeated to the 

 present day. In the pylon we have the suggestion of the front of a 

 modern cathedral with its two west towers. Tlie great columnated 

 hall had a suggestion of nave and side aisles, and was lighted by a 

 clerestory, and what answers to our sanctuary was placed at the east 

 end. 



These early people living close to Natvu^e adopted many of their 

 architectural details direct from her. The columns were often fairly 

 accurate reproductions of a growing palm-tree or a bundle of canes. 

 The lotus plant was the favourite decorative inspiration. In many 

 buildings, especially in the rock-cut temples and tombs, there is an 



