Karl Langer: Modern Architect and Migrant in the Australian Tropics 9781350068100, 9781350068131, 9781350068117

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KARL LANGER

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BLOOMSBURY STUDIES IN MODERN ARCHITECTURE Series Editors: Tom Avermaete and Janina Gosseye The Modern Movement was a broad and multifaceted phenomenon which revolutionized the field of architecture. During the twentieth century, modern architects across political, cultural and geographic divides radically changed the everyday lives of millions of people. However, our knowledge of the Modern Movement remains largely limited to the names of a few famed designers. Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture sheds light on those modern architects who have languished in the shadows of their canonical peers. Placing particular emphasis on the way in which these architects defined the relationship between architecture and modernity in their respective political, cultural and geographic contexts, this series seeks to construct a more nuanced and finegrained understanding of the Modern Movement and the global networks that underwrote it. Previous titles in the series: Ernesto Nathan Rogers, by Maurizio Sabini Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, by Hilde Heynen Kay Fisker, by Martin Søberg Forthcoming titles in the series: Ludwig Hilberseimer, by Scott Colman

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KARL LANGER Modern Architect and Migrant in the Australian Tropics

Edited by Deborah van der Plaat and John Macarthur

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BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Paperback edition published 2023 Selection and editorial matter copyright © Deborah van der Plaat and John MacArthur, 2022 Individual chapters copyright © their authors, 2022 Deborah van der Plaat and John MacArthur have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. Cover design by Eleanor Rose Cover image: Lennons Hotel behind sand dunes, looking west from the beach at Broadbeach, Queensland, 1960 – 1969; G. A. Black, photographer, Image numbers 24040 and LS1005-IMG010 https://digitalbank.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/ vital:24040/IMAGE, Southport and Local Studies Library, City of Gold Coast. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: PB: ePDF: eBook:

978-1-3500-6810-0 978-1-3502-8036-6 978-1-3500-6811-7 978-1-3500-6812-4

Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii Series Preface xi Notes on Contributors xiv

1 INTRODUCTION: Modern and Migrant Architect

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Deborah van der Plaat and John Macarthur

2 VIENNA: Karl and Gertrude

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Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara and Andrew Wilson

3 ‘AUSTRALIA IS OUR FATE!’

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Fiona Gardiner and Don Watson

4 BEND LIKE BAMBOO: Always Bounce Back

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Don Watson and Fiona Gardiner

5 THE SPELL OF THE SUNNY SOUTH, THE URGE FOR ‘LIGHT, SUN AND AIR’: The ‘Human Aspect’ and Other Ideas in Langer’s Australian Writings (1944–69) 104 Deborah van der Plaat

6 BRIDGING CONTINENTS: Karl Langer’s Contributions to Housing 142 Andrew Wilson

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7 MAN ABOUT TOWN

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Robert Riddel

8 A TOUCH OF VIENNA, A PINCH OF AMERICA AND A WHIFF OF EXOTICISM: Karl Langer’s Architecture for Leisure and Lifestyle in Australia

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Janina Gosseye

9 A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN: Karl Langer’s Landscape Australia 232 Andrew Saniga and Andrew Wilson ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ Plates 259 Bibliography 271 Index 293

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CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

Note on plates in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ by Karl Langer, 1944 The plates that were published alongside Karl Langer’s pamphlet ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (STH) are collected together at the end of the book. In the text of this book, these are referred to as ‘plate 1 STH’, ‘plate 2 STH’ and so on. STH was published in Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944), 12. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. PLATE 1 STH PLATE 2 STH PLATE 3 STH PLATE 4 STH PLATE 5 STH PLATE 6 STH PLATE 7 STH PLATE 8 STH PLATE 9 STH PLATE 10 STH PLATE 11 STH PLATE 12 STH

Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions Aspect planning: diagrams of streets running in various directions Aspect planning: diagrams of streets running in various directions Schematic layout for a community of approximately 2000, with walking distances, maximum 10 minutes Sun chart for Brisbane Table showing width of overhangs for various aspects for latitude for Brisbane Deflection of wind currents and exterior and interior wind pressure Relative distribution of light and reduction of the window factor

259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270

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Illustrations 1.1 1.2 1.3 2.1

Karl Langer, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, 1960 xviii Karl Langer, Brisbane, 1950 2 Gertrude Langer, at home in St. Lucia, c. 1950 9 Karl Langer, competition entry for Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade, 1930 14 2.2 Karl Langer, student project for a flower kiosk and tea salon, c. 1926 19 2.3 Rabenhof housing, Vienna, Austria, 1926. Architects: Schmid & Aichinger 23 2.4 Margaretengürtel housing, Vienna, Austria, c. 1924–26. Architects: Schmid & Aichinger 23 2.5 Tobacco Factory, Linz, Austria, 1928–30. Architects: Behrens and Kopp 25 2.6 Karl Langer, images from PhD dissertation, University of Vienna, 1933 31 2.7 Karl Langer, sketches of Naxos, Santorini, 1933 32 2.8 Karl Langer, competition entry for Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade, 1930 33 2.9 Karl Langer, competition entry for Opera House and Conservatorium, Istanbul, 1934 34 2.10 Karl Langer, competition entry, Austrian Pavilion for the Paris Exposition, 1937 (1936) 35 2.11 Karl Langer, shop for M. Neumann, Vienna, Austria, c. 1934 36 2.12 The Langers’ apartment, Vienna, Austria, c. 1933 37–38 3.1 Karl and Gertrude Langer, passengers on the Remo, en route to Australia 48 3.2 Erskineville Housing Scheme. Architect: Morton Herman, December 1938 51 3.3 (A) ‘Major Steps of Stylism 9: Waterfall Front’, Robin Boyd. (B) Lucas & Cummings, Fraser East residence (1940) 54 3.4 J.M. Collin, first prize, class A and class B, model homes competition, 1935 55 3.5 (A) Flats, New Farm. Architect: E.J.A. Weller, 1940. (B) Fraser residence, Northgate. Architect: R.W. Voller, 1940 56 3.6 Karl Langer, sun chart, 1943 60 3.7 Karl Langer, site plan, competition entry 62 3.8 Karl Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing (1994), Plate 5 (detail) 62 3.9 Karl Langer, proposed terminal, Cairns, Queensland Railways 64 4.1 Karl Langer, competition entry for proposed Sydney Opera House 74 4.2 Colour-coded Austrian paper clips, Job Cards 76 4.3 (A) Office 1955–58, Isles Love Building, Brisbane. Architect: T.R. Hall, 1913. (B) Office 1958–69, proposed renovations, Spring Hill 78 viii

ILLUSTRATIONS

4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 5.9 5.10 5.11 5.12 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10 7.1 7.2 7.3

Karl Langer, nightclub for Robert Hecht, Blue Mountains, NSW, 1947 82 Karl Langer, flats for J.A. Watt, Newmarket, 1954. Sketch by Barry J. Walduck 83 Karl Langer, tourist resort on Rabbit Island, 1960 84 (A) Karl Langer, Sanders House, 1949. (B) Karl Langer, supermarket centre, 1950 86 Karl Langer, Perth Government Offices, competition entry, 1961 90–91 Karl Langer, Perc Miller salon for Linda Holm, Albert St, 1953 92 Karl Langer, ‘The Origins of Concrete Construction’, 1933 94–95 Karl Langer, St. Peter’s School chapel, 1966 97 Karl Langer, Main Roads Building (1967) and environs 104 (A) Karl Langer, plan developed for sub-tropical housing, 1943; (B) proposed flats, Kangaroo Point, 1959 107–108 ‘The Queensland housewife’, c. 1940 109 Postcard: Group of sugar growers and families, Innisfail, North Queensland 111 Karl Langer, standardized house plans, 1943 114–115 Langer Residence, St. Lucia, 1950 117–118 ‘The Vanishing Store Front’, Architectural Forum, 1950 119 Karl Langer, artificial bodies of water 122 Karl Langer, Mackay City, 1945: (A) development of Alfred St; (B) proposed neighbourhood development 123 Karl Langer, proposed flats, Kangaroo Point, 1959 126 Superblock, Brisbane, 1951 130 Examples of the ‘modernistic’ 133–134 Karl Langer, sketch plan for residence, John Cooper Esq., 1941 142 Karl Langer, family house, timber and brick construction, Austria, c. 1935 144 Karl Langer, Coronation Drive House axonometric, date unknown 147 Karl Langer, Jimbour Cottage, Southport, 1941 148 Karl Langer, early sketch plan, date unknown 155 (A) Langer Residence, St. Lucia, 1950; (B) Gertrude in front of the loggia 156 Karl Langer, Ryan House, Bardon, 1951 158 Karl Langer, Levy House, Southport, 1953 159 Karl Langer, proposed flats and shopping arcade, Surfers Paradise, 1958 161 Karl Langer, McQueen House, Raceview, 1963 163 Karl Langer, proposed Queen St development, Brisbane 170 Karl Langer, Mackay town plan, 1945 173 Karl Langer, civic centre, Mackay, 1945 173

ILLUSTRATIONS

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7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 8.7 8.8 8.9 8.10 8.11 8.12 8.13 8.14 8.15 8.16 8.17 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9

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Karl Langer, proposed Sydney Opera House, competition entry, 1956 175 Karl Langer, proposed civic centre, Toowoomba, c. 1947 176–177 Karl Langer, Kingaroy Civic Centre, 1949 179 Karl Langer, undated sketch showing the new Parliament House on Capitol Hill 182 Karl Langer, proposed King George Square, Brisbane 184 Karl Langer, Main Roads Department, Queensland, 1963 185 Karl Langer, Miami Keys/Rio Vista development for Alfred Grant, 1957 187 Karl Langer, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, 1960 189–190 Karl Langer, chapel of St. Peter’s Lutheran School, Indooroopilly, 1968 191 Karl Langer, West’s furniture showroom, Brisbane 196 Karl Langer, Canberra Hotel in Cairns, c. 1938 200 Karl Langer, Canberra Hotel in Cairns, c. 1938 201 Karl Langer, Hotel at Eimeo Point for Mrs L. Driscall 202 Karl Langer, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 204 Karl Langer, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 205 Karl Langer, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 206 Lennons Brisbane Hotel. Photographer: Wolfgang Sievers, 1965 207 Karl Langer, motel and caravan park, Far Beach, Mackay, 1958 209 Karl Langer, motel units, 1959 211–213 Karl Langer, overlander route through Queensland 214 Karl Langer, ‘Motel for Inlanders’, c. 1960 214 Karl Langer, Daydream Island, 1963 216 Karl Langer, Daydream Island, 1963 217–218 Karl Langer, entry for the Melbourne Athletic Stadium competition, 1952 221 Karl Langer, ‘Clontarf Pool’ design 223 Plan and section of West’s furniture showroom, as published in the January-March 1954 issue of Architecture 225 Karl Langer, proposed landscape treatment for a coastal drive, NSW 232 Karl Langer, sketch of grass tree 236 Karl Langer, organic forms, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 240 Karl Langer, scheme for a typical rural centre 242 Karl Langer, two versions of house and garden plan 244 Karl Langer, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 245 Karl Langer, Dr Skyring’s garden, Rockhampton, undated 246 (A) Pond in front garden and (B) view towards house, Langer Residence, St. Lucia 247–248 Karl Langer, oil painting of landscape and plant materials (A) and landscape sketch of Glasshouse Mountains (B) 250 ILLUSTRATIONS

SERIES PREFACE

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he Modern Movement was a broad and multifaceted phenomenon that revolutionized the field of architecture. Throughout the twentieth century and across political, cultural and climatological divides, modern architecture radically changed the everyday lives of millions of people. Yet, to this day, our knowledge of this sweeping and omnipresent occurrence remains largely limited to the names of a few famed designers. In spite of growing research into the Modern Movement and its various actors, most published works focus on a select list of grandmasters. This narrow view restrains our understanding of what the Modern Movement in architecture was, as it limits our insight into the breadth and complexity of the networks that underwrote it and undercuts the possibility of a more holistic and fine-grained understanding of its impact on architectural culture and the built environment. The Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture series seeks to address this dearth. It sheds light on those who played pivotal roles in propelling the Modern Movement in architecture but who have, nonetheless, languished in the shadows of their better-known (and extensively published) canonical peers. Examining the works and ideas of this ‘shadow canon’, this book series does not aspire to canonize those to whom it offers a platform, but rather to construct a more detailed understanding of the different actors that propelled the Modern Movement across the globe, as well as the relationships that existed between these different actors and the ways in which they contributed to the proliferation/recalibration/ acculturation/transculturation of modern architecture. Karl Langer is an outstanding addition to this series in this respect. Trained in Vienna during the 1920s, first at the Baufachschule of Vienna’s Staatsgewerbeschule and then at the prestigious Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Langer worked for several prominent Austrian architects and architecture offices in the late 1920s and early 1930s. These included the office of Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger, the architects of the famous Rabenhof – a project that Langer worked on while there – and the architectural atelier of Peter Behrens, where he was appointed ‘architect in charge’. In 1939, after a few years in private practice, Langer fled Austria, which had been occupied by Nazi Germany the previous year. That same

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year, Victor Gruen, a friend of Langer’s, also left the country. Gruen emigrated to the United States, while Langer moved to Australia where he, following a short stay in Sydney, settled in Brisbane. In the United States, Gruen became a household name and garnered international fame for his ‘invention’ of the shopping centre, while Langer – as his inclusion in this book series suggests – has been largely forgotten in contemporary architectural historiography – even if he had a very rich, diverse and ultimately also quite distinguished career in Australia. In Australia, Langer worked as a designer, educator and government consultant, his work covering not only architecture, but also landscape design and urban planning. Soon after his arrival in Brisbane in 1940, Langer, who following his professional qualifications had also obtained a PhD from the University of Vienna in 1933, began teaching part-time at the University of Queensland, where he lectured in town planning. In 1941, he started working as a draftsman for the Queensland Railways, a job that he kept until 1946 (despite a successful application to become assistant to the Brisbane City town planner in 1944). While at the Queensland Railways, some of the research that he had conducted at the University of Queensland in the early 1940s was published as ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (1944). The wide circulation of this pamphlet, as well as the upheaval that had occurred when Langer’s 1944 appointment to the Brisbane City Council was appealed by the Railways Department, ensured that his name was well-known across the country when he went into private practice in 1946. At that time, Langer had already become naturalized as an Australian citizen and was officially appointed as town planner and consulting architect for Mackay. Projects for Darwin, Ingham, Toowoomba, Yeppoon, Kingaroy and Mount Isa and for the National Capital Development Commission, Canberra, were among his other town-planning tasks. He was also instrumental in the decision to build a ‘magnificent’ opera house at Circular Quay in Sydney, where Jørn Utzon’s famous landmark building stands today. Langer’s own architectural portfolio was also quite inventive and certainly very extensive. It comprised houses, churches, schools, civic and government buildings, hotels, tourism projects and more. In each of these designs, he sought to reconcile his European architectural training (in international modernism) with his fascination with the formal and visual languages of foreign cultures and Australia’s particular context and climate. His furniture showroom for West’s in Fortitude Valley (1954), Lennons Broadbeach Hotel at the Gold Coast (1956), St. John’s Lutheran church in Bundaberg (1960) and the chapel at St. Peter’s Lutheran College in Indooroopilly (1968) are all outstanding examples in this respect. Sadly, only a few of Langer’s projects were built and of those that were only a handful survive. This absence of built work may have contributed to Langer’s descent into oblivion following his unexpected death in 1969, aged sixty-three. In addition to the careful documentation and analysis of the career and designs of Karl Langer, another major contribution of this book is how it sheds light on the

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transcultural character of the Modern Movement. Langer’s trajectory is, of course, not exceptional amongst modern architects. Spurred by ideological and political changes, many progressive designers left continental Europe during the 1930s to live and work in cultures that were not their own. The multitude of cross-cultural encounters that this European diaspora created profoundly affected the definitions, tools and methods of the Modern Movement. Karl Langer: Modern Architect and Migrant in the Australian Tropics raises awareness about the limited knowledge that we hold on migrant architects and points to the need to explore in greater depth how their necessity to acculturate to a new condition has influenced modern architectural conceptions of dwelling and publicness, as well the Modern Movement as a whole. More research is needed on the different roles that migrant architects assumed in their adopted countries and how they interacted with local agents. Were they welcomed as international experts or rather regarded as uprooted professionals with little practical knowledge? Were there differences between those architects who were exiled (with a prospect to return home) and those who emigrated permanently? To facilitate their entry into the profession, many migrant architects entered into a partnership with local colleagues, took a position in an established office, or accepted an administrative function. How did these various professional roles and positions influence their work? Was their design freedom curtailed, or did the collaboration with those from a different cultural background rather propel their creativity? Interesting to explore further in this respect is the role that educational institutes played in employing and acculturating newcomers, as the University of Queensland did in the case of Langer. Edited by Deborah van der Plaat and John Macarthur, Karl Langer: Modern Architect and Migrant in the Australian Tropics makes a small, but essential, contribution to this broader reciprocal history of the migrant architect and the Modern Movement, as it carefully documents the trajectory and work of Karl Langer and also (to a lesser extent) of his wife, Gertrude Langer. Written by a knowledgeable and committed cast of contributors, it includes eight chapters that cover Langer’s background, training, writings and professional career, as well as examinations of his civic, urban, recreational and landscape architecture designs, from Red Vienna to the Sunshine Coast. Tom Avermaete and Janina Gosseye Series editors

SERIES PREFACE

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Fiona Gardiner is an architect and Director of Heritage in the Department of Environment and Science (Queensland). She is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Architecture at the University of Queensland. Fiona has longstanding research interests in the architectural history and heritage of Queensland and the application of historical research to heritage conservation practice. She has undertaken pioneering research into significant twentieth-century architecture in Queensland. She has been a contributor to publications including Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and Australia Modern: Architecture, Landscape & Design (Thames & Hudson, 2019). In 2019, Fiona was recognized in the Australia Day 2019 Honours List with the Public Service Medal for outstanding public service through the management of cultural heritage in Queensland. Philip Goad is Chair of Architecture and Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the University of Melbourne, where he is also co-director of the Australian Centre for Architectural History, Urban and Cultural Heritage (ACAHUCH). An authority on modernism and Australian architecture, he is co-editor/co-author of Modern Times: The Untold Story of Modernism in Australia (with Ann Stephen and Andrew McNamara; The Miegunyah Press/Power Publications, 2008), The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture (with Julie Willis; Cambridge University Press, 2012), Australia Modern: Architecture, Design and Landscape 1925–1975 (with Hannah Lewi; Thames & Hudson, 2019), Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education Through Art, Architecture and Design (with Ann Stephen, Andrew McNamara, Harriet Edquist and Isabel Wünsche; Melbourne University Press, 2019), An Unfinished Experiment in Living: Australian Houses 1950–1965 (with Geoffrey London and Conrad Hamann; University of Western Australia Press, 2017) and Architecture of the Modern Hospital: Nosokomeion to Hygeia (with Julie Willis and Cameron Logan; Routledge, 2019). In 2016, he was Patrick Geddes Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh and in 2019–20, Gough Whitlam Malcolm Fraser Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

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Janina Gosseye is Associate Professor of Urban Architecture in the Department of Architecture at the TUDelft Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment (The Netherlands), as well as an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Queensland School of Architecture (Australia) and an Honorary Member of the Australian Institute of Architects. Janina’s research is situated at the nexus of twentieth-century architectural and urban history on the one hand and social and political history on the other. Her most recent books include Urban Design in the 20th Century: A History (with Tom Avermaete; gta Verlag, 2021), Activism at Home: Architects Dwelling Between Politics, Aesthetics and Resistance (with Isabelle Doucet; JOVIS Verlag, 2021) and Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research (with Naomi Stead and Deborah van der Plaat; Princeton Architectural Press). John Macarthur is Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland (UQ) where he conducts research and teaches in the history and theory of architecture and in architectural design. John graduated with professional degrees from UQ before taking a doctorate at the University of Cambridge (1989). He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the founding director of the Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History (ATCH) Research Centre where he remains an active member. He has previously served as dean and head of the School of Architecture at UQ. He is a past president and a life member of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand. His research in the intellectual history of architecture has focused on the conceptual framework of the interrelation of architecture, aesthetics and the arts. His book The Picturesque: Architecture, Disgust and Other Irregularities was published by Routledge in 2007. John has edited and jointly authored a further ten books and published over 140 papers, including contributions to the journals Assemblage, Transition, Architecture Research Quarterly, OASE , the Journal of Architecture and gta papers. His current project is a book on architecture and aesthetics, which is part of a wider Australian Research Council funded project on this topic. Andrew McNamara teaches art history at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). His most recent publications include: Undesign (Routledge, 2018), Surpassing Modernity: Ambivalence in Art, Politics and Society (Bloomsbury, London, 2018) and Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Architecture (with Philip Goad, Ann Stephen, Harriet Edquist and Isabel Wünsche; Melbourne University Press, 2019). Robert Riddel is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland. He practised as an architect in Brisbane from 1982 until 2017. The work of his practice included conservation, adaptive re-use and urban design. Robert has also been active in architectural education and research. He has taught design studio, as well

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as architectural history and is the author of several books. He has served on several design review panels. In 2008, Robert’s practice, Riddel Architecture, purchased, in a degraded state, the West’s furniture showroom in Fortitude Valley (designed 1953) and through research of its history, was able to reconstruct its missing elements and conserve it as one of the few remaining works designed by Karl Langer. In 2010, the project won an AIA national award for its conservation and re-use when occupied as the studio of the practice. In the course of the research, Langer’s drawings were located and recorded interviews were held with staff who had worked for Langer as well as consultation with his client, the late Laurie West. Andrew Saniga is an Associate Professor in Landscape Architecture, Planning and Urbanism at the University of Melbourne. His research includes the history of landscape architecture in Australia and his writings have documented and explained key designers and projects with an emphasis on the mid-twentieth century. His book, Making Landscape Architecture in Australia (UNSW Press, 2012) won the Victoria Medal from the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. He teaches design and history of landscape architecture and is a registered landscape architect with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and a member of DOCOMOMO International. Deborah van der Plaat is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Architecture and former manager of the Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History (ATCH) Research Centre at the University of Queensland (Australia). Her research examines the architecture of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Australia and its intersection with theories of artistic agency, climate, place, migration and race. Writing histories of Queensland architecture is also a focus within her work. She is co-editor of Speaking of Buildings: Oral History Methods in Architecture (with Janina Gosseye and Naomi Stead; Princeton Architectural Press, 2019) and Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975 (with John Macarthur, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson; Artifice, 2015). She is currently editing Robin Gibson Architecture: Light, Space, Place with Lloyd Jones (URO Press, 2022). Donald Watson was a lecturer in the 1980s at the Department of Architecture. University of Queensland where he is an Adjunct Professor. His research interests include local architectural history, the Queensland house, forest history, timber construction, windmills and the biographies of Queensland architects. He is associated with building public collections of architectural records and is coauthor with Judith McKay of A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940 (Fryer Memorial Library, 1984) and Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century: A Biographical Dictionary (Queensland Museum, 1994) and is presently working towards extending the date range of the latter to the mid-twentieth century. After he retired from the Queensland Department of Works, he was awarded a John Oxley Library Fellowship. In 2021, he was awarded the Australia Institute of Architects Gold Medal.

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Andrew Wilson is a senior lecturer at the School of Architecture, University of Queensland. He researches twentieth-century and contemporary architectural and urban history. He was a member of the Urban Modernities Research Group at QUT (2004–7) and Architecture, Theory, Criticism and History (ATCH) Research Centre (2009–19) and contributor to Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975 (Artifice, 2015). The editors and author would like to thank the librarians at the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, who provided access to the Karl Langer Collection and related materials.

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FIGURE 1.1 Karl Langer, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, 1960. Front elevation, black and white photo. Photographer: Richard Stringer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #88, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. xviii

1 INTRODUCTION Modern and Migrant Architect Deborah van der Plaat and John Macarthur

In 1939, two architects made the decision to leave Austria, which had been occupied by Nazi Germany in the previous year. Friends and colleagues, the two were the same age (born in 1903), had studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, had worked for prominent avant-garde practices in Vienna and collaborated on a number of architectural competitions together. Growing anti-Semitism and an intolerance for the European avant-garde under the new regime also saw opportunities for the development of architectural modernism dry up. As the architect and historian August Sarnitz has argued in Architecture in Vienna (1998): ‘when one attempts nowadays to offer an interpretation of the effect of emigration from Vienna had on culture, it can be said for the field of architecture that practically the entire artistic avant-garde was compelled to leave the country involuntarily’.1 The two architects fled the city of Vienna in search of safer and more productive environs. The first architect, Viktor David Grünbaum, emigrated to America with his wife Alice Kardos. He arrived in New York unable to speak English but quickly secured work as a draftsman. With the help of a network of German-speaking migrants, Grünbaum quickly found work as an architect, designing stores and houses. Receiving commendations for the design of the Lederer leather-goods boutique on Fifth Avenue in New York, he went on to design Ciro’s on Fifth Avenue, Steckler’s on Broadway, Paris Decorators on the Bronx Concourse and a series of branches for the clothing chain Grayson’s. In 1941, he moved to Los Angeles, remarried and anglicized his name. In 1951, he founded Victor Gruen Associates.2

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FIGURE 1.2 Dr Karl Langer, Brisbane, August 1950. Shown before town plan, possibly Mackay and notes in hand. Photographer: Queensland Newspapers Pty Ltd. State Library of Queensland, Negative number #196738.

The second, Karl Langer and his wife – the art historian and critic Gertrude Langer (née Fröschel) – travelled instead to Australia. The couple were attracted by the filmmaker and travel writer Colin Ross’s idea of Australia as Der unvollendete Kontinent (the ‘Unfinished Continent’) open to cultural innovation and ripe for improvement (see Chapter 2).3 Arriving in Sydney in 1939, they were met with

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KARL LANGER

much press and publicity (see Chapter 3). Yet the road to employment was difficult to negotiate. Unable to find work, the Langers moved to sub-tropical Brisbane that same year, some 467 miles (751 km) north of Sydney where Langer secured work with the Brisbane-based practice Cook and Kerrison before moving onto Queensland Rail where he worked during the war years. Despite their different destinations, Langer and Grünbaum (Gruen) remained in contact, corresponding and exchanging Christmas cards in the 1950s, while Langer occasionally drew on Gruen’s ideas in projects for Brisbane (see Chapter 7). Despite the common elements of their early training and careers, Gruen and Langer went on to occupy very different places in the historiography of modern architecture. Gruen became a household name associated with the invention of the suburban shopping mall in America and the urban revitalisation of a number of American cities, including Fort Worth, Texas; Kalamazoo, Michigan (1958); and Fresno, California (1965) and now occupies an important slot in the historiography of modern architecture.4 Langer, on the other hand, is largely unknown. In Australian architectural culture, Langer has been largely an emblematic figure, one of the many European architects who are given small parts in the story of the arrival of international modernism to Australian shores. Even in Queensland where he is much honoured in reputation, information on Langer is scarce and hidden in archives. The generation of his students have largely passed on and many of his best buildings have been demolished or greatly altered. This book is the first attempt to represent the breadth of Langer’s work and thought – and its value. We aim not only to introduce Langer’s work to the world, but also to substantiate the important place he holds in Australia.

The historiography of modernism: European and Australian Migration has played an important role in the idea of International Modernism and its shift from German-speaking Europe to America following the Second World War. As Rebecca Hawcroft has recently argued in The Other Moderns (2017), Walter Gropius’ migration to America is explained by Siegfried Giedion in the context of the emigration of the ‘most advanced scientists, humanists and artists who during the mid-thirties had a direct impact in every domain of science and culture, from modern aesthetics to nuclear physics’.5 It appears, however, not all migrations are equal. Unlike Gruen (and Gropius), the Langers migrated to Australia and in doing so placed themselves geographically at the very margins of what the historiography on architectural modernism has considered. Despite claims to being ‘international’, histories of modernism in architecture have focused primarily on its roots in northern Europe and its spread to North America and Japan in the war and post-war years.6 When Australia is mentioned by these

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survey studies, it is not to appreciate the ‘modernism’ of an Australian or Australianbased architect but rather to demonstrate the growing international reach of the architectural competition and the European or American architect. As Macarena de la Vega de León has demonstrated in ‘A Tale of Inconsistency’ (2018), the presence of Australia in histories of modern architecture in the 1960s and 1970s was largely restricted to ‘ “just” the Sydney Opera House’.7 Won by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the project shone the spotlight of European modernism and its influence briefly on Australia. This, however, was quickly extinguished by an unsympathetic Australian bureaucracy focused on budget blowouts and other practicalities such as function and performance as opposed to artistic expression and modern aesthetics.8 Recalling the nation’s earlier experimentation with the international competition for the Canberra plan (1912), won by the American architects Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, bureaucratic interference not only resulted in the resignation of the winning architects from both proposals, but cast the Australian public as intolerant of the modernist project.9 Ironically, Langer played a formative role in the Opera House story in that he selected the site and submitted a competition entry.10 This part of the story, however, has remained untold. With a shift in interest from universal to regional architectural languages and an expanding geographical focus, Australia grew in popularity with writers of mainstream modernism from the 1980s on.11 Queensland architecture, with its local architectural traditions of ‘timber and tin’ and lightweight construction, was successfully translated by a generation of local architects into a idiom that sat comfortably under the concept of ‘critical regionalism’.12 Langer’s work, which retained an architectural language that was not only modernist but distinctly European, placed him also outside these new interests. It is only in the early twentyfirst century, in parallel with the popular nostalgia for ‘mid-century modernism’, that a properly scholarly account of Langer has been possible.13 Alongside European travel by Australian architects, modern periodicals, books and exhibitions, the European migrant was as an important catalyst of modernism in Australia.14 Yet despite this acknowledgment, surveys of Australian modernism, as Hawcroft has suggested, have focused largely on two individuals: Chinese born, German national and Swiss-educated Frederick Romberg (1913–1992), who arrived in Australia in 1938 and who worked out of Melbourne; and Viennese born but American-trained Harry Seidler (1923–2006), who arrived in Sydney on 20 June 1948. This pattern, Hawcroft argued, was first set in place when Robin Boyd, in Australia’s Home (1952) identified Romberg and Seidler as Australia’s only European designers, aside from a brief mention of Fritz Janeba (1905–1983). J.M. Freeland, in Architecture in Australia (1968) and Donald Leslie Johnson, in Australian Architecture 1901–1951 (1980) maintained the status quo by identifying Seidler and Romberg as the only émigré architects of interest in Australian modernism, with the latter also making brief mentions of Ernest Fooks (1906–

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1985), based in Victoria and Karl Langer (1903–1969), who settled in Queensland and who is the subject of the present volume.15 The historians Philip Goad and Julie Willis argued in 2008 that the interpretation of Australian modernism put forward by these authors has remained largely unchallenged.16 In 2012, seeking to address the above issue, Goad, in his entry on Modernism in The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, expanded the list of influential migrants on Australian modernism. Names added to the list included Ernest Fooks (Ernst Fuchs), Ernst Milton, Fritz Janeba and John and Helen Holgar in Victoria, Karl Langer in Queensland, Robert Schläfrig, Iwan Iwanoff and Julius Elischer in Perth and Henry Epstein and Hugh and Eva Buhrich in Sydney. Yet despite such attempts to broaden the scope of influence and to better understand where these individuals had trained and worked before their arrival in Australia, Harry Seidler is still singled out as possessing the ‘purist modernist pedigree’. Taught by Walter Gropius at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and having worked for Marcel Breuer and Oscar Niemeyer, Seidler, we are told, produced a ‘consistent body of modernist-derived work’ for the next fifty-eight years.17 In 2017, the accepted narrative was challenged by Hawcroft’s edited publication on Sydney’s European design legacy. Arguing that Seidler was only one of a number of people, including Viennese-trained architect Henry Epstein, German designers Hugh and Eva Buhrich and Hungarian architect Hugo Stossel, who were building modernist houses across Sydney’s North Shore and Eastern suburbs in the late 1940s and 1950s, Hawcroft and her authors convincingly documented a community of European migrants in Sydney who were committed to modernist architecture and design and made a unique contribution to the adoption of modernism in Australia as both a philosophical approach and aesthetic choice. Europe’s émigrés, Hawcroft demonstrated, arrived in Sydney in three waves. The first, from the mid-1930s, consisted of independent migrants, in many instances Europeans of Jewish heritage fleeing the rise in anti-Semitism in Europe leading up to the Second World War. This group was small but included a number of architects and designers who, by the 1940s, had commenced practice in Sydney.18 The majority of Sydney’s émigré designers, however, arrived in 1939, the same year as the Langers, seeking to escape the growing repression and Nazi expansion in Europe. A third wave landed in the post-war years from 1947 to 1954 and were sponsored by the Australian government to participate in post-war reconstruction projects. More than 180,000 of Europe’s displaced persons were brought into the country under the ‘populate or perish mantra’.19 On arrival, the majority of these individuals were sent to migration camps set up in nearby country towns before being resettled more permanently in remote regions in rural New South Wales such as the Snowy Mountains, some six hours (or 336 miles/540 km) south of Sydney, where they worked on the Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme (1949–1972). For many, it would be a decade or more before they would have the opportunity to relocate to any of the country’s capital cities.20

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Today, Australia is celebrated and known internationally as a multicultural success story that is ethnically diverse and ‘tolerates’ difference. The Australia of the 1940s and 1950s, however, was a very different place. The White Australia Policies, passed in 1901 and which restricted migration to Australia to Anglo-Celtic peoples in an attempt to control the local labour market, were still in place. These policies, which were loosened in the 1950s to allow a large European migration to Australia to provide the labour needed for new nation-building projects, were not fully dismantled until 1975.21 This resulted in an Australian community that was not only suspicious of the European migrant but often openly hostile. For Germanspeaking migrants, such as the Langers and significant portions of Sydney’s émigré design community, the aftermath of the Second World War would have made this situation only more tenuous.22 The elision of this émigré group of architects, designers and engineers from Australian surveys of modernism, Hawcroft has suggested, can be attributed not to the European modernism practised by this group of architects and designers but to the nationalist focus of Australian modernism as it first emerged. As the early surveys of modernism first appeared in Australia, ‘the focus was on a search for a national modernism’ that was ‘suited to an Australian climate and culture’.23 This, as others have argued, had roots in ‘Neo-Georgian models of simplicity’ and associations with an Australian vernacular.24 The modernism European émigrés brought with them was viewed by the Australian population as too severe, unconnected to such traditions and thus representative of a cultural movement that had little relevance to Australia.25 Thus, in the development of a narrative of a uniquely Australian modernism, the scale of the contribution of the émigré architect has been consistently overlooked.26

Modern architect and migrant in the Australian Tropics Karl and Gertude Langer were part of the second wave of European émigrés who arrived in Sydney in 1939. Yet they are not included in Hawcroft’s study, perhaps as they remained in the city for only a short period before leaving for Brisbane to find work. They remained in Queensland for the rest of their lives where Karl worked as an architect, landscape architect, town planner and parttime university lecturer and Gertrude took on the role of art critic for the Brisbanebased newspaper The Courier Mail.27 Previous article length accounts of Karl Langer and his work have been written by Queensland scholars, most notably by his former student Ian Sinnamon.28 The aim of this book is to build on these earlier histories and to bring Langer’s architecture, town planning and landscape architecture to the attention of both national and international audiences and to

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better understand where the architect sits in the story of both Australian and European modernism. In Chapter 2, Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara and Andrew Wilson unpack the Langers’ (both Karl and Gertrude) philosophical and professional roots by documenting their early years in Vienna. They examine Karl’s training at the Staatsgewerbeschule, Akademie der Bildenden Künste and (with Gertrude) Vienna University under the instruction of Siegfried Sitte (1876-1945) and Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941). Langer’s work for a number of prominent European modernists, including Josef Frank and Oskar Wlach, Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger and Peter Behrens is also considered; alongside his movement in to private practice (assisted by Gertrude) before leaving for Australia in 1939 following the Nazi occupation of Austria in 1938. Fiona Gardiner and Don Watson examine the next chapters of the Langers’ story: their escape from Vienna to Greece where they secured Australian visas, journey to Sydney, initial reception and the decision to move to Brisbane to secure work. Choosing to go to Australia, believing it was ‘their fate’, Gardiner and Watson also outline in Chapters 3 and 4 the obstacles confronted by the migrant couple, both in terms of work and culture and the hold that they were able to establish, through their practice and teaching, in a regional city that was not only at war with German-speaking Europe but which was and remained for some time highly suspicious of the ‘foreigner’. In Chapter 5, Langer’s Australian writings are examined by Deborah van der Plaat. These reveal both ideas the architect brought with him from Austria and their adaptation and modification to the new environmental and cultural context that the architect found himself in. Arriving in Brisbane in 1939, Langer published Sub-Tropical Housing a mere five years later, the publication that today is most commonly associated with the architect. Many of the themes first introduced in this text are explained and developed by Langer in a significant body of subsequent writings, lectures and presentations but which, with the exception of a small number of texts on landscape design (considered in Chapter 9), have largely been overlooked. In these later writings, we discover not only the rationale underlying Langer’s sub-tropical town planning and housing, including the global shortage in domestic labour which sits alongside climatic suitability as one of his key motives, but also new insights into his understanding of a modern architectural practice and the priority it placed on the psychological needs of the client and what he described as the human aspect. The final chapters of the book are dedicated to the vast body of work that Langer produced in Queensland, both built and unrealized, from his arrival in 1939 to his early and unexpected death in 1969. This work covers diverse typologies and ranges from modest, economical and climatic housing, glamourous and exotic hotels and island resorts, churches, civic centres and schools, shops and

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office buildings, caravan parks and wildlife sanctuaries, entertainment complexes and town plans for the development of a number of Queensland’s regional centres. In Chapter 6, Andrew Wilson examines Langer’s residential housing and explores some of the key ideas that informed this work, including the modernisation of the Queensland house, its suitability to it sub-tropical context and its economic viability. Seeking to cultivate new lifestyles that were suitable for the state, Langer’s houses also promoted new ideas on outdoor living that established new roles for the domestic garden, as well as the facilities – both recreational and community – in the suburb that surrounded it. In Chapter 7, Robert Riddel goes on to examine the application of Langer’s ideas on sub-tropical housing to sub-tropical and tropical town planning in Queensland. Arguing that town planning had long been neglected in Queensland in both the regions and its city centres, Langer argued for planned towns that fulfilled the needs of its citizens rather than cars. Proposing town squares surrounding by key institutions (governmental, religious and cultural) supported by undercover shops and pedestrian spaces, Langer also sought to inject a new and ‘living heart’ into Queensland’s urban centres and regional towns. Langer’s interest in building a new recreation and lifestyle infrastructure on the back of Queensland’s climate and landscapes (coastal, hinterland and outback) is the focus of Chapter 8. Proposing multiple developments for both tropical and subtropical Queensland, including hotels, island resorts, caravan parks, recreational and entertainment complexes, bathing facilities and shops, Langer, Janina Gosseye argues, successfully introduced to Queensland architectural elements of American glamour and European sophistication. Intended to entice the Australian tourist north and the international tourist south, these schemes also offered the architect a unique opportunity to carve a niche for himself (without stepping on the toes of too many local architects) and ‘smooth over’ some of the rough edges he felt characterized Queensland (and Australian) architecture and culture. We conclude with a chapter on Langer’s landscape and garden designs by Andrew Saniga and Andrew Wilson, which uncover an interest in European, American and Japanese traditions reinterpreted and reworked in ways that were suitable to the Queensland context. Viewed primarily as an architect and town planner, the chapter also considers Langer’s significant contribution to both the education and formation of the profession of landscape architect in Australia. This book serves only as a modest introduction to Langer’s work. The authors and editors hope that the explorations presented here and the archival sources that we have uncovered will prompt the detailed studies that we believe Karl and Gertrude Langer’s work deserves. What we present here would be richer if we had an intellectual biography of the couple and their joint project of cultural development in art and architecture, contributing to the life of Brisbane, but also to the building of institutions such as the Queensland Art Gallery, the beginnings of the Australian Council for the Arts and the heritage movement in Queensland. Given the series for

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FIGURE 1.3 Dr Gertrude Langer, at home in St. Lucia, c. 1950. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

which this book is a part, we have necessarily focused on Karl Langer’s practice as a modern architect while also providing glimpses into his and Gertrude’s life as émigré intellectuals whose cosmopolitanism was both challenged and enriched by Queensland’s cultural provincialism and the tropical fecundity of its landscape. These two ideas – modernists and migrants in tropical Australia – colour much of the work that is discussed in the following chapters. This is perhaps nowhere better seen than in the house they built for themselves in St. Lucia, Brisbane. Figure 1.3 shows Gertrude, or Gerti as she was known to family and friends, in the living room of her and Karl’s St. Lucia home which had been completed in 1950. She is seated on furniture from their Vienna apartment, the floor is covered with Chinese rugs and she is surrounded by parts of her and Karl’s extensive library of books on art, architecture and music, which had also been shipped from Vienna. Like many émigrés who had escaped the Anschluss, they had lost their financial resources but were allowed to export their furniture and belongings. The room is thus a commitment to the continuity of the life and intellectual values and skills that they had formed in Vienna. Direct sun-light, however, enters the room from a different direction, the north, where the windows are relatively small and shaded against excessive heat. This room is on the ground floor and forward from it is a courtyard garden and a covered arcade to the street entrance. A ground floor living space opening to the garden is one of Langer’s strategies for dealing with the

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smaller spaces of post-war austerity. The garden is styled as Japanese, demonstrating the Langers’ cosmopolitan taste, but also their up-to-date reading of modernist landscape designers such as Garrett Eckbo. An open but small floor plan and rationalized kitchen and laundry equipped with modern labour-saving appliances were designed to reduce the domestic labours unfamiliar to Gerti but required of the housewife in servant-less, middle-class Australia. In form the house is a simple cubic block very like the modest villas that Langer had designed for the Viennese suburbs. It is built economically from concrete blocks, a technology Langer proposed for the massive housing programmes of the post-war recovery, but which also spoke to the mass housing he had been involved in in ‘Red Vienna’. In Brisbane, the rendered walls are not emblematically red, but tinted pink to adjust for the harsh blue-white heat of the Brisbane sun. The rear of the house and the large windows of the living room looks out into a wooded gully which the Langers lightly gardened as a native Australian landscape. Looking south, away from the sun path, the house is highly glazed, balancing the light and managing the glare that Langer identified as a major problem for design in the tropics and sub-tropics. In the St. Lucia house, we can grasp something of the cosmopolitan taste and intellectual outlook that the Langers brought with them from Vienna, their success in making a life connected to Australia and much of Karl’s architectural strategies for a life on an ‘unfinished continent’.

Notes 1 August Sarnitz (ed.), ‘Twentieth Century Viennese Architecture’, in August Sarnitz

(ed.), Architecture in Vienna, New York: Springer, 1998, p. 26; cited in Rebecca Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, in Rebecca Hawcroft (ed.), The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, Sydney, NSW: NewSouth, 2017, 14, note 3. 2 M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream,

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004; Gruen changed his name from Viktor Grünbaum to Victor David Gruen when he received American citizenship on 25 June 1943. Joseph Malherek, ‘Victor Gruen’s Retail Therapy: Exiled Jewish Communities and the Invention of the American Shopping Mall as a Postwar Ideal’, The Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, vol. 61, no. 1 (March 2016), 230. 3 Colin Ross, Der unvollendete Kontinent, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1930. The book was

republished in 1931 and 1936. 4 Victor Gruen and Larry Smith, Shopping Towns USA: The Planning of Shopping

Centers, New York: Reinhold, 1960; Victor Gruen, The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis. Diagnosis and Cure, London: Thames & Hudson, 1965; Gruen, Centers for the Urban Environment: Survival of the Cities. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1973. 5 Sigfried Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition,

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1941, p. 495. Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 14.

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6 See Macarena de la Vega de León, ‘A Tale of Inconsistency: The Absence and Presence

of Australia in the Historiography of Modern Architecture’, Fabrications, vol. 28, no. 1 (2018), 47–66. 7 Giedion, Space, Time and Architecture, 678–684; Charles Jencks, Modern Movements in

Architecture, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, 197; de la Vega de León, ‘A Tale of Inconsistency’, 54. 8 Daryl Dellora, Utzon and the Sydney Opera House, London: Penguin, 2013; Anne Watson,

Building a Masterpiece: The Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW: Powerhouse, 2006. 9 James Weirick, ‘The Magic of America: Vision and Text’, in Jenepher Duncan and

Merryn Gates (eds.), Walter Burley Griffin: A Review, Melbourne, VIC: Monash University Gallery, 1988; Robert Freestone, Designing Australia’s Cities: Culture, Commerce and the City Beautiful, 1900–1930, Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press, 2007. 10 Karl Langer, cited in Sunday Sun, ‘He Thought Sydney Needed Its Face Lifted’, 15

February 1948, 7. Karl Langer, Proposed Sydney Opera House, competition entry, 1956, perspective: Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 11 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, London: Thames &

Hudson, 1980; de la Vega de León, ‘A Tales of Inconsistency’, 56–60. 12 Silvia Micheli and Andrew Wilson, ‘International Influences in Post-War Queensland:

Protaganists, Destinations and Models’, in John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015, 117–133. 13 John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot

Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015, 47, 77–85, 136–137, 271, 282–283. 14 Philip Goad, ‘Modernism’, in Philip Goad and Julie Willis (eds.), The Encyclopedia of

Australian Architecture, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 464–467. 15 Robin Boyd, Australia’s Home: Its Origins, Builders and Occupiers, Melbourne, VIC:

Melbourne University Press, 1952; J.M. Freeland, Architecture in Australia: A History, Ringwood, VIC: Penguin 1968; Donald Leslie Johnson, Australian Architecture 1901–1951: Sources of Modernism, Sydney, NSW: Sydney University Press, 1980; Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 15. 16 Philip Goad and Julie Willis, ‘A Bigger Picture: Reframing Australian Architectural

History’, Fabrications, vol. 18, no. 1 (June 2008), 19. 17 Goad, ‘Modernism’, 466. 18 Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 10–11. 19 Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 13. 20 The final wave is the topic of a new architectural history project which has been

initiated in only the last two years. Australian Research Council: ‘Architecture and Industry: The Migrant Contribution to Nation-building’ (DP190101531). 21 John Hirst, ‘Nation Building, 1901–14’, in Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre (eds.),

The Cambridge History of Australia, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2013, vol. 2, 15–38 and specifically 21–23. 22 Ghassan Hage, White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in Multicultural Society,

Annandale, NSW: Pluto Press, 1998, 179–209.

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23 Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 14 24 Conrad Hamman, Paths of Beauty: The Afterlife of Australian Colonial Architecture’,

Transition, no. 26 (Spring 1988), 27–44; see also Goad and Willis, ‘A Bigger Picture’, 19. 25 Hawcroft cites: Conrad Hamman, ‘Frederick Romberg and the Problem of European

Authenticity’, in The Europeans: Émigré Artists in Australia, 1930–1960, Canberra, ACT: National Gallery of Australia, 1997, 37–58. Similar sentiments appear to underlie such essays as Robert Percy Cummings’ ‘Modern Tendencies in Architecture’, lecture delivered via radio station 4QG (now ABC), 4 September 1934, unpublished typescript, private collection. 26 Hawcroft, ‘Introduction: Remembering Sydney’s European Design Legacy’, 14. More

recent surveys of Australian modernism have been conscious of this absence and have been more inclusive. See Harry Margalit’s Australia: Modern Architectures in History, London: Reaktion Books, 2019; Philip Goad, Anne Stephen, Andrew McNamara, Harriet Edquist and Isabel Wünsche, Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Education, Melbourne, VIC & Sydney, NSW: The Miegunyah Press and Power Publications, 2019. 27 Nancy D.H. Underhill, ‘Langer, Gertrude (1908–1984)’, Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 18 (2012, online 2012), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988; Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman [typescript], January 1982, St. Lucia, https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-215284049. 28 Ian Sinnamon, ‘An Educated Eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7,

no. 1 (1985), 48–56; Sinnamon, ‘Modernism and the Genius Loci: Karl Langer and Gertrude Langer OBE’, in Karl Bittman (ed.), Strauss to Matilda: Viennese in Australia 1938–1988, Leichhardt, NSW: Wenkart Foundation, 1988, 145–160; Sinnamon, ‘Landscape with Classical Figures – A German Influence on Queensland’s Architecture’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988, 245–256; Sinnamon, ‘Karl Langer in Queensland’, Nuts and Bolts, or Berries, Proceedings of the 10th Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Perth, 1993.

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FIGURE 2.1 Karl Langer, competition entry for Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade, 1930, exterior. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158 Box #44, Fryer Library, University of Queensland (also in Box #42).

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2 VIENNA Karl and Gertrude Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara and Andrew Wilson

Karl Langer was a product of inter-war Vienna. His life, both professional and personal, was shaped by a city immersed in the social, intellectual and artistic practices of design across all its scales from the design of a spoon to the layout of a city. Vienna was a city productive in its humanist contradistinction to the Neue Sachlichkeit of German modernism. It thrived on contradictions. The city was enmeshed in its traditions of music and opera, the old Habsburg world, but energized by its cosmopolitan mixing of cultures and its counter-currents: the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, the ‘Vienna School of Art History’, internationally significant figures like architect-theorist Adolf Loos, who earned a scandalous conviction for paedophilia in 1928, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, composer Arnold Schönberg and satirist and poet Karl Kraus, the caustic critic of Viennese hypocrisy. After the First World War, Vienna became a city steeped in the social democratic agenda of health and housing. In the 1920s, the former grand imperial city earned the title of ‘Red Vienna’ through its unwavering commitment to social housing and the construction of landmark ‘superblocks’ like Karl Ehn’s Karl Marx Hof (1927–30).1 The former capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire also possessed a deep history of expertise in architectural education that had seen the emergence of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1903. Modernism as it developed in 1920s Austria was embedded in ideas of craft, the furnished interior and an appreciation of the importance of psychology. Different from the Bauhaus emphasis of aesthetic abstraction after 1921, architectural education in Vienna focused strongly on an understanding of the applied arts, space, construction technology, architecture and

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its connection to the city, all underpinned by a determined focus on human comfort and the completely furnished room. These were ideas championed by figures like Oskar Strnad, Clemens Holzmeister and especially architect, artist and designer Josef Frank, who oversaw the Vienna Werkbundsiedlung in 1932.2 To understand the context of Langer’s upbringing and exile from that city at the age of thirty-five to the provincial Australian city of Brisbane is to understand an intellectual wrench of extraordinary proportion. Langer’s upbringing was culturally and intellectually rich and with his marriage to fellow doctoral student, the brilliant Jewish art historian Gertrude Fröschel in May 1932, his life took on yet another dimension of complexity. Like so many of their friends and professional colleagues, the final decision to leave Vienna in late 1938 was not only necessary but also a gamble on a culture and a life continents and oceans far, far away. Later in life, long after Karl had died in Brisbane in 1969, Gertrude reminisced about the rich cultural life that Vienna offered the couple – for instance, regular exhibitions by the European avant-garde – but also the increasingly vicious political situation; she noted their subsequent mutual dismay at the standard of local Australian and particularly Brisbane, cultural productions and performances, yet also their shared dedication to helping to improve the situation.3 This chapter details the Viennese background that informed the Langers’ engagement with Australian architecture, culture and society, beginning with a full account of Karl Langer’s architectural career in inter-war Austria and then detailing the couple’s intellectual formation in Vienna. The Langers were not alone in fleeing Vienna. In the period, 1938 to 1940, a substantial cohort of Viennese architects and designers made their way to Australia as part of the ‘community of fate’ – the greater diaspora caused by the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, especially following the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938 and Kristallnacht (9–10 November) that same year.4 Following various routes, some more dangerous than others, Viennese-trained (though not necessarily Austrian-born) architects left, fled and escaped Europe in the months that followed. Ernest Fooks, Fritz Janeba, Frederick Sterne and Kurt Popper made their way to Melbourne, Robert Schläfrig landed in Perth, while Henry Epstein, Hans Peter Oser and Hugo Stossel went to Sydney. Artists and designers were also part of this Austrian diaspora. Viennese-trained artist-sculptors Karl and Slawa Duldig arrived in Melbourne via Singapore5 and furniture-makers Paul Kafka and Michael Gerstl settled in Sydney.6 Significantly, because most came before the start of the Second World War in September 1939, they arrived not as enemy aliens (who were interned in remote, regional Australia) but instead as migrant, mostly Jewish, refugees. This meant that their assimilation into the cultural life of Australia was, arguably, made easier. The spread and influence of these highly accomplished design professionals was to irrevocably shift architecture and interior design cultures across all the states of Australia.

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Rebecca Hawcroft has described the contribution to New South Wales of this cohort of central European émigrés as key to the ‘popular acceptance of modernism and the multicultural identity of post-war Sydney’.7 Harriet Edquist has been more exacting, geographically locating the phenomenon in Victoria as ‘Vienna Abroad’ where ‘For nearly ten years the public had been let into the secrets of European modernism by those who had practised it’.8 In just the same way, Karl and Gertrude Langer would bring Vienna to Queensland.

Beginnings Karl Langer was born a Roman Catholic in Vienna on 28 July 1903, the only son of Karl Langer, a locksmith and his wife Magdalena (née Loitsch).9 Though from relatively humble beginnings, his education was anything but that. Remarkably, he was to experience four of Vienna’s premier institutions for the training of architects, artists and art historians, each with specific expertise, pedigree and reputation. Langer was exposed to the full gamut: from the practical and technical to the theoretical and aesthetic. It was an unusually comprehensive education, one that would leave him uniquely qualified, perhaps overly so, not just for a professional life in Vienna but also for his future career in Australia. Langer began his architectural education in the Baufachschule of Vienna’s Staatsgewerbeschule (Federal Trade School or State Vocational School) in 1920, completing studies there in mid-1923. This practical training was a typical first step taken by numerous central European architects before moving onto more formal architectural education.10 For Langer it also included, as part of his studies, his first work placement with the Wiener Bau-Gesellschaft (Viennese Construction Company).11 A key figure at the Staatsgewerbeschule was Siegfried Sitte (1876–1945), son of the school’s former director Camillo Sitte (1843–1903). He continued the teaching of his father’s careful, if conservative, urban planning principles and supplemented them with his personal interests in building codes and land tax legislation.12 From the younger Sitte, Langer took on the lessons of artful city planning that recommended decorous public spaces adorned with tree-lined avenues, fountains and dignified civic buildings. Langer also studied, amongst other subjects, the technical aspects of Wegewasserbau (roads and hydraulic engineering). His 1922–23 workbook has pencil drawings of complex geometries related to roadworks and hydraulics engineering, including grades, culverts, as well as timber joints and bridge/roadworks structures, contours, cut and fill, steps, road cambers and drains.13 This technical education, where the drawing, understanding and the engineering of landscape was primary, was an early introduction to a lifelong interest in landscape architecture and urban design.

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Working with a master In 1923, Langer was admitted to the prestigious Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), housed in the elegant Renaissance Revival structure (1877) with its arcaded palazzo façade designed by Theophil Hansen. The institution boasted distinguished architectural graduates like Otto Wagner, Siegfried Theiss and Clemens Holzmeister, the latter of whom was to sign Langer’s graduating documents in 1926. At the Akademie, Langer thrived, earning accolades for his drawing abilities, especially in perspective drawing: he won three prizes, including the Academy’s prestigious Gundel Prize for best drawings of 1926. That same year, he graduated from Peter Behrens’ Meisterschule (master class). In his exit testimony, Behrens said that Langer’s works from the three years under his supervision ‘displayed a fine artistic feeling and a seriousness, which also fulfilled the technical aspects of the task’.14 In the early 1920s, German-born architect Peter Behrens was one of Europe’s most respected modern architects. He had succeeded Otto Wagner in December 1921 as professor and head of the architecture department at the Akademie. Behrens had designed the iconic AEG Turbine Hall in Berlin (1908–9), as well as lamps, fans, motors and electric ovens for the German industrial giant and his most recent building, the administration building for IG-Farbwerke in Höchst, Frankfurt am Main (1920–24) was a tour-de-force of Expressionist brickwork. Former employees between 1907 and 1912 had included Walter Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. His was an architecture of modern structure but after 1925 his practice was steeped in a latent Classicism that would find later approval when he worked alongside Albert Speer in Berlin from 1934.15 In Vienna, Behrens’ influence was greatest as an educator: under his guidance were future practitioners of significance, including Robert Kramreiter, Otto Niedermoser, Anton Brenner and Alexander Popp (1891–1947), the latter of whom was to become his Austrian business partner in 1928.16 Under Behrens’ tutelage, Langer’s student projects included a farm complex, a child welfare centre, a block of apartments, a garden-lover’s house, a mountain chapel, housing for young men and a combined tea salon and flower kiosk (Figure 2.2). Langer also had to write a brief for a commercial building in Vienna’s Herrengasse, with a focus on traffic engineering and town planning. For his thesis, he designed a series of public buildings near Türkenschanz Park in Vienna.17 These projects indicate four preoccupations that were to become significant for Langer’s Australian career. The first was the dwelling as an embodiment of the human-centred notion of the designed interior. Such an interior was meant to be furnished not only with affordable design pieces but also objects that demonstrated cultural inclusion as an affordable object that responded directly to climate, ensuring sunshine, daylighting

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 2.2 Karl Langer, student project for a flower kiosk and tea salon, c. 1926: (A) exterior; (B) plan. Source: Langer Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL158, Box 42.

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and lack of glare. The second was a strong commitment to concepts of significant form that were intrinsic to the teaching of Behrens. This ideal would stay with Langer throughout his career, especially in the design of religious and institutional buildings. Langer’s tea salon and flower kiosk, for example, appeared to draw partially from Bruno Taut’s Glass Pavilion in Cologne (1914): its tall pointed arch form was reinterpreted as a parabolic arched dome over a circular tea room, while the flower kiosk was a streamlined glazed rectangle with a semi-circular end. It was as if Behrens was encouraging his students to abstract and make constructionally rational the work of a decade before. The third was the combination of German and Austrian ideals of modernist architecture and planning. Douglas Neale has observed that Langer’s work indicates at that time ‘an interest in ‘total’ site design – beyond the ubiquitous cubic International Style’.18 Langer’s student and later competition work relied heavily on notions of civic dignity as promoted in the writings of Camillo Sitte and by his teachers at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, namely Behrens and Holzmeister. And this was despite his later professed knowledge of contemporary German and Russian modernist planning schemes, such as those by Ernst May and Walter Schwagenscheidt.19 The fourth was an abiding interest in landscape and the garden and its potentially symbiotic relationship with architecture. Fellow students at the Akademie included upper middle-class Jewish students Viktor Grünbaum (1903–1980), the son of a lawyer and Rudi Baumfeld (1904– 1988), both of whom Langer had met at the Staatsgewerbeschule and who had become friends.20 Grünbaum had disliked the Staatsgewerbeschule, partly because he and Baumfeld had been bullied for being Jews, but he later fondly recalled: The Aryan Karl Langer was by far our smartest and most educated classmate and, fortunately for us, also the biggest and strongest – and he was often our protector.21 While Grünbaum would only complete two semesters at the Akademie due to his father’s early passing, Langer, Grünbaum and Baumfeld remained good friends, participating in a competition together in 1925 to design a government apartment building containing hundreds of apartments and gaining third prize.22 By 1938, both Grünbaum and Baumfeld would be forced to emigrate, both relocating to the United States, where Grünbaum changed his name to Gruen in 194123 and where he became one of the United States’ most significant architects of retail buildings, including the nation’s first enclosed shopping mall, Southdale Mall in Edina, Minnesota (1956). Baumfeld, an eventual design partner in Gruen’s firm, joined him in New York in 1941.24 Another fellow student of Langer’s at the Akademie was Ernst Plischke (1903–1992), who was also enrolled in Behrens’ Meisterschule. After graduation, Plischke worked in the Behrens atelier until 1929 before working

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briefly with William Muschenheim in New York. He eventually returned to Vienna to become one of the city’s foremost young modernist architects. As with Fritz Janeba and Karl Langer, Plischke was a Roman Catholic. Also like them, his wife was Jewish and, he, like his classmates, was forced to flee with his family. Arriving in Wellington, New Zealand in May 1939, he enjoyed, if not always professionally accepted, a successful career before returning to Vienna as professor at his former school, the Akademie der bildenden Künste.25

Working, studying and writing While studying at the Akademie, Langer also worked, as was usual for many students. His first significant apprenticeship ran for nearly two years, from August 1923 to March 1925, under architect Hans Prutscher (1873–1959), whose practice after the First World War focused largely on ecclesiastical work, a sector of practice that Langer would also follow in Queensland. Langer worked on a range of building types including cottages, a large industrial building, the rebuilding of the central monastery of Die Töchters des Göttlichen Heilands (The Daughters of the Divine Saviour) in Vienna (1926), the building of a large church for the same order (1924– 26) and a monastery for the Beschuhte Karmeliter (Shod Carmelites), also in Vienna (c. 1925).26 Next Langer secured a ten-month work placement in the office of Josef Frank and Oskar Vlach, from April 1925 to January 1926.27 At the time, Frank was a key figure in Viennese architecture culture. Vlach and Frank had both studied at the Technische Hochschule under Classicist Carl König (1841–1915), the first Jewish professor of architecture in Vienna, a critic of the Wagner School and advocate of an understanding of the past.28 Frank was publicly supported by critic and art historian Max Eisler (1881–1937), who had taken his doctorate, as Langer would also, under Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941) at the University of Vienna.29 Frank also maintained close ties with other significant Jewish architectural alumni, Oskar Strnad (1875–-1935), Victor Lurje (1883–1944) and Hugo Gorge (1883– 1934). Langer’s presence in the Frank and Vlach office coincided with the establishment in 1925 of Haus & Garten, the house furnishings company initiated by Frank, Vlach and Walter Sobotka (1888–1972).30 This became an important initiative that celebrated fine but affordable pieces of furniture and furnishing fabrics, combined with the humanistic goal of allowing homeowners to choose and furnish their houses independently – a direct challenge to the idea of the standardized interior. Over the next seven years, Josef Frank worked to distance himself from the arguably too narrow views on interior design held by his French, German and Dutch colleagues at the vanguard of modernism. While he attended the first International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) meeting in Switzerland

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for the signing of the La Sarraz Declaration in 1928,31 his participation in the Weissenhofsiedlung housing exhibition in Stuttgart in 1927 indicated a counter position. As Richard Pommer and Christian Otto have written: Covertly attacking the Bauhaus, Frank sought to preserve both comfort and tradition. He wanted his interiors to be places of rest and ease, unlike the work place. Although the exteriors were to be uniform and as reduced as possible, Frank believed that for the rooms ‘uniformity and the absence of ornament make for unrest; ornament and complexity create peacefulness and get rid of the disturbing aspect of pure functional form’.32 Frank’s contribution to the International Urban Planning Conference at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna in 1926 had already displayed his discontent. In issue 7 of Der Aufbau – a journal founded by a group including Schuster and Schacherl, Neurath and Frank, which was published prior to the conference with contributions by Adolf Behne (1885–1948), Heinrich Tessenow (1876–1950), Bruno Taut (1880– 1938), Le Corbusier (1887–1965) and Ernst May (1886–1970) – Frank contributed a text that was critical of Hubert Gessner and the prevailing housing approach in Vienna that involved small apartments but monumental forms.33 In many respects, Frank’s stewardship of the low-rise Garden Suburb-like Vienna Werkbundsiedlung in 1932 was a direct repudiation of the urban strategies of both Red Vienna and the interior design approaches followed at the Stuttgart exhibition. As a committed and precocious student, Langer would have been only too aware of these national currencies and differences in design. After working for Frank and Vlach and following graduation, Langer secured a position in the firm of Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger on 6 August 1926, where he worked until 21 March 1928.34 Langer contributed to a series of housing projects for the municipality of Vienna, including the firm’s vast five/sixstorey Rabenhof complex on Baumgasse, Rabengasse and St. Nikolausplatz in Vienna III (1925–28), with its projecting chevron brick details and horizontally bold balconies at the complex’s gateway entries (Figure 2.3).35 Aichinger and Schmid had been students of Otto Wagner and, together with other architects like Karl Ehn and Hubert Gessner, they played a central role in the social democrats’ building programme for Vienna during the mid-1920s, especially in the precinct along the Margaretengürtel outer ring road (Figure 2.4).36 When Langer joined the office, the firm was one of the busiest in the city and had multiple large-scale housing projects in the office. Recently completed were ‘superblocks’ of the Reismann Hof (1924–25) in Vienna XII and Julius Popp Hof (1925–26) in Vienna V and under construction were the Herwegh-Hof (1926–27) and Matteotti-Hof (1925–27) developments, both in Vienna V and Somogyi-Hof (1927–29) in Vienna XIV. For Langer, to be immersed in the direct making of Red Vienna was a unique experience and from the reference letter from his employers, it was clear that his

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FIGURE 2.3 Rabenhof housing, Vienna, Austria, 1926. Architects: Schmid & Aichinger (Karl Langer worked on this project). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #43, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

FIGURE 2.4 Margaretengürtel housing, Vienna, Austria, c. 1924–26. Architects: Schmid & Aichinger (Langer worked on this project). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #43, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

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involvement was extensive ‘from the beginning to the last detail in architecture and in construction’.37 While working, Langer also took time to contribute to the Austrian journal, Architektur und Bautechnik. In vol. 14, no. 1 (1927), he designed the journal’s front cover graphic and published an article on Wochenendsiedlungen (weekend settlements).38 The article reveals Langer’s interest in recent American development of weekend summer houses, close to nature and desire for the sun, but more particularly the idea of modestly scaled, generously glazed houses with equally generous verandas making direct connection with a large lawn and a garden that not only contained flowers, shading trees and creepers but also a berry orchard, a play area with sandpit, swing, gymnastics and paddling pool, as well as a kitchen garden, the whole protected by a high hedge for wind protection and privacy. While he cites American settlements (without naming them) as setting the trend, he also cites the German example of the settlement school at Worpswede designed by landscape architect Leberecht Migge (1881–1935). This is an acknowledgement of Langer’s awareness of one of the most significant landscape architects for the Weimar Republic: Migge worked with Ernst May in Frankfurt, Martin Wagner and Bruno Taut in Berlin and Otto Haesler in Celle; his description of the gardens of the Wochenendsiedlungen is a foretaste of Langer’s detailed garden plan drawings for his series of house types in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (1944), which closely follow Migge’s rationally ordered and functionally zoned garden plots and his ‘biotechnic’ principles to link dwelling and garden.39 In another issue of Architektur und Bautechnik later that same year, Langer wrote about colour and city buildings, suggesting that there were opportunities for colour to be used more strategically to emphasize formal interest.40 Citing examples by Josef Frank and Theiss & Jaksch, Langer illustrated the article with his own design for a new concrete-framed Hochhaus (skyscraper) with an attached American-style movie theatre on Herrengasse in central Vienna and on the same site that was to shortly see erected Theiss & Jaksch’s now celebrated Hochhaus (1930–32). While Langer’s design was formally stripped back and illustrated in black and white, his intentions were that the cubistic composition be coloured in bright red (movie theatre hall), dark red (base), orange (retail base) and bright yellow (prismatic tower). This chromatic richness proposed by Langer was in stark contrast to Adolf Loos’s palazzo-like white rendered Goldman & Salatsch Building (Looshaus) (1909) immediately next door. Just days later after leaving Schmid & Aichinger on 21 March 1928, Behrens employed Langer in his architectural atelier in Vienna.41 There he worked diligently, producing numerous perspective drawings across a variety of projects and gaining experience for the next six years. As Stanford Anderson has noted, while Behrens set the agenda for his ateliers in Berlin, Frankfurt, the Ruhr and Vienna, many highly proficient assistants were employed in each office, often serving as ‘Atelierchef ’, such as Hans Döllgast and Jean Krämer.42 Langer must be included

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FIGURE 2.5 Tobacco Factory, Linz, Austria, 1928–30. Architects: Behrens and Kopp (Karl Langer was architect-in-charge of this project in the Vienna office). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

amongst these names. According to his curriculum vitae,43 Langer was appointed ‘architect in charge’ of the Behrens’ Vienna atelier. This is supported by Behrens himself, who stated that Langer ‘executed’ the vast modernist tobacco factory at Linz (1929–35), which was designed by Behrens and his collaborator and former pupil Alexander Popp. Behrens wrote: ‘Dr Langer has not only worked out compositions, but also the final plans and details and has supervised himself the execution of the building’ (Figure 2.5).44 The tobacco factory was groundbreaking in Austria at the time for its extensive use of steel and reinforced concrete deployed at such a large scale. Langer’s exquisite and numerous perspective drawings of the multi-building complex and the eventual construction of its bestknown feature, the 230-metre-long curved façade of the production facility with its dynamic horizontal bands of continuous glazing over six levels, mark this building as one of the high points of functionalist industrial architecture at the time. Langer worked on numerous other projects for Behrens and Popp’s atelier. These included: public housing projects in Vienna, such as the Franz Domes-Hof Margaretengürtel (1928–29), the important Haus Alexander and Haus Berolina, which recast the image of Alexanderplatz in Berlin (1928–32), projects in Munich,

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a department store and office building, cottages, the competition entry for the Friedenskirche in Urfahr, Linz (1931–34), the Siepel Kirche in Vienna, additions to the group of buildings associated with St. Peter’s Abbey in Salzburg, as well as other competitions for the Behrens and Popp office. Langer’s beautiful drawings for the Friedenskirche with giant text across its bold plain front would find later echo in Langer’s St. John’s Lutheran Church in Bundaberg (1960) in south-east Queensland (see Figure 7.11 and accompanying text).45 He also worked on Behrens’ villa for Clara Ganz (1931–34) at Kronberg in the Taunus Mountains, near Frankfurt, a restrained cubic modernist house, lavishly furnished internally with goat-skin parchment lined living room walls, a floor of ebonized bog oak and white maple, a dining room with rosewood walls and ceiling and a window that slid away opening up the room to the garden terrace outside46 and beyond to its gracious and expansive terraced garden. It is clear that Langer’s expertise in drawing was put to wide use in the Behrens and Popp atelier. It is also significant that in his personal papers held at the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland, Langer kept copies of journal offprints that featured the tobacco factory at Linz as well as his perspective drawings of the firm’s studies of ‘Terrassenhochhaus’, stepped skyscraper apartment buildings.47 The reasons behind Langer’s departure from the Behrens and Popp office are not entirely clear. In early 1934, it may have been that Langer thought it wise to do so, given that his employer Popp may have begun to express his Nazi sympathies in the office and joined the Party in 1935.48 With a Jewish wife, Langer may have wanted to distance himself from any future tension. Over a decade later, in a letter to former classmate Ernst Plischke in 1946, Langer would refer to Popp as ‘my arch-enemy’.49 At the same time, it needs to be stated that Langer had graduated in 1926, been admitted that same year as a member of the Zentralvereinigung der Architekten Österreichs (Central Association of Austrian Architects),50 and by early 1934 had been employed and gained excellent experience over those subsequent eight years. While in the Behrens and Popp office, he had also undertaken further studies and gained the qualification of Zivilarchitekt in 1931 at Vienna’s Technische Hochschule (now TU Wien). By this point, he was completely qualified and ready to launch himself as a sole practitioner in the Vienna architectural scene.

Meeting Gertrude: Viennese art history and its cultural milieu Not content with his professional qualifications and the excellent work experience he was gaining in Behrens and Popp’s Vienna office, Langer continued to pursue further studies. In 1929 he enrolled as a PhD student in philosophy at the University of Vienna. There he met Gertrude (familiarly referred to as Gerti) Fröschel who he

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married in 1932. Fröschel came from a wealthy middle-class background and her cultural outlook would have appealed to Langer. Her school education was a prototype of Viennese cosmopolitan, progressive and reformist tendencies. She attended one of the Schwarzwald schools (Schwarzwaldschulen) in Vienna, which preached a tolerant, liberal outlook, while seeking to advance the level of schooling usually permitted for girls. In order to raise female education to a level comparable to that of boys, its founder, Eugenie Schwarzwald employed a veritable who’s who of the Viennese avant-garde to teach the arts. The remarkable array of gifted figures Schwarzwald recruited included Adolf Loos for architecture, Arnold Schönberg for music, Grete Wiesenthal for dance and Oskar Kokoschka for drawing. Notable graduates of the school included the actress Helena Weigel, writer Hilda Spiel and the theatre actress Elizabeth Neumann-Veitel. At the University of Vienna, Karl and Gertrude were enrolled in art history at a time when the so-called ‘Vienna School’ had acquired an international reputation. Both studied primarily under the school’s revisionist offshoot with Professor Josef Strzygowski (1862–1941), who was born in a part of Poland that was then part of the Habsburg Empire. His approach to art history is often cited as a precursor to what we might today call global or world art history. Strzygowski’s work challenged the Mediterranean-centric focus of art history that viewed classic Greece and Rome as the primary foundation both for subsequent European art and even for developments as far away as in aspects of Chinese art.51 In Vienna Strzygowski had pioneered the study of East Asian art prior to the First World War, hence long before the Langers began to take his courses. Thereafter, the Langers maintained a life-long interest in Asian art and culture. Strzygowski contributed to a revitalization of interest in non-European influences on European art, design and architecture. In order to foster his ‘struggle against Rome’, Strzygowski developed a structural, comparative model of arthistorical analysis that sought to account for multiple pathways of artistic-cultural influence and interaction. He was interested in cultural flows from the East as being of equal or greater influence. His focus on the influence of the art of the Near East on European art, eventually allowed for an art history open to non-Western art-cultural analysis and perspectives. Strzygowski advocated roaming far and wide ‘off the beaten track’ in order to expand its cultural horizons. Still, for some, this does not mean that Strzygowski can be fully redeemed.52 The Strzygowski legacy is curious and controversial. Strzygowski was a mass of contradictions. He was open and cosmopolitan but has also been accused of being anti-Semitic and clearly advocated a kind of racial-geographical art history. Controversially, Strzygowski promoted a radical pan-Germanism in order to counter the classical Greek or Roman-based classical antiquity as the basis of European art, especially the Renaissance. His reputation fell into disrepute when he tried to align his art-historical method to the ideology of National Socialism. This occurred late in his career when the Nazis occupied Vienna and annexed the

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whole of Austria. Strzygowski’s world art was based on a racial explanation of culture, but the irony is that his approach led him to be regarded as a controversial forerunner of what is now celebrated as ‘global art history’ – an art history stripped of an exclusively Eurocentric focus on a narrow geographical range and fixated on certain European centres. Art history had to leave its European ‘nest’ he constantly taunted.53 Besides Vienna and the Strzygowski seminars, Gertrude also attended a few semesters at the Sorbonne with Henri Focillon. As such, her training was at the highest level of academic accomplishment and also presented a direct link to the Vienna School. Her primary foreign language was French before English. In 1933, she completed her PhD study on ‘The Pillared Statues of the Chartres Royal Kingdom: The Origin of the Medieval Pillar Figure’ (‘Die Säulenstatuen der Chartreser Königspforte. Zur Entstehungsfrage der mittelalterlichen Säulenfigur‘). It may not have steered far off the beaten track that Strzygowski championed, but it was exemplary of the approach that examined multiple pathways of artisticcultural influence and interaction. Yet, for Strzygowski’s former students, like the Langers in Brisbane, Stella Kramrisch in India, or Hedi Spiegel and George Berger – the latter two both ended up in Sydney during the Second World War – it was their teacher’s openness to a global perspective that was influential on their subsequent efforts, albeit without the racialized perspective. Among the first lectures Gertrude delivered in Brisbane were ones on Chinese art and culture.54 Similarly, Hedi Spiegel in Sydney, who also studied under Strzygowski in Vienna, gave lectures on Chinese art in the ‘The Art of Today and Yesterday’ lecture series in 1941.55 Bernard Smith mentions Margaret Preston giving a lecture on Aboriginal art in the same series of lectures while Berger lectured on pre-Colombian Mexican art. Spiegel went on to conduct studies of Melanesian art and fieldwork in Papua-New Guinea in conjunction with the Australian Museum.56 Although Strzygowski viewed art-historical cultural differences along racialcultural lines, Gertrude stressed that her own experiences in Vienna in addition to the ethical dimension she perceived in Strzygowski’s approach to art history meant that she maintained an acceptance of all peoples and cultures as well as all races.57 Her criticism therefore regularly touched on Japanese or Asian art whenever it was possible to review such exhibitions and she remained highly supportive of Aboriginal art. When asked by Barbara Blackman in 1982 what she thought galleries of Australian art should show – this was before the National Gallery in Canberra opened later that same year – Langer advocated the then still radical policy that the national and state galleries should exhibit Australian art in its fullest breadth. They should also take Aboriginal art out of anthropology museums and display it alongside such art. Her reason being that overseas visitors would not want to see poor collections of art they were already familiar with but would likely be more intrigued by encountering something different.58 It would take

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a while for such an approach to become standard. In Brisbane, Gertrude eventually concentrated on art criticism from the mid-1950s onward. She helped ‘things grow’ culturally by applying a Strzygowski-informed approach to her efforts. In this way, this Viennese method of art history and diverse cultural worldview was subtly introduced to a much larger, unsuspecting audience that included regional Queensland readers. In addition to pioneering innovative art-historical studies, Strzygowski and his circle also maintained a strong interest in contemporary artistic developments. Strzygowski was a member of the Friends of the Bauhaus and one of his students, Stella Kramrisch, organized the 1922 Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta (Kramrisch completed her thesis on the art of Sanchi and Bharhut in 1919 and subsequently became an international expert on Indian art). Kramrisch met Johannes Itten in Vienna before he worked at the Bauhaus. Karl With, another Strzygowski protégé, combined a focus on East Asian art with contemporary art. He worked at the Folkwang Museum where its patron, Karl Ernst Osthaus, exhibited non-European art along with works of the avant-garde, which were all available to viewing by the public.59 In 1923, Strzygowski published Kunst der Gegenwart (Contemporary Art), in which he discussed Gropius’ work, in particular his factory buildings shown at the 1914 Werkbund exhibition in Cologne, which he praised for their clarity and their renunciation of stylistic references. For Strzygowski, the Bauhaus assumed a pioneering position in the development of art because it conceived of art from an architectural point of view and thus pursued an important concern which he discussed in his book: the dismantling of the traditional hierarchies between high and applied art, that is between arts and crafts, which required a new focus in art education based on form and function, materials and craft.60 It was this rich and complex intellectual environment that the Langers encountered in Vienna. These two key attitudes of the Strzygowski approach – multicultural inquiry and openness to contemporary attitudes and practices – would prevail in Langer’s thinking and were crucial to her art criticism in the Australian context. The Vienna School was a decisive influence for a couple who were just as fascinated with contemporary developments as with the variety of different cultural influences that they were introduced to by the Strzygowskiinspired strand of art history. For Gertrude, her deep knowledge and interest in modern art had been instilled and nurtured since her unique high school education, which was reinforced by her university studies. Together, the Langers brought that characteristic dual interest in contemporary developments and different cultural perspectives of the Vienna milieu to the peculiarly insular cultural environment of Australia – and Queensland in particular. Whereas Gertrude’s thesis was an example of the comparative structural-formal approach championed in Vienna brought to a medieval or Gothic topic, Karl’s doctoral thesis focused on the contemporary. In July 1933, Langer completed his

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dissertation with the title ‘Concrete in the Past and Present, Its Emergence and Development to this Day’.61 In many respects, it also reflected his simultaneous working and technical experience in designing and documenting the tobacco factory in Linz. Like Gertrude, Karl took most of his courses with Strzygowski. His thesis had copious illustrations demonstrating familiarity with some of the most striking contemporary works of modernist concrete architecture in Europe and the United States. Examples ranged from Erich Mendelsohn’s Expressionist Einstein Tower in Potsdam (1919–21) to Russian Constructivist works like El Lissitsky’s Wolkenbügel (Cloud Iron or Cloud Stirrups, 1924), his horizontal skyscrapers and Konstantin Melnikov’s Rusakov Workers’ Club, Moscow (1927–28), from giant cooling towers in Poland to a diving tower for a hotel in Ascona, Italy, from a mushroom-shaped concrete shade structure in Vevey, Switzerland, to the spectacular multi-storey Garage Citroën sales room in Rue Marbeuf Paris (1929), from the concrete textile block houses of Frank Lloyd Wright in Los Angeles to the tower of Scasso and Domato’s Estadio Centenario in Montevideo, Uruguay (1929– 30), built for the first ever soccer World Cup. Indicative of Strzygowski’s influence was Langer’s occasional matching of examples of advanced engineering with vernacular construction (a feature that Strzygowski perceived and approved of, in the Bauhaus approach). One telling case was the comparison of the circular plan forms of Peter Behrens and Else Oppler-Legband’s Ring der Frauen (Ring of Women) pavilion at the German Building Exhibition of 1931 with those of African mud architecture as published by German ethnologist and archaeologist Leo Viktor Frobenius (Figure 2.6).62 Further evidence of Strzygowski’s influence was Langer’s extensive and globally broad bibliography, which included Auguste Choisy’s Histoire de l’Architecture (1899), modernist works like Sigfried Giedion’s Bauen zu Frankreich – Bauen in Eisen – Bauen in Beton (1928), Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret’s Collected Works 1910–1929 (1930), H. de Fries’ edited volume on Frank Lloyd Wright (1926), Richard Neutra’s Wie baut Amerika (1927) and Erich Mendelsohn’s das Gesamtschaffen des Architekten (1930), books on pre-Columbian architecture, India and China, including Oswald Siren’s A History of Early Chinese Art (1930), as well as numerous books and articles by Strzygowski himself. Langer also had access in Vienna to a broad range of international journals including not just German-language publications like Beton-Eisen, Die Form, Deutsche Bauzeitung and Moderne Bauformen but also Architectural Record (USA) and Arkitekturo Internacia (Japan). An important part of Langer’s doctoral research was his systematic collection of examples of contemporary reinforced concrete construction. He collected material organized in folders devoted to particular building and infrastructure types. There were folders on bridges, parking garages, Tankstellen (petrol stations) and Strassenbauten (streetworks). Each folder contained 1920s’ cuttings from American journals like Architectural Forum and American Architect and also

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FIGURE 2.6 Karl Langer, images from PhD dissertation, University of Vienna. Supervisor: Prof. Josef Stryzgowski. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #40, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

articles like Paul Zucker’s ‘Moderne Bauprobleme: Grossstadtgaragen’ (Architektur und Bautechnik, August 1927), Hanns Conradi’s ‘Grosskraftwagenhaus in Rom’ (Bauwelt, 17 June 1926) on parking garages in Rome and ‘Neue Gedanken für Garagenbauten’ (Bauwelt, 1926). Langer brought these folders with him to Australia and continued to collect articles and cuttings, changed the folder titles from German to English and expanded this extraordinary visual resource. As a working method, it was clear that for Langer, the world of contemporary architecture was not limited to Europe but applied to the whole globe.63 While Langer’s doctoral thesis was, in many respects, the crowning achievement of his formal education, his experience at the University of Vienna had also been intensely personal. With Gerti, Langer had met an intellectual soulmate and the two would become dedicated partners in life and in practice. Given their shared love of different cultures, the pair loved to travel. In 1933, they travelled to Greece, where Langer’s drawings of the villages, forms and topography of islands like Naxos, Paros and Santorini lovingly recorded his admiration and fascination with picturesque urban agglomerations and the aesthetic honesty of vernacular, barrelvaulted peasant houses (Figure 2.7).64 As Alice Hampson and Fiona Gardiner have noted, these drawings ‘attest to his fascination with landscape and vernacular structures in their local context’65 – a passion shared by other young Viennese architecture graduates at the time like Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988), who later became a champion of non-pedigreed architecture.66

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FIGURE 2.7 Karl Langer, sketches of Naxos, Santorini, 1933. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #87, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

Private practice In 1934, Langer started his own practice, assisted by Gertrude, who was unable to find work as a result of a slow employment market and the difficulty for women to find academic positions at that time. This was not the first time that Langer had practised or sought work under his own name. Through his student years and also while working in various offices, as was usual for aspiring young architects, Langer had participated alone and with others in competitions. In 1925, he entered the competition for the Münsterplatz in Ulm with Norbert Schlesinger (1908–1980),67 offering a series of near Expressionist vernacular-inspired buildings with steeply angled roofs arranged in Sittesque formation to form a square and thus a setting for the cathedral. In 1927, he entered the competition for the Hochhaus on Herrengasse in Vienna. In 1929, he entered a competition for a People’s Hall in Riga and in 1930, the international competition for the new Catholic Cathedral in Belgrade; the latter was a dramatic scheme of two giant flanking towers for the building’s west end and nave of what appear to be parabolic arched concrete ribs and a glazed east end with a giant sunburst behind the altar (Figures 2.8). In form and image, it was Behrenslike in expression. It also bore a strong resemblance to his former employer Hans Prutscher’s vast reinforced concrete church, Maria vom Berge Karmel (1928–29)

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FIGURE 2.8 Karl Langer, competition entry for Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade, 1930, interior. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #42, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

on Stefan-Vadinger-Platz in Vienna. What is remarkable about a scheme such as this, is that it was a foretaste of Langer’s aptitude and ability in designing significant and memorable form for denoting religious buildings in the Australian setting. Another competition entry was for the Reichsbrücke over the Danube in 1933, where Langer demonstrated his expertise in concrete construction. Competitions also occupied Langer in the first four years of his Viennese practice. He had early success with his 1934 entry for an opera house and conservatorium in Istanbul. This design is important, as its features would find later echoes in his drawings for a civic centre in Mackay (1945) in north Queensland. For Istanbul, Langer designed an imposing opera house with a symmetrical stripped Classical façade of nine tall arches facing a large square with a centrally placed monumental sculpture and a series of adjacent squares, making formal

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FIGURE 2.9 Karl Langer, competition entry for Opera House and Conservatorium, Istanbul, 1934. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #42, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

sense of and unifying the surrounding urban fabric (Figure 2.9). For Mackay (see Figure 7.3 and accompanying text), Langer deployed a similar Sittesque planning strategy: another symmetrical tall-arched major form – the town hall – faced a large civic square that opened onto an adjacent square, both defined by a landmark

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campanile-like clock tower. Like Clemens Holzmeister’s urban design work in Turkey in the 1930s, Langer’s designs for Mackay need to be read in a context not of modern functionalism but as the transposition of the respectful picturesque urban design traditions of Camillo Sitte. Numerous competition entries followed, including for one for the Austrian Pavilion for the Brussels Exposition of 1935 and another for the Austrian Pavilion for Paris in 1937, where Langer proposed a heavily planted courtyard garden and a series of terraced steps that formed a spiral circulation path through a collection of white prismatic forms, asymmetrically arranged to avoid the site’s existing mature trees (Figure 2.10). There were other competitions for a ‘Monument to Work’ in Vienna’s Schmerlingplatz (1935), buildings for an Amaleion Orphanage,

FIGURE 2.10 Karl Langer, competition entry, Austrian Pavilion for the Paris Exposition, 1937 (1936). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #42, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

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Athens (1937) and Franz Josef Monument, Vienna (1937). All were stimulating but yielded nothing. Although Langer was able only to see some commissions to completion, by all accounts he was successful: a number of his projects were published in Österreichische Kunst and Bau Steine. The British journal, Design for Today,68 made mention of designs by Josef Frank, Oskar Vlach (for instance, their shop Haus und Garten), Walter Sobotka and Dr P.W. Born, while in the same paragraph perceptively noted: Karl Langer, the young and highly gifted architect, shows in his excellent work the influence of the East, without actually imitating the exotic patterns of the East but translating its spirit into functionalist forms.69 Like his friend, Viktor Grunbaum (later Gruen), Langer in the mid-1930s became proficient in shop design, though never as prolific or well publicized as his friend.70 Nevertheless, Langer designed stylish modern shopfronts for J.G. Grünpeter in Vienna and Katowice, Poland and a branch of the M. Neumann

FIGURE 2.11 Shop for M. Neumann, Vienna, Austria, c. 1934. Architect and designer: Karl Langer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 2.12 Karl and Gertrude Langer’s apartment, Vienna, Austria, c. 1933: (A, B) study; (C) sitting room; (D) dining room. The drawing on the easel (B) shows Langer’s design for the Austrian Pavilion, Brussels, 1935. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, University of Queensland.

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(C)

(D) FIGURE 2.12 (Continued).

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department store (1934) (Figure 2.11).71 He completed a complete acoustic and interior refurbishment for the Grosse Horsaal of the Viennese Volksbildungshaus in V. Stobergasse in Vienna (1937).72 Other commissions included a weekend house for Raimund Uch (c. 1934) in Mauer Bei Wien, with a striking Oriental bellcast to its eaves and steep roof,73 indicative of Langer’s ongoing interests in crosscultural references – in this case, the three-level house appears like an exotic but traditional garden pavilion. For his brother-in-law, Langer designed a strikingly modern interior for his surgery in Vienna.74 Perhaps most significantly, in 1935 Langer redesigned the interior of their own apartment at Hansenstrasse 6 in Vienna I, where Karl and Gertrude both lived and worked. In 1933, the Langers had been living at Weimarerstrasse 50 in the affluent Viennese suburb of Währing. While comfortable, it was distant from the hum of Vienna’s cultural and intellectual life. By 1935, they had moved to Vienna’s First District. The pair lived in an apartment on the fourth floor of an imposing nineteenth-century Renaissance Revival building right in the cultural heart of Vienna. It was just a few hundred metres away from Gottfried Semper and Carl Hasenauer’s grand classical pair (1871–91), the Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum) and Kunsthistoriches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts). Significantly, Langer redecorated the interior of the apartment (Figure 2.12). Modernist chairs and desks in timber to Langer’s design were complemented by Chinese silk rugs from Bettelheim & Jomek, a seated Buddha and a profusion of indoor plants, indicative of his and Gertrude’s eclectic tastes. Photographs of the interior show Karl’s studio, with a cosy fireplace nook separated from his drawing board by a low shelf of indoor plants and a cactus. On an easel is a perspective drawing of his 1935 entry for the Austrian Pavilion in Paris, while the dining room with chairs and table set for eight has dramatic full-height curtains screening the three nineteenth-century windows. The overall ambience is gracious but also exotic, indicative of the tastes and relaxed urbane lives of a sophisticated, worldly couple. Fifteen years later at their house in St. Lucia, these same chairs, Chinese carpets and the little coffee table which adorned Gerti’s sitting room in Vienna would be precious reminders of home. It was household items – not money – that could be shipped abroad.

‘Australia is our fate!’ By 1932, even as the Langers were completing their doctoral dissertations at the University of Vienna, things were changing in the great city. For Karl Langer, his own beliefs were also changing. While there is no written evidence on his part of an awareness of a growing anti-Semitism, his enrolment record at the university is revealing. For each semester from 1929, his religion is listed as Roman Catholic, but in his seventh semester of study in 1932, the year of his marriage,

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his enrolment record changes to indicate his religion as ‘non-believer’.75 It is a remarkable shift and, in many ways, indicates his allegiance to Gertrude and a possible disillusion with the Church’s political connections to strengthening right-wing thinking in the city. Yet, in the short term, such an atmosphere did not deter the couple from continuing to work and live in Vienna. Six years later, the situation had deteriorated dramatically. On 15 September 1938, just months after the Anschluss in March, Karl and Gertrude Langer felt compelled to leave: they applied for an application for a permit to enter Australia.76 Concocting a spurious visit to Greece on the basis of professional (research) work, the Langers travelled to Athens in early February 1939 where they gained visas from the British Consulate.77 It was from Athens that they sailed for Australia.78 Their passports are marked as first arriving in Australia at Fremantle on 10 May 1939 via Colombo and thus eventually reaching comparative safety.79 The ruse was partly true: in 1937, Langer had participated in a competition for buildings for an Amaleion Orphanage in Athens80 and it is highly likely that this was the excuse for travel. Soon after their arrival on the Remo in Sydney, the Langers were interviewed by the local magazine, The Australian Women’s Weekly.81 Rather than dwell on any fear they might have experienced in Vienna, Gertrude Langer spoke instead of their inspiration to migrate coming from a German-language film they had seen in Vienna in 1930 with the apparent title of Australia, The Unfinished Continent. The film, made by the popular Viennese-born German of Scottish descent, the travel writer, filmmaker and lecturer Colin Ross (1885–1945), had actually been titled Achtung Australien! Achtung Asien! and the book emerging from it and published in German in 1930 was titled Der unvollendete Kontinent (1930), which is likely where Gertrude may have encountered the title of The Unfinished Continent.82 Ross’s book detailed the Australian component of his seventeen-month travels across China, India, Australia and Oceania with his family (wife Lisa and children Ralph aged five and Renate aged fourteen from December 1928, including the family being caught in a sandstorm), which Gertrude vividly recalled. She also recalled the film’s depiction of ‘lots of skyscrapers at Sydney’. As Joachim Schatz explained, Ross drew on his experiences of living in suburban Bondi to make a case for Australian city life as a future model of European civilization.83 Remarkably, on the boat out to Australia, in a highly romantic gesture, Karl gave Gertrude a copy of Der unvollendete Kontinent as a wedding anniversary present for their trip.84 Little did they know that Ross and his wife, who had by the mid1930s become committed supporters of National Socialism, would later commit suicide in 1945 in fear of being caught by the Allies. But for the Langers, the idea of an unfinished continent far away represented hope and escape from an increasingly difficult and dangerous Vienna. As Gertrude said on their arrival: ‘Australia is our fate!’.85 Intrigued by the possibility of Australia’s young urban

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culture and its unique natural landscapes, they had left behind a different storm that was shortly to beset Europe.

Notes 1 For a comprehensive account of politics, housing and modernism in Vienna, see Eve

Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919–1934, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999 and Eve Blau and Monika Platzer (eds.), Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890–1937, Munich: Prestel, 1999. 2 Josef Frank’s influence in Viennese architecture and design circles was extensive. See

Nina Stritzler-Levine (ed.), Josef Frank, Architect and Designer: An Alternative Vision of the Modern Home, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996; Christopher Long, The New Space: Movement and Experience in Viennese Modern Architecture, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016. 3 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman [typescript], January 1982,

National Library of Australia, tape 6; see also Langer cited in Ute Heinen, ‘Gertrude Langer: Kunsthistoriken and Emigrant in Australien’, in Edita Koch and Frithjof Trapp (eds.), Exil: Forschung, Erkenntnisse, Ergebnisse, no. 2 (2001), 5–18. 4 Four thousand Austrians made their way to Australia between 1938 and 1948 as a

result of Hitler’s annexation of Austria in 1938 and the subsequent events of the Second World War. They comprised what Marlene Norst has described as a ‘community of fate’ – the ‘one and the same political act had turned them into a community marked by common features, including that of being refugees’. See Marlene Norst, ‘Introduction’, in Karl Bittman (ed.), Strauss to Matilda: Viennese in Australia 1938– 1988, Leichhardt, NSW: Wenkart Foundation, 1988, xiii–xiv. 5 Because the Duldigs had left Vienna in 1938 and spent time in Singapore, by 1940 they

were classified as enemy aliens and interned on their arrival in Australia on 25 September 1940. See Karl Duldig: Sculptures, Drawings, ed. Peter Stasny, trans. Elisabeth Frank-Grossebner, Vienna: Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna, 2003 and Eva de Jong-Duldig, Driftwood: Escape and Survival Through Art, Melbourne, VIC: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2018. 6 See Anne Watson, ‘Kafka and Kalmar’, The Furniture History Society Australasia

Journal, vol. 2 (2004), 10–13; Catriona Quinn, ‘Custom-made for European Tastes: The Gerstl Furniture Story’, in Rebecca Hawcroft (ed.), The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, Sydney, NSW: NewSouth, 2017, 89–120. 7 Rebecca Hawcroft, ‘From the Margins to the Mainstream’, in Rebecca Hawcroft (ed.),

The Other Moderns: Sydney’s Forgotten European Design Legacy, Sydney, NSW: NewSouth, 2017, 190. 8 Harriet Edquist, ‘ “Vienna Abroad”: Viennese Interior Design in Australia 1940–1949’,

RMIT Design Archives Journal, vol. 9, no. 1 (2019), 31. 9 Ian Sinnamon, ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15

(2000, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

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10 For example, prominent Viennese architects Josef Hoffman (1870–1956) and

Adolf Loos (1870–1933) both studied at the Staatsgewerbeschule in Brno. Another was architect Carl Panigl (1905–?) who studied carpentry at Vienna’s Staatsgewerbeschule and would go on to design for Vienna’s Werkbundsiedlung in 1932. 11 Staatsgewerbeschule Im 1, Wiener Gemeindebezirke Baufachschule ‘Zeugnis‘,

3 July 1920, 1 July 1922 and 4 July 1923. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 12 ‘Siegfried Sitte (1876–1945)’, Architektenlexicon Wien 1770–1945. 13 Karl Langer, Workbook, Staatsgewerbeschule, Vienna, 1922/23. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #86. 14 Peter Behrens, exit testimony for Karl Langer, enrolment record, Langer, Karl (2)

1923–1926 (Dokument), Universitätsarchiv der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. 15 Stanford Anderson, Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century,

Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, 250–252. 16 Alexander Popp was appointed Professor at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in

1930. He served as Vice President of the Central Association of Architects. In 1935 he joined the Nazi Party. After the Anschluss (1938), Popp became one of the Nazis’ chief architects of their industrial projects in Austria. See ‘Alexander Popp (1891–1947)’, Architektenlexicon Wien 1770–1945. 17 Behrens, exit testimony for Karl Langer. 18 Douglas Neale, ‘The “Essentials” of the Subtropical House: An Exegesis of the

“Modernistic” Town Planning Principles of Dr Karl Langer’, in Harriet Edquist and Héléne Frichot (eds.), Limits, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 2, Melbourne, 2004, 347. 19 Langer was interested in the work of Ernst May and his contribution to city planning

in the Soviet Union from 1930, most famously in the case of Magnitogorsk, referred to by Langer in his later writings. He was also aware of the work of May’s colleague, the German architect and city planner Walter Schwagenscheidt (1886–1968), an advocate of landscape in the city and a member of May’s group that travelled to the Soviet Union. Viennese-trained Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), who worked under Adolf Loos at the Vienna Housing Authority, was also a member of May’s group. See Karl Langer, ‘The Japanese House in Relation to Australian Conditions, Especially as to Modular Planning; The Example of Bata and the Experiment of Vienna’, paper presented to the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Congress of Architecture, Melbourne, January 1953. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. In this paper, Langer made reference to the ‘cellular planning’ of Japan and the Soviet cities of Magnitogorsk and Swerdlov. 20 Victor Gruen, Shopping Town: Designing the City in Suburban America, ed. and trans.

Anette Baldauf, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2017, 36. 21 Gruen, Shopping Town, 36. 22 M. Jeffrey Hardwick, Mall Maker: Victor Gruen, Architect of an American Dream,

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004, 12. Hardwick makes

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reference to a ‘Ralph Langer’ but the colleague is Karl Langer. See Gruen, Shopping Town, 38. Anette Baldauf suggests that the competition was for Lassallehof at Lassallestrasse 40–44 (1924–26) designed by architects Hubert Gessner, Hans Paar, Fritz Schlossberg and Fritz Waage. See Anette Baldauf, ‘Notes to Gruen’, in Shopping Town, 291. 23 Hardwick, Mall Maker, 8. 24 Hardwick, Mall Maker, 49. 25 See August Sarnitz, Ernst Plischke: Modern Architecture for the New World: The

Complete Works, Munich: Prestel, 2004; Linda Tyler, ‘Plischke, Ernst Anton’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. 26 Langer worked in the office of Hans Prutscher, from 15 August 1923 until 15 March

1925. See letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 15 March 1925. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2. 27 Langer worked in the office of Josef Frank and Oskar Vlach from c. April 1925 until the

end of January 1926. See letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 30 January 1926. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2. 28 Ursula Prokop, ‘Josef Frank and “The Small Circle around Oskar Strnad and Viktor

Lurje” ’, in Christian Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank Against Design: The Architect’s Anti-Formalist Oeuvre, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, 49. 29 Iris Meder, ‘Josef Frank, Max Eisler and Austrian Architectural Criticism’, in Christian

Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank Against Design: The Architect’s Anti-Formalist Oeuvre, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, 77; Prokop, ‘Josef Frank and “The Small Circle around Oskar Strnad and Viktor Lurje” ’, 49. 30 Otto Kapfinger, ‘The Art of Urban Architecture from Below’, in Christian Thun-

Hohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank Against Design: The Architect’s Anti-Formalist Oeuvre, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, 87; Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt, ‘Josef Frank: Against Design’, in Christian Thun-Hohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank Against Design: The Architect’s Anti-Formalist Oeuvre, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, 19. 31 Ibid. 32 Richard Pommer and Christian Otto, Weissenhof 1927 and the Modern Movement

in Architecture, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 126. Pommer and Otto quote Josef Frank from his article, ‘Die moderne Einrichtung des Wohnhauses’, in Werner Gräff (ed.), Innenräume, Räume und Inneneinrichtungsgegenstände aus der Werkbundausstellung Die Wohnung insbesondere aus den Bauten der städtischen Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, Stuttgart: Akad. Verlag Wedekind, 1928, 126–127. 33 Kapfinger, ‘The Art of Urban Architecture from Below’, 113. 34 Letter of reference for Karl Langer from Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger,

dated 22 March 1928. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box 36, Folder #2. 35 The Rabenhof was published in Die Bau und Werke Kunst, vol. 7, no. 12 (September

1931), 275–277. A journal offprint with underlining by Langer is held in the Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box 42.

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36 Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919–1934, 266. On Margaretengürtel, Hubert

Gessner was responsible for the Metzleinstaler-Hof (1923–25) and Reumann-Hof (1924). 37 Letter of reference for Karl Langer from Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger,

dated 22 March 1928. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box 36, Folder #2. 38 Karl Langer, ‘Wochenendsiedlungen’, Architektur und Bautechnik, vol. 14, no. 1 (1927),

3–4. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37. 39 See David H. Haney, ‘The Technological Garden: c. 1924–1930’, in When Modern Was

Green: Life and Work of Landscape Architect Leberecht Migge, London: Routledge, 2010, 155–224. 40 Karl Langer, Moderne Bauprobleme: Farbe und City-Haus’, Architektur und Bautechnik,

vol. 14, no. 3 (1927), 34–37. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37. 41 Letter of reference for Karl Langer from Alexander Popp, dated 3 July 1939. Karl

Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2. The letter certified that Langer worked in the Behrens and Popp office from 22 March 1928 until 30 June 1934. A letter of reference from Peter Behrens, dated 10 March 1934, contradicts this and states that Langer worked in the office from 25 March 1928 until 27 February 1934. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2. 42 Anderson, Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century, 231 and

Stanford Anderson, ‘The Atelier of Peter Behrens, 1908–18’, in Stanford Anderson, Karen Grunow and Carsten Krohn, Jean Krämer Architect and the Atelier of Peter Behrens, Wiesbaden: Weimarer Verlagsgesellschaft in der Verlagshaus Römerweg GmbH, 2015, 25–38. 43 Karl Langer, curriculum vitae, dated 12 December 1955. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #1. 44 Letter of reference from Peter Behrens, dated 10 March 1934. 45 Karl Langer, Competition proposal for Friedenskirche in Urfahr, Linz. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, #Box 75. 46 Alan Windsor, ‘Peter Behrens’, in Joanna Banham (ed.), Encyclopedia of Interior Design,

London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997, 124. 47 ‘Peter Behrens-Alexander Popp’, Die Bau und Werke Kunst, vol. 6, no. 12 (September

1930), 273–282; see also ‘Stadtebauliche Projekte und Studien von Alexander Popp’, Die Bau und Werke Kunst, vol. 6, no. 5 (February 1930), 113–117. These offprints are held in the Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #42. 48 Still, showing how complicated the situation was, Popp wrote a testimony on behalf of

Langer for the Gundel Preis as late as July 1939; see note 41 above. 49 Karl Langer, letter to Ernst Plischke, dated 15 December 1946. Ernst Plischke Private

Collection, Judith Rataitz (quoted with permission). We are grateful to Christoph Schnoor for supplying us with this information. 50 Ingrid Holzschuh, BauKultur in Wien 1938–1959, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2019, 174. 51 Strzygowski’s early work arose from a dispute with Viennese colleagues, in particular

Franz Wickhoff, who regarded European traditions, such as classical Greek art, as a formative influence for all art, even Chinese art. Julia Orell, ‘Early East Asian Art History in Vienna and its Trajectories: Josef Strzygowski, Karl With, Alfred Salmony’, Journal of Art Historiography, no. 13 (December 2015), 9–11.

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52 Georg Vasold, ‘Riegl, Strzygowski and the Development of Art’, Journal of Art

Historiography, vol. 5 (2011), 102–116; also Vasold, ‘“Im Chaos wandeln”: The Vienna School of Art History and the First World War’, Austrian Studies, vol. 21 (2013), 162–180. 53 Julia Orell, ‘Early East Asian Art History in Vienna and its Trajectories’, 11. 54 This broad cross-cultural sympathy was also evident in the approach of Hedwig

Spiegel. See ‘A Sculpture from the Maprik District in the Australian Museum’, Mankind, vol. 6, no. 10 (December 1967), 510–514. Gertrude gave lectures on Chinese architecture at the Carnegie Art Library in Brisbane in the first years following her arrival in Brisbane; her archive also contains a lecture, ‘On Chinese Culture’, given to the International Knowledge League Club, 7 May 1948. Gertrude Langer Papers, UQFL157, Box #69. 55 Spiegel studied under Schlosser, Gustav Glück, Ernst Diez and Hans Tietze, before

doing a doctorate also under the supervision of Josef Strzygowski. See Bernard Smith, A Pavane for Another Time, Sydney, NSW: Macmillan, 2002, 81. 56 See Hedwig Spiegel, ‘A Study of Buka-Passage (Solomon Islands) Ceremonial Paddles’,

Records of the Australian Museum, vol. 27, no. 3 (1967), 33–78; Spiegel, ‘The Chalk Figures of Southern New Ireland and the Gazelle Peninsula and Their Relationship to Other Pacific Areas’, in Justine M. Cordell (ed.), The Visual Art: Plastic and Graphic, The Hague: Mouton, 1979, 351–363. 57 Gertrude stated that her and Karl owned many books on Aboriginal art and culture

and held a long-term interest in the subject. Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman [sound recording], January 1982, National Library of Australia, tape 6, side 2. Unfortunately, the majority of these have been lost with the exception of David McCarthy’s Australia Aboriginal Decorative Arts Book, Sydney, NSW: Australian Museum, 1948. For discussions of Langer’s use of Aboriginal art in his architectural projects, see Chapter 8. 58 Examples of Gertrude Langer’s reviews of Aboriginal art can be found littered in her

art criticism, particularly late in her career, for instance, ‘Desert Art’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 3 September 1977; ‘Superb Aboriginal Batik’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 24 January 1984. Clippings file, Gertrude Langer Research General File, Queensland Art Gallery, unpaginated. 59 Orell, ‘Early East Asian Art History in Vienna and its Trajectories’, 5. 60 For a detailed discussion of Strzygowski’s view on the Bauhaus, see Pierre Vaisse, Josef

Strzygowski und die Kunst seiner Zeit: seine Stellung zum Bauhaus’, in P.O. Scholy and M.A. Długosz (eds.), Von Biala Nach Wien: Josef Strzygowski und die Kunstwissenschaften: Akten der Internationalen Wissenschaftlichen Konferenzen zum 150. Geburtstag von Josef Strzygowski in Bielsko-Biala, 29–31 March 2012, Vienna: European University Press, 2015, 618–632. 61 Examiner’s Report, Rigorosenakt Des Karl Langer Praes, dated 1 July 1933. Referenten:

PT Herr. Prof. Dr Strzygowski, PT Herr. Prof. Dr Dopsch, 20 September 1933, Philosophische Fakultat der Universität Wien, #11.879. 62 Berlin-born Leo Viktor Frobenius (1873–1938) was a key figure in German

ethnography, with a focus on the development of theories of cultural spread through diffusion and invasion. His work would influence historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler (1880–1936).

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63 This unique collection of resources is now held by the Fryer Library: Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158. 64 Karl Langer, Griechenland 1933, sketchbook. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158,

Box #87. 65 Alice Hampson and Fiona Gardiner, ‘From the Acropolis to Kingaroy: Creating Civic

Culture in Queensland’, in Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Canberra (5–8 July 2017), 217. 66 Bernard Rudofsky (1905–1988) completed his doctoral thesis on the architecture of the

Greek Islands at TU Wien. See Bernard Rudofsky, Eine primitive Betonbauweise auf den südlichen Kykladen, nebst dem Versuch einer Datierung derselben (A primitive concrete construction on the Southern Cyclades, as well as an attempt to date them), PhD thesis, TU Wien, 1931. Held at Archivs der Technischen Universität Wien. 67 The competition drawings of ‘Der Münsterplatz in Ulm’ are listed as by Langer and

Schlesinger; see Bau Steine, vol. 1 (1925), 33. 68 Anton Keller, ‘Neue Arbeiten des Ziv. Karl Langer’, Österreichische Kunst Jahr V, 1934,

23; Österreichische Kunst Jahr VII , 1936, 11; ‘Umbau eines Horsaales von Architekt Dr Karl Langer’, Österreichische Kunst, vol. VIII (1937), 15; P.W. Born, ‘Architecture and Decorative Art in Austria’, Design for Today (December 1935), 469. 69 Born, ‘Architecture and Decorative Art in Austria’, pp. 468–69. 70 Alex Wall, Victor Gruen: From Urban Shop to New City, Barcelona: Actar, 2005,

25–29. 71 Keller, ‘Neue Arbeiten des Ziv. Karl Langer’, 23. 72 ‘Umbau eines Horsaales von Architekt Dr Karl Langer’, 15. 73 Karl Langer, working drawing, Raimund Uch House, Wittgenstein Strasse 18, Mauer

bel Wien, undated (c. 1934). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44. 74 Photographs of surgery, Vienna, c. 1931. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44. 75 Enrolment records for Karl Langer, Universität Wien Yearbooks for 1929–33,

University of Vienna Archives. By contrast, Gertrude Langer’s enrolment records list her as being ‘Mosaisch’ (Jewish) for every semester that she attended. See enrolment records for Gertrude Fröschel, Universität Wien Yearbooks for 1929–33, University of Vienna Archives. 76 Karl Langer and Gertrude Langer, Application for Permit to Enter Australia, dated

15 September 1938. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID A997, 1938/423. 77 Karl Langer, Personal Statement by Alien Passenger, 10 May 1939. National Archives of

Australia, NAA ID A12508, 21/2818. 78 Ian Sinnamon, ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15

(2000, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; Hampson and Gardiner, ‘From the Acropolis to Kingaroy’, 217. 79 Karl Langer, Personal Statement by Alien Passenger, 10 May 1939. 80 Karl Langer, Details for a competition for buildings for an Amaleion Orphanage,

Athens, Greece (1937). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes #36, 42 and 44. 81 Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry: Romantic

Viennese Couple Get Acquainted with Our Language’, 3 June 1939, 26.

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82 Colin Ross, Der unvollendete Kontinent, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1930, republished in

1931 and 1936. 83 Joachim Schätz, ‘ “Going Native” with the Suburbanites’, in Mapping Colin Ross. 84 Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry’, 26. 85 Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry’, 26.

VIENNA

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FIGURE 3.1 Karl and Gertrude Langer, passengers on the Remo, en route to Australia. Gertrude Langer Papers, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland, UQFL157, Album #5.

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3 ‘AUSTRALIA IS OUR FATE!’ Fiona Gardiner and Don Watson

This chapter encompasses the period 1938–46, including the Langers leaving Vienna, migrating to Australia, settling in Brisbane and until Karl Langer commenced private practice after the Second World War. For a person soon deemed an alien, it was an inopportune time to arrive in Brisbane. His first position disappeared soon after war was declared in 1939. After an anxious period unemployed and before wartime building restrictions were invoked, Langer received his first Australian commissions and an appointment as a part-time lecturer in design and town planning at the University of Queensland. In 1940, he was engaged as a draftsman by the Queensland Railways Department, a secure wartime position which prevented his internment. Concurrently while continuing to teach, he also carried out pioneering research into town planning and dwellings for sub-tropical conditions. Langer’s ability and superior credentials, however, appear to have threatened less qualified local practitioners. After Langer’s research was ignored in 1943 by a recently formed Commonwealth Housing Commission in Melbourne and its ambitious but energetic director Walter Bunning (19121977), it was published by the engineering faculty at the University of Queensland. In addition to its core propositions, the attractive presentation and climatic analysis were innovative. Continuing his search for a more appropriate outlet for his energy and ideas, Langer successfully sought a planning position with the Brisbane City Council but the appointment was contested and the government refused to release him from the Railways Department. After living in Australia for five years, Langer was able to apply for naturalization, a precondition for his professional registration. By the time his application had been processed, the war was long over when he commenced private practice in Brisbane as a town planner and architect. Despite his success professionally and manifold contributions, he remained a maverick.

49

‘We did not arrive like nobodies’ The decision to migrate to Australia was a deliberate choice (see Chapter 2). The Langers anticipated settling in Sydney, the capital city of New South Wales, where Gertrude’s widowed mother Channa would join them.1 On arrival Karl Langer pointed out he was not a refugee.2 In Vienna they had bought open tickets for the Australia-Italia shipping company, paying in deutschmarks, which circumvented severe limits on the amount of currency that could be taken out of Austria.3 Avoiding expensive exit visas on a pretext of an architectural commission,4 they stayed four and a half months in Athens awaiting their Australian visa. Karl spent his time in Greece painting and drawing.5 One of the last places he sketched prior to leaving for Australia was the temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion.6 The British Consul in Athens issued the Langers’ visa on 9 February 1939.7 They left Greece on 3 April 1939 and boarded the Remo in Naples as saloon passengers on 8 April.8 The voyage via the Suez Canal and Colombo took thirty-three days, landing at Fremantle on 10 May.9 The ship stopped in Adelaide and Melbourne, before the Langers disembarked in Sydney on 22 May. The attention normally attracted by shipping arrivals was heightened by a pre-war influx of refugees. As saloon class migrants they were minor celebrities, their arrival marked by newspaper articles and interviews. As Gertrude Langer remembered, ‘we did not arrive like nobodies’.10 Karl Langer was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald on slum clearance and the Daily Telegraph as a world-famous architectdesigner of workmen’s flats who ‘would lay bricks if necessary’.11 The Telegraph’s reporter took Langer to see Sydney’s first serious attempt at slum clearance, built at Erskineville by the Housing Improvement Board of NSW. The fifty-six flats in seven two-storey brick blocks with a kindergarten were designed by Morton Herman, recently returned after spending most of the decade in London (Figure 3.2). The Telegraph published Langer’s positive reaction on 27 May.12 Despite their welcome in the popular press, Karl’s arrival was unacknowledged by the architectural media.13 Within two weeks they were interviewed and photographed by The Australian Women’s Weekly. The Langers are quoted as saying ‘Australia is our fate’,14 a sentiment repeated for the rest of their lives.15

‘It is the most beautiful harbour in the world’ While the Langers were not sponsored migrants, giving their address on arrival in Sydney as care of the Australia-Italia Shipping Company,16 they quickly made personal and professional friends. They loved the harbour, the colour of the water

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FIGURE 3.2 Erskineville Housing Scheme. Architect: Morton Herman, December 1938. State Library of New South Wales, FL1340284.

and the environment, but the cultural life did not compare to Vienna. As Gertrude remembered it was limited, with only a repertory theatre: ‘there was really nothing much. People were very insular’.17 Karl immediately began the search for work while they established an active social life setting up home in a flat at 36 Phillip St, Neutral Bay.18 In two months spent in Sydney they forged friendships that were to prove life-long. Karl Langer was warmly welcomed at the University of Sydney by Professor Leslie Wilkinson and other staff of the architecture department. English born and educated, Wilkinson was appointed to the new chair of architecture at the University of Sydney in 1918 and became dean when architecture became a faculty in 1920. Physically and intellectually imposing, he had a profound influence as a teacher and practising architect.19 Wilkinson would have liked Karl to lecture at the University but Langer’s proficiency in English when he arrived in Australia precluded this. He suggested that if Langer spent a year or so improving his English, he could then be invited to teach.20 Karl also established a firm friendship with Professor Alfred S. Hook, who lectured in architectural practice and construction.21 Hook sought to improve conditions for architects and was a founder and first president of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) in 1929. He was vital to the institute’s survival during the Depression and the Second World War, holding the honorary positions of secretary,

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treasurer and registrar, sometimes simultaneously. Another friendship was with architect and painter John D. Moore22 and his second wife Gladys, a painter, journalist and employee of the Australian Broadcasting Commission. Already employing H.P. Oser, a younger Viennese migrant who arrived six months earlier, Moore was unable to give Langer a job, but did all he could, as did Hook, to assist Langer to find employment.23

‘After all, you needn’t stay in Brisbane’24 Despite all Karl’s publicity and new connections, he could not find work in Sydney. Although conditions in the building industry had recovered from the Depression by 1936,25 the impending European war saw commissions dry up. Architectural practices were not hiring. The Langers’ situation was critical, as they had little money due to restrictions on taking currency out of Austria.26 It was through Hook’s national connections that Langer found work in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland. Gertrude Langer’s recollection was that A.S. Hook saw an advertisement for a position in Brisbane.27 In 1939, Hook was also secretary of the RAIA and it is more likely that Hook found the job through a colleague, RAIA national president and Brisbane architect Bruce Lucas,28 with whom Hook was regularly in touch. Langer’s job in Brisbane was with a new partnership, Cook & Kerrison,29 recently commissioned to design a large hotel at Cairns in a chain of temperance hotels for tourists.30 Also in the office was C.P. Heath, recently employed from Sydney. Both Heath and his wife Edna Pritchard were, like Lucas, early graduates in architecture from the University of Sydney. In July 1939, Hook wrote to his friend Robert Cummings31 ‘regarding Austrian architect Dr Karl Langer and his wife Gertrude an art historian who would be arriving soon to live in Brisbane’.32 The Langers’ move was seen as temporary with advice from Hook that they find their feet before returning to Sydney. Gertrude was sad but said she would have been sadder if she knew she was leaving Sydney permanently.33

Architecture in Brisbane between the wars When Langer arrived in Brisbane, the architectural profession had only recently recovered from a long-running depression, which delayed the adoption of modernism. The primary ways of learning of changes which had occurred in continental Europe in the previous two decades were travel and publications. Movement interstate expanded architects’ horizons, with several undertaking degrees at Sydney University. For travel overseas, Queensland architects generally

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worked in London with excursions to Europe, where they often were ignorant of or bypassed work now seen as pivotal. In New South Wales, two travelling scholarships for architects were awarded annually from 1923,34 but between the wars in Brisbane, only a single such scholarship was awarded in 1924. It was won by Robert Cummings,35 who spent three years at the Architectural Association in London and after visiting Brisbane, two years in Rome on a Rome Scholarship. After further experience in London, Cummings returned to Brisbane late in 1930. Cummings may be an instance of Le Corbusier’s warning: ‘Rome is the damnation of the half-educated. To send architectural students to Rome is to cripple them for life’.36 He was almost a decade too early for modernism in Britain and was more attuned to Willem Dudok’s brick buildings than to international (or Langer’s Viennese) modernism. Overseas travel by other architects was self-funded. While some including Bruce Lucas, E.J.A. Weller and Horace Driver travelled to America, most architects went to London.37 A.T. Longland visited France in 1925 (when he presumably saw the Paris Exhibition) and again in 1932 when he toured northern Europe. On returning, he commented about the remarkable advances in Germany and the simplicity of modern design in Sweden but observed that England ‘was not so rapidly shaking off her ancient traditions’.38 In 1930–32, C.W.T. Fulton was based in London from where he saw Dudok’s work at Hilversum, which informed his subsequent work in partnership with J.P. Donoghue including the Masel residence, Stanthorpe (1936) and Nudgee Junior School, Indooroopilly (1937), which locally pioneered Dutch modernism. At the same time, Fulton’s later partner J.M. Collin was also in London. The majority of post-Great War Queensland dwellings were detached and owner- occupied, the successful outcome of Queensland’s State Advances Corporation (SAC),39 whose public housing programme relative to population was comparable with that of the progressive schemes of ‘Red’ Vienna.40 The most popular standard designs in the 1920s were adaptations of California bungalows with multiple-gabled facades often grafted to earlier, otherwise hipped-roofed, elevated timber houses.41 But a minority remained hipped roofed, reflecting prewar precedents and Wilkinson’s example in Sydney.42 From 1932, led by Robert Cummings,43 preference reverted to hipped roofs as a local version of moderne dwellings of southern Australian states.44 In rationalising those masonry precedents for timber construction, their streamlined quadrant corners were replaced by corner windows, obscuring this stylistic relationship. Dropped to the heads of doors and windows, the soffits of wider boxed eaves improved shading while obviating a prior need for window shades. Architects of the SAC followed Cummings’ lead,45 as did Karl Langer in his earliest and many of his Queensland houses. Other Brisbane architects had been experimenting with modernism. In 1935, J.M. Collin won classes A and B of a model homes competition, one European

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 3.3 (A) ‘Major Steps of Stylism 9: Waterfall Front’, Robin Boyd, Australia’s Home: Its Origins, Builders and Occupiers, Melbourne, VIC: Melbourne University Press, 1952, 88. © Estate of Robin Boyd, courtesy Robin Boyd Foundation. (B) Lucas & Cummings, Fraser East residence (1940), Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 19 November 1939, 14.

modern, the other ‘English Colonial’ (Figure 3.4).46 E.J.A. Weller was experimenting with terraced flats and Rod Voller, recently returned from working with Oliver Bernard in London, adapted reinforced concrete for timber in the Fraser residence, Northgate in 1939 (Figure 3.5). During the war, other modern architects moved to Brisbane: Frank Costello became city architect in 1941, employing Fred Scorer in

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 3.4 (A) J.M. Collin, first prize, class A, model homes competition; (B) J.M. Collin, first prize, class B, model homes competition. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 28 May 1935, 10.

1944 soon after Scorer won a Sulman award in Newcastle and Heymann Jacobsohn, another German migrant. During the war, enlisted architects based in Queensland included the Victorians Robin Boyd and Kevin Pethebridge (who entered housing competitions from the Atherton Tableland) and US servicemen including Edgar Kaufmann, Jr.

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 3.5 (A) Flats, New Farm. Architect: E.J.A. Weller, 1940. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 2 April 1940, 13; (B) Fraser residence, Northgate. Architect: R.W. Voller, 1940. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 3 December 1940, 13.

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Working in Brisbane during the war: 1939–1946 After staying a week in the Queensland Temperance League’s Canberra hotel,47 the Langers rented a furnished flat overlooking the river at Hamilton48 and applied for Gertrude’s mother, Channa (or Anna) Fröschel to join them.49 Six weeks later, the declaration of war on 3 September made an early return to Sydney unlikely. The Langers registered as aliens in October 1939;50 had their possessions including furniture and office records from Vienna sent from Sydney;51 and relocated to the upper floor flat of Ellesmere, on the river at Toowong. Designed by J.H. Pollitt, Ellesmere was one of the first modernist houses erected in Brisbane.52 After Karl prepared plans for the hotel, Arthur Toombes, superintendent of the Temperance League and chief proponent of the Cairns hotel, died suddenly.53 Without Toombes and with the introduction of controls on non-essential buildings, Cook & Kerrison’s practice was doomed, leading to Langer’s retrenchment early in 1940.54 With little money and now without a job, the Langers’ position was precarious. With further support from Hook, Langer commenced teaching part-time at the University of Queensland in May 1940. Later in the year he received two private commissions – a holiday house at Surfers Paradise for Charles Russell, a wellknown grazier, aspiring politician and founder of the Queensland Country Party; and a house in Hawken Drive, St. Lucia for philosophy lecturer, D.A.T. Gasking (see Chapter 6).55 An application by Langer to register as an architect failed when the Board of Architects deferred a decision ‘until the end of the war’, precluding Langer applying for membership of the Institute of Architects. Despite this, the institute co-opted him as an assessor for their awards programme during the war.56 Langer used Cook & Kerrison’s address (and maybe their office) for another year until May 1941, when he applied successfully for a position with Queensland Railways. Until February 1946,57 he ‘calculated and designed gantries and trusses for workshops in steel, concrete and timber’, working as an architect in the Chief Engineer’s Branch. He was glad to avoid the Railways’ architectural projects, which he assessed as ‘really ghastly’.58 Employed in a protected industry, Langer avoided the fates of many refugees: internment, war service with the Civil Constructional Corps, or, when naturalised, labouring in the military. Continuing part-time teaching, Langer also researched houses and town planning for Queensland conditions. Responding to a new Commonwealth Housing Commission (CHC) for post-war housing, Langer hoped that his experience of Red Vienna’s massive post-war public housing programme would lead to a position.59 With the enthusiastic support of Brisbane City town planner R.A. McInnes, Bruce Lucas and D.H.K. Lee, professor of physiology at the University of Queensland, Langer submitted seven standard house plans to the CHC.60

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Executive officer of the commission was the ambitious Walter Bunning who trained in Sydney where he won the Board of Architects’ Travelling Scholarship, spending twenty months overseas in 1937–39. As executive officer Bunning was the commission’s publicist as well as a tireless self-promoter,61 with an astute eye on his post-war future. A request from John D. Moore to be informed when Langer’s submission was received was not acknowledged. Later Moore accompanied by Bunning found it in the departmental library62 but it has not survived.63 On receiving ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Walter Bunning replied: ‘I have not had time to more than peruse it quickly, but it appears to be a most important contribution to architecture in Australia and to Queensland in particular’.64 Subsequently, Bunning was credited with two publications: The Post-War Home published by the Modern Architecture Research Society (NSW),65 and Homes in the Sun: The Past, Present and Future of Australian Housing (1945).66 By the time the latter was published, Bunning had left the CHC to enter practice and chair a Town and Country Planning Advisory Committee for the NSW Government. Homes in the Sun may be indebted to Langer’s book, but fails to understand its climatic lessons.67

‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ In Brisbane, however, Professor Lee followed up,68 proposing in November 1943 publication of Langer’s research by the University of Queensland. ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ was published in May 1944 and widely distributed. In its climatic analysis, site planning, house and garden integration, internal planning, fit-out and construction, it was at odds with local practice. Recognizing increasing use of motor vehicles, Langer proposed a pedestrian-friendly layout based on Clarence Stein and Henry Wright’s 1929 designs at Radburn, New Jersey. Each allotment had direct access by a traffic-free path to shops and schools.69 The gardens of Queensland houses mostly comprised symmetrical planting in front with a productive garden behind. Not previously had it been proposed that gardens be used so intensively and comprehensively for outdoor living. In November 1943, soon after Langer’s research, the New South Wales Housing Commission staged a public housing competition for Westmead with a similar brief for a subdivisional layout and plans of detached and attached dwellings. With competitions fairly rare,70 Langer was in luck. It was the first of several Australian competitions he entered. By the time the results were announced in June 1944, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ had been published.71 He was unsuccessful, but the winners were uninspired.72 Leslie Wilkinson of Sydney University commiserated: I was struck by your designs . . . And think the assessors should have recognised your work. I will certainly do my best to see that they are further considered,

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but we are a very conservative people! And apparently most people are quite satisfied with what the speculative builder provides.73 In their single-storey compact plan, preference for orientation over address, indoor-outdoor relationship and early use of slab-on ground floors, Langer’s houses may have been influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright’s pre-war Usonian houses.74 However, they lack the modular geometry, expressive construction, sculptural rather than climatic use of materials, formal composition and the discipline of layered flat roofs of Wright’s houses. Langer’s Westmead competition entry75 illustrates what ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ doesn’t – the form Langer intended for his dwellings: shallow-pitched, bellcast, hipped roofs with boxed eaves concealing gutters behind raking fascias. With eaves set at door head height, Langer adopted Cummings’ previously mentioned innovation of the mid-1930s. Instead of Wright’s Usonian houses, Langer’s designs are more akin to Wright’s earlier Prairie houses, conceivably, like the vegetation Langer illustrated, a delayed response to Wright’s 1910 Wasmuth portfolios76 (or its reprinting in 1924).77 With Usonian houses in mind, Brisbane architect Dean Prangley won a 1945 competition for a brick post-war house,78 with a wafer-thin flat roof superimposed on a plan derived from plate 4 in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’.79 It was as close as Langer ever came to winning an architectural competition. The difficulty of using a flat roof on a Langer’s plan is illustrated by a house,80 designed by Frank Salmon, Langer’s first paid employee, for his family in February 1946.81 In Salmon’s first version, the roof is flat but subsequently revised to a hipped roof, with boxed eaves at door head height – more economical and durable with improved shading and matching Langer’s intentions at Westmead.82 Unlike sub-tropical Queensland where shading was an issue, the problem for Europe was insolation – access to sunlight. After the health benefits of sunlight were recognized, interest was focused on orientation83 with methods devised to precisely calculate the solar exposure of windows.84 To avoid complicated graphical calculations, the use of shadow curves based initially on gnomonic projection was proposed in Britain in 191985 and adopted in Germany in 1930–31 by Küttner,86 who may have been Langer’s source for ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (Figure 3.6).87 Related work in Germany was undertaken at the Bauhaus after Hannes Meyer joined the staff as inaugural head of the architecture department in 1927. Studies of the necessary spacing between apartment blocks aligned east-west to prevent overshadowing were also published by the Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne (CIAM) in 1931.88 Amongst Langer’s papers are undated insolation diagrams for apartment blocks in an unidentified competition.89 Le Corbusier became increasingly interested. His Swiss Pavilion (1930–31) is aligned approximately east-west with single-banked rooms all facing south with external roller blinds. Included in an observations charter accepted at CIAM’s meeting in

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FIGURE 3.6 Karl Langer, sun chart, 1943. Later published as plate 9: Gnomonic projection Sun Chart in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

1933, he urged that minimum requirements for exposure to sun be established for all dwellings.90 A comprehensive study, The Orientation of Buildings, was published by the RIBA in 1933,91 but the Depression delayed and reduced its impact. The report included a cotangent shadow curve as an improvement on gnomonic projection. In the United States, a rapid method for determining sunlight on buildings based on orthographic projection sun paths was published by the architect Howard T. Fisher in 1931.92 In consultation with Fisher’s partner, Paul Schweikher and the recently established Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the architect George Keck was able to upgrade the solar performance of his glass House of Tomorrow (1933).93 Keck’s subsequent Bunning House (1935) was published with orthographic projection sun-paths, although surprisingly the house was aligned north-south but with adjustable blinds like the Swiss Pavilion.94 Similar sun-path diagrams were published in the Architectural Forum in 1938.95 Also interested was former Austro-Hungarian architect Antonin Raymond, who, after working with Frank Lloyd Wright in the United States and Japan, published a sun-path diagram for Tokyo in 1938.96 Although Langer’s work was not original, his use of sun charts based on gnomonic projection was unprecedented in Australia in 1944. Calculating the chart for Brisbane ensured that Langer had a clear understanding of the problem unlike most contemporaries even well after the Second World War. A useful outcome of the CHC’s work was the Commonwealth Experimental Building Station (CEBS), also established in 1944.97 In 1948, CEBS distributed a typescript, Sunshine and Shade in Australasia, researched by architect R.O. Phillips98 with

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stereographic projection sun charts for the latitudes of Australia, New Zealand and New Guinea. Langer’s book was the precedent.99 Despite an often-repeated story that all local architects had copies,100 few fully comprehended Langer’s findings. Langer clearly indicated the preferred aspect and exposure to desirable or undesirable winds by incorporating a circular histogram in his standard plans but doesn’t describe optimal orientation in his text. In taking for granted this understanding, Langer overestimated his audience and there is ample evidence that many architects were incapable of achieving the desired climatic outcome when balancing competing objectives. In The Sun NewsPictorial’s architectural competition for ideal post-war homes, the Melbourne architects R.P. Boyd and K.H. Pethebridge, serving with the 3rd Field Survey Company on the Atherton Tableland, had a largely windowless north wall with a children’s play space on the south-west,101 ironically more suitable for tropical Queensland than Melbourne. The impact of Langer’s book was less than might be expected due to prolonged post-war building restrictions, a continuing preference for address over orientation, the partial retention of verandas and use of low-set framed floors instead of slab on the ground, precluding the close integration of indoors and outdoors envisaged by Langer. The adoption of Langer’s ideas was more gradual than immediate.

Graphic communication In Langer’s standard plans, the occupants are illustrated drawn in plan. This technique, which later became popular, seems to have been unprecedented in 1943. Repaying close inspection, the visual impact was described as delightful by Leslie Wilkinson.102 While their episodic detail is indebted to Otto Wagner, their freehand execution also recalls the work of Josef Frank,103 with whom Langer worked in 1925. Except for including occupants, the plans are like competition entries Langer drew104 while working in Peter Behrens’ office. Langer’s depiction of vegetation both in Vienna and his standard house plans, derives from Marion Mahony’s renderings for Frank Lloyd Wright,105 but his 1943 plans are further embellished with evocations of the life which Langer envisaged for them, with persons cooking, playing music and dancing, all drawn in plan projection.106 Despite Langer’s drawings being admired, the 1943 drawings are almost his only use of the technique.107 Subsequently, the use by others of such anthropometric figures became popular,108 particularly in ergonomic texts109 rendering them now so familiar as to not warrant comment but precedents for Langer’s technique are not obvious (see plate 5 STH). Architectural instances that have been uncovered are arguably less resolved. Occasionally, people were drawn on cross-sections (appropriately in elevation) as in Le Corbusier’s drawings. However, seldom before 1943 were people incorporated

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FIGURE 3.7 Karl Langer, site plan, competition entry #124816. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

FIGURE 3.8 Karl Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing (1994), Plate 5 (detail).

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in plan projection. When that did occur, they were inappropriately drawn not in plan but in elevation, as occurred much earlier in plans of Egyptian buildings where the intended use of the space was symbolized by elevations of persons and the relevant contents.110 Likewise, when Langer’s Viennese near-contemporary Bernard Rudofsky published in Domus111 in 1938, a house he had designed at Prodica, Italy, the plan included figures drawn in elevation again to illustrate use of the dwelling. Subsequently, Rudofsky moved to Brazil and later contributed to the Museum of Modern Art’s 1943 exhibition and publication Brazil Builds, a house designed by Aldary Henriques, the plan of which included parked cars and people playing table tennis – however, both are drawn in elevation.112 To better illustrate gardens in use, Langer also sometimes used figures in elevation (a man mowing the lawn).

Preparing for practice On 22 May1944, Langer would have been living in Australia for five years, which entitled him to apply for naturalisation, a prerequisite for professional registration.113 Two months earlier to broaden his experience, Langer enquired about a position as assistant to the Brisbane City town planner, R.A. McInnes. Three weeks later, a position was created and Langer was appointed early in May.114 He was congratulated by Colin Clark (‘now we shall see things happen’) and Douglas Lee (‘hope that the new thoughts introduced by yourself will provoke something of a reawakening to the necessity for and the possibilities of town planning’),115 but the euphoria was short-lived. Soon after Langer’s appointment, public protest questioned the appointment of a foreigner in preference to a returned soldier, C.L. Tatham and the matter soon became political.116 While Langer engaged with this debate as it played out in the press, correcting a number of errors,117 his application118 to be released from the Railways was refused until he was replaced by a suitable man. Langer had been transferred from survey drafting to work on post-war reconstruction but between 25 January 1943 and 25 August 1944, he spent 150 days on survey drafting, work which could be done by any draftsman. Proposed as a replacement, Heinz Jacobsohn, another German migrant, was well qualified having trained in Berlin and worked in Stuttgart for Paul Bonatz on the city’s highly regarded railway station. After arriving in Australia in 1937, he practised in Perth until naturalised in 1942 when he enlisted with other ‘friendly aliens’ in the 12th Australian Employment Company. Despite Jacobsohn being available, no action was taken. Following representations to the Premier by returned soldiers, a report was prepared by C.E. Chuter, director of local government, which in early August strongly supported Langer’s appointment to the council.119 On 15 August 1944, Langer applied to the Deputy Director-General of Man Power (Queensland)120 to

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FIGURE 3.9 Karl Langer, proposed terminal, front elevation and plan, Cairns, Queensland Railways, Plans 1358, Sheets 1 and 2, undated. Queensland Rail Records Management.

be released from the Railways Department. His application was approved on 23 August but immediately appealed by the Railways Department. At a hearing, the appeal was upheld, preventing Langer from taking up the appointment. He commented wryly: ‘it was all far from pleasant, but I got known that way all over Australia’.121 His notoriety resulted in Langer being invited to update Mackay’s town plan. Previously under the mayor Ian Wood, Mackay was the first Queensland city to prepare a town plan. By 1944, with Wood again mayor, the plan was ready for revision. Langer was already known locally, not only from his ill-fated appointment but also for ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’.122 When Wood asked the director of local government to recommend a planner, C.E. Chuter proposed Langer. In a wellorchestrated sequence of visitors to Mackay, P.H. Ainscow, the Langers and Colin Clark123 visited the city, raising issues which favoured a revision of the plan. By November, Langer was updating the civic survey as his ‘other duties permit’.124 In a letter to Wilkinson in January 1945, Langer noted that he was working for a very enthusiastic mayor.125 The revised town plan was submitted on 21 May and unanimously recommended for adoption.126 Despite his elaborate submission, Langer was unable to be paid, as the council had not sought competitive prices for the commission and in any case as an employee of the Railways Department, he was not entitled to receive payment.127

Queensland railways 1944–46 Langer continued working for the Railways Department, but his work is not easily identified. The only known project was a proposed station at Cairns, North

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Queensland terminus of the north-south coastal railway (Figure 3.8). The brick building was constructed after the war to a modified design. In a further act of official bastardry, Langer’s application for naturalisation was obstructed and only slowly processed. The war was long over when Langer was advised, in January 1946, that his naturalisation had beens approved.128 After registering as an architect on 16 January 1946 and joining the RAIA, he resigned from the Railways Department in February and officially commenced private practice in Queensland. By then, Langer was aware of the limits and possibilities for practice in Brisbane.

Notes 1 Telegraph (Brisbane), 13 December 1939, 3. 2 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Slum Clearance. Austrian Expert’s Views’, 23 May 1939, 13. 3 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982, National Library of

Australia. 4 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. In the Karl

Langer Collection in the Fryer Library there are two images for an orphanage in Athens. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 5 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 6 Ian Sinnamon, ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography,

vol. 15 (2000, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 15. Despite his love of classical architecture, Karl’s sketches of Greece in the Fryer Library are of landscape and vernacular architecture. 7 Karl and Gertrude Langer, Landing Permit, Sydney, dated 10 May 1939. National

Archives of Australia, NAA ID 7244492. 8 Karl and Gertrude Langer, Naturalisation Application. National Archives of Australia,

NAA ID 776918. 9 Karl and Gertrude Langer, Landing Permit, Sydney, 10 May 1939. 10 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 11 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘World-Famous Designer of Flats for Workmen’, 23 May

1939, 5; Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Famous Architect Praises Workers’ Flats. Better than in Vienna’, 26 May 1939, 5; Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Slum Clearance. Austrian Expert’s Views’, 23 May 1939, 13. 12 See also W.R. Richardson and M.E. Herman, ‘The Erskineville Re-Housing Scheme’,

Architecture (Sydney), vol. 27, no. 12 (1 December 1938), 292–296. Langer praised the superior sanitary arrangements of the Sydney flats over those in Vienna but refrained from criticising the ill-considered north-south alignment of the parallel blocks. 13 No reference has been found in Architecture or Decoration and Glass. 14 Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry: Romantic

Viennese Couple Get Acquainted with Our Language’, 3 June 1939, 26.

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15 Gertrude Langer quotes this phrase and the Australian Women’s Weekly article over

40 years later when interviewed by Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 16 Karl and Gertrude Langer, Landing Permit, Sydney, 10 May 1939. 17 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 18 Letter, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 19 Clive Lucas, ‘Wilkinson, Leslie (1882–1973)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography,

vol. 12 (1990, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 20 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 21 Rosemary Broomham, ‘Hook, Alfred Samuel (1886–1963)’, in Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 14 (1996, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 22 Cedric Flower, ‘Moore, John Drummond (1888–1958)’, in Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 10 (1986, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 23 Letter from Alfred Hook to Karl Langer, dated 6 July 1939, which references another

letter written on Langer’s behalf to the secretary of an unidentified commission, possibly the Forestry Commission of NSW, organizer of a Perfect Homes exhibition in Sydney. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 24 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 25 Decoration and Glass, ‘Last Year – to Australia in General and the Building Trade in

Particular – Marked a Return to Activity Approaching that of Boom Times. It Held Out that a Normal Prosperity is Possible of Achievement in the Near Future’, Editorial, 1 January 1937, 7. 26 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 27 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. The New South

Wales (NSW) Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) had published a notice that ‘a few architects, refugees from Austria, some with excellent qualifications, are seeking employment in Sydney’: Architecture, 1 December 1938, 296. No job advertisement could be found in the Brisbane or Sydney newspapers. 28 J.M. Freeland, The Making of a Profession, Sydney, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1971.

Lucas also represented the RAIA on the Board of Architects of Queensland. 29 H.M. Cook & W.J.E. Kerrison formed in 1939 as successor to Hall & Cook following

F.R. Hall’s death. 30 The first designed by Melbourne architect L.M. Perrott was built in Toowoomba in

1937. 31 Ian Sinnamon, ‘Cummings, Robert Percy (1900–1989)’, in Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 17 (2007, online 2007), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 32 Charles Rowe, Robert Percy Cummings and the Story of Queensland Architecture,

MArch thesis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 2011, 50. 33 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982. 34 Established by the Board of Architects of NSW, one each for graduates from the

University of Sydney and the Sydney Technical College. The University of Sydney also

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offered travelling scholarships, including the Wentworth Scholarship, which was won in 1926 by Raymond McGrath. See Sydney Morning Herald, 13 December 1923, 10 and Construction & Local Government Journal, 28 April 1926, 15 respectively 35 The Wattle Day League funded a scholarship for sculpture won by Daphne Mayo in

1914. In 1923, the League funded the scholarship won by Cummings. Mayo and Cummings’ experiences were comparable with little exposure to modernism at conservative schools in London and Rome. 36 Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture, trans. Frederick Etchells, London:

Architectural Press, 1927/1946, 161. 37 See Donald Watson and Judith McKay, A Directory of Queensland Architects to 1940,

Fryer Memorial Library Occasional Publication no. 5, St. Lucia, QLD: The University of Queensland Library, 1984. 38 Brisbane Courier, ‘Building Art: Trend in Europe’, 14 March 1933, 12. Steering Wheel,

‘Longland’s JG Drake residence, Clayfield’, March 1938, 43; based on Bruno Taut’s Onkel-Toms-Hütte, Berlin (1926). 39 Judy Rechner, ‘Brisbane’s Interwar House Styles and Who was Responsible?, in John

Macarthur and Antony Moulis (eds.), Additions to Architectural History, Proceedings of the 19th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Brisbane, QLD, 2002. 40 The State Advances Corporation (SAC) offered low-cost mortgages from 1909,

resulting in 60.82% of Queensland houses being owner-occupied in 1928. By 1940, when the population was 335,000, 11,603 SAC houses had been built in Brisbane. The population of Vienna in 1938 was around 1.9 million for whom 64,000 dwellings had been constructed. See Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919–1934, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. 41 See WD 11697, Workers Dwellings and Workers Homes, Brisbane, State Advances

Corporation, 1926, 44. 42 Such as in the work of Nellie McCredie: Kirsty Voltz, Architecture as an Act of Service:

Reframing the Careers of Women Architects Working for the Queensland Public Service in the Interwar Period’, in Victoria Jackson Wyatt, Andrew Leach and Lee Stickells (eds.), Distance Looks Back, Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Sydney, NSW (10–13 July 2019), not yet published. 43 39 Barlow Street, Clayfield (demolished) illustrated in an article written by

Cummings under the pseudonym Murato, ‘Home Building Ideals’, Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 March 1936, 15. See Catalogue No: 1932/04, Margaret Lawrence-Drew, Lucas & Cummings Architects, BArch thesis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1986, 145. 44 See Lindsay Little’s own home, Decoration & Glass, March 1939, 44; John Brogan’s

Wyldefel Gardens, Decoration & Glass, July 1936, 8–11. Masonry examples in Brisbane include D.W.F. Robert’s Chateau Nous, Ascot (1937), E.J.A. Weller’s Hampton Court (1938) and houses of J.R.C. Blanche in the late 1930s. 45 The change was incremental with gabled bungalows giving way to gabled-hipped (or

less often hipped-gabled) roofs by 1935 (Designs of Dwellings, Brisbane: State Advances Corporation, 27, 32: Designs No. 51 and 56). 46 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 28 May 1935, 10.

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47 See Chapter 8. Attempts to attribute to Langer other work of Cook & Kerrison in the

Karl Langer Collection (UQFL158 and John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83) have been unsuccessful. 48 Braeside, Hillside Crescent (architect: C.H. Griffin, 1935). 49 Application for admission of friend or relative to Australia, 1 August 1939. NAA ID

7918340. The Langers’ application for a visa for Anna Fröschel to enter Australia was not processed until September and subsequently refused without notifying the Langers. In March 1940, Gertrude wrote a sad letter to her mother, which was forwarded through the Swiss Consul but assessed as Trading with the Enemy and not approved until the end of August 1940, NAA ID 6922426. Two years later, Anna Fröschel was deported in one of the last transports of Jews from Vienna. Ten days later, she died on 3 October 1942 at Theresienstadt, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Gertrude mistakenly thought she died on 25 September 1943, NAA ID192222. Information from Tina Macht, University of Queensland Library. 50 11 October 1939 at Hamilton Police Station, Karl and Gertrude Langer, Naturalisation

Application, NAA ID 7769189. 51 Previously forwarded from Vienna by Karl’s father. 52 Ellesmere, Coronation Drive. See Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Speaking Horizontally: What is

this “Modernism”?’ 17 November 1936, 10. 53 Telegraph (Brisbane), 13 December 1939, 3. 54 Before 4 April 1940 when John Moore referred to Langer’s bad news. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 55 Russell’s house (Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of

Queensland (SLQ), R83, Roll 34/5) was named Jimbour Cottage after his well-known homestead near Dalby. It was the only Queensland house published in a review of Australian houses in the Architectural Review, vol. 104 (July 1948), 34–39. The Gasking residence (R83, Roll 11/5, SLQ) was also published: Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Unusual Home Designing’, 14 August 1942, 5. The Gaskings assisted Langer with his use of English in publication of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944), 12. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54. 56 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Architectural Award to Queen Street Building’, 7 October 1941, 10. 57 Karl Langer, Staff card, 15 May 1941–20 February 1946, Queensland Rail Records

Management, Queensland State Archives. 58 Letter, Karl Langer to Johannes Schreiner, to Johannes Schreiner, dated 19 October

1947. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 59 This was discussed in Brisbane with Bunning who later wrote: ‘I would feel like

advising you to accept any definite offer rather than wait on the possibility of an opening in this Department’, 12 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 60 15 September 1943, noted in letter from Karl Langer to Alfred Hook, dated 17

September 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 61 According to Robin Boyd, Homes in the Sun established Bunning as ‘the best known

architectural publicist in the country’. Peter Spearritt, ‘Bunning, Walter Ralston (1912–1977)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 13 (1993, online 2006), National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.

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62 Letter, 24 October 43, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 63 The National Archives of Australia (19 June 2019) was unable to find Langer’s

submission but located Name and Subject index cards to general correspondence (HC Series) including an undated card: Karl Langer, Toowong, Brisbane: re problems of tropical and sub-tropical housing, HC/22, but the related correspondence has not survived, NAA ID 3049944. A copy of HC/22 survives in Langer’s papers. 64 Letter, 1 July 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 65 Neither dated nor attributed to Bunning. 66 Harry Margalit, ‘Walter Bunning’, in Philip Goad and Julie Willis (eds.), The

Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 122–123; Walter Bunning, The Post-War Home, Sydney, NSW: Modern Architecture Research Society (NSW), undated and Homes in the Sun, Sydney, NSW: W.J. Nesbit, 1945. 67 Likely borrowings in Bunning’s ‘Suntrap house’ include people sunbaking, children

playing in a sandpit, the trees and hedges. Bunning’s plan would be climatically improved by being reversed on its north-south axis to give morning sun to the courtyard and protection from winter winds. 68 Letter from Douglas H.K. Lee to Karl Langer, dated 24 September 1943, Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 69 Langer came close to realising his ideas at Soldier’s Hill, a suburban subdivision at

Mt Isa. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 18/3. 70 It is not known if a CHC sponsored housing competition in 1944 eventuated (NAA ID

245820 and 245930) but near the end of the war several newspapers sponsored competitions for post-war houses. It is not known if Langer entered any of these. Other competitions which he entered for included the stadium for the 1956 Olympics, the Sydney Opera House, Great Hall for the University of Queensland and Public Offices, Perth. 71 Douglas H.K. Lee, ‘Physiological Principles for Tropical Housing with Especial

Reference to Queensland’, University of Queensland Department of Physiology Papers, vol. 1 no. 8 (May 1944) and Karl Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54. 72 In the architectural section: 1. A.H.A. Hanson and L.W. Jackson; 2. Peddle Thorpe &

Walker; 3. T.E. Mahoney (Argus, 14 June 1944, 2). The independent panel of assessors were not identified. See also Construction, vol. 14 (1949), 3–4. 73 Letter from Leslie Wilkinson to Karl Langer, dated 7 July 1944. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 74 Andrew Wilson, ‘Karl Langer’s Subtropical Housing: Greenbelt Communities and

Usonian Variations’, Green Fields, Brown Fields, New Fields: Proceedings of the 10th Australasian Urban History, Planning History Conference, Melbourne (7–10 February 2010), 622–632. 75 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Folder acc190226. 76 Karl Langer would not have seen it until the 1920s: Anthony Alofsin, Frank Lloyd

Wright – The Lost Years, 1910–1922: A Study of Influence, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

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77 H. Allen Brooks, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright and the Wasmuth Drawings’, The Art Bulletin,

vol. 48, no. 2 (June 1966), 199. 78 Courier-Mail and Sunday-Mail housing competition; ‘D.S. Prangley, 1st Prize in

Class B’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 3 June 1945, 4. 79 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘State Advances Architect’s Win’, 3 June 1945, 4. 80 Based in this case on plate 1 in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’. 81 Information from the architect, Jeremy Salmon, son of Frank Salmon, 21 July

2018. 82 What is similar between Wright’s Usonian houses and Langer’s sub-tropical houses are

the approximate roof and ceiling levels. In the Usonian houses with their stepped flat roofs, the lowest roof is at door head height (as are the boxed eaves of Langer’s houses); the upper roof level of Wright’s houses (i.e. the main ceiling level) is like Langer’s raised 18 inches or so. Superimposing a flat roof on Langer’s sub-tropical plans increases the external wall area by 15% and reduces shading. 83 William Atkinson, ‘The Orientation of Buildings and of Streets in Relation to

Sunlight’, Technology Quarterly and Proceedings of the Society of Arts, Boston, MA (September 1905), 204–224; Atkinson, The Orientation of Buildings: Or, Planning for Sunlight, New York: Wiley, 1912; Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909, 312–313. 84 H.B. Molesworth, Obstruction to Light, London: E&FN Spon, 1902. 85 C.H. Cooper, ‘Sunshine in Relation to the Dwelling’, Journal of the Surveyors Institute,

vol. 46 (1919), 260; and J. Julian, ‘Sunshine in Relation to the Dwelling’, Journal of the Institute of Municipal and County Engineers, vol. 46 (1919), 331. P.J. Waldram, ‘The Natural and Artificial Lighting of Buildings’, Royal Institute of British Architects Journal, vol. 32, no. 13 (9 May 1925), 405–426, 445-46 has a discussion in Appendix III, 423–436 on the generation and use of sun-paths. Waldram gave his name to diagrams used to assess the impact of obstructions on sunlight penetration. 86 L. Küttner, ‘Shadow Curves and Insolation Diagram’, Zentralblatt der Bauverwaltung,

vol. 50 (1930), 281. Langer may have known Küttner’s work but neither text is included in his short bibliography. 87 Gnomonic projection Sun Chart, Karl Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, plate 9 STH. 88 Siegfried Giedion, Rationelle Bebauungsweisen [Rational development methods],

Brussels: CIAM, 1931. Reviewed in Architectural Record, vol. 70, no. 6 (December 1931), 454; also illustrated in Giedion, Walter Gropius: Work and Teamwork, New York: Reinhold, 1954, 204, Diagrams 255–257. Roman Pavlyshyn, who worked for Langer 1949–51, recalled being quizzed in 1946 at Darmstadt about sun-angles by his professor, Ernest Neufert (1900–1986). Neufert studied at the Bauhaus and later collaborated with Gropius on the Dessau buildings. 89 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Entry No. 142903, Box #44. 90 Le Corbusier, The Athens Charter, Athens: CIAM, 1933. 91 RIBA Joint Committee on the Orientation of Buildings. The Orientation of Buildings,

London: RIBA, 1933. 92 Howard T. Fisher, ‘A Rapid Method for Determining Sunlight on Buildings’,

Architectural Record, vol. 70, no. 12 (December 1931), 445–454.

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93 Daniel A. Barber, A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the

Cold War, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 23. 94 James Ford and Katherine Morrow Ford, The Modern House in America, New York:

Architectural Book Publishing, 1946, 64–65. 95 Orientation for Sunshine’, Architectural Forum, vol. 68, no. 6 (June 1938), 20–22. The

cotangent sun-path chart was adopted by the Californian architect Whitney Smith (c. 1911–2002), who was involved with the Californian Case Study Houses after the Second World War See Anthony Denzer, Solar House History blog. 96 Antonin Raymond, Architectural Details, New York: The Architectural Forum, 1938. 97 Terence Williamson, ‘Building and Construction Research’, in Philip Goad and Julie

Willis (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 115–116. 98 R.O. Phillips, Sunshine and Shade in Australasia, Technical Study #23, Sydney, NSW:

Commonwealth Experimental Building Station (published as a book by the Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, ACT, 1950). 99 Langer (and C.W.T. Fulton) applied for a position in the CEBS, probably as

advertised in the Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 22 April 1944, 6. Information from CEBS employment records, National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 244471, last consulted 26 August 2019. 100 Attributed to Eddie Hayes, quoted in Alice Hampson, The Fifties in Queensland. Why

Not! Why?, BArch thesis, School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1987 and cited in Douglas Neale, The “Essentials” of the Subtropical House: An Exegesis of the “Modernistic” Town Planning Principles of Dr Karl Langer’, in Harriet Edquist and Héléne Frichot (eds.), Limits, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 2, Melbourne, 2004, footnote 1, 350. 101 Robin Boyd and Kevin Pethebridge, ‘Three Stage Home for Hard-up Newly Weds’, in

The Sun Post-War Homes: Architects’ Competition Designs, Melbourne, VIC: Lawrence Kay, 1945, 36–37. It seems possible that Boyd and Pethebridge may have known ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’. In addition to the sandbox, the final stage includes an outdoor shower, even now unusual except at the beach. 102 Letter from Leslie Wilkinson to Karl Langer, dated July 7, 1944. Leslie Wilkinson

wrote ‘Thank you very much for the copy of your work on the sub-tropical house. It is a very interesting and valuable study and the illustrations are delightful’. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158,, Box #36, Folder #3. 103 In the partnership Strnad-Vlach-Frank (Oskar Strnad, Oskar Vlach and Josef Frank).

See Christopher Long, Josef Frank: Life and Work, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2002, plates 53 and 80, pp. 67 and 91. 104 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, entry 124816. 105 When published in Wright’s Wasmuth Portfolio (Berlin: Ernst Wasmuth, 1911),

Mahony’s drawings created great interest in Behrens’ office in 1910. 106 They are described in Andrew Wilson, ‘Karl Langer’s Subtropical Housing’,

Proceedings of the AAANZ Annual Conference, Brisbane (4–6 December 2008). No figures have been found in Langer’s earlier plans. 107 The figures were not used in Langer drawings for the Russell and Gasking houses in

1939–40. A late instance of their use was the Oasis Hotel, 1957 (Karl Langer

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Architectural Plans, R83, Roll29/5, SLQ) where Langer demonstrated sufficient room for folding double sheets. 108 When shown one of Langer’s drawings the humanist English architect Ted Cullinan,

who had used the technique commented, ‘I could have drawn this’; information from Cullinan’s partner Roddy Langmuir but neither Cullinan nor Langmuir could shed any light on the origin of the technique. 109 For example, Leslie Fairweather and Jan A. Sliwa. AJ Metric Handbook, London:

Architectural Press, 1968. 110 Alix Wilkinson, Symbolism and Design in Ancient Egyptian Gardens’, Garden

History, vol. 22, no. 1 (Summer 1994), 1–177. Information from Pedro Guedes. 111 Domus 123, March 1938. 112 Philip L. Goodwin, Brazil Builds: Architecture New and Old 1652–1942, New York:

The Museum of Modern Art, 1943, 176–177. Niemeyer also used people drawn in elevation on some of his plans in Brazil Builds; information from Janina Gosseye. 113 Nationalisation papers, National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 7769189 114 Letter dated 9 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #4. 115 Letters dated 9 April 1944 and 11 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box

#36, Folder #4. 116 In Langer’s papers there are 61 press-clippings about the controversy. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #4. 117 In a letter from Langer to the Editor of the Courier-Mail, Langer explained that he

‘did not state to be the builder of Alexanderplatz in Berlin’ but that he ‘designed the layout of the square and two buildings in the capacity of manager of Professor Peter Behrens’ office in Vienna’; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 10 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box 36. 118 Karl Langer to Chief Engineer of the Queensland Railways, dated 11 April 1944. Karl

Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #3, Folders 3/4. 119 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #4; Telegraph (Brisbane),

9 August 1944. 120 In the Commonwealth Department of Labour and National Service 121 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #4. 122 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Homes Should Suit Climate’, 1 August 1944, 6. 123 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Ainscow: re Reclamation in East Mackay’, 17 August 1944,

2; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘The Langers on Culture and a Civic Centre’, 11 October 1944, 2; and Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Colin Clark on Anticipated Population Growth’, 14 October 1944, 5. 124 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Civic Survey – Planning Mackay for the Future’,

16 November 1944, 2. 125 Karl, letter to Leslie Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #24. 126 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘New Town Plan for Mackay is Completed: Adoption

Proposed by City Council’, 22 May 1945, 2. 127 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Town Plan: Gift to Dr. Langer to be Sought’, 24 July 1945, 2. 128 Naturalisation Certificate, NAA ID 31756549.

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FIGURE 4.1 Karl Langer, competition entry for proposed Sydney Opera House, perspective. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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4 BEND LIKE BAMBOO Always Bounce Back Don Watson and Fiona Gardiner

This chapter outlines Karl Langer’s architectural practice in Brisbane from 1946 until his death in 1969. Identified are Langer’s offices, staff, clients and his teaching. His buildings, town planning and cultural contributions will be discussed in Chapters 6 to 9. As a primary schoolboy and aspiring architect, one of the present authors was introduced to Karl Langer at a concert of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra. His advice was, ‘bend like bamboo, always bounce back’. Langer spoke from his Australian experience then of twenty years and a decade of practice in Brisbane.

Practice in Brisbane Even if Australia was deliberately chosen, Brisbane was an unlikely place for Langer to practise.1 University education came late and occupied temporary premises with Robert Cummings, only recently appointed as the sole, full-time architecture academic at the University of Queensland. Cultural institutions all occupied premises built for other purposes. In the previous fifty years with the exception of the City Hall and partly completed war memorial square and a suburban-sited university, grand plans for new premises including General Post Office(s), Government House, Library Art Gallery and Museum, Roman Catholic Cathedral and Town Plan were unrealised. But despite the First World War and the Depression, the city’s architectural culture was like Langer, resilient. When Langer died thirty years later, much had changed. Brisbane had recovered from the Second World War and prolonged post-war shortages which affected work when he commenced practice. Architecturally these changes were illustrated in Buildings of Queensland,2 produced for Queensland’s Centenary (1959) and more

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FIGURE 4.2 (a) above Colour-coded Austrian paper clips, Job Cards. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #34, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (b) Staff Card, Roman Pawlyszyn, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL 158, Box # 12, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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recently by an exhibition and book, Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945– 1975.3 Buildings of Queensland reflected the 1950s domination of John Hitch, who replaced Langer as the most influential instructor in design from the late 1940s and of James Birrell, Brisbane’s city architect from 1952. Of Langer’s work, only his Lennons Hotels at Broadbeach and Toowoomba were included but overshadowed by David Bell’s less interesting Surfers Paradise Hotel.4 A half-century later in Hot Modernism, this judgement had changed with Langer cited more often than any other architect.5 After starting as a sole practitioner working from home, within a decade Langer’s practice was medium sized with a city office. Apart from employing more European émigrés, his office differed little from those of other local architects. Gertrude provided secretarial support and equipment re-used from Vienna included codedpaper clips for organizing jobs (Figure 4.2). Karl was closely involved, invariably initiating commissions with a client meeting and site visit. Most initial sketch plans were his and he oversaw design development, which included revised or new sketch plans. He drew or completed perspectives, of which there may have been several, sometimes including interiors, but few models are known.6 After a project was documented (sometimes by him), he invariably undertook site supervision. Langer was a generous employer, paying overtime and an annual bonus. Karl Langer’s archive is inexplicably split between the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) and the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library (UQFL).7 Even taken together, the collection is incomplete with culling undertaken by Gertrude. Ian Sinnamon, who envisaged writing a biography, mentioned to Fryer Library’s manager, Simon Farley and Fiona Gardiner aspects of Karl’s career no longer evident, including plans with swastikas (apparently mandatory in Viennese architectural practice after March 1938), as well as xenophobia in Queensland.

Langer’s offices After resigning from Queensland Railways in February 1946,8 Langer formally commenced practice, working initially from his first-floor flat at Ellesmere. He relocated in April 1947 to 148 Mary St, sub-leasing space occupied by the Sanders Chemical Company, a business owned by an early client, L.J. Saunders.9 Late in 1948, to the amusement of staff, Langer moved to Willard House,10 overlooking the river at 129 North Quay and local headquarters of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. It was also a venue used occasionally by Gertrude Langer for art lectures.11 Langer stayed until 1955 when, with major projects underway, more space was needed and he moved to the first floor of the Isles Love Building, 231 Adelaide St, opposite Anzac Square (Figure 4.3A).12 His final office was 57 Gregory Terrace in inner-suburban Spring Hill, a house with a first-floor flat, on a typical sixteen-perch allotment acquired by Gertrude Langer in late 1957 (Figure 4.3B). After Gertrude’s death in 1984, it was sold and demolished.13

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 4.3 (A) Office 1955–58, Isles Love Building, Adelaide St, Brisbane. Architect: T.R. Hall, 1913. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Negative number: 43927. (B) Office 1958–69, proposed renovations, 57 Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, 1048_2/4, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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Langer’s staff Only rarely were draftsmen identified on Langer’s plans. An exception was Roman Pavlyshyn, who often added his initials to plans he drew in1949–51, including projects at Mackay14 and Brisbane. However, staff are well documented – on staff cards15 and in payroll records. Their involvement is detailed on job cards.16 Identified by the initial letter or abbreviation of their surname, staff were tabulated with Langer an exception, identifying himself as ‘I’, the first person, singular. Chronologically in each column are the hours worked. Some staff stayed so short a time as to not be identified.17 Miss (Margaret) Crane, ex Second World War army truck driver, took over as secretary in March 1952.18 Langer’s staff was a mix of Australians and migrants who arrived following the Second World War or later upheavals, from the Ukraine, Latvia, Denmark, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Lithuania and Switzerland, some by way of Denmark, Austria, or Germany. A few were British. Australians were mostly students, but occasionally experienced architects employed for particular duties.19 The relevant years appear in square brackets after their name. The first was an unpaid volunteer for work experience – architect John D. Moore’s son, Tony [1947], whose architectural education had been interrupted by war service. He was succeeded by Langer’s first employee, Frank Salmon [1947–49] who registered as an architect in March 1946 (soon after Langer) but who didn’t complete his part-time DipArch (UQ) course until November 1947. Salmon left to study town planning in Melbourne. A second student was Ted Chuter [1948],20 son of C.E. Chuter,21 former director of local government and a strong campaigner for town planning, who laudably appraised Langer for the Queensland Government in 194422 and later advocated Langer’s appointment to upgrade Mackay’s town plan. In 1949, Salmon was joined by the first of many Europeans, Ukrainian-born Roman Pavlyshyn [1949–51] who trained in Vienna during the war. He had almost finished his course when the invading Red Army forced him to flee to Darmstadt where Pavlyshyn married and completed his degree at the reopened University of Technology while working at Aschaffenburg. In 1948, they migrated to Queensland to join his in-laws at Mackay where he learned of Langer’s town plan and civic projects. For two years he was Langer’s very useful chief draftsman before he joined the Commonwealth and later Queensland Works Department.23 Despite studying at Darmstadt with Ernst Neufert, a Bauhaus veteran who had met Frank Lloyd Wright, Pavlyshyn credited Langer with all he knew of modernism. Another Ukrainian was Jarko Burbello [1954–55] who, when displaced by the German invasion, completed his architectural education in Berlin followed by a master’s degree in Munich, both during the war. He migrated to Australia in 1948 and worked for the Commonwealth in Darwin before moving to Brisbane to work on Lennons Hotels, with – James Birrell claims implausibly – a promise of a

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partnership.24 When one wasn’t forthcoming, Burbello moved to New York. Like Burbello, the Latvian Juris Rubis [1955–59] was studying architecture when conscripted for the German Army, later winning an Iron Cross. As a refugee, he served as a Latvian guard for imprisoned Nazis including Albert Speer, before migrating to Queensland. After completing his architectural education Rubis worked for Langer, including the important commissions of the Chen house and Main Roads Building. Another Latvian, Elmar Krams [1955] worked post-war in Demark before emigrating. Also from Denmark was Carl Hammerschmidt [1954], who later taught at the University of Melbourne. From Czechoslovakia were Jiri Svoboda [1956–57], Otakar Koenig [1959–61] and Jan Driml [1959–61]. Svoboda, a pianist, married Brisbane violinist Margaret Foley, daughter of a government minister, T.A. Foley, Minister for Lands and Irrigation. After the communist coup of 1948, Koenig joined the French Foreign Legion, serving in Algeria and Vietnam before obtaining citizenship in France where he may have trained as an architect. Driml also escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1949. George Muller [1960–65] was Swiss. Benjamin Kimeklis [1959–62], who was Lithuanian, had previously worked for H.S. Macdonald. Johannes Bouma [1966–69], from the Netherlands, had trained in New Zealand. Gwyn Brooks [1954–56], Leslie Allen [1955] and Dan Kelvey [1955–56] were among the few British employees who, like Australian employees, mostly stayed a shorter time. They included:25 Hugh Beck [1951], who briefly replaced Pavlyshyn; Victor Amos [1951–53], who stayed longer and had been articled to J.P. Donoghue when he was in partnership with Charles Fulton – their pre-war designs including the Rockhampton Town Hall, Nudgee Junior College and Masel residence, Stanthorpe, reflecting Fulton’s familiarity with Dudok’s work at Hilversum; and Kennedy Quinlem [1952], a graduate of Sydney University and admirer of Harry Seidler. Harry Lawrence [1953–54], Cyril Barnes [1953–54], Brian Hackett [1955] and Basil Sutton [1958] were experienced employees who wrote specifications. Colin Tesch worked casually from 1954. Most students stayed longer.26 Barry Walduck [1950–55] joined as a first year, remaining for almost his entire part-time architecture course.27 Robin Edmiston [1955–57] joined as a fourth year from Ford Hutton & Newell, attracted by ‘the European flavour of Karl’s work’.28 Peter von Selkey [1958–67], the Hungarianborn son of refugees who joined as a second year and Gary Yzelman [?–1969], born in Malaysia, were the longest serving employees. Other students included Michael Kearney [1955–59], Gregory Eastman [1955–58] – a veteran of the RAAF who registered in 1958 – Alan Starkey [1963–66], George Muller’s son Kurt [1960–65], Fergus Johnston [1964–65], Robyn Hesse [1965–69] and Margaret West [1964–66], daughter of Laurie West, a well-known client. Despite exercising control, Langer gave staff latitude, especially in the cases of Pavlyshyn, Burbello and Rubis. Langer’s Sugar Research Station29 at Mackay may be an instance. Drawn by Pavlyshyn, its similarity to Lucas and Cummings’ First

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Church of Christ Scientist (1939) close upstream from Langer’s office in Willard House, is understandable as Pavlyshyn’s design but inexplicable if Langer’s work. With Langer’s office busy, it was a pragmatic solution. Even students were given opportunities as Robin Edmiston remembered being given total responsibility for a prominent screen at Lennons Broadbeach.30 Until the large projects of the mid-1950s, Langer worked without consultants. Like most architects of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, he designed all aspects of his work. However, a German-born mining and structural engineer, Henry Gustav Strauss, regularly provided informal structural input31 and surveys. Strauss trained at Dortmund, Bochum and Berlin before migrating to Tasmania c. 1909 where he was associated with early concrete structures. He moved to Queensland before the First World War (when he may have been interned32). After the war, Strauss was associated with innovative engineer A.E.H. Frew on Brisbane’s Grey St Bridge (and a sewerage scheme for Mackay in 1933). Langer’s final job was dated 15 October 1969, the day before he died. After his death, the practice closed.33 There were no partners and no succession plan. Langer wasn’t necessarily against partnership. In 1945, an Architects Group (which Langer likened to Tecton) was formed in Brisbane. The participants (Jacobsohn, Lucas, R.J. and R.W. Voller and Colin Trapp, with Cummings an associate) assumed that Langer would be a member, but he explained to J.D. Moore: ‘Considering that you “marry” your partners including their wives, I think it will be a pretty big family and as I know only two of them well, I am a bit scared’.34 Pavlyshyn, Burbello and Rubis aspired to a partnership but when not forthcoming moved on. The Ukrainians were conflicted in the Second World War. After their country was taken over by the Russians, they supported the Germans as liberators in 1941. The circumstances in Latvia for Rubis were similar. If not Karl, then Gertrude may have found their wartime allegiances unacceptable as family members.

Langer’s clients Even with fluctuating economic conditions, Langer was not lacking clients. He was charming, sociable and cultured, often returning from trips with commissions from new clients who shared his background or artistic aspirations, or alternatively, the usefulness of his ideas and graphic talents. Commissions from the latter ranged from S.L. Luker, chief planner of the Cumberland County Council who required assistance in developing and illustrating ideas for the Sydney region’s first plan; to others which were speculative and often did not eventuate. Such a commission was a restaurant/nightclub (1947) from Robert Hecht, a Czechoslovak who migrated to Australia in 1937 (Figure 4.4).35 Commissions often led to further work, sometimes for the same client or member of their family. In 1946, Langer designed a house at Ascot for Gustav Levi who in 1939 had been a German refugee.36 For

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FIGURE 4.4 Karl Langer, nightclub for Robert Hecht, Blue Mountains, NSW, 1947. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 27/2.

Levi’s son Dr Rudolf Levy, Langer designed a surgery and extensions to a residence at Southport in 1947 and a house at Tambourine,37 as well as additions to flats at Auchenflower. A late project, a house for an L. Levy may have been designed for the next generation. Monte Gorton, son of a grazier, picture theatre proprietor and developer, commissioned a house at Bowen, work at the Tivoli Theatre, Brisbane and flats at Toowong, Taringa, St. Lucia and Surfers Paradise.38 As time passed, Langer’s client base stabilized with work from the recently-arrived, the educated and cultural elite (especially women) and recurring institutional clients, but seldom from the Brisbane establishment. Important clients were Ian Woods, mayor of Mackay; L.J. Sanders, a businessman; J.A. Watt, manager of Lennons Hotel (Figure 4.5); the Queensland Government; and the Lutheran Church.

Ian Wood: Mayor of Mackay39 The contrast between the backgrounds of Langer and Ian Wood was extreme. Brought up by a sole parent, Wood started work aged twelve, furthering his education through correspondence courses. In business, Wood developed the local travel industry and was a local politician, elected an alderman in 1927 and serving on the Mackay City Council for twenty-seven years, fifteen of them as mayor. With

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FIGURE 4.5 Karl Langer, flats for J.A. Watt, Newmarket, 1954. Sketch by Barry J. Walduck. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland R83, Roll 12/13.

a lean administration, he built the aerodrome, beautified the city and pioneered town planning in Queensland. As founding chair of Mackay Tours Ltd, he established the first resort facilities on Lindeman Island (1930) and secured gazettal of Eungella National Park (1940). While Langer was still employed in the Railways Department, Wood at the suggestion of C.E. Chuter, director of local government, arranged that Langer upgrade Mackay’s town plan (see Chapter 7). Although Langer’s plan received community support, opposition councillors collaborated with their Labor colleagues in state government to block its adoption.40 With Wood’s support, Langer undertook projects as the tourist industry transitioned from camping or staying in guesthouses or flats, to purpose-built resorts (Figure 4.6). Often Langer’s tourist projects were speculative ventures by landowners, leasees, or prospective leasees, seeking sites and capital for development. Attracted by the potential of stunning sites, Langer assumed he would be paid but enthusiastic site visits, sketch plans and perspectives were often followed by sporadic communications, then silence and accounts rendered but often unpaid. At Rabbit Island in the Newry Group north of Mackay, Langer’s client was the Hon. A.E. Armstrong MLC, former grazier and member of the NSW Parliament. Plans to mine coal or use Port Newry for Mackay’s new harbour did not eventuate. Between 1959 and 1962, Langer worked 245 hours on the project, with staff

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FIGURE 4.6 Karl Langer, tourist resort on Rabbit Island, 1960. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, 1099/7, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

another sixty. Armstrong used Langer’s design to obtain a special lease in January 1961, conditional on spending £50,000 on a tourist resort within five years.41 Amongst Langer’s perspectives for Rabbit Island was a rendering of hutlike, Polynesian cabins, their scale miniaturized by extending the deck past both sides of the room behind and dropping the roof lower.42 In February 1966, when the lease was surrendered, Langer submitted an account for $1,751.61. A year later the account had not been paid.43 Amongst Langer’s plans is a note: ‘Didn’t pay. Ignored requests, so long ago no possibility of payment. Waste bin indicated’.44 At least Armstrong did not threaten to kill Langer as he did another business associate.45

Louis Joseph Sanders: Sanders Chemical Co. In 1946, with continuing restrictions on private building, an invitation to dine with L.J. Sanders, chemical engineer, developer, church leader and social reformer was a breakthrough for Langer. Over five years he carried out five projects for the Sanders Chemical Co. and its subsidiaries. To circumvent restrictions on new buildings, all

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were renovations. In the central business district (CBD), Langer worked on Sanders’ office at 148 Mary St (where Langer soon relocated his office) and a city service station.46 Other projects were in the Fortitude Valley, flood-free land northeast of the CBD, adjacent to Petrie Bight which had been considered for a new civic centre for Brisbane comprising: a town hall; Centenary Place, a park for the city’s centenary; and a new Roman Catholic Cathedral for which the crypt was built from 1928.47 Nearby for Sanders, Langer renovated three buildings built in the early 1900s: Rhoades House, King Edward Chambers and the former Foy & Gibson department store. On Wickham and Gotha Streets aligned with the cathedral was the first and largest of these projects: the conversion of Rhoades House, a three-storey brick warehouse with a prominent domed turret on its acute angled corner as Sanders’ headquarters.48 In November 1949, Langer removed the dome, cut back the turret and other roof embellishments, raised a later parapet, unified windows with projecting frames and rendered the façade, panelled vertically on the rounded corner. The working drawings were prepared by Roman Pavlyshyn. When finished in 1951, Sanders House was the most modern office building in Brisbane (Figure 4.7A).49 The corner showroom of Ira L. and A.C. Berk, agents for Packard and Renault, was outfitted by Douglas Snelling, then Sydney’s leading retail designer.50 The second Valley project was a renovation of King Edward Chambers51 on Wickham and Duncan Streets for Sanders’ subsidiary, Supermarket.52 Initial sketches were by Langer but working drawings were by Pavlyshyn. The proposed ground floor was a sophisticated food market – a half century ahead of comparable developments. The Supermarket Centre survives greatly altered in Brisbane’s Chinatown (Figure 4.7B). An even larger shopping centre was envisaged in the third of Langer’s Valley projects, the conversion of Foy & Gibson (1902),53 a department store in Wickham St that closed in 1931. In 1936, the basement was converted for a cinema.54 Sanders’ intended major supermarket at street level was unrealized, with the ground floor sub-divided as an arcade with offices on the upper floors.55 The success of Saunders’ real estate ventures was short-lived.

James Alexander Watt: Lennons Hotels When Langer introduced job numbers in 1954, #1001 was for flats for J.A. Watt56 but the incentive to number jobs resulted from an influx of other commissions from Watts as manager of Lennons Hotel (Jobs #1005–7). Lennons had long been Brisbane’s leading hotel, its success guaranteed by being opposite the Supreme Court. Twice re-built,57 when it reopened in 1941 Lennons was amongst the most modern hotels in Australia.58 After ownership reverted to the financier, Lennons was taken over in 1947 with Watt as manager. Subsequently, Watt commissioned substantial additions and alterations as well as new hotels at Broadbeach and

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 4.7 (A) Karl Langer, Sanders House, 1949. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (B) Karl Langer, supermarket centre, 1950. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 33/1.

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Toowoomba (see Chapter 8), which are among Langer’s best-known works, a country house at Buderim and his previously mentioned flats. Of them, only the hotel at Toowoomba survives, though unrecognizable. Watt’s flats (1954),59 like Langer’s multiple dwellings, were low density, low cost and unconventional. As a distant echo of Red Vienna’s super-blocks, the site sloping to the south with a wide northern frontage was developed with two linear, single-storey blocks of two-bedroom flats, set longitudinally near the side boundaries, separated by a raised, shared courtyard. Each block had inwards sloping skillion roofs. Enclosing the courtyard and connecting the blocks was a veranda across the street façade, the opposing skillion roofs extended to form a contemporary butterfly roof; pedestrian and vehicle access was by a narrow loop drive with garages below on the southern side.

Lutheran Church: Churches and schools Moreton Bay’s first free settlers were Lutheran missionaries60 and until the First World War, Germans were the largest non-British group of settlers in Queensland. With the rise of National Socialism, German migration revived in the late 1930s, outnumbering all other sources and including Langer, a non-practising Roman Catholic. His association with the Lutheran Church was cultural not religious but as a loyal client over his entire Queensland career, the Church was rewarded with memorable churches at Ipswich and Bundaberg,61 proposed and realized school buildings at St. Peter’s, Brisbane and Concordia College, Toowoomba and other buildings such as a manse at Southport. Residential colleges at the University of Queensland’s campus were built with government subsidies, most by religious denominations. In October 1965, the Lutheran Church anticipated opening a college in 1968 but their approach was rejected by the Co-ordinator General,62 the University’s construction authority, in contrast to their encouragement of other applications. This reflected their also denying Langer, the Church’s preferred architect, a campus commission.

Queensland Government: Housing Commission/Works and Main Roads Departments and Co-ordinator-General Langer’s relationship with the government was irreparably damaged by their xenophobic and anti-intellectual action in 1944 to thwart his appointment to the Brisbane City Council (see Chapter 3). After the war, a rigid bureaucracy dominated by entrenched day-labour staff was overseen by a Labor government, in power since 1932, but by then lacking ideas or direction. The originally

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innovative State Advances Corporation, re-constituted after the Second World War as the Queensland Housing Commission, pragmatically resolved the housing shortage by prefabricating houses in Europe to local pre-war designs. Ideas raised in Langer’s ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ were ignored. After Charles Chuter retired as director of local government, Langer’s ambitious plans at Mackay were obstructed.63 The Works Department was no better, as Roman Pavlyshyn found when he was co-opted from the Commonwealth to resolve development of the Supreme Court in 1958.64 E.J.A. Weller, the former government architect, was by then sidelined, his activities largely limited to extending the State Library for the state’s centenary in 1959. A late project for Langer was a teachers training college at Kedron (1967), which conformed to current practice in the Works Department whereby a sketch design prepared internally was documented by an architect in private practice.65 In charge of the Schools Branch was architect/planner Frank Costello, who came highly regarded to Brisbane in April 1941 as city architect. His role in Langer’s thwarted appointment in 1944 is unknown. With some autonomy within government, a bureaucratic exception was the Main Roads Department, an informed and ambitious technocracy whose coffers overflowed from rapidly increasing motor vehicle registrations. Seeking new headquarters for their increasing staff and first main-frame computer, they by-passed the Works Department, going straight to Langer for appropriately modern premises. But for their temerity, Langer paid a price. The project soured with interference from the Works Department, prolonged reworking of the design and an economic downtown which saw it first deferred then supervision taken out of his hands.66 Despite the outcome being inferior to what it would have been, the building was heritage listed before it was substantially altered. As designed by Sydney architects Hennessy & Hennessy, the University of Queensland was sandstone-clad with the main Forgan Smith Building as the diameter of dual semi-circular rings of buildings. Following his full-time appointment in 1937, Robert Cummings provided architectural advice to the University’s Buildings and Grounds Committee and the Queensland Government’s Co-ordinator General as construction authority. The inner ring was committed before and soon after the war, before Hennessy & Hennessy’s master plan was abandoned. In the 1950s, the architecture department under Cummings functioned also as University architect’s office. Some buildings were designed and documented in-house, with private architects commissioned for buildings built south and west of, but unrelated to, the original core. Undeservedly, Langer was commissioned for neither an academic building nor updating the master plan. When James Birrell was appointed University Architect in 1961, the original clarity of the campus had been lost.

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Architectural competitions Langer was an unsuccessful entrant to major Australian architectural competitions, spending long hours of his own time and paying staff, including overtime. The judges were not always wrong but, in some instances, Langer deserved a better outcome. He was less interested in formal invention for individual buildings (often a necessity to win) than resolving functional problems and designing public places as part of a composed townscape. As discussed in Chapter 3, the Westmead Housing competition (1943)67 usefully demonstrated the form of plans in ‘SubTropical Housing’ and was, as Wilkinson observed, superior to the winner. Of two competitions conducted in 1952 for the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Langer submitted an entry for the stadium68 (which is discussed in Chapter 8) and an unsighted entry for the aquatic centre.69 Langer famously selected the Bennelong Point site for the Sydney Opera House when working for the Cumberland County Council in 1947–48,70 and entered the competition in 1956.71 The massing of his back-to-back design for the main auditoria failed to fully realize the potential of the harbour-front site when compared to Utzon’s side-by-side solution and evocative profile. Dominating Langer’s forecourt, visually and aurally, was an Aeolian harp vibrating in the harbour breezes. The Perth Government Offices competition (1961) must have disappointed Langer, whose submission72 ably met reservations about the winning entries expressed in Cross-Section,73 Melbourne University’s judgemental architectural newsletter (Figure 4.8). His design has a freshness lost in the continual (and then on-going) reworking of his Main Roads Building. If xenophobia persisted in Queensland, Langer’s recognizable drafting style may have worked against him in the University of Queensland’s Great Hall competition in 1963.74 Langer may have been attempting to rectify his being overlooked for a campus commission, although his entry was inferior to Stuart MacIntosh’s winning but ultimately unrealized design. A late and now forgotten competition was for Brisbane’s Roma Street Gardens (c. 1968).75 Despite dying a decade before the New Parliament House competition (Canberra 1979), Langer recommended the chosen site at Capitol Hill, when he rejected sites at Camp Hill and the lakeside as recommended by William Holford.76

Typography Langer trained and worked in Vienna during an ‘heroic period of modern typography’. In Holland, Russia and Germany, graphic design was seen as a new art form for conveying ideas and information.77 His master, Peter Behrens, was a skilful graphic designer who designed several fonts.78 In his practice Langer devoted considerable attention to signage, improvising typefaces, before personally

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(A) FIGURE 4.8 (A, B) Karl Langer, Perth Government Offices, competition entry, 1961. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 16, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

drawing the signage at large scale. Typefaces he used included stencil, serif and sans serif, calligraphic and slab serif faces. From the early 1950s,79 Langer frequently used a lower-case typeface of his own design (Figure 4.9). Comparable to the Viennese sensibility of his fit outs and furnishing, the font might be described as semi-sans serif – a calligraphic nonconnected font, modern but not internationally modern. It may have derived from

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(B) FIGURE 4.8 (Continued).

1920s geometric stencil fonts such as Chichold, designed by German typographer Jan Tschichold. Alternatively, the inspiration may have been the typeface for Pelikan ink bottles with which Langer would have been familiar.80 Pelikan regularly commissioned graphic designers with the relevant version designed by Berlinbased Karl Schulpig and included in advertisements for Pelikan designed in 1925 by El Lissitzky. The typeface is strongly geometric.

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 4.9 (A) Karl Langer, Perc Miller salon for Linda Holm, Albert St, 1953; (B) signage detail. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44.

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Teaching Early in his Australian career, Langer aspired to an academic appointment81 but full-time positions were rare and coveted. In 1940, at the University of Queensland, the only full-time architecture academic was Robert Cummings, who was focused on fulfilling his much-vaunted promise by being appointed inaugural professor of architecture when a separate department eventuated in 1948. Despite Langer’s superior qualifications as the sole Queensland architect with a PhD, an academic appointment did not eventuate, although he successfully taught part-time from 1940 until his death. The complicated reasons include inopportunity, competition, obstruction and possibly xenophobia.82 Langer’s doctorate thesis, The Origins of Concrete Construction (1933),83 was wide-ranging, reflecting the interests of his supervisor, art historian Josef Strzygowski (see Chapter 2). It was illustrated with modern and vernacular structures as varied as Mendelsohn’s Einstein Tower, El Lissitsky’s Wolkenbügel, buildings of the Dogon and the Teepee Gas Station, Lawrence, Kansas, reflecting a wide knowledge of modern architecture but also anticipating the later interests of Austrian contemporary Bernard Rudofsky and possibly Robert Venturi (Figure 4.10). Only after Langer’s death was there a comparable breadth of knowledge at the University of Queensland. From April 1940, Langer was unemployed until in May he was appointed Special Demonstrator in Architecture (part-time)84 in the engineering department on the recommendation of A.S. Hook. Langer’s appointment was renewed for 194185 and in May he also took up a position in the Railways Department while waiting for a more suitable position. In November 1941, he applied for an appointment as lecturer at University College, Auckland.86 With regrets87 Cummings supplied a reference: Since arriving in July 1939 his work as an architect and artist I have utmost regard. During 1940 and 1941 he has been connected with the course in architecture at the University and in that capacity his profound knowledge and his keen personality have been a decided stimulus to the students – fine character, highly cultured and always eager to assist in every way. Should he decide to leave Brisbane he will be greatly missed by the large circle of friends he has made.88 Langer was unsuccessful but was reappointed as Lecturer and Demonstrator in Architecture (part-time) for 1942. However, with most able-bodied young men in war-service, the DipArch course was suspended in March. In response to demand from students, the course was renewed as an architectural atelier in 1943 with Langer reappointed as Special Demonstrator. The fourth to sixth years were restarted in 1944 by which time Langer’s research on sub-tropical housing had

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 4.10 (A–D) Karl Langer, ‘The Origins of Concrete Construction’, 1933, plates 34, 75, 163 and 169. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #40, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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(C)

(D) FIGURE 4.10 (Continued).

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been published.89 In January 1945, Professor Wilkinson advised Langer that a position as Instructor in Architectural Draughtsmanship was available at the University of Sydney90 but the offer for a once longed-for position came too late. By then, working outside office hours, Langer was fully committed to re-planning Mackay, with the prospect of related commissions and other town plans after the war. Despite his much-improved position and the prospect of lower pay and relocation, Langer ‘earnestly considered applying’, his main impulse being ‘that a University career appeals most to me and I think I would do well as a teacher’. Langer had reason to be confident of the latter91 but in his response to Wilkinson, Langer’s foremost reason for applying was: Mr Cummings the main lecturer here (I am part-time) is rather scared about the appreciation I get. I would have liked very much to remove this threat from him.92 By then Cummings had informed Langer that ‘there is no hope of advancement at the University’.93 With this knowledge Cummings’ reference can be reinterpreted as not only complimentary but also an attempt to remove Langer as a rival. Although Cummings was hospitable, in 1940 after Langer commenced teaching, he is not amongst those who commended Langer’s 1943 Housing Commission submission, nor those who congratulated Langer on his publication. In 1947, in a separate architecture faculty, a six-year BArch course was instituted with three years fulltime followed by three years part-time for students from both the Technical College’s diploma and the University’s degree courses, the only difference being that degree students wrote a thesis. For the degree course, additional staff were appointed including Bruce Lucas, Cummings’ partner in practice, upgraded to lecturer (fulltime).94 But Langer’s appointment for 1948 was downgraded to town planning only.95 Cummings was awarded an honorary degree and promoted to senior lecturer in 1948. When the position of professor was advertised in December 1948, neither Langer nor Jacobsohn was shortlisted, but the names of those who applied remains confidential. Cummings was appointed professor of architecture in 1949. Before 1948, Langer taught design and town planning for Years 4–6. Design projects were drawn from the University context (in 1941 a sandstone-clad School of Anatomy) and from Langer’s current interests (in 1941 a boarding school for boys, in 1943 single- and double-storey houses with a capacity for expansion and a town centre). In 1944, Langer attempted to upgrade the architecture course (with subscriptions to contemporary periodicals, a new syllabus for a five-year full-time course and a design project for a School of Architecture and Planning), which may have prompted Cummings’ concern mentioned previously. His examinations included questions relating to theory (difference between Sitte’s ‘closed square’ and modern ‘open planning’) and practice (segregation of traffic, types of crossings). Examination marks in his archive illuminate the subsequent careers of some

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students. In 1950, Langer was also appointed specialist lecturer for town planning in civil engineering. Lectures in town planning in both departments continued through the 1950s and at least in Architecture until 1969. Slow to claim his salary, Langer by 1956 was owed £656, which he donated, less £90, for books on town planning for the Architecture and Engineering Libraries distributed proportionally by the number of lectures he gave. The remaining £90 was spent on 18 Eames moulded plywood DCM chairs for the Architecture Library.96 Langer’s university lectures predate formal courses in planning and he served as first local President of the Australian Planning Institute.97 In September 1952, Langer gave six lectures on landscape architecture,98 the first such course in Queensland. He promoted landscape architecture as a profession and was a founder and chairman (1966–68) of the Queensland Association of Landscape Architects. In 1969, he was appointed part-time to the Queensland Institute of Technology. By then Langer was worn down. He surrendered more control to his staff but continued to document his work99 although mostly it was unpublished. Long relegated to only teaching town planning, his lectures had become repetitious. Langer regularly attended meetings of the RAIA but was not involved in producing the institute publication Buildings of Queensland (1959) and he tired of the Institute never discussing architecture.100 Although co-opted for awards juries during the

FIGURE 4.11 Karl Langer, St. Peter’s School chapel, interior, 1966. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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war, he was sidelined after joining the Institute in 1946. Whether Langer ever entered is not known, but if he did, he was not the only deserving architect whose work was overlooked.101 Langer’s only award was from Architecture and Arts in 1956.102 He devoted increasing time to other interests – music, art, landscape architecture and architectural heritage. In 1969, Langer unexpectedly died. Appropriately, his funeral was held at the Chapel at St. Peter’s Lutheran College, Indooroopilly, which Langer had designed (Figure 4.11). Ironically, however, the tribute was delivered by Gareth Roberts,103 a William Holford acolyte in Canberra, who a year earlier succeeded Cummings as professor. Langer ‘thought he might be able to contribute something’.104 Contribute he did, but how much more his contribution might have been.

Notes 1 Not knowing what their final destination would be, the Langers listed Sydney,

Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 7843263 2 E.J.A. Weller (ed.). Buildings of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD: Royal Australian Institute

of Architects, 1959. 3 John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot

Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015. 4 Weller, Buildings of Queensland, 36–39. 5 Macarthur et al., Hot Modernism, 299; D.W. Neale, ‘The “Essentials” of the Subtropical

House: An Exegesis of the “Modernistic” Town Planning Principles of Dr Karl Langer’, in Harriet Edquist and Héléne Frichot (eds.), Limits, Proceedings of the 21st Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 2, Melbourne, 2004, 346–352; Andrew Wilson, ‘Karl Langer’s Subtropical Housing’, Proceedings of the AAANZ Annual Conference, Brisbane (4–6 December 2008). Reassessment of Langer’s contribution was assisted with several publications by Ian Sinnamon: ‘An Educated Eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 1 (1985), 48–56; ‘Modernism and the Genius Loci: Karl Langer and Gertrude Langer OBE’, in Karl Bittman (ed.), Strauss to Matilda: Viennese in Australia 1938–1988, Leichhardt, NSW: Wenkart Foundation, 1988, 145–160; ‘Landscape with Classical Figures – A German Influence on Queensland’s Architecture’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988, 245–256 ; ‘Karl Langer in Queensland’, Nuts and Bolts, or Berries, Proceedings of the 10th Annual Meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Perth, 1993; ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15 (2000, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 6 For example, models by Frank Salmon of the pool at Mackay, water tower, crematorium;

and an early scheme for Lennons Broadbeach. Their locations are unknown. 7 See Don Watson and Fiona Gardiner, ‘Archive of an Architect: The Karl Langer

Collection’, Fryer Folios, vol. 12, no. 1 (2019), 32–39.

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8 Karl Langer’s staff card lists his resignation on 20 February 1946. Staff card, 15 May

1941–20 February 1946, Queensland Rail Records Management, Queensland State Archives. 9 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Relocation Notice’, 10 May 1947, 4; Lists of Trades &

Professions, Queensland Post Office Directory, 1947. 10 The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), founded in 1883 by Frances

Willard, was the first worldwide women’s organisation. Although curtailing the liquor trade was a primary objective, their interests were wide-ranging. Langer wasn’t a prohibitionist. 11 Gertrude Langer, Lecture ‘On Medieval Art’, Telegraph (Brisbane), 4 April 1949, 16. 12 Robin Edmiston, who was employed by Langer as a student from March 1955 to

May 1957, remembers the office as ‘one rectangle backing on to an entrance corridor and overlooking a narrow lane at the far end. The far wall had steel windows and a full-length bench where the senior draftsmen Jarko Burbello and George Rubis had their boards. At the front was a VIP area – a room for Karl and his secretary Margaret Crane but with a full-length window looking onto the drafting area. We all faced the lane, so our backs were to Karl and Margaret. You always felt she was watching!’ Information provided to the authors from Robin Edmiston, 18 May 2019. 13 Information from Kaye Nardella, Museum of Mapping and Surveying, Brisbane,

15 January 2019 14 Including the Sugar Research Institute (Mackay, 1950). Pavlyshyn’s plans for a

crematorium for Mackay drawn for Langer are in Pavlyshyn’s collection (Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, #110127, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland) and at the State Library of Queensland (Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83/29/1, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland). 15 Staff cards, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #12. It is not known if Langer had

employees in Vienna. 16 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes #34/35. 17 The shortest stay was by Hungarian Bela Jager, who left after one day; others were J.G.

Gilmore, T.A. Bulmer and Agoston von Butjar. 18 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #12. 19 Karl Langer, ‘Advertisement for Architect to Write Specifications’, Courier-Mail

(Brisbane), 5 September 1953, 11. 20 Ted Chuter did well in the DipArch course in 1945–46 but deferred in 1947. After his

father’s death in January 1948, Langer employed him. 21 Doug Tucker, ‘Chuter, Charles Edward (1880–1948)’, Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 13 (1993, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 22 ‘Dr Langer . . . is a cultured and gifted man – one would be justified in saying a rare

man’, cited in Ian Sinnamon, ‘Modernism and the Genius Loci’, 156. 23 Don Watson, ‘Roman Pavlyshyn, Architect: Patriot’, Fryer Folios, vol. 10, no. 1 (2016),

16–19. 24 James Birrell, A Life in Architecture, Brisbane, QLD: University of Queensland Press,

2013, 37.

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25 Others were Henry Roessler (1949), Keith Thomas (1952), Edwin Butt (1954–1955)

and Arthur Hargrave (1955). Staff cards, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158. 26 Students working in their summer vacations were John Uscinski (1960), Ury Stukoff

(1949–1950) and Helen Burke (1957–1958). Staff cards, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158. 27 Barry Walduck, Oral history interview with Bob Riddel and Janina Gosseye, 23 January

2013, Digital Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland. 28 ‘It was uniquely different from the disciplined, somewhat mechanical design emerging

from the UK at the time. His work, though rather heavy, was more sculptured and creative . . . Sketches that I saw in the office, done I assume when a student in Europe, strongly reflected this character’; information given to authors from Robin Edmiston, 9 May 2019. 29 Queensland Heritage Register (QHR) ID 602642; Karl Langer Architectural Plans, SLQ

R83, Rolls 12/11, 26/12 and 36/1. The First Church of Christ Scientist is without precedent in Lucas and Cummings’s work but has similarities to the work of Langer. Given Langer’s friendship in 1939 with both Lucas and Cummings, it seemed possible that Langer may have been involved but the design (dated March 1939) predates Langer’s arrival. Documentation closely followed the approved sketch plan according to Wallace Moorhouse, First Church of Christ Scientist, 18 April 2019. 30 Information from Robin Edmiston, 18 May 2019. 31 Job cards, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes #34/35. Strauss’s role was similar to

that of Hendrik de Jong, a Dutch-trained structural engineer in the Works Department. 32 Second World War Intelligence section case files, National Archives of Australia, ID

332016. 33 Strathpine/Lawnton Scheme, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #60, Job #1231. 34 Karl Langer, Letter to J.D. Moore, dated 17 September 1945. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. Langer did not join the Architects Group. 35 Hecht owned a modern hotel at Ibiza, destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. 36 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 26/5. 37 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 21/3. 38 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, State Library of Queensland, R83, Rolls 41/5, 9/10,

20/10, 26/18, 3/2 and 33/2. 39 Rodney Sullivan, ‘Wood, Ian Alexander Christie (1901–1992)’, Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 19 (2021, online 2021), National Centre of Biography, Australian National University; Ian Wood, interview with Ron Hurst for the Parliament’s oral history project [sound recording]. 40 For example, Daily Mercury (Mackay), 23. December 1947, 2. In 1944, in correcting a

speech by the Minister for Transport, Langer claimed that he was strictly non-political: ‘My profession is the only activity I am interested in’. In responding to the Labor Party’s actions, Langer later supported the Liberal Party, including a £70 donation on 9 December 1965. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 41 Special Lease 25598 (Portion 372 Parish of Ossa). Information from Kaye Nardella,

Museum of Lands Mapping & Surveying. 42 Similar was Langer’s proposed North Mackay civic centre to better relate the hall

portico to single-storey buildings enclosing the plaza. 43 Accounts to Armstrong: 21 April 1966, 7 May 1967: no answer by 28 February 1968.

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44 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job #1099. 45 Parliamentary Debates, 25 February 1969, New South Wales: Legislative Council.

Armstrong was expelled from the NSWLC after being found guilty of having threatened to have a business associate killed, 46 Service Station, Edward and Margaret Streets. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, State

Library of Queensland R83/11/2 47 Hennessy, Hennessy & Co. Work ceased during the Depression but was expected to

resume after the war. An acrimonious court case in 1949 over unpaid fees effectively ended the building ambitions of Archbishop James Duhig, jeopardising the prospects of Sanders’ projects. 48 Rhoades & Co., on the fringe of the Valley’s retail hub, was designed by G.H.M.

Addison in 1903 for a furniture manufacturer. In 1909, Hall & Dods doubled the size along its Gotha Street frontage with matching floor levels but simplified details and a lower parapet. 49 Sanders House has been replaced with a building no larger. 50 Davina Jackson, ‘Douglas Snelling’, in Philip Goad and Julie Willis (eds.), The

Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 637–638. 51 Hall & Dods, 1905. 52 Although Sanders held Australian rights to the name Supermarket and envisaged

developing a chain of them, similar stores were already in operation, such as Brisbane Cash & Carry (BCC). 53 Foy & Gibson, architect William Pitt (Sydney) in association with Addison & Corrie;

extended by H.W. Atkinson. 54 Rex Cinema, architect A.W.F. Bligh. 55 When James Birrell commenced private practice in 1966, his office was in the Rex

Building. The ceiling shown in a photograph probably dates from Langer’s renovation: Andrew Wilson and John Macarthur (eds.), Birrell: Work from the Office of James Birrell, Melbourne, VIC: NMBW Publications, 1997, 98. The building was destroyed by fire c. 1974. 56 Not to be confused with James Arthur Watt, Curator of Queensland Art Gallery. 57 In 1883–84 (F.D.G. Stanley) and 1940 (Emil Sodersteen). After high tenders, a storey

and rooftop swimming pool and tennis courts were deleted. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Jobs #1003–5, #Item 49. 58 In 1942, Lennons was selected as residence of General Douglas MacArthur, Allied

commander in the South-West Pacific. 59 Karl Langer, Architectural Plans, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 12/13. The site

was redeveloped in 2014: 10 Dunkirk St, Enoggera, BCC, Application #A003691375 60 R.P. Cummings designed a monument (1938, centenary of their arrival), Queensland

Heritage Register, ID 601926 61 And at least a design for a Lutheran Church at Glenarbon. Karl Langer Architectural

Plans, State Library of Queensland R83, Roll 12/8. 62 Co-ordinator-General correspondence, dated 1 October1965, proposed Lutheran

College, Queensland State Archives, ID 2281810.

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63 Ian Wood, interview with Ron Hurst for the Parliament’s oral history project. 64 Pavlyshyn’s plans were blocked by a reactionary judiciary; see Watson, ‘Roman

Pavlyshyn, Architect: Patriot’, 19. 65 In collaboration with recent graduate Ury Stukoff, who worked for Langer before his

architectural education. 66 Birrell, A Life in Architecture, 38. Birrell wrote that in response to assertions from

consultants that Langer’s design was incapable of accommodating the necessary services, Colin Tesch was appointed to ‘document’ the Main Roads Building. This is not the case. Langer documented the building but Tesch was commissioned for supervision. 67 Karl Langer plans, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, acc190226. 68 Karl Langer, entry 26, Sporting Arena for XVI Olympiad Stadium, Royal Parade and

Carlton St. Melbourne, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Folder Misc. 13. 69 Langer, Amos and Walduck worked on the entry in December 1952. Job cards, Karl

Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes 34/35. 70 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11. 71 See the detailed set of competition drawings at: Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158,

Misc. 15. 72 The terraced plaza seems indebted to Otto Wagner. arl Langer Collection, UQFL158,

Misc. 16. 73 Cross-Section illustrated and commented on the results: ‘On face value, the standard

of the winners is not very high, the presentations are weak and the proposed longrange development of all three are monotonous, dull and utterly forbidding in scale’. Cross-Section, April 1962. 74 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 7. 75 Robyn Hesse, Oral history interview with Deborah van der Plaat, 23 April 2014, Digital

Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland. 76 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Misc. 14.8–9 77 Respectively: De Stijl (van Doesburg and Zwart), Constructivism (Malevich, Lissitzky

and Rodchenko) and Bauhaus (Moholy-Nagy, Bayer and Albers). See Stephen J. Eskilson, Graphic Design: A New History, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007. 78 Klingspor Type Foundry: Schrift (1901–7), Antiqua (1907–9) and Mediaeval (1914). 79 Including Sanders House (1947), West’s Furniture Shop (1952), Perc Miller Salon

(1953) and Lennons Hotels (1955–). 80 Langer may also have liked the logo, a Christian symbol with the pelican shedding its

blood to feed its chicks. 81 A letter from Langer to Wilkinson, dated 19 January1945. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #24. 82 Apart from the 1944 BCC controversy, the Langer archive has been culled by Gertrude.

Deleted has been material on his Viennese practice under the Nazis. In February 2017, Ian Sinnamon told Fiona Gardiner that he had seen plans which included a swastika (as Victor Gruen found was unavoidable). Sinnamon also claimed that Langer was referred to as a Nazi. 83 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #40. 84 Described by Langer as ‘lecturer and studio instructor’. See note 86.

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85 Langer, Staff Cards 1-6, University of Queensland Archives (UQA) 86 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 15 October 1941, 12. Short-listed were: Vernon Brown

(appointed), Tibor Donner (later Auckland city architect) and Langer with other references from Bruce Lucas and John D. Moore; information from Hester Mountifield (Research and Collections) and Julia Gatley (Architecture), University of Auckland. 87 Letter from Langer to A.S. Hook, dated 26 October 1946 advising that he was

applying for the job and that Cummings had expressed strong regrets about losing him as a friend and part-time lecturer but thought that the position would be of great advantage and promised his full support. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. 88 Robert Percy Cummings, reference for Karl Langer, for Karl Langer, dated 5

November 1941. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. Cummings’s reference is comparable to Langer’s earlier references from Vienna. 89 In 1954, it was still the Department of Architecture’s only research publication. 90 Letter from Langer to Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #24. Subsequently, the position was advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald, 20 January1945, 23. The position went to another European émigré, George Molnar. 91 Another argument against was ‘The students here are very attached to me and I think

I would let them down if I go’. Letter from Karl Langer to Leslie Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. 92 Letter from Langer to Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. 93 Letter from Langer to Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. 94 No public advertisement has been found. 95 Karl Langer, staff card 2, University of Queensland Archives. 96 The list of recommended books (with advice from Professor Winston at Sydney) are

in Langer’s papers. The chairs were £5 each. Correspondence dated 21 February1956–17 August 1956. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. 97 Sinnamon, ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’. 98 Karl Langer, Six lectures on landscape architecture, 23 February 1952. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. 99 In 1968 Langer gave Richard Stringer his first photography commission. For

photographs of St. Peter’s including the chapel, see Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44. 100 Architect Geoffrey Pie recalls a meeting at the Institute when Langer stated in

frustration: ‘I have been coming to this institute for 30(sic) years and not once have you spoken about architecture”. Pie also recalled that: He got up, left and we never saw him again’. This meeting at Coronation Drive occurred after 1964. Geoffrey Pie, Oral history interview with John Macarthur and Deborah van der Plaat, Brisbane, 3 May 2013, Digital Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland. 101 James Birrell, another outsider, received only commendations. Reports of awards in

Architecture in Australia, Cross-Section and Chapter News. 102 Architecture and Arts, no. 44 (April 1957), 26. 103 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #1. 104 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Still Building on His Dream’, 9 June 1968, 10.

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FIGURE 5.1 Karl Langer, Main Roads Building, aerial perspective. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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5 THE SPELL OF THE SUNNY SOUTH, THE URGE FOR 1 ‘LIGHT, SUN AND AIR’ The ‘Human Aspect’ and Other Ideas in Karl Langer’s Writings (1944–69) Deborah van der Plaat

The 1944 publication ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ demonstrates that Karl Langer quickly focused his practice in European modernism on the problem of affordable housing soon after his arrival in Queensland.2 This is not surprising. As discussed in previous chapters, affordable housing had occupied much of the architect’s European career prior to his departure for Australia (see Chapter 2). Queensland, like Europe, was on his arrival in the grip of a housing crisis and needed more affordable housing: a problem made evident by the rise of the unemployed camps or shanty towns in Queensland following the Great Depression and one that was made worse by wartime restrictions on building materials and labour.3 While Langer identified the problem of affordable housing as a global issue, he also argued that factors unique to Queensland had ‘aggravated’ the problem. These included a political desire to equalize the classes, improvements in hygiene and challenges presented by the region’s tropical and sub-tropical climates. In combination, these factors ensured the ‘Queensland housewife’ worked in ‘conditions’ which Langer identified as some of the most ‘strenuous’ in the world.4 The aim of this chapter is to examine this and other ideas, as they emerge in Langer’s Australian writings. Starting with his ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, the chapter

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will also examine the larger body of his written work, published and unpublished, which has received less attention from the architectural historian.5 Offering new insights into themes first introduced in his 1944 text, the latter also reveal a number of new priorities as occupying his work. These include: the decline of paid domestic labour in the modern home and its consequences; micro-climates and aspect planning; the flat in Brisbane and denser models of living; and serial planning as a necessary substitute for the garden city. Foremost amongst these was Langer’s commitment to a practice of modern architecture and town planning, which, in his own words, focused on the ‘human aspect’ or the psychological needs of the client. Attributing this approach first to the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) and then to architects in German-speaking countries in the early decades of the twentieth century, the human aspect, Langer explained, was often sacrificed to a modern obsession with science and technology and a failure to consider the social and economic consequences of this. Warning against the ‘modernistic’ in architecture and the desire to impress – one that relied on the addition of instrumental devices and the use of new materials – Langer’s focus on the psychological also placed the client (and people in general) – their lifestyles, desires and anxieties – at the centre of his proposals. Underpinning Langer’s representation of the human figure in his architectural drawings not as anonymous annotations but as a cast of characters used by the architect throughout his career (Figure 5.2),6 this is a sentiment, it will be argued, that also motivated all aspects of his Australian practice.

The fatigued housewife and sub-tropical glare In 1944, with the support of colleagues at the University of Queensland, Langer published ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’.7 In the opening paragraph, the architect explained that the adaptation of Australian houses to local ‘climatic and social conditions’ had long been a growing concern amongst Australian architects and that the ‘booklet’ and the plans it contained were his contribution towards a solution.8 He focused on the failures (climatic, social and economic) he associated with the traditional Queensland house, the domestic architecture of ‘timber and tin’ he confronted when he first arrived in Brisbane in 1939. High set and elevated on stumps and combined with conventional plans, both in terms of layout and position within the suburb, the traditional Queensland house, Langer argued, amplified the ‘fatigue of the Queensland housewife’ who he described as working under some of the worst conditions in the world (Figure 5.3).9 A preference for small windows and heavily screened verandas was also identified by the architect as a problem, as they created unnecessarily dark,‘cave’-like interiors that aggravated rather than resolved the local problem with ‘sub-tropical glare’.10 Freestanding and

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(A) FIGURE 5.2 A cast of characters. Man under tree (top of A) repeated in B far right. (A) Karl Langer, plan developed for sub-tropical housing, 1943. Later simplified and reprinted as plate 1 in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (B) below, Karl Langer, proposed flats at the corner of Shafston Ave and Salstone St, Kangaroo Point, 1959. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Folder misc. acc190226 and Job no. 1109-2 respectively.

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(B) FIGURE 5.2 (Continued).

individually built on autonomous blocks of land, the Queensland house was also viewed by Langer as unaffordable for the majority of Queenslanders and thus an uneconomic solution to the housing problem. Finally, the Queensland house and its modern counterparts, were identified by Langer as products of ‘fashion’ and a desire to ‘impress’ rather than genuine human need.11 The ‘fatigue of the Queensland housewife’ and ‘sub-tropical glare, direct and reflected’ were singled out as particularly ‘trying problems’ for ‘white people living in the semi-tropics’.12 The first of these problems, sub-tropical fatigue, was defined by the architect, in the first instance and in keeping with the work of his colleague at the University of Queensland, Douglas H.K. Lee, as a physiological problem: the ‘withdrawal of blood from all the major organs when the body is exposed, for long periods or under exertion, to hot and humid conditions and its redirection to the skin where it is brought into contact and cooled by air’.13 Defined in these terms, fatigue was identified as a significant problem for the Brisbane resident who experienced hot and humid conditions for ‘three to four months each summer’.14 Fatigue, however and particularly that of the housewife, was also understood by Langer as the product of a growing social problem: the decline in comfort in the modern home which had resulted from the global shortage of paid domestic help and the increasing trend towards labour-saving devices and professionalization of the home as a solution.15 The stoppage of deliveries, which made shopping more

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FIGURE 5.3 ‘The Queensland housewife’: Doreen Wilson, her mother Maryann Dand, mother-in law Eva Adelaide Wilson and nephew Robin Linton in front of The Cedar Downs, Lansdown St, Wilston (Brisbane), c. 1940. John Oxley Library, The State Library of Queensland, Negative number: 97829.

complicated and increasing noise levels in both living and work places, were also identified by Langer as contributing factors. In a later essay on ‘Climatic Aspects in Town Planning’ (1951), Langer lamented the ‘standards of comfort’ in the modern home, was ‘quickly deteriorating’.16 It was this decline his work sought to address. Architectural historian Susan Henderson has demonstrated in Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative (2013) that Langer’s focus on domestic labour was not unusual and was shared by a number of European architects in the first decades of the twentieth century. She has also argued that the ‘servant crisis’ was a concern for both working- and middle-class households. The modern rationalisation of the home, evidenced by the standardized plan and development of modular and mass-produced systems such as the Frankfurt kitchen,17 was supported by both middle-class and worker organizations, including the Federation of German Women’s Clubs and the National Union of German Housewives. While it was anticipated that design would ease the burden of household duties, by making them more efficient and easier to complete and thus reducing the need for paid domestic help, such systems were also seen as mechanisms that would liberate the middle-class housewife, freeing her to pursue other intellectual or recreational activities, while also giving working women greater dexterity to pursue paid work outside the home.18 The reduction of the modern home to a

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standardized ‘workstation’, however, an ideal modelled on the factory and the repetitive activities of the production line, was also viewed by many as a failure.19 ‘The dream . . . that technology will remove the toil from mankind’, Langer observed in 1951, has not ‘come true so far. Rather the strain on our nervous system has increased manyfold’.20 While the supply of paid domestic help was recognized by Langer as a global problem, he also argued that it was ‘aggravated’ in Queensland by a number of local factors. ‘An average household in countries with generally low living standards such as Greece and Italy’, he noted, ‘seems far simpler to run and with less expenditure of energy, than a household in Australia, although the average income in the former countries is . . . only a quarter of the average income in Australia’.21 A middle-class housewife in Rome or Athens, he continued, ‘usually can afford domestic help and lives a life of comparative ease, while the Australian middleclass housewife has to slave and work hard, hardly getting any rest, especially when having a large family’.22 This, Langer suggested, could be attributed, in the first instance, to the success of a ‘process of [class] equalisation’ in Australian society – combined with rising standards in modern hygiene. While both were identified by the architect as desirable and to be encouraged, they also added to the woman’s burden: ‘especially where the upbringing of children [was] involved’.23 Technology, he acknowledged, had ‘devised a number of labour-saving machines’. These, however, were expensive and more often than not, inaccessible to the majority of the Australian people.24 Langer’s comparison of Australian and European households suggests that the architect may have been drawing on his own and Gertrude’s experience of migrating to Queensland. Aligned with the social democrats in Vienna (see Chapter 2), the Langers would have been supportive of class equalization, the rationalization of the modern home and a decreasing reliance on paid domestic help alongside the right of the professional women to pursue studies and a career outside the home. Arriving in Queensland, however, such convictions may have been undermined by limited access to affordable labour-saving devices or the domestic labour they were designed to replace. Finding themselves responsible for the majority of domestic duties in their own home, including the cooking, washing and cleaning, the heat and humidity of Brisbane’s sub-tropical summers would have added further complications. Observing that no part of Queensland belongs to the ‘Best Temperate Belt’ with most of it falling into the ‘Semi-Tropical and Tropical Belt’ – and citing the writings of Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor (1880–1963) – Langer went on to argue that Queensland’s climates couldn’t support human settlement and ‘vigorous human growth’.25 Describing large parts of Queensland as ‘scorching’ and ‘muggy’, terminology that he again borrowed from Taylor, he concluded that ‘hot spells combined with humid weather’ taxed the endurance of the Queensland people.26 Suggesting that ‘in no other part of the world does the white housewife work under such strenuous conditions’,27 he also argued that Queensland’s hot and

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humid climates were worse when mental work was concerned, with the efficiency of a worker sinking to half.28 Langer’s citation of Taylor suggests that he was familiar with the long-running debate in Queensland surrounding white settlement in the Australian tropics. While this can be traced back to the early 1860s,29 and the separation of Queensland from the colony of New South Wales in 1859, it regained momentum in the early decades of the twentieth century when the ‘White Australia Policies’ were legislated in 1901: a series of Acts that restricted migration to Australia to white races (preferably from Britain), deported Chinese and South Pacific Islanders who were already resident in the country and advocated the exclusive use of white labour, especially in the Australian tropics.30 In the first half of the twentieth century, the debate was largely controlled by three writers. Prominent among these was Taylor, who like Langer lamented the availability of affordable domestic help in the tropical home. For Taylor, this absence had reduced the domestic comfort of the Queensland settler and questioned the viability of tropical settlement. The solution, he suggested, was a reversal of the White Australia Policies and the development of a demographic that was at a minimum bi-cultural.31 Taylor’s thesis was challenged by a number of dissenting voices. One group in particular felt that they had been maligned: the almost wholly Caucasian and predominantly Anglo-Saxon inhabitants of tropical Queensland (Figure 5.4). Their case was championed in the early twentieth century by the medical profession

FIGURE 5.4 Postcard: Group of sugar growers and families, Innisfail, North Queensland. Sure proof of a white race living and thriving in the Queensland tropics. Source: Sunny Queensland: Its Scenic Charms, Industrial Activities and Tropical Grandeur, Brisbane, QLD: Government Printer, 1928. Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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and climate physiologists, including doctor and health professional Dr Raphael Cilento (1893–1985), director of the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine in Townsville (1922–24) and Commonwealth Division of Tropical Medicine (1928–34). Cilento attributed the successful acclimatization of the white man to his tropical context to three factors: hard labour, both physical and mental; an active lifestyle, including physical recreation; and problematically, a segregation (or apartheid) of the nation’s indigenous and white races.32 Cilento and his fellow physiologists, however, remained concerned for the white woman and child who they saw as the ‘weak link’ in the acclimatization process. A focus on the tropical home and the fatigue of the Queensland housewife subsequently resulted.33 Cilento’s work was continued by Douglas H.K. Lee (1905–2005), founding professor of physiology at the University of Queensland (1936–48), who credited Cilento as shifting the debate on tropical settlement from climatic determinism, based on comparisons and associations, to the scientific method and experimentation.34 Significantly, through the course of his career, Langer became personally acquainted with all three writers.35 Further evidence that Langer was familiar with and drew upon a broader debate on tropical settlement is demonstrated by his writings on ‘glare’, or the intensity of light, which he identified as another problem for ‘white people’ living in the tropics.36 Unlike fatigue, however, Langer suggested that glare could be best understood in physiological terms. He explained: We look at a bright window our pupils’ contract, but this makes it impossible for us to see clearly the adjacent dark walled surfaces. In our anxiety to distinguish these we focus on them and our pupils again expand, thus admitting too much light from the window . . . Whatever the size of the aperture – whether a large window or a narrow slit in a blind – the intensity of light coming through is always the same.37 Seeking to counter this reaction, the Queensland architect, Langer observed, reduced the size of windows and added protective verandas (often screened) or hoods for additional protection. Such solutions, however, only aggravated the problem. By the reduction of the window area, or by the use of venetian blinds, we do not reduce the intensity [of light] at the point of entry. The only effect is to reduce the amount of light in the rest of the room and hence to increase the contrast between the intensity of light at the window, or narrow split in a blind and that on the adjoining wall. Thus, the effect of glare is increased.38 Describing the end result as a ‘vicious circle’, Langer concluded: ‘smaller windows, more glare . . . “protective verandahs” in front, still more glare . . . blinds on the verandah and we arrive at the conditions of a cave’.39

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The problem of ‘glare’ doesn’t seem to have featured largely in Queensland debates surrounding settlement. It was, however, an issue for a number of international writers. In 1905, the American military surgeon Charles Edward Woodruff argued that an overlooked danger for the European settler in the tropics was the intensity of tropical light. Identified as a cause for a variety of medical complaints including neurasthenia, migraines and malaise, especially in women, Woodruff argued that every attempt should be made to avoid such outcomes. ‘Darkened houses’ surrounded by wide, low and if necessary screened verandas, offered a solution. The colour white, Woodruff noted, should also be avoided as an external colour treatment for houses in the tropics, as this only increased reflected glare and contributed to ‘eye disease’. While Langer appears to have rejected Woodruff ’s call for the ‘darkened house’, the pink exterior of his own home (see Figure 5.6A below), designed and built in Brisbane in 1950 and to be discussed in more detail later in this essay, appears to conform with Woodruff ’s ideas.40

European modernism meets Queensland Seeking to build on the above critique, Langer went on to identify modern design solutions that would improve the comfort and conditions of the Queensland home. Estimating ‘that in running a house a woman walks a mile a day’,41 Langer was anxious to reduce this distance. Standardized house plans (Figure 5.5), which reduced the number of rooms and removed all superfluous spaces, including hallways, state rooms and enclosed verandas were a first step. Kitchens, Langer suggested, should be ‘small and arranged so that unnecessary walking, bending and stretching is eliminated’. The layout of the house, arrangement of furniture and decoration could also be simplified by the introduction of inbuilt furniture (Figure 5.5). When there were children in the home, ‘the kitchen should be placed so as to overlook their play area’. Stairs should also be avoided at all costs: ‘In causing strain’, he explained, ‘a staircase is the equivalent of a corridor a hundred feet long’. For this reason, it was also undesirable to build houses on high stumps.42 The placement of the house within the suburb was also important. Langer recommended that the home be placed no further than ten minutes walking distance from key facilities such as shops, schools and community centres. ‘It is not uncommon’, Langer lamented, ‘to see women carrying their shopping long distance in prams and boxes on wheels’.43 Seeking to accommodate Brisbane’s hilly topography, he also suggested that in ‘town planning distances be measured in walking-minutes rather than chains’.44 The ideal suburb adopted by Langer adhered to the universally accepted principle of separating vehicular from pedestrian traffic first used in the American

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(A) FIGURE 5.5 Karl Langer, standardized house plans, 1943, simplified and published in 1944 as plates 1 and 2 in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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(B) FIGURE 5.5 (Continued).

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settlement of Radburn (1929), where residential streets were dead-end streets and house blocks opened onto a green strip that led to a central park in which the community facilities were sited (see Chapter 6). This, explained Langer, allowed ‘children and grown-ups alike. . . [to] walk to the shops, playgrounds and schools without crossing a street meant for vehicular traffic’.45 Such an arrangement, Langer also noted, was particularly important in Queensland where: Living in a warm climate slows down our nervous reactions and reduces the safety-factor. The number of road-accidents is alarming, but nobody takes much notice of the thousands killed and injured. We still stick to a lay-out of roads designed for horse-transport.46 Recalling the earlier theories of Cilento, Langer also argued for an increase in recreational spaces and facilities. ‘We need more recreation than people in cooler lands’. ‘Whatever means we devise for cooling and ventilating our rooms we find it is far more refreshing under a shady tree in the open air. Our climate lends itself, more than others, to out-door living’.47 In his ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ plans, he added ‘secluded’ and private gardens ‘furnished’ with ‘open-air showers, seats, sandpits . . . and . . . outdoor fire-places’ (Figure 5.5 and Figure 9.5). He recommended ‘lawn areas of 300 square feet per person’ as ‘desirable’ and encouraged Queenslanders to merge ‘front garden, back garden and house’, to create a ‘single unified living area’. These, in turn, opened onto ‘public parks and gardens, so that the landscape starts at the doorstep’ of the home.48 Solutions to ‘sub-tropical glare’ were also introduced. Verandas and related screening were removed from house plans and replaced by roof overhangs to cool external walls and to limit the direct entry of full sun into the house. Langer suggested that windows be enlarged so as to flood the interior with natural light and reduce the contrast in light levels between interior and exterior.49 When Langer designed and built his own home in Brisbane in 1950 (Figure 5.6A), sub-tropical glare appears to have been a primary consideration. Built in rendered breeze block, the two-storey house included a flat roof and roof terrace (Figure 5.6B). The veranda that traditionally had wrapped up to three sides of the Queensland home, was replaced by an outdoor terrace accessible from the ground floor via large glass doors. Extruded window frames boxed the second-storey windows on the northern façade, minimizing the direct entry of the summer sun while allowing free entry of natural light. On the southern façade of the home, the ground floor consisted of six, double-hung and unprotected windows (Figure 5.6C). These, like their northern counterparts, flooded the room with natural light and equalized interior and exterior light levels, reducing glare, while at the same time giving unobstructed views to the bushland backing onto the house. Opening a full 90 degrees, these also caught southern breezes and increased cross-ventilation through the house.

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In a later project, West’s Furniture Store (1953), Langer extended his solution for glare to a commercial setting by converting the display windows of the showroom into glass walls and adding eight lightwells. These, like the large windows in Langer’s house, flooded the interior with natural light, equalizing light levels between the store’s interior and exterior.50 While this resolved the problem of direct glare for the shopper within the store looking out, it did little for the problem of ‘reflected’ or ‘indirect glare’ experienced by the passing pedestrian looking in. Caused by sunlight when it is ‘reflected from a nearby light-coloured wall, water, a metal roof, or other such surface’, Langer argued in 1944 that ‘the only remedy’ was to create ‘a screen of vegetation [hedge or trees] to protect the window’, or, if the ‘reflected glare comes from a pavement’, by ‘colouring it green, or some other light absorbing tint’ (see Figures 5.2 and 5.5).51 Identifying an added significance of the

(A) FIGURE 5.6 Karl Langer, Langer Residence, St. Lucia, 1950. (A) Australian House and Garden, September 1953, cover; (B) plan, published in Australian House and Garden, September 1953, 13; (C) living room. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes #43 and #44. Are Media Pty Limited (Australian House and Garden).

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(B)

(C)

FIGURE 5.6 (Continued).

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garden in Langer’s sub-tropical house plans – counteracting reflected glare to which the house was now more vulnerable due to the enlarged areas of glass that had been introduced to reduced direct glare – West’s demonstrates that by 1953 Langer was exploring the alternative solutions offered by angled glass. In Langer’s collection of journal articles (organized by typology) now held by the Fryer Library is a paper from The Architectural Forum titled ‘The Vanishing Store Front’ (1950). Reviewing a series of recently completely stores across America, the paper addressed the problem of indirect glare in the design of the modern store front. Drawing attention to a menswear store in Miami Beach

FIGURE 5.7 ‘The Vanishing Store Front’, Architectural Forum, vol. 93, no.1 (July 1950), 66. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #56, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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designed by the Morris Brothers, the author explained that ‘veiling glare . . . completely block[ed] the view’ of the shopfront display for passing pedestrians if the display window was allowed to reflect clear sky, sunlight surfaces, or passing traffic (Figure 5.7). The solution is given in a series of small diagrams that illustrate the article. Here the glass is strategically slanted ‘to reflect a lower brightness surface’, such as a pavement shaded by an overhang.52 At West’s, seeking to counter the reflected glare for those looking in, Langer adopted the same solution and slanted his shopfront window at a 60-degree angle to reflect the dark timber of the underside of the awning that cantilevered out over the footpath.

Town planning and climate In the introduction of ‘Sub-tropical Housing’, Langer explained that the ideas and plans it explored were part of a ‘town planning scheme he had been working on for several years’.53 In his later writings, Langer stressed the importance of this initial focus, suggesting that the town plan would determine whether the climates of Queensland could be ‘comfortably’ settled. In ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’ (1957), an unpublished paper presented to the Australian Academy of Science, Langer argued that along with ‘clothing, food and . . . housing, the layout of a town decisively influences the climates we live in’.54 Unlike ‘trends in modern architecture’, which increasingly relied on climatic ‘palliatives such as artificial ventilation, insulation, sun-louvres, artificial heating and cooling’ and which were often ‘beyond the means of an ordinary citizen’, town planning offered unique opportunities to ‘alter’ and improve the climates Queenslanders lived in.55 ‘When we build a city’, Langer suggested, we change the ‘topography’ and the surfaces of the site and in doing so, we also change the climate of the area. ‘When we build a single home and layout a garden, we change the microclimate of this particular area’.56 The micro-climate, he continued, ‘can easily be such that it equals the overall temperature of an area 400 miles or more north or south’. Climate can also vary considerably within the bounds of a single city. ‘If you live at Kissing Point [Townsville] or on the windward side of one of the spurs of Castle Hill’, Langer explained, ‘the temperature in these spots is 10 to 12° Fahrenheit cooler than in the city proper’.57 In Brisbane, he continued, we also ‘have differences in local climates up to 12° and it can be safely said that to live in a bad Brisbane micro-climate is less comfortable than living in a good Townsville micro-climate, although Townsville is hundreds of miles north of Brisbane and belongs to the Tropical Belt’.58 Working with the natural aspect of the site to improve the climate was for Langer the key to success in tropical and sub-tropical town planning.59 A number of factors, he explained, required consideration. Topography and in particular the observation that ‘gullies, deeper than 20 feet’ are considerably colder in the winter

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months and up to 4° or 5° hotter than elevated slopes in the summer, ‘especially if they are not open to the prevailing winds’, was the first. Important for the removal of heat, wind velocity was ‘three times greater on a windward slope than on the leeside’ of a hill and was thus preferred.60 Residential zoning, Langer concluded, should take such natural features into account’.61 The introduction of water to the town plan was also important (Figure 5.8). ‘Bodies of water, especially if extensive’, could ‘reduce the summer heat and winter cold considerably’. A small lake influenced the surrounding area up to half a mile, especially if it lies in the direction of the prevailing wind . . . while the ocean reduced summer heat and warms up the winter temperature by about 10° to 12° Fahrenheit.62 This body could be the Pacific Ocean where ‘the cooling effect was not only felt on beaches but which extended inland 2 to 3 miles if uninterrupted by other houses or high-rise structures’.63 Artificial lakes or swimming pools, facilities common to Langer’s town and community schemes, offered similar benefits. Represented in Langer’s drawings as leisure facilities, the pool – recreational or otherwise – also offered an opportunity for the architect to alter immediate micro-climates and increase the comfort of the tropical or sub-tropical citizen, be it high summer or deep winter.64 The introduction of a pond to the household garden altered the climate at the domestic scale. ‘Soil condition’ and ‘ground cover’ played a similar role. Humid soils, Langer argued, lower the surface temperature. ‘Loams and swamps [also] make for cooler temperatures while sand and rock . . . produce hotter temperatures’.65 Ground cover, or plants, on the other hand, drain humidity from the soil through evaporation and reduce the surface temperature while at the same time absorbing ‘heat, noise and dust’. A grass surface, he explained, ‘can be 46° Fahrenheit lower than a paved surface with the same wind velocity and sun exposure’.66 Ground cover or landscaping was one of the more potent weapons in Langer’s planning arsenal. He went on to argue: ‘the micro-climate of a district can be improved by proper landscaping of public spaces and of individual gardens to the effect as to bring about a drop in temperature of 8°, which would add greatly to the comfort of the people, apart from the aesthetic value’.67 While Langer avoided the incorporation of extensive lawns into his town plans on account of the upkeep involved, he did recommend ‘intense tree plantation’. This, he suggested, would ‘eliminate the heating effect of paved areas’. The cooling effect of trees, he explained, could be greater than that of lawns (Figure 5.9). Deciduous trees and vines were the ‘most useful devices to shield buildings from the sun, especially if planted before western frontages’.68 The reduction of asphalted areas and other hot surfaces and the increase of plant cover in the form of grass, shrubs and trees had the potential to transform ‘hot, glary and dusty townships’ into comfortable and ‘agreeable places’.69 Town planning in regional Queensland was described as late as 1959 by Robert Cummings, colleague and first professor of architecture at the University of

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 5.8 Karl Langer, artificial bodies of water in the town plan: (A) two community pools and playground, ideal community plan, undated; (B) fountain detail (including peanut jets), Kingaroy Civic Centre, 1961. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL 158, Misc. 190226 and Job. no. 1123-32, respectively, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 5.9 Karl Langer, Mackay City, 1945: (A) development of Alfred St; (B) proposed neighbourhood development. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83.

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Queensland, as ‘backwards’ and that historically there had not been a ‘widespread acceptance of planning’ within the state but rather a ‘degree of apathy. . . and some uncertainty as to its value’.70 Cummings questioned the ‘uniformity’ of recent town planning schemes and the lack of legislation that governed them. Planning priorities, he suggested, needed to be identified and addressed. Anticipating debates which continue to occupy planners today, these, he concluded, should include new strategies for: traffic congestion and parking; the increasing ‘sprawl’ of Queensland towns and suburbs and the need to introduce denser models of living, including ‘flats’; the use of solar energy to supply power to Queensland’s more remote communities; Queensland’s climates and specifically the problem of cyclones, noting that a ‘great part of our highly productive coastal areas is vulnerable to cyclonic disturbances for at least three months of the year’; and the development of the North including the ‘bauxite project at Weipa in the far Northern peninsula, the expansion at Mt Isa in the North West and the Uranium mine at Mary Kathleen’.71 The latter, climate (or cyclones) and the development of the North were identified by Cummings as ‘serious matter[s]’ that warranted ‘Government sponsored research’ and was a sound investment: ‘Apart from the possible saving of thousands of pounds per annum, it would provide a feeling of greater security and encouragement to the many people likely to be affected’.72 Langer appears to have been in agreement with Cummings. Having prepared proposals for the regional towns of Ingham, Mackay and Toowoomba, the architect described ‘Queensland Towns [as] badly planned’ and even ‘dangerous’. Observing that most ‘Queensland-country cities’ have the railway ‘meandering through them’ and the ‘petrol dumps’ which serviced these located in central parts of the town, he also observed that these ‘depreciated’ the surroundings and encouraged the development of ‘slums’.73 Seeking to introduced a series of planning principles for regional towns, Langer argued for a number of changes, including: the segregation of residential, commercial and industrial areas; the accommodation of ‘aesthetic considerations’ such as parks and civic centres; care that economic priorities were adhered to and the introduction of services such as water and electricity were not too expensive and beyond the means of the town’s citizens; and the elimination of danger spots such as petrol dumps and level railway crossings. In the town plans he had already proposed, Langer explained that care had been taken to locate all children within a quarter of a mile of a park or playground; and civic centres, parks and ‘green belts’ were avoided, as small towns had ready access to open areas (see Chapter 9).74 Suggesting that town planning in Australia ‘was mostly carried out under the checker-board system [or grid]’, Langer also argued for the introduction of ‘a town or city square’. A ‘city without a square’, Langer concluded, ‘was like a home without a living room’.75 A civic square, unsurprisingly, formed the core of all Langer’s proposals for Queensland towns, regional or metropolitan (see Chapter 7 for a fuller discussion of this idea).

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While many of Langer’s schemes were never realized, he encouraged the continuing education of the region’s architects, town planners and engineers through the regular attendance of ‘refresher courses’ and ‘extramural studies’. He also suggested that ‘basic data on the human thermal balance in hot dry and hot wet environments’ be collected and that a ‘Tropical Institute’ be established to correlate the design and economics of tropical design. Queensland, Langer noted, presented ‘an excellent laboratory situation for working out [many of] these problems’.76 Langer’s expertise in climatic town planning was, by the late 1950s, nationally recognized. In 1957, he was invited by Henry J. Cowan, professor of architecture at the University of Sydney, to present a lecture to a symposium (and extension course) on tropical architecture that was convened by the University’s Extension Board. Cowan noted that the University was ‘more concerned with the planning of the individual house or building than town-planning’, although he acknowledged that ‘it was not always possible to separate the two topics entirely’. Langer’s costs would be covered by the board and he would also receive ‘a five-guinea fee’ for his lecture. Facilities for showing lantern slides (2-inch × 2-inch) were also made available.77 Langer accepted the invitation and presented a paper titled ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’.78 In 1959, Langer was invited by Professor Brian Lewis to contribute to a short course in tropical architecture offered in 1960 as an ‘extension’ to the Architecture Program at the University of Melbourne.79 While Lewis described Langer as the ‘first authority on the subject in Australia’, he lamented that he was unable to offer any renumeration or even cover the costs of his travel to Melbourne. It is unclear whether Langer accepted Lewis’s invitation or whether the short course proceeded. In 1962, however, Melbourne University offered for the first time a postgraduate programme in tropical architecture, coordinated by recent graduate and new lecturer, Balwant Saini (b. 1930).80 Despite the fact that Langer was teaching studies on sub-tropical housing and planning in Brisbane as early as 1943 and contributing to extension courses on tropical architecture at Sydney University in the late 1950s, Melbourne’s was the first postgraduate course on tropical architecture formally offered in Australia.81

Economics versus climate Langer’s focus on climate was entangled with an equal interest in economics and housing affordability.82 Part C of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ was dedicated to this second theme. Noting here that 43% of households in Brisbane earned less than £200 per annum and that it was difficult to build a house in Queensland under £600 that could meet the ‘space, equipment and gadget’ requirements for a family of four – and retain its long-term or resale value – saw many Queensland families ‘living above their means’. A real problem facing the Queensland architect, Langer

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concluded, was reducing the cost of housing for the state’s lowest income groups.83 While the development of ‘efficient designs’ was identified as the best strategy for both a climatic and economic home – ‘since a poorly designed house is never worth its cost and becomes obsolete sooner’ – Langer also recommended additional strategies. These included: the mass fabrication of joinery and inbuilt furniture; the use, on level allotments, of soil-cement slabs which could replace more expensive elevated or stump foundations84 – with all the house plans in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ designed to be built on such slabs; and the erection of homes in stages with additional living and sleeping areas added when family finances improved.85 Langer was also critical of the car, suggesting that it extended the individual’s financial commitments beyond their economic means. The design of present-day cities and suburbs in Queensland, Langer lamented, had failed to meet the requirements of a sub-tropical life – and specifically the close proximity of homes to recreational facilities including playgrounds, swimming pools, picnic areas and sports -grounds, forcing Queensland families to purchase cars they could ill afford in order to access these essential services. This had resulted in towns occupied only by ‘car-owners’ and created inhabitants that were ‘car minded’, increasing traffic and creating towns less suitable to live in.86 In ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Langer sought to address this issue by modelling his ‘ideal suburb for a community of 2000’ on the earlier and experimental town plan of Radburn.87 In 1944, the Radburn Plan and the garden city principles which it explored were identified by Langer as suitable to the development of the sub-tropical suburb.88 By 1951, however, he described the garden city model as unaffordable and beyond the reach of the average Australian. In a two-part presentation to the Australasian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), Langer observed that the ‘cities of Australia’ were on the ‘verge of a basic change’. The rise of building costs and living standards now made it ‘almost impossible for the common man to afford his own home and garden’. The ‘flood of gadgets and the popularity of the car, the higher cost of education and the growing costs associated with the increase of entertainment’, he suggested, ‘leave less for the purchase of a home’. Only countries with the highest living standards could continue to afford garden cities. In the very near future, he predicted, ‘a considerable portion of the Australian population’ would be housed ‘economically only in flats’.89 In the same essay, Langer went on to expand on a number of these ideas. The concept of large open spaces in the centre of the city in the form of a public park and the adoption of an ‘agricultural green belt’ that encircled residential and industrial quarters were, he acknowledged, ‘daring economical proposition[s]’ when first introduced by Howard and his followers. Similar and equally radical examples could be found in the work of Sigfried Sitte, Langer’s teacher while studying in Vienna,90 and his father Camillo, who at the same time as Howard, was fighting for land reform in Austria. The garden city, however, was not enthusiastically embraced and achieved little success on the mainland of Europe.

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Only a few suburbs, Langer noted, were built in this manner for a privileged class. ‘The average man’, on the other hand, ‘lives in a flat and feels rather strongly about being robbed of the rural surroundings by the owners of single houses with gardens’. ‘Suburbia to him means an urbanisation of the city’s rural environment, especially when he sees the sprawl that grows from it’.91 In Australia, Langer argued, garden city ideals continued to be unaffordable. It seems that with our system of individual land ownership, the transformation of our suburbs into proper neighbourhoods bedded into a spiderweb system of open greenspaces, is, in as much as built-up areas are concerned, just as much a financial impossibility as it was in Howard’s time.92 Encouraging ‘suburban sprawl’ and the extension of services, the local preference for the garden ideal, Langer suggested, should be replaced with ‘more compact settlements’ and a regulated opening up of new land for settlement.93 ‘We can expect’, the architect later argued, ‘a change from the garden city to the flat unit neighbourhood, which will basically alter the layout of our cities and our way of life’.94 Langer’s vision was shared by a number of his contemporaries, including Cummings. Presenting part 1 of the paper (1951) discussed above, Cummings also argued for an increase in the density of Brisbane’s housing by suggesting a shift from the ‘small 4 to 12 [apartment] block’ to a larger block of ‘8 to 10 stories . . . each accommodating 160 people or more’. While the size of such blocks could vary to suit the types of occupancy needed, Cummings identified a maximum density of one hundred people to the nett acre as a desirable aim. Twenty to twentyfive people per acre was the norm for Brisbane’s post-war suburbs.95 In 1951, Cummings and the Queensland branch of the Australian Institute of Architects looked to the Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill to promote these ideas. Located close to the city but dominated by substandard housing – ‘rows of mean, unpainted, decrepit little dwellings’ – ‘The Hill’ was identified by visiting English town planner, Sir Thomas Bennett (1887–1980), as having the potential of becoming the ‘brightest, most modern residential district in Australia’. Reporting on Bennett’s visit, the local newspaper the Courier-Mail stated that the town planner, ‘in a shutting the slums of Spring Hill from his mind’, saw instead ‘wide streets, elegant, tall blocks of flats, gardens, lawns, parks, [and] children at play’.96 In the same newspaper article, we are told that students at the University of Queensland pursued this dream in a studio under Cummings’ direction. Enthusiastically, the undergraduates, ‘wiped out the . . . area bound by Gregory and Wickham Terraces and Water Street’ – 80 acres in total – and developed a new and radical scheme for the neighbourhood. With ‘plans and scale models, they completely rehoused the 3500 residents’. The ‘70-year-old ramshackle tenements and tiny cottages’ were replaced with eight-storey blocks of ‘super-modern flats’

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designed to exploit the specific climatic conditions of Brisbane. Central to the plan were children’s play areas, a swimming pool, shopping centre, restaurants, school, kindergarten and health clinic. A community block containing a meeting hall, library and cinema were also included.97 Comfortably accommodating the suburb’s original 3,500 residents, the proposed scheme increased the regions density to 150 people per acre.98 Like Cummings, Langer argued that ‘flats’ offered a number of advantages for Queensland, including the potential to reduce the fatigue associated with the freestanding Queensland home, as they were ‘far less strenuous for the state’s housewives’ to maintain and reduced the labour of the householder if garden and repair work were required (Figure 5.10).99 He also acknowledged, however, that the reduction of labour associated with flats and the more relaxed lifestyle that flat

(A)

(B) FIGURE 5.10 Karl Langer, proposed flats at the corner of Shafston Ave and Salstone St, Kangaroo Point, 1959: (A) plans; (B): built-in furniture: Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job. no 1109-2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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living offered, still held specific anxieties for many Queenslanders. Recalling the earlier medical theories of Cilento, Langer asked: Does hard work in household and garden, during the hot summer, upset the physiological cycle of activities, the daily balance between activity, fatigue and recovery? Does it cause accumulated fatigue predisposing to ill health? Or, is it just this hard work in house and garden which prevents white men from degenerating in humid hot climates and would not flat life without incentive to hard work make for degeneration?100 In ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (STH, 1944), the need for labour in the tropics, remedial or otherwise, is addressed by both the representation of productive gardens in the sub-tropical house plans (plate 3 STH) and a man (modular in appearance) enthusiastically mowing the lawn while sweat drips from his brow (plates 4 and 5 STH). By 1950, in the planning and construction of his own home and garden, all references to lawns and the labour required for their upkeep are gone and replaced by a paved terrace and (climate-altering) pond (front garden) and semi-cultivated ‘bush’ garden in the back (see Chapter 9). In the paper ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’ (1956), an alternative solution is explored in the application of artificially cooled or air-conditioned systems to flat buildings. Flats, Langer suggested, ‘could be airconditioned far more economically than separate freestanding residences’, which had ‘larger areas of contact with the outside air and sun’.101 This in turn created new opportunities in Queensland for typologies such as the ‘superblock’, large residential towers ‘housing hundreds of families’, a concept first developed by the French architect Le Corbusier. Rather than seeing these new towers as a solution to Queensland’s housing crisis, however, Langer presented the ‘superblock’ as consolidating the urbanization of the city’s central business core. ‘The use of superblocks for offices appeals more to me’, Langer wrote earlier in 1951. ‘These huge structures could be fitted out economically with climatization plants, the need for which is so great in this country . . . [as] the efficiency of the mental worker is greatly impaired by excessive heat and humidity’.102 Going on to explore the idea of a ‘large city block, . . . one mile long and half a mile wide’, housed ‘under a single roof ’, Langer promoted the urbanization and redevelopment of Brisbane’s central business district (and Queensland’s cities in general) where ‘temperature and humidity could be controlled’ and a ‘climate to suit’ could be created. In these megastructures, Langer envisioned the separation of the pedestrian and vehicular traffic, with shops, banks, cafés and picture shows occupying areas at street level or above while ‘one or two basement stories’ would be set aside for ‘vehicular traffic, . . . car parking and loading’. Other sections, ‘built up several stories high’, would accommodate city offices (Figure 5.11).103 Pre-empting the multi-level shopping mall or high-rise office tower, Langer’s climatically controlled city block captured the imagination of Queensland’s

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FIGURE 5.11 Superblock, Brisbane in ‘Will We See This?’, Sunday Mail (Brisbane), 10 June, 12.

popular press. Repeating a number of the architect’s claims, including the observation that Brisbane, due to poor planning and design was ‘often more uncomfortable than Townsville’ and that the climate of Townsville, lying above the ‘comfort line’, reduced the efficiency of the office worker from November to May, the majority presented Langer’s proposal for air-conditioned office blocks as an efficient solution.104 Others, including A.D. Murgatroyd, secretary of the Federated Clerks Union, however, were, unsurprisingly, less accepting and argued instead that Langer be ‘flatly contradicted’, for the benefit of ‘all North Queensland workers and the welfare of North Queensland generally’.105

The human aspect of modern architecture Langer’s resistance to the flat as a housing solution in Queensland, despite its resolution of a number of economic priorities, can perhaps be explained by

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his continuing concern that flats failed to meet the psychological needs of local residents who still retained certain anxieties about settlement in Australia’s tropics. In a late paper, ‘Planning and the Citizen’ (1961), Langer identified the ‘psychological needs of the client’, a concept he also described as the ‘human aspect of modern architecture’, as the most important factor in the production of contemporary architecture.106 This, he suggested, was an essential but neglected element of modern architectural practice that had become pre-occupied with science and technology and unable to see the social and economic consequences of this.107 ‘We live’, Langer argued, in ‘a scientific age, in a social age where every individual is supposed to count: Never before have we known so much about man’. But we cannot escape the impression that despite all this accumulated knowledge he never before in history has lived under such disorderly, unesthetic and unnatural conditions . . . Little we care for the basic needs of man. We build him statements of our technology instead of homes and places for work and worship.108 Seeking to demonstrate the validity of his claim, Langer identified the popular use of pilotis and the Miesian ‘class box’ as two examples of built ‘statements’ to ‘technology’ that were popular with architects of the new modern architecture. ‘A home hovering on four thin posts or cantilevered precariously out into space’, Langer observed, ‘is hailed as a symbol of our time’. Yet its construction, which ‘can be calculated by a first-year engineering student’, is usually ‘more costly . . . and the owner has to sacrifice real comfort to afford the extravagance’.109 Similar criticisms could also be directed at the international glass box. When people in Chicago moved into these tall glass boxes erected by Mies van der Rohe along the lake front, it was found that children from these flats did badly at school and soon some of them were declared backward children. Psychoanalysts were called in and they found a lack of safety was the cause of this phenomena. Heavy curtains were fitted into the children’s rooms blocking out the glass walls. The results were startling. Within a few weeks, the children were back too normal.110 While the use of new technologies and materials were identified by Langer as essential to modern architectural practice, the work of the modern architect, he also warned, must firstly speak to the ‘human soul’. While history had recognized the importance of the former, the latter, Langer lamented, had largely been overlooked.111 Langer attributed the idea of the human aspect in modern architectural practice to the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959). Wright, who

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encouraged his contemporaries to work with the materials and technologies of their time, had also argued that this should not be at the expense of the emotions or needs of the people. The architect, Wright argued, must continue ‘to relate the rooms and houses to nature and to build for the soul of the people’. Those who didn’t, Wright concluded, ‘don’t deserve the name Architect’.112 While Wright’s vision, Langer argued, was largely ignored by American architects, it found ‘fertile ground . . . in German-speaking countries’, including Austria ‘where architects had long demonstrated an ‘urge for “light, sun and air” ’ and a fascination for a ‘spell in the sunny south’. Encouraging these architects to travel south to the Mediterranean, ‘they also built in their own cold and rainy climates, houses with flat roofs, big windows and open terraces’. Admitting these ‘did not fit the bill’ and physically suit their environment – in that they were cold and leaked and did not permit a regular use of the open terrace – their true appeal, Langer argued, lay in the ‘psychological’ needs that they met for the European client.113 Settling in Brisbane in the 1940s, a city that was at war, Langer set out to promote and advocate a particular brand of modernism which highlighted its ‘human’ rather than ‘scientific or technological aspect’. Describing Australia as a nation that had ‘gone far and probably further than most people towards social and economic democracy’,114 Langer appears to have anticipated a local architectural culture that also embraced his vision of modern architecture. He, however, like others before him,115 was quickly disappointed and found on his arrival that local architecture culture was focused more on ‘fashion’ and ‘the desire to impress’, rather than the articulation of human and civic needs. In ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, written soon after his arrival in Brisbane, Langer noted that: We are not content [in Australia] to build houses which satisfy the universal human needs for comfort, convenience and spaciousness, which are adapted to each one’s individual habits and ways of living and which are well proportioned and constructed of suitable materials. Instead, we tend to sacrifice these to the attempt to assert our status—an attempt natural enough in a stratified society, but no longer fitting to-day.116 What claimed to be ‘modern’ in Queensland housing, Langer lamented, also pointed to a new type of ‘impressiveness that had come into fashion’, the ‘modernistic’: an ad-hoc collection of features that could be associated with a modern style (Figure 5.12). These included, but were not restricted to corner windows, streamlined horizontal treatments, cocktail bars, long vertical slit windows for staircases, projecting fins, daring cantilevered construction (or piloti), concrete tubular steel furniture and showpiece kitchens. Motivated by a desire to impress and resulting, for the owner, in a ‘certain feeling of satisfaction’, the modernistic was at the cost of basic human needs.117

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(A) FIGURE 5.12 Examples of the modernistic (A) ‘Ja, wenn die modernen Herren Architecten die Fenster selb putzen mus, wurden si in die Hauser bauen’, undated, source unknown. (B) ‘He’s been with us since the architect’s first sketch’, cartoon by Shannon Sutton, undated, source unknown.

Conclusion In 1964, Langer presented a paper on ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’ to the second convention of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Held in Toowoomba (Queensland), the conference was themed ‘The Sensation of Architecture’ and papers were given by both the state’s leading architects and academics alongside a number of young and rising stars. These included Robert Cummings, long-time academic and colleague of Langer at the

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(B) FIGURE 5.12 (Continued).

University of Queensland who spoke on ‘A Quick Look at History’; Frank Costello, former city architect for Brisbane who presented a paper on ‘A Machine to Make Citizens’; James Birrell, the chief architect for the University of Queensland on ‘Neighbours of the Campus’; young and emerging architect Robin Gibson, who had just moved into private practice and who spoke on the ‘Psychology of Selling’; student architect Steven Trotter on ‘Cities in the Sun: Do our cities adequately satisfy the needs of people living and working in climates such as ours’; Peter Newell on ‘The Architect in a Changing Environment’; and Mrs N. Lorimer on ‘The Woman’s Last Word’.118 Offering a glimpse of the themes occupying architects in 1960s Queensland, it is perhaps telling that Langer appears to have left climate to a younger generation of architects to focus instead on the human aspect and it’s frequent absence in modern architecture.119 However, as demonstrated above, Langer’s concern for the human aspect in modern architecture was a theme that pervaded all aspects of his practice and determined the nature and intent of his work, including the creation of buildings and town plans that were climatically sensitive. This connection is an important one. It places people (or the client) and their comfort at the centre of Langer’s sub-tropical housing and town planning. While physiological comfort was important, psychological comfort appears to

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have been the priority. While his ideas on comfort can be traced to his European roots and teachers, it also ensured a sensitivity to local concerns surrounding climate in Queensland and the anxieties – or psychological discomforts – that accompanied this debate. However and more importantly, it points to a practice that carefully avoided what Langer described as the ‘modernistic’; the instrumental addition of devices or materials made possible by modern science and technology, including glass louvres, breeze blocks, piloti, brise-soleil and butterfly roofs. Described by the architect as ‘mere palliatives’ that only increased the cost of construction, architecture, both modern and climatically sensitive, should speak to the human soul instead. This was only possible, he concluded, if the architect accommodated the physiological, psychological, social and economic factors of the state’s climates and their human consequences.

Notes 1 Karl Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, Magazine of the Australia Architectural Students

Association (March 1961), 13–15, continued 53. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer presented the paper at the annual symposium of the Australia Architectural Students Association (AASA) that same year. 2 See Langer’s comments of a housing estate in Erskineville, Sydney, 1939 (discussed in

Chapter 3). 3 Brisbane Courier, ‘Peace and Quiet: Pensioner’s Camp at Tarragindi’, 25 July 1928, 16;

Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Double Probe on Shanties’, 21 September 1946, 3; Age (Melbourne), ‘Unemployed Camps: Queensland Will Not Have Them,’ 13 August 1931, 9; Nora Cooper, ‘The Difficulties of Building Under War-time Conditions and Some Expedients’, Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 20, no. 10 (October 1941), 8–11. 4 Karl Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of

Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944), 3. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54. 5 I will focus on writings that examine sub-tropical housing and town planning, the

latter being his primary preoccupation. Langer also wrote on and taught landscape architecture. As these are discussed in Chapter 9, I have not considered them in detail here. Langer was also interested in and involved in the arts, especially the visual arts and music. Few papers on the arts, however, are found in his collection. His enthusiasm for these is demonstrated by his membership on councils and boards including the Queensland Art Gallery, the National Trust of Australia (Queensland Branch) and the Arts Council of Australia. See Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158 Box #19, Folder #2 and Boxes #26, #28 and #48. 6 Langer’s unusual representation of people in plan in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ is

discussed in Chapter 3. The characterisation of these figures, their continuity of use in the elevation, over multiple projects (and years), has not been discussed. The repetition of characters across multiple projects including a man in bowler hat, twin babies, pair of seated girls and three girls holding hands in a circle playing suggests Langer used a pattern book or invented one of his own. This book has not been found.

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7 Karl Langer, letter to Douglas H.K. Lee, dated 16 June 1944. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36. 8 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 2. This material was also taught at the school in 1943.

See Exam, Sub-Tropical Housing, The University of Queensland, Architectural Atelier, 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. Targeting climate, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ can also be seen as an early attempt by the émigré architect to adapt his practice in European modernism to Australian modernism: one based on climate and the development of a distinct regional language. 9 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. 10 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 11 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 9–11. 12 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 6. 13 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 2–3. Lee studied levels of fatigue in tropical and

sub-tropical conditions at the University of Queensland in what was described as the ‘hot room’. Working men were left in the hot room for various periods at different temperatures and humidity and their reactions to such changes and ability to undertake various tasks recorded. Photos of Hot Room, 1930–42, Douglas H.K. Lee Collection, UQFL538, Boxes #4/5, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 14 Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing, 3–4 15 This argument is first introduced by Langer in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, (p.3) but extended

in the essay (with Robert Percy Cummings), ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, part 2 of a paper presented at the ANZAAS (Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science) Congress, Brisbane, 1951. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39. Part 1 of the paper presented by Robert Percy Cummings, Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Folder #4. 16 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. 17 The Frankfurt or ‘niche’ kitchen was designed and developed by Greta Lihotzky

(1897–2000) and applied in both social and middle-class housing. Lihotzky was an Austrian architect and the first woman student to enrol at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. In the 1920s, she worked with Ernst May on the New Frankfurt Housing Project which sought to resolve Frankfurt’s housing shortage. 18 Susan R. Ferguson, Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative, New

York: Peter Lang, 2013 – in particular, Chapter 3, ‘The New Woman’s Home: Kitchens. Laundries, Furnishings’, 148–149. 19 Ferguson, Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative, 159. 20 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. 21 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 11. Langer cites Colin

Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, London: Macmillan, 194. 22 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. 23 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. 24 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. 25 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 6–7. See also

‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, paper presented to the University of Sydney extension course on Architectural Science, 26 August 1957, pp. 73–77. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #38 & #37 respectively.

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26 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 7 27 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. 28 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 1. In support of this final

point, Langer cites: RAAF Educational Services, Geographical Summaries, no. 11, 34. 29 Dr Barton, ‘Lecture on Climate’, Moreton Bay Courier, 30 August 1860, 4. 30 The Immigration Restrictions Act and the Pacific Islands Labourer Act (1901),

collectively known as the White Australia Policies, saw British labour and migration privileged over other and specifically non-white, ethnicities within the newly federated nation of Australia in the early decades of the twentieth century. Targeted at Chinese and Japanese migration, the policies also sought to prevent both the importation of legal and abducted labour from the Pacific Islands to work the sugar plantations in northern Australia. The policies also resulted in the eviction of Chinese and Melanesian populations already resident in Australia. John Hirst, ‘Nation Building, 1901–14’, in Alison Bashford and Stuart Macintyre (eds.), The Cambridge History of Australia, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2013, vol. 2, 15–38 and specifically 21–23. 31 Taylor argued that the Australian tropics couldn’t be successfully settled by white

communities and argued that the nation’s immigrations policies should be changed to support a bi-cultural (Anglo-Asian) community. Thomas Griffith Taylor, ‘Tropical Problems’, Argus (Melbourne), 14 October 1922, 11; and ‘Australia’s Millions: Where Will they Settle? Professor Taylor on the Future of Australia’, Daily Witness (Young), 12 May 1924, 2. 32 Raphael Cilento, The White Man in the Tropics: With Especial Reference to Australia

and its Dependencies, Melbourne, VIC: Department of Health Service Publication & H.J. Green, 1925, 39. Cilento supported the displacement of Indigenous populations into camps and missions. 33 Cilento, The White Man in the Tropics, 102–127; W.A. Osborne, ‘The Physiological

Factors on the Development of an Australian Race’, Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 2 (18 September 1920), 261–269; Sir Raphael Cilento, Colin Clark, Douglas H.K. Lee, L.P.D. O’Connor, E.J.A. Weller and R.P. Cummings. Report on Tropical Housing: Draft, 1943. Sir Raphael Cilento Papers, UQFL44, Box #29, Item #219; Douglas H.K. Lee, “Physiological Principles for Tropical Housing, with Especial Reference to Queensland’, University of Queensland Department of Physiology Papers, vol. 1 no. 8 (May 1944), 1–22. 34 Douglas H.K. Lee, Climate and Economic Development in the Tropics, New York:

Harper, 1957, 8–9. Lee argued that Cilento’s publication, A White Man in the Tropics, did not receive the circulation and attention that it deserved. 35 Karl Langer, letter to Douglas H.K. Lee, dated 16 June 1944. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36; Cilento and Langer were both members of the executive committee of the National Trust of Queensland (established in 1963) and Langer undertook work on a number of properties acquired by the Trust including Wolston House. See Minutes of Executive Committee of the National Trust Queensland. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #50. In May 1956, Langer presented a paper on ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’ at the conference Man and Animals in the Tropics, School of Physics, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, 24–25 May 1956. Both Taylor and Cilento presented material at the same conference, with Taylor giving the opening address and Cilento chairing a session on the third day. See symposium schedule and papers given, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39.

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36 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 37 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 38 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 39 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 40 Charles Edward Woodruff, The Effects of Tropical Light on White Men, New Delhi: Isha

Books, 1905 (reprinted in 2013), 328. As noted in Chapter 2 (note 40), Langer published on colour in architecture in 1927. 41 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. 42 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3: see also plates, 1, 2, 4 and 5 STH. 43 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 4. 44 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. The chain is a unit of length equal to 66 feet (22 yards). 45 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. 46 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3. 47 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 5. Cilento argued that physical activity, both in the

form of labour (physical and mental) and physical recreation, had been instrumental to the acclimatisation of the white man to tropical and sub-tropical Australia. Cilento, White Man in the Tropics, 72. 48 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 4. 49 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 50 I have argued this previously in: Deborah van der Plaat, ‘620 Wickham Street’,

Architecture Australia, vol. 99, no. 1 (January 2010), 73–76. 51 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8. 52 ‘The Vanishing Store Front’, Architectural Forum, vol. 93, no. 1 (July 1950), 64–66. Karl

Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #56. 53 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 2. 54 Langer and Cummings, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 5. 55 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 1–2 and 7 respectively. 56 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 4. 57 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 6–8. 58 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 8. Langer’s focus on micro-

climates and their modification via built and natural interventions was better known as ‘aspect planning’. Defining the practice as ‘ancient’ and citing Socrates on the ‘beautiful and useful house’, the aim of ‘aspect planning’, Langer explained, was to produce a house that ‘was cool in summer and warm in winter’. Pointing also to the ‘oldest Chinese and Japanese literature’, Langer’s knowledge of the practice appears to be more contemporary and European in origin. Arguing that the practice was largely absent in modern planning, ‘due to the modern utilisation of every square foot’, aspect planning was, ‘at the beginning of the [twentieth] century’, the subject [of] a ‘multitude of articles, papers and books, especially in Germany’. These, Langer noted, covered ‘practically every angle of the influences of sun, glare, cooling breezes and unpleasant winds . . . proposed staggered arrangements of houses . . . and laid down the optimum distances between single and row houses’. The results of such studies, had informed a number of large European social housing schemes (Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 13–14)

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59 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 1. 60 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 1. 61 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 5. 62 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 2 63 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 8 64 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 5 65 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 2. 66 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 2 67 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 9. 68 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, 9–12. 69 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 5 70 Robert Percy Cummings, ‘Planning in Queensland’, unpublished manuscript, 30 April

1959, p. 11. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #38. 71 Cummings, ‘Planning in Queensland’, 12. Townsville Daily Bulletin, ‘Community Plan

for Mt. Isa Mines’, 28 August 1954, 3. Langer also developed housing for miners at Mt Isa; see Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83. 72 Cummings, ‘Planning in Queensland’, 12. 73 Karl Langer cited in Warwick Daily News, ‘Expert Says Many Queensland Towns Badly

Planned’, 10 June 1950, 1. 74 Warwick Daily News, ‘Expert Says Many Queensland Towns Badly Planned’, 10 June

1950, 1. 75 Karl Langer cited in ‘Town Planning Suggestions’, Queensland Times (Ipswich), 3

February 1947, 8. 76 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 6. 77 Letter from Professor Cowan to Karl Langer, dated 5 March 1957, proposing in the

Spring of 1957 a postgraduate course of eleven lectures on Architectural Science in Relation to Climate. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 78 Langer, ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’. 79 Letter from Professor Brian Lewis to Karl Langer, dated 14 August 1959. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #24. 80 Melbourne University. Post-Graduate Courses in Tropical Architecture, brochure

outlining short course, Melbourne University, c. 1963, private collection. Housing and town planning were covered by the course. A list of preliminary readings, however, which includes Fry and Drew’s Tropical Architecture (London: B.T. Batsford, 1964), Lee’s Climate and Economic Development in the Tropics (1954), Huntington’s Principles of Human Geography (New York: John Wiley, 1960), Macpherson’s Environmental Problems in Tropical Australia (Canberra, ACR: Government Printing Office, 1956) and Olgyay’s Design with Climate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963) excludes Langer’s ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (1944). In 1974, Saini moved to the University of Queensland where he took up the position of head of school. He also introduced the postgraduate programme in Tropical Architecture.

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81 Anoma Pieris, ‘Modernism at the Margins of the Vernacular: Considering Valentine

Gunaskara’, Grey Room, no. 28 (Summer 2007), 56–85. 82 The entanglement of climate and economy in Langer’s writings on sub-tropical

housing is demonstrated in a lecture/paper by Robert Percy Cummings, colleague and later Professor of Architecture at the University of Queensland, which focuses primarily on climatic design. Robert Percy Cummings, ‘Housing Economics’, unpublished lecture first delivered 23 May 1946, private collection. 83 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 8–9. 84 Ironically, level sites were normally more expensive than sloping sites. 85 Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing’, 9. 86 Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing’, 9. 87 Langer, Sub-Tropical Housing’, 3–4. Langer was to later reuse this arrangement for

his canal estates in the Gold Coast. See Karl Langer, ‘Development of Canal Estate on the Gold Coast’, Architecture in Australia (January/March 1959), 3. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37. 88 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, plate 8 STH. See also Karl Langer, entry for

Westmead (housing) Competition, 1943, Community Layout. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, acc 190226. 89 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 4. 90 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 2 91 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 3. 92 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 2. 93 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 3. 94 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 4. In ‘Can’t We Build Cheaper Houses?: A

Vital Question for All Young Couples’ (Brisbane Telegraph, 27 July 1954, 13), Langer labels the ‘single home’ as a ‘romantic’ idea that will need to be abandoned soon. He continues: Living in a garden city, as we do in Brisbane is an ‘uneconomical luxury’. Flat life is identified by Langer as ‘happy and healthful . . . easier on the housewife and much cheaper than separate homes’. 95 Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, part 1. 96 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘The Hill Could be THE Suburb: Vision of Wide Streets, Tall

Flats and Gardens’, 30 December 1951, 6. 97 In this regard, the project conforms to Cummings’s idea on neighbourhood design;

see Robert Percy Cummings, ‘Housing Economics’ (unpublished lecture presented to the National Council of Women, 1946, private collection, School of Architecture, University of Queensland). 98 ‘The Hill Could be THE Suburb’, 6. 99 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 4. 100 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 4. Langer was also critical of the scale of the

superblock for social housing in Vienna; see Chapter 6. 101 Langer, ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, 4. 102 Langer and Cummings, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 6. Langer’s Main Roads

Building (1967), which was serviced by a climatisation plant, is an example of the architect’s use of the superblock for an office tower; see Chapter 6.

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103 Langer, ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, 6–7. 104 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Can’t We Build Cheaper Houses: A Vital Question for All Young

Couples’, 27 July 1954, 13; Cairns Post, ‘Brisbane Climate Uncomfortable Easier to Live in North, Dr. Langer’s Address to Scientists, Brisbane’, 25 May 1951, 5; CourierMail (Brisbane), ‘Heat Wears Wives, Superblock Suggested’, 25 May 1951, 3; Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Buildings of the Future’, 25 May 1951, 1; Townsville Daily Bulletin, ‘Townsville Climate Under Discussion’, 25 May 1951, 1; Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Will We See This?’, 10 June 1951, 12; Maryborough Chronicle, ‘Super Blocks to Aid Workers’, 25 May 1951, 5. 105 A.D. Murgatroyd, Secretary, Federated Clerks’ Union, ‘Readers View’, Townsville

Daily Bulletin, 30 May 1951, 7. 106 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 13. 107 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 13–15. 108 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 15. 109 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 15. Langer may have been targeting Melbourne

architect and commentator Robin Boyd, who in 1950 had identified the use of piloti as evidence of Queensland successfully moving towards a modern and scientific architectural practice. See Robin Boyd and Peter Newell, ‘St Lucia: A Housing Revolution is Taking Place’, Architecture (July 1950), 106–114. 110 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 15. 111 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 15. The importance Langer placed on the technical

and scientific is demonstrated in Sub-Tropical Housing in the final section of the pamphlet where the architect develops a series of charts and graphs for the Brisbane architect to use to calculate the correct roof over overhangs that will maximize natural light but minimize direct sun, the location of vents to capture prevailing breezes, etc. While such consideration are identified by Langer as important, they are, however, proceeded by detailed discussions of social issues such as fatigue, economics and fashion. 112 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 15. 113 Langer, ‘Planning and the Citizen’, 13–15. 114 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 10. 115 Walter Burley Griffin, ‘Planning a Federal Capital City Complete’, Improvement

Bulletin (Minneapolis), 55, 25 (6 November 1912), 16. 116 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 10. 117 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 11. 118 Karl Langer, ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’, given at The Sensation

of Architecture: Second Convention at Toowoomba of the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 23–25 October 1964. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39. 119 Langer writes in his paper: ‘In our time of specialisation where there exists Architects,

who pride themselves that they specialise in certain types of buildings and at the other end of the scale Architects, who are clamouring for “building statements”, catering for the human being, naturally, is falling short’. Langer, ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’.

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6 BRIDGING CONTINENTS Karl Langer’s Contributions to Housing Andrew Wilson

Housing played a significant role at the beginning of Karl Langer’s career, with the housing crisis that unfolded in Vienna caused by the influx of people who moved into the city, triggered by the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after the First World War.1 These events formed the backdrop as Langer began his architectural education in 1920 (see Chapter 1).2 Early professional experiences exposed Langer to a broad range of attempts at a resolution to this crisis advanced by Vienna’s architects, while he was employed with Frank and Vlach, then Schmid and Aichinger. Upon arrival in Australia, Langer was confronted with another housing shortage, this time brought on by the depression of the 1930s and the human and material cost of the Second World War. Drawing on his Viennese experience, Langer made a significant contribution to housing and planning schemes for Brisbane to meet anticipated growth after the war, including speculations on appropriate forms for the house and housing and how they could be organized in the post-war city.3 During an inspection of newly constructed workers’ flats in Sydney’s inner suburb of Erskineville – most likely the Erskineville Housing Scheme by architects Morton Herman (1907–1983) and W.R. Richardson (b. 1890), reported in the Sydney press prior to his departure for Brisbane – Langer judged the scheme better than the ‘superblocks’ of Vienna, such as those in the Margarethengürtel precinct on Vienna’s periphery and Bela-Somogyi-Hof (1929), with its diagonal-patterned FIGURE 6.1 Karl Langer, sketch plan for residence, John Cooper Esq., 1941. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (facing page)

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FIGURE 6.2 Karl Langer, family house, timber and brick construction, Austria, c. 1935. Karl Langer Architectural Collection, UQFL158, Box #43, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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brick entry. These projects, overseen by Schmid and Aichinger during the period of Langer’s employment, were equivalent in scale to the Karl Marx-Hof (1930) by architect and city planner Karl Ehn (1884–1959) and emblematic of the superblock projects (Gemeindebauten) favoured by the social democrats’ building programme in the inter-war period.4 Despite his direct involvement in the programme (see Chapter 1), Langer remained critical of the small apartment sizes and lack of amenity, such as central heating, provided within the monumental form of the superblock. He singled out the Karl Marx-Hof in particular, which he described as ‘furnished only with a stove’, while externally the ‘imposing towers and huge arches over every entrance’ gave the appearance of ‘grand hotels for rich people’.5 A better housing solution for the worker, Langer argued, was offered by the small house or cottage. ‘My experience’, Langer observed, ‘has been that a workman wants his little piece of land’. He wants his own backyard. Eventually he will be happier in a cottage’.6 This position aligned Langer with a former employer, Josef Frank (1885– 1967), who had campaigned in the 1920s on behalf of the Austrian Association for Settlements and Small Gardens, or Vienna Settlement Movement, an organization set up at a time of economic hardship and food shortages, to assist self-help groups with the provision of housing and garden plots to its members.7 This prompted the establishment of a municipal Settlement Office (Siedlungsamt) in 1921, with Adolf Loos (1870–1933) appointed chief architect. Loos drew up a settlement zoning plan that designated areas for settlement on the outskirts of Vienna.8

Outdoor living Outdoor living was an idea explored by Langer in the modest houses he designed for Austria’s humid continental climate, while in private practice. The house illustrated in Figure 6.2 was chosen for publication to demonstrate an affordable timber and brick solution, ideas that were translated to his new context in Australia. In January 1941, Langer received one of his first private commissions: a house proposal for prominent Australian art-world figure John Cooper.9 It was developed just over a year after Langer had arrived in Brisbane and captures the moment he articulated a new approach for houses for the south-east Queensland region, focused on outdoor living and, like the Austrian example, it followed developments in California in the decades prior to the Second World War. The proposal appears to be Langer’s first attempt to come to terms with his new circumstances and establishes a general schema he would return to over the course of the Australian phase of his career. The plan and perspective for the Cooper residence (see Figure 6.1) depicts a symmetrical pavilion on a narrow site capped by a hipped terracotta tile roof with large overhangs, set against a horizontal backdrop of hedges, with European and indigenous trees in silhouette. A fireplace was shown in the living room but no

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chimney appeared above. The proposal was informed by Langer’s interest in Frank Lloyd Wright, the United States and its lifestyle, in particular, the integration of architecture into the landscape. Although Langer adopted a traditional roof form, this was combined with the less conventional idea of the house built on the ground – a novel idea in south-east Queensland – where the garden could become an extension of the living area. The scheme was developed three years before the publication of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (1944). Langer organized living space to the front of the site and dormitory space to the rear separated by a side entry porch. Bedrooms were located adjacent to the back yard, with future sleep-out additions indicated. He proposed a deep planting area in lieu of a fence to the street as a privacy screen. The front yard acted as an extension of the living room, while a covered ‘living terrace’ mediated the area between. A rock path connected the terrace to a circular pond, while a sculpture on a plinth was positioned beyond. This is an arrangement that echoed approaches advocated by Californian landscape architects Thomas Church (1902–1978), Garrett Eckbo (1910–2000), James C. Rose (1913–1991) and Dan Kiley (1912– 2004) before the war,10 and represents a significant and early moment of transfer of Californian ideas into Australasian architectural culture, played out more fully after the war.11 (For a fuller discussion of these ideas, see Chapter 9.) In an undated isometric sketch – an unusual representational technique for Queensland at this time – Langer revealed his scheme for a house and garden on Coronation Drive on the Brisbane River, not far from the city centre.12 Sited on a gently sloping site, the L-figure house was drawn to emphasize a contained outdoor room for the front yard, set back from the street, like the sketch plan for John Cooper. The terracotta-tiled roof and chimney featured what became Langer’s trademark inverted double-V chimney cap. The front yard of the Coronation Drive House was once again presented as an extension of the living area, in this case as a ‘patio’ set back like the house in response to the urban setting (Figure 6.3). What the angle of the isometric hides, but which is revealed in the plan, is the placement of the living room and main bedroom of the two-bedroom house – side-by-side – extended outward by a raised ‘living terrace’ or veranda overlooking the back yard. The isometric showed the patio as a landscape equipped with seats, a stone path, lawn and European-style planting, while the plan presented the space as a square-paved hard surface.13 The Coronation Drive House proposal seems to have been the precursor of the Gasking House, St. Lucia (1941), designed for Douglas Gasking (1911–1994) and Elizabeth (Betty) Gasking (d. 1973), the Langers’ travel companions on their journey from Sydney to Brisbane. The steeply sloping site required the addition of stairs for access to the back yard.14 Through family connections – Mrs Russell was the sister of Mrs Cooper – Langer was also commissioned to design Jimbour Cottage, Southport (1941), a holiday cottage at the beach (Figure 6.4), with a brief to accommodate large

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FIGURE 6.3 Karl Langer, Coronation Drive House axonometric, date unknown. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland. R83, Roll 12/10, Location: Box #15730 O/S.

numbers of guests and described by the client after completion as ‘a medieval kind of architecture’.15 The client was Charles (Chas) Russell (1907–1977), owner of Jimbour House, a wheat and livestock station outside of Dalby, over 200 km northwest of Brisbane. On initial visits to the corner site in Southport, Langer undertook precise site measurements to establish contours, position of existing trees, prevailing breezes and path of the sun. A perspectival sketch following the Cooper precedent depicted a house situated on the ground. A covered terrace addressed the front yard, with a rock entrance path. Existing trees were retained with two taller European-style additions. He took the opportunity to develop ideas through successive iterations; first a gabled pavilion that featured a prominent central

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FIGURE 6.4 Karl Langer, Jimbour Cottage, Southport, 1941. Karl Langer Architectural Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

chimney, reminiscent of an Austrian farmhouse, followed by two-level variations, before settling on a house plan organized on one level. The resultant four-bedroom timber cottage that included a maid’s room, located the living room adjacent to a raised terrace to the rear of the site and patio that faced the Pacific Highway. The slope of the site allowed a two-car garage and laundry underneath. The sturdy construction included a double-sided stone fireplace as an extension of the masonry plinth. The patio was shaded by a heavy double-beam pergola over the patio and barbecue area.16 His selection of ‘lilly-pillys’ to plant on the site is an early example of a developing interest in indigenous plants, explored most fully in his own house.17 Jimbour Cottage was published in 1948 in London’s Architectural Review as part of a special issue devoted to Australian architecture, exposure that positioned Langer, then in his mid-forties, as Queensland’s highest profile architect.18

Sub-tropical housing Karl Langer’s experiences in Vienna brought fresh insights when transposed to his new circumstance in Australia where he quickly ‘absorbed the atmosphere of Queensland’.19 Langer wrote articles on colour as a student and was a strong

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advocate for the use of colour and experimented in early house commissions during the war (see Chapter 2). Former student Campbell Scott (1921–2007), one of the few architecture students able to continue his education at this time and who established a partnership with Edwin Hayes (1918–1997) (Hayes and Scott) immediately after, often visited Karl and Gertrude at their home in Toowong in the inner west of Brisbane during the course of his studies. He remembered visiting a house commissioned by Mrs Lance Jones Senior at Narrowneck on the South Coast, in the early 1940s, that experimented with an all-over colour scheme, a ‘muted plum-mauve’.20 His proactive contribution to the various architectural and urban campaigns run in Brisbane during the war and lessons offered to the small cohort of students he and Gertrude interacted with, including Campbell Scott, Colin Jessup (b. 1914), Colin Tesch (b. 1919), Ronald Corbett (b. 1916), Dean Prangley (1917–1998), Robert Froud (1920–2001), Colin Trapp (1921–1986), David Bell, Ted Crofts (1919–2007), Frank Salmon (1920–2010) – later employed by Langer – and Gordon Banfield (1922–2007), who all went on to have significant professional careers, set the trajectory of Queensland housing for the immediate post-war period.21 With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the publication of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (1944), its reception by the profession and dissemination to the public through journals and the popular press, played a crucial role.22 Like Alfred Hook and Robert Cummings before him, Langer argued for ‘houses to suit our own climatic and social conditions’.23 He advocated for affordable houses free of superfluous decoration, built on the ground with the garden as an extension of living spaces, connected to parks and organized within a garden city setting. The arguments made in the publication aligned with the findings of Brisbane City Council’s Community Centres Advisory Committee and also the state government appointed Tropical Housing Committee established during the Second World War.24 It was produced contemporaneously with a tropical house prototype developed by the State Department of Public Works ‘to be built in northern and north-western localities to determine the most suitable types for those places’ at the behest of the Tropical Housing Committee.25 In 1943, just prior to the publication of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Langer had developed ‘seven standard plans’ in answer to a public call for submissions by the Commonwealth Housing Commission in the Ministry of Post-war Reconstruction, that coincided with the release of a model plan for a house suitable for tropical climates designed by commission architect Charles Howard.26 The plans were his response to meet ‘housing requirements for Australia in the post-war period’.27 Given that the call was made so soon after the formation of the Tropical Housing Committee, it is not surprising that Langer targeted sub-tropical and tropical regions. Five of the plans were then selected for publication in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’. ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ was originally conceived as a collaboration with

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professor of physiology Dr Douglas H.K. Lee (1905–2005), a member of the committee who penned the draft report. Lee, an active researcher at the University of Queensland during the war, was broadly dismissive of the climatic performance of Queensland housing and subsequently decided to produce a separate publication that set out the physiological principles for tropical housing in the state.28 In his text for ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Langer defined the essentials of the subtropical house in both climatic and economic terms, with an emphasis on the avoidance of fatigue, an issue that had been raised by Lee in a prior call for a postwar tropical housing plan.29 Langer advocated for houses built on the ground replete with house-gardens and a move to outdoor living.30 He proposed the planting of ‘shady trees’ in the back yard of house-gardens equipped with ‘open-air showers, seats, sand pits for children and perhaps outdoor fireplaces’,31 and recalled Frank Lloyd Wright and his followers Rudolf Schindler and Richard Neutra to suggest, ‘if we cease to think in terms of front-garden, back garden and house, we may use the garden as a single unified living-area, the surrounding hedges of which become the walls’.32 He also argued for the design and construction of affordable houses appropriate to level of income, but warned of the difficulties of achieving this for lower-income groups, while noting developments in ‘mass fabrication’ of building components and the potential of soil-cement slabs to reduce costs.33 Famously Langer drew the first ‘sun chart’ for Brisbane, to enable architects of the region to calibrate appropriate overhangs to shade walls and sun shades for windows. He also compiled a selection of scientific tables and diagrams to assist with modulation of light in a bid to eliminate glare, alongside wind pressure diagrams, material that we might think of as fundamental to architectural science today. For these he drew on technical material from the German-speaking world and United States sourced from before and during the war.34 The plans in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (STH) presented scenarios for a nuclear family with a car, but were overlaid with other visual narratives, figures drawn from above, engaged in the cultured pursuits of ‘Mitteleuropa’ inside – such as playing the piano, listening to classical music and dancing (plate 4 STH) – set against outdoor activities in the garden.35 The plans were annotated with references to elements typical of ‘seaside cottages’ found in coastal settings like the South Coast, later renamed the Gold Coast, where Langer had already received commissions and observations made on travels through regional Queensland.36 Although Langer claimed that ‘the plans were designed for Brisbane conditions’, they did not account for one crucial aspect of the city and its broader region, its hilly topography, an omission noted by one reviewer at the time, that had consequences for houses he designed in Brisbane’s suburbs. In fact, rarely was Langer able to build on the ground, even in coastal areas, that typically featured flatter terrain.37

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‘Soil cement slab’ or slab on ground construction, an innovation noted in Langer’s plans and explored by Rudolf Schindler for his own house in Los Angeles in 1926, was a construction technique still in its infancy in Australia, taken up broadly in the post-war period.38 After the war, architects faced constraints due to plan area restrictions and shortages of material and skilled labour. In the local region, architects also had to deal with the lack of tradespeople familiar with new methods of construction, problems caused by termites and a preference from clients for garages built under the house, a move away from separate garage structures, that necessitated lifting the house up off the ground.39 Most of the recommendations advanced by Langer in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ followed those proposed by Robert Cummings (1900–1989), lecturer in architecture at the University of Queensland, who was responsible for the architectural input to the Tropical Housing Committee report.40 Langer listed wide overhangs, cross-ventilation or passive cooling and the use of louvres, following developments in the United States; reduction of heat transmission through the roof and consideration of aspect with a preference for north-east orientation of living areas, but also ‘efficient design’ and, as an economy measure, the idea of ‘the basic house’ supplemented by additions over time. This idea recalled the CoreHouse (Kernhaus) project (1923) instigated by the city of Vienna (GESIBA), for the Austrian Association for Settlements and Small Gardens, with contributions by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky (1897–2000), George Karau (1876–1936) and others, that provided phased financing and construction for settlers’ houses.41 In the second part of his text, Langer shifted focus from ‘basic human needs’ to consider ‘other forces [that] influence design decisions’. Here he cited economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), admired by Frank Lloyd Wright and his notions of ‘conspicuous consumption’ and ‘conspicuous waste’ and was critical of the adoption of anachronistic styles including the ‘modernistic’, prefiguring attacks on popular taste and ‘featurism’ by Melbourne-based architect and critic Robin Boyd (1919–1971), elaborated in the book The Australian Ugliness.42 Langer included illustrations for five plan variations, three L-figure options that were directly indebted to Frank Lloyd Wright’s affordable Usonian house prototype (plates 1, 4 and 5 STH), with the addition of a C-figure plan that enabled an open courtyard (plate 2 STH), as well as a square-figure plan (plate 3 STH).43 This plan incorporated a productive garden in the back yard, a reference to the schemes produced for the campaign waged by the Austrian Association for Settlements and Small Gardens in Vienna. Whilst Langer claimed that all plans were tailored for Brisbane, specific detail and notation that alluded to coastal and hot dry climate zones in Queensland, points to their original purpose, as ‘standard plans’ for tropical and sub-tropical areas.44 Langer’s ‘Schematic Lay-out for a Community of approximately 2000 People’ (plate 8 STH), published alongside the plans, separated pedestrian and vehicular traffic. He cited Radburn, New Jersey (1929), planned by Clarence Stein (1882–

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1975), Henry Wright (1878–1936) and landscape architect Marjorie Sewell Cautley (1891–1954), where backyards were oriented to face the street, as an important precedent.45 Maximum walking distances for the community were set at ten minutes, as was the case for Frank Lloyd Wright’s urban plans for Chicago in the early twentieth century, which followed Ebenezer Howard’s garden city principles. Brisbane City Council’s Community Centres Advisory Committee adopted the Neighbourhood Unit Scheme for Metropolitan Areas planning model devised by Clarence Perry (1872–1944) for his New York Regional Plan (1929), the model favoured on the east coast of Australia, as best suited to manage expected post-war growth. The plan developed by Frank Heath (1907–1980) for Swan Hill in Victoria (1940) also applied Perry’s neighbourhood unit.46 Perry identified four components essential to a community; an elementary school, small parks and playgrounds, local shops and a residential environment. He further defined six neighbourhood unit principles: size limit, boundaries to allow the flow of through-traffic (separation of different modes of circulation), open spaces, provision for institutional sites, local shops and an internal street system for traffic circulation.47 Fundamental to Perry’s scheme was a belief in the important role of community centres and centrally located groupings of educational, religious and civic buildings, as demonstrated by Radburn. More broadly, it aligned with the anti-metropolitan organizational principles for regions developed by Stein’s Regional Planning Association of America (RPAA). Guided by the logic of this schema, the committee advocated community centres for Brisbane set within a green belt, surrounded by satellite towns with villages beyond.48 The five house plans published in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ were premised on dual access, either from the street or the back, made possible by linear finger parks connected into a central recreational parkland, representing a shift in focus for outdoor living, from the front to back yard. Additional house cluster diagrams accompanied the plans and verified scenarios for all possible orientations (plates 6 and 7 STH). Lots were varied in size and length, to simulate the range of subdivision scenarios in Brisbane. The diagrams reveal a consistent pattern, the positioning of the principal garden space to the north. Where houses addressed the finger park, diagrams indicated the provision of car parking space in the garden directly off the street. Langer established a minimum house setback of twenty feet, in keeping with Wright’s Usonian house concept, to allow accommodation of the car on-site in front of the house, adjacent to a yard. Langer succeeded in clearly articulating an idea for affordable housing that accounted for the car, in defined communities with the provision of recreational facilities. These were set within an internalized park, beside a core of linear blocks of flats and community functions organized around a formal central square. How this community bounded by major roads would relate to the existing settlement

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patterns and topography remained unaccounted for, however the schematic layout prefigured the linear vision produced for the Mackay town plan (1945) and postwar canal developments on the Gold Coast (see Chapter 7).49 The ideas Langer developed during the war had their impact through his publication’s dissemination and the associated promotion of his ideas in journals and newspapers immediately after, alongside the campaign by Queensland architects for a greater national coverage of their work.50

Post-war limits Housing was the primary focus for architectural culture in Queensland immediately after the war.51 The first designs produced by Langer for new commissions were often rendered watercolours. Early house proposals included breezeway solutions with covered outdoor spaces and courtyards. An undated sketch for a twobedroom house in Clyden Ave, Surfers Paradise in the early 1940s – most likely an early version of Jimbour Cottage – proposed a C-figure in plan and separated living and dormitory areas with a breezeway – a generous twenty-four feet wide patio and covered terrace – that opened to the garden beyond, a precursor of the C-figure option included in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’.52 The precise plan area calculation of 1,250 square feet was the maximum area allowed by wartime restrictions.53 Despite his advocacy for houses built on the ground, those constructed during the war and immediately after tended to follow local building convention and were timber-framed houses with hipped roofs, raised slightly off the ground on stumps, or a brick plinth. Houses Langer designed in the western suburban growth corridor of Brisbane in the first years after the war such as Hoey House, Indooroopilly (1946) and Lefmann House (1947), also in Indooroopilly, were examples of this type. On a number of occasions Langer confronted the problem of the long narrow ten-metre wide lot, typical of many inner-city subdivisions in Brisbane, as was the case with the Gustav Levi House, Toowong (1946) [extant] and Pearce House, Toowong, designed in the early 1960s.54 The sloping site of both schemes precluded building on the ground. By necessity a linear plan was developed for the Levi House, with a garage positioned underneath, set back twenty feet from the street. Living, dining and kitchen areas were located to the front of the site. As a response to the narrowness of the lot, Langer positioned the entry on the right hand-side, through an entry porch tucked behind the kitchen adjacent to a study. The bathroom and bedroom were situated beyond, behind a generous veranda to the garden. Another early project, the house for Dr and Mrs R. Levy, Mt Tambourine (1947), painted all-over pink, was a version of the C-figure plan in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, reworked as a platform raised off the ground. Apart from the use of colour, it appeared rather conventional, with a ‘deep corrugated fibro-cement’

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hipped roof and terrace (veranda) that extended the living area facing north, overlooking the front yard.55 Again a concealed side entrance led to a breezewayveranda that opened to a raised lawn and the bedrooms behind. The Popper House, Enoggera (1947), was yet another hipped-roof timber-framed house on a narrow site raised off the ground and the Spiegel House, Castlecrag (Sydney, 1948) was a brick L-figure plan house designed for art historian Hedwig Spiegel (1903–1985) and her husband Edgar, friends of Gertrude and Karl who had also fled Vienna.56 A house for Dr Skyring in Rockhampton (1949), an early project in regional Queensland, was conceived with elaborate lawns and gardens and was an L-figure plan with a large circular terrace positioned adjacent to the living area (see Chapter 9). Langer received a number of seaside cottage commissions on the South Coast (now Gold Coast), which allowed greater experimentation. These included: the timber-framed Power House, Surfers Paradise (1946), with its steeply pitched gable roof and prominent chimney similar in form to Jimbour Cottage; the Williamson Cottage, Surfers Paradise (1948), inspired by the client’s visit to California, which featured a ‘futuristic mural’ on its garage doors and bamboo pergola in the back yard; and the Pinter House, Broadbeach (1951), another hipped-roof timber framed courtyard house on a brick plinth.57 For an undated and unrealized project (Figure 6.5), Langer further refined the integration of architecture and landscape which he had first explored in the Cooper sketch plan in 1941.58 The curvilinear landscape forms were reminiscent of the work of Roberto Burle Marx (1909–1994), such as the garden proposed for the unbuilt Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine Beach House (Serena Beach, 1948), a collaboration with fellow Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012), which received widespread attention in architectural journals.59 Langer’s proposal incorporated a rock paved entry path and long rectangular pool at the entrance to the house. The living area was organized to allow views to the north, south and east, wrapped around a kitchen-utility core and opened to the garden and terrace, with a utility yard positioned at a lower level, hidden from view at one end. Provision for an expansive contoured lawn and play area for children was included. A sight line was established from the terrace to a sculpture plinth positioned within a second (darker) curved planting zone, elongated to sit within the length of the polygonal site. It was an ambitious proposal that he was not to realize in built form.60

Formal shift Karl and Gertrude Langer’s own house, the Langer House, St. Lucia (1950), marked a significant formal shift and recalled their experience of modernist projects in Vienna and Europe from the 1920s (Figure 6.6A). It was the subject of an article by Nora Cooper in July 1953, in Australian Home Beautiful as a follow-up to a special

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FIGURE 6.5 Karl Langer, early sketch plan, date unknown. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 34/5, Location: Box #15736 O/S.

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 6.6 (A) Langer Residence, St. Lucia, 1950; (B) Gertrude in front of the loggia. Karl Langer Architectural Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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issue on architecture in Queensland and also featured on the cover of Australian House and Garden in September that year.61 Langer was initially disappointed that planning regulations did not allow his small-lot house to be one storey, given his protestations in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ and print media.62 He responded with a brick two-storey rectilinear terraced building, rendered in all-over pink hue with grey highlights for window surrounds, a detail common to commercial and institutional buildings in Queensland at the time. He used the depth of the window surround as a sun-shading device and applied white highlights for the timber casements. The house was conceived as a platform level with the front garden, but raised off the steeply sloping site on piers at the back. Living, kitchen and office spaces were allocated to the ground floor and three bedrooms, bathroom and roof terrace oriented to the south, above. For their own house, the Langers drew on terraced projects by Josef Frank, Adolf Loos (1870–1933) and Peter Behrens (1868–1940) from the late 1920s. It most closely resembles the double-house or duplex designed by Frank, as his contribution to the residential programme of the Deutscher Werkbund’s Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart completed in 1927. The Weissenhofsiedlung was coordinated by Mies van der Rohe (1886–1969) from 1925, the year of Langer’s employment with Oskar Vlach (1881–1963) and Frank and also coincided with the establishment of their furnishing firm Haus & Garten.63 The living room of the Langer House was painted green and living spaces configured to frame views of the garden, an approach advocated by Frank.64 It featured a loggia addition to the garage – loggias were an element favoured by Margarete Lihotzky in her initial proposals for the Winarsky-hof, Vienna (1925), completed just prior to Langer’s employment with Frank and Vlach, a project that involved contributions through various iterations from Josef Hoffmann (1870– 1956), Peter Behrens, Adolf Loos, Frank and Vlach, Oskar Strnad (1879–1935), Franz Schuster (1892–1972), Karl Dirnuber (1889–1953) and Lihotzky.65 The loggia was a covered outdoor recreation space sheltered from the sun, adjacent to the garden pool situated in the front yard (Figure 6.6B). A photograph of the loggia was included in Nora Cooper’s overview of current trends in Queensland architecture in March 1953, that drew on the arguments laid out in Subtropical Housing.66 Against the backdrop of an improving Australian economy, Langer was also able to build houses closer in quality to his ambitions for the affordable Queensland house. The Ryan House, Bardon (1951), was one of the few houses that closely followed recommendations made in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (Figure 6.7).67 It was a single-storey timber house built on the ground, that opened to the lawn and continued Langer’s interest in colour, with wide eaves painted a deep glossy green and columns and brickwork painted red. Casement windows, fascia, sashes and trims, were all painted white.68

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FIGURE 6.7 Karl Langer, Ryan House, Bardon, 1951. John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Accession Number 6523.

Shaded outdoor space Another, the Nettheim House, Ascot (1953), was a low-pitched extruded gable form slightly raised off the ground, once again L-figure in plan and positioned at the end of a cul-de-sac that stepped to meet the ground.69 It featured a ‘covered terrace’ to the street, with an open trellis to connect the house to a separate garage, set back from the street and all under one roof.70 Shaded outdoor space was a theme that was again explored in the Levy House, Southport (1953), an addition to an existing house that gave Langer the opportunity to continue his interest in Japanese garden-inspired landscape ideas and the garden as extension of living space.71 The cover of Australian Home Beautiful (April 1953) featured a colour photograph of the Levy’s back yard (Figure 6.8) and revealed the complex landscape ideas at play, the melding of Asian and indigenous references pursued by Langer in the first half of the 1950s. The clients recline on butterfly chairs in a ‘bush house’, beside a barbecue and its curved chimney, capped by a steel plate echoing the ‘moon gate’ in the end wall, all shaded by a pergola overlaid with lengths of bamboo that generated waves of striated shade. A Yukimi-Doro lantern

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FIGURE 6.8 Karl Langer, back yard of Levy House, Southport, 1953. Cover, Home Beautiful, April 1953. State Library of Queensland. Are Media Pty Limited (Home Beautiful).

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noted in the accompanying article – and with origins related to use in regions subjected to snow – is not visible in the photograph chosen for the cover. A mural depicting an aboriginal kangaroo hunt was painted on the garage doors.72 In the organization of the plan, Langer assigned all living areas to ground level and the backyard, alongside a small surgery for Dr Levy. A paved laneway between the existing structure and new additions ran from the entrance to a rear drying yard. A curved ironbark screen defined one edge of the laneway and hid the original timber stumps of the house. The dining room of the living area opened to the ‘bush house to enable outdoor living’.73 The Vidgen House, Sherwood (1954) [extant], continued the theme of outdoor living in a landscape setting.74 It backed on to Sherwood Forest Park, allowing direct access, recalling the intent of Langer’s community plan in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’.75 The topography again necessitated raising the house off the ground. The carport, laundry and store were located underneath and the living room opened to the south to take advantage of views across the park, with a west-facing masonry wall shielding the living spaces from the western sun. These in turn opened to a large, partly-covered landscaped terrace to the north, with a barbecue, pergola and pond, in a reworking of Langer’s own house. Although the house was linear in plan, the covered terrace resulted in an L-figure form, that framed a north-facing courtyard.

Simple roof forms In a session devoted to engineering and architecture at the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS) Congress held in Brisbane in May 1951, Langer delivered a paper and argued that ‘he saw great possibilities in [the] Australian construction of huge [Corbusian] ‘superblock’ buildings housing hundreds of families or thousands of offices, which could be fitted with air conditioning plants to aid workers’ efficiency in hot weather’, described as ‘a large air-conditioned city’.76 This was an apparent reversal on earlier views and was supported by a sketch recalling Le Corbusier’s ideas for the Ville Radieuse (1930), the advocacy of air conditioning a climatic concession that departed from the passive heating and cooling techniques he had previously argued for. It heralded things to come, with the commissioning of larger commercial projects from the mid-1950s such as the Lennons Broadbeach Hotel on the Gold Coast begun in 1954.77 From the mid-1950s, with a number of larger commissions and the positive reception to his own house, Langer explored a repertoire of simplified formal solutions for houses and flats.78 Langer adopted a number of forms for the modern house in circulation post-war, developed by a new generation of architects, many of whom he had taught as students. These included variations of low-pitched extruded gable, terraced and butterfly roof forms for a range of houses.

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The Freney House, Tarragindi (1954) [extant] was a butterfly-roof house completed in suburban Brisbane one year after Hayes and Scott employed a butterfly roof for the Pfitzenmaier House in Surfers Paradise (1953).79 The house was raised off the ground on a long corner site, with living space and shaded balcony overlooking the narrow frontage. A screened courtyard entry was located behind the living zone under the lowest point of the butterfly roof. The entry separated the living zone from the bedrooms and carport to the rear. Although linear in plan, Langer cleverly interlocked living and dormitory areas and positioned a concealed drying yard beside the neighbour’s fence. That same year Langer was commissioned to develop a proposal for a residence for Mr and Mrs Haddrill at Burleigh Heads on the Pacific Highway, an interlocking rectilinear caretaker’s residence at the entrance of a car park, motel and caravan park proposal, a simplified version of Langer’s own house.80 An early mixed-use proposal for a six-storey arcade with flats at Surfers Paradise from 1957, featured Corbusian elements, a shaded roof garden, integration of planter boxes, vertical brise soleil fins and dynamic balcony arrangements to maximize views (Figure 6.9). It was

FIGURE 6.9 Karl Langer, proposed flats and shopping arcade, Surfers Paradise, 1958. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83-67v000r006.

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contemporaneous with the design of Torbreck, Highgate Hill (1957–60), by Job and Froud, a Corbusian high-rise complex in Brisbane, also conceived with an arcade at ground level. Robert Froud (1920–2001), design architect for Torbreck, was taught by Langer during the war.81 The Vallis House, Twigg St, Indooroopilly (1958) [extant], was a wide lowpitched asymmetrical gable-roof house on stumps that directly addressed the street.82 Langer strategically reconciled the sloping site by stepping the house under the roof. The living room, dining room and study opened to a veranda and stepped down to a bedroom and carport.83 The Vallis House confirmed the fundamental importance of affordability for Langer. As the client recounted: ‘Karl wanted to prove that he could produce a design and have it built for a lower cost than the very basic homes then being constructed by the Queensland Housing Commission’.84 A block of four timber-framed flats on a corner site in Explorer St, Toowong, designed for Monte Gorton in the same year, employed a similar formal strategy; with a brick end wall that featured projected snap headers. Another proposal for four flats in Taringa designed the following year (also for Gorton) on a steeply sloping site addressed this issue by terracing the site. Langer’s largest flat commission at Salstone St, Kangaroo Point (1959) [extant], comprised twelve flats organized over two levels that sat under a low-pitched extruded gable roof. In the 1960s, Langer was given the opportunity to design houses with a more substantial budget. The Condon House, St. Lucia (1963), was a stepped interlocking two-storey flat-roof timber house on a brick plinth with ‘decorative’ concrete block inserts, located on a steeply sloping site.85 Living areas were organized on the ground floor with three bedrooms above.86 In this house and the Arden House, Spring Hill (1969) [extant], he was able to develop terraced forms that referenced ideas developed in his own house. The McQueen House, Raceview (1963), is a rare example of a house designed with a substantial budget on an expansive site (Figure 6.10). It included an indoor garden and was another house with an asymmetrical low-pitched gable roof, this time supported by thin columns to encompass a carport, with the addition of a flat-roofed dormitory wing and porte-cochère entry.87 Karl Langer’s experiences in Vienna informed his attitudes to affordable housing and were closely aligned with his former mentor Josef Frank. His approach to housing was underpinned by his interest in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and garden city town planning principles. In Queensland, Langer played a crucial role in disseminating the findings of the Tropical Housing Committee and advocating climate responsiveness. His most significant contribution was made through the ideas he developed for the house on both continents, imagining the garden as a ‘micro-climate’ and in Queensland the idea of building on the ground to enable the extension of living space outdoors.88 He saw the potential for the integration of architecture and landscape

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 6.10 Karl Langer, McQueen House, Raceview, 1963: (A) exterior; (B) interior, lounge and dining area. Whitehead Studio. Ipswich Library, Picture Ipswich Reference no. WHD-016-NEG-1720p. LANGER’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO HOUSING

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and its broad application within local architectural culture. Ideas about architecture, landscape, lifestyle, climate and urban form, taken up by his former students and subsequent generations, that persist in the architectural culture of Queensland today.

Notes 1 Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919–1934, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,

1999, 84. 2 In 1922, at the age of nineteen, Langer had worked as a bricklayer with the Wiener

Bau-Gesellschaft, during his studies at the Baufachschule at the Vienna School of Applied Arts (Staatsgwerbeschule). 3 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Austrian Refugee to Help Plan City’, 9 May 1944, 3; Karl

Langer, ‘It Costs Less to Spend More. City Planning Can Save Millions’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 20 September 1946, 2; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Says 46,000 are a Minimum’, 5 December 1946, 10. 4 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Erskineville Housing Scheme’, 6 August 1937, 11; Daily

Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Famous Architect Praises Workers’ Flats. Better than in Vienna’, 26 May 1939, 5; Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 258; Karel Tiege, The Minimum Dwelling, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002, 94. 5 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Famous Architect Praises Workers’ Flats. Better than in

Vienna’, 26 May 1939’. 6 ‘Famous Architect Praises Workers’ Flats. Better than in Vienna’. 7 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Slum Clearance. Austrian Expert’s Views’, 23 May 1939, 13;

Otto Kapfinger, ‘The Art of Urban Architecture from Below’, in Christian ThunHohenstein, Hermann Czech and Sebastian Hackenschmidt (eds.), Josef Frank Against Design: The Architect’s Anti-Formalist Oeuvre, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2016, 91. 8 Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 98. 9 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘John Cooper’s Art Exhibition’, 24 June 1939, 9; Karl Langer

Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 26/9, Box #15735 O/S. 10 Garrett Eckbo, ‘Landscape Design in the USA’, Architectural Review, vol. 105, no. 625

(January 1949), 25–32; Garrett Eckbo, Daniel Kiley and James Rose, ‘Landscape Design in the Urban Environment’, Architectural Record, vol. 85, no. 5 (May 1939), 70–77; Eckbo, ‘Sculpture and Landscape Design’, Magazine of Art, vol. 31, no. 4 (April 1938), 202–208, 250. 11 See Philip Goad, ‘Constructing Pedigree: Robin Boyd’s “California-Victoria-New

Empiricism Axis” ’, Fabrications, vol. 22, no. 1 (2012), 4–29. 12 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 12/10, Box #15730 O/S. It is unclear if this

scheme was realized. 13 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Rolls 12/10 and 34/5, Box #15730 O/S. 14 Lawrie West, ‘Some Achievements of Doctors Karl and Gertrude Langer – A

Presentation to the St Lucia History Group, August 2004’, St. Lucia History Group Notes, vol. 37 (2017).

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15 Elaine Brown, ‘Russell, Charles Wilfred (1907–1977)’, in Australian Dictionary of

Biography, vol. 16 (2002, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 152; “Jimbour Cottage at Southport,” Queensland Country Life (Brisbane), May 8, 1941, 6. 16 Queensland Country Life (Brisbane), ‘Jimbour Cottage at Southport’, 8 May 1941, 6;

Andrew Leach, Gold Coast: City and Architecture, London: Lund Humphries, 2018, 67. 17 John Wentworth, ‘Jimbour Cottage’, Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 29, no. 8 (August

1950), 30–31. 18 Architectural Review, ‘The Architecture of Australia: A Special Number of the

Architectural Review’, Architectural Review, vol. 104, no. 619 (July 1948), 34. While the house is mentioned, Langer or the project is not discussed in any detail. 19 R.W.H. Hawken, ‘Preface’, in Karl Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty

of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944), 1. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 20 Angela Reilly, Interview with Campbell Scott, Early Practice, 7 May 1998. UQFL569,

Item #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘A Kitchen to Dream Of ’, 14 September 1953, 18; Truth (Brisbane), ‘The Jottings of a Lady About Town’, 7 January 1940, 29. 21 Faculty of Architecture, University of Queensland, Register of Students, 1937–66;

Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘The Courier-Mail Presents Your Post-War Home’, July 1945, 6. Gordon Banfield commenced his Diploma at the University of Queensland in 1946. 22 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Homes Should Suit Climate’, 1 August 1944, 6; Winifred

Moore, ‘Design Home to Suit Climate’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 15 June 1944, 5; Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Modern Line Taken in These City Homes. It’s Called “Twentieth Century Subtropical” ’, 9 May 1948, 5; Cairns Post, ‘Brisbane Climate Uncomfortable Easier to Live in North, Dr. Langer’s Address to Scientists, Brisbane’, 25 May 1951, 5. 23 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 2. 24 Robert Percy Cummings, ‘A Community Planned for Living’, Planning Exhibition,

Lecture, Town Hall, Brisbane, 7 November 1944, 1; Raphael Cilento, Colin Clark, Douglas H.K. Lee, L.P.D. O’Connor, E.J.A. Weller and R.P. Cummings. Report on Tropical Housing: Draft, 1943. Sir Raphael Cilento Papers, UQFL44, Box #29, Item #219, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 25 Langer, ‘Sub-Topical Housing’, 2; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Federal Survey of Housing’,

28 April 1943, 4; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing Commission has a New Plan’, 18 November 1943, 6; Architecture and Building Journal of Queensland, ‘Trial Homes for North’, vol. 22, no. 9 (March 1944), 16; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘New Type of Home for Tropical Areas’, 29 September 1944, 4; Townsville Daily Bulletin, ‘Tropical House Designs’, 30 September 1944, 5; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘New Community Centre Move’, 23 September 1943, 4; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Students Plan Model Suburb’, 30 September 1944, 3. 26 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Federal Survey of Housing’, 28 April 1943, 4; Daily Mercury

(Mackay), ‘Tropical Housing’, 17 July 1943, 2; Karl Langer, letter to Professor Alfred Hook, dated 17 September 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 27 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Federal Survey of Housing’, 28 April 1943, 4.

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28 Bowen Independent, ‘Queensland Housing Criticised. “Mostly Bad” Says Professor

DHK Lee’, 19 January 1943, 1; Douglas H.K. Lee, ‘Physiological Principles for Tropical Housing, with Especial Reference to Queensland’, University of Queensland Department of Physiology Papers, 1 no. 8 (May 1944), 1–22. 29 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Homes Should Suit Climate’, 1 August 1944, 6; Morning

Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Post-War Tropical Housing Plan Urged’, 11 January 1943, 2. 30 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 4. 31 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 4. 32 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 4; Robert Twombly, Frank Lloyd Wright: Essential

Texts, New York: W.W. Norton, 2009, 280; R.M. Schindler, ‘ “Care of the Body”: Shelter or Playground’, Los Angeles Times, 2 May 1926, 4; Architectural Record, ‘Indoor– Outdoor Extensible Living Area’, vol. 96, no. 6 (‘The Postwar House’ issue) (December 1944), 76–77. 33 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 2 and 9; Schindler, ‘ “Care of the Body”: Shelter or

Playground’. 34 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 12. See, for example, E.W. Conover, ‘Principles of

Ventilation by Wall and Monitor Windows’, Engineering News Record (31 July 1941); A Albrecht, ‘Lecture in Berliner Bezirksverein der VDHI’, 7 April 1933; Detroit Steel Products Company, Industrial Airation by the Fenestra Method, Detroit, MI: Detroit Steel Products Company, January 1930; W.C. Randall, ‘Aeration of Industrial Buildings’, Journal of the American Society of Heating and Ventilation Engineers (January 1928); H. Barlach, ‘Windströmungen an Hausbrandschornsteinen freistehender Gebäude’, in Hermann Behrens (ed.), Die Lüftung von Aufenthalts- und Versammlungsräumen, Berlin: Heizung und Lüftung, 1933; H.G. Frühling, Beleuchtung von Innenräumen durch Tageslicht, Berlin: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, Zweigsniederlassung, 1931; C. Pfeiffer, ‘Light: Its Sanitary Influence and Importance in Building’, The Builder, vol. 35 (21 July 1877), 739; H.H. Higbie and G.W. Younglove, ‘Daylighting from Windows’, Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society, vol. XIX, no. 3 (1924), 235; W. Büning and W. Arnold, Tageslicht im Hochbau, Berlin: Bauwelt-Verlag, 1935. 35 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Dr Gertrude Langer on Music and Art’, 19 September 1941, 3. 36 Karl Langer, letter to Professor Alfred Hook, dated 26 October 1941. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 37 Architectural and Building Journal, ‘Subtropical Housing. Problems Discussed with

Interesting Plans by Dr Karl Langer’ (1 August 1944), 6. 38 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 9; Soil Cement Construction, no. 112, Sydney, NSW:

Commonwealth Experimental Building Station, 1949; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Cement Shortage’, 7 January 1948, 4. 39 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton),’Building Material Shortage Worse than in War

Years’, 3 January 1946, 4; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘People Sick to Death of Restrictions’, 21 November 1946, 9; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Cement Shortage’, 7 January 1948, 4. 40 Robert Percy Cummings, ‘Natural Light and Ventilation’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane),

Modern Home Supplement, 27 September 1955, 18. 41 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, 6 and 9; Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna, 118. 42 Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, New York: Dover, 1994, 60; Robert

McCarter, Frank Lloyd Wright, London: Reaktion Books, 2006 96; Robin Boyd, The Australian Ugliness, Melbourne, VIC: Cheshire, 1960. Veblen was cited by Frank Lloyd

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Wright as a significant contributor to the intellectual culture of Chicago. Robin Boyd was aware of ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’. See Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘The Courier-Mail Presents Your Post-War Home’, July 1945, 6. 43 Twombly, Frank Lloyd Wright: Essential Texts, 280. 44 Langer, Letter to Professor Alfred Hook, dated 17 September 1943. 45 He also modelled canal estates at the Gold Coast on this schema. See Andrew Leach,

Gold Coast: City and Architecture, London: Lund Humphries, 2018, 73. See also Chapter 7. 46 Argus (Melbourne), ‘Model Cities of the Future. Swan Hill’s Lead’, 7 February 1941, 4. 47 Clarence Perry, ‘The Neighborhood Unit’, in Neighborhood and Community Planning:

Regional Plan of New York and Its Environs, vol. 7, monograph 1, New York: Arno Press, 1974, 34. 48 Robert Freestone, Urban Nation Australia’s Planning Heritage, Collingwood, VIC:

CSIRO Publishing, 2010), 145. 49 Leach, Gold Coast: City and Architecture, 73. 50 Moore, ‘Design Home to Suit Climate’, 5; Nora Cooper, ‘Better Subtropical Living’, The

Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 27, no. 11 (November 1948), 30–31, 35; Nora Cooper, ‘The Graceful Homes of Queensland’, The Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 32, no. 3 (March 1953), 6–14. 51 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Acute Housing Need Demands Action’, 7 January 1943, 3;

Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing Demands Clear Action’, Editorial, 7 July 1945, 2; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing a Gigantic Problem’, 23 August 1945, 2. 52 Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, plate 2 STH. 53 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 34/5, Box #15736 O/S. 54 Shirley Gott, Magnificent View, Built for a Narrow Sloping Site’, For Women, Gracious

Living Section, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 18 July 1963, 20. 55 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Round About with Penelope Section’, 18 December 1940, 12;

Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 21/23, Box #15736 O/Sd. 56 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 26/16, Box #15727 O/S; R83, Roll 26/24,

Box #15727 O/S. 57 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 34/5, Box #15736 O/S; R83, Rolls 20/4, 25/8,

27/14, Box #15734 O/S. John Adams and J. James, ‘Cottage near the Sea,” Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 29, no. 4 (April 1950), 26–27, 29; Grace Garlick, ‘A Trip to California Inspired an Art House by the Sea’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Gracious Living Section, 11 December 1954, 9; South Coast Bulletin (Southport), ‘Out Surfers Way’, Feminine Affairs, 26 September 1951, 22. 58 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 26/9, Box #15735 O/S. 59 Volker M. Welter, Tremaine Houses: One Family’s Patronage of Domestic Architecture in

Mid-Century America, Los Angeles, CA: Getty Research Institute, 201, 115; Arts and Architecture, ‘Project for House in Santa Barbara’, vol. 66, no. 3 (March 1949), 26–29. 60 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 34/5, Box #15736 O/S. 61 Nora Cooper, ‘Carefully Planned for a Busy Couple’, The Australian Home Beautiful,

vol. 32, no. 7 (July 1953), 13–16; Cooper, ‘The Graceful Homes of Queensland’, 6–14; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Brisbane House in Colour Story’, 1 July 1953, 10; Courier-

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Mail (Brisbane), ‘A Kitchen to Dream Of ’, 14 September 1953, 18; Virginia Langdon, ‘All This on a Fifty-foot Lot’, Australian House and Garden, vol. 10, no. 4 (September 1953), 26–27, 55; Marlene Gott, ‘Japanese Touch for a Queensland Style’, For Women, Gracious Living Section, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 4 April 1963, 25. 62 Langdon, ‘All This on a Fifty-foot Lot’, 26; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Two-Storey Houses

Unsuitable Here, Lecturer Says’, 15 June 1944, 4. 63 Karin Kirsch, The Weissenhofsiedlung: Experimental Housing Built for the Deutscher

Werkbund, Stuttgart, 1927, New York: Rizzoli, 1989, 164. 64 Marlene Ott, ‘Light and Flexible – The Austrian Architect Josef Frank and the Vienna

Furnishing Firm “Haus & Garten” ’, Furniture History, vol. 46 (2010), 217. 65 Kirsch, The Weissenhofsiedlung, 164. 66 Cooper, ‘The Graceful Homes of Queensland’, 6–14; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Brisbane

House in Colour Story’, 1 July 1953, 10. 67 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 12/2, Box #15729 O/S. 68 Architecture, ‘In Queensland’ (October 1951), 102.2. 69 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 24/13, Box #15733 O/S. 70 Grace Garlick, ‘Country Homestead in the Heart of Ascot’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane),

Gracious Living Section, 4 December 1954, 9. 71 Keith Dunstan, ‘House Behind Bamboo’, The Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 34, no. 4

(April 1955), 32–35, 65. 72 Annette Moir, ‘A New Unit Makes Two Houses in One’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane),

Gracious Living Section, 9 January 1954, 9. 73 Langer labelled this area shaded by a bamboo pergola as a ‘Bush House’ on his

architectural drawings. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 26/9, Box #15735 O/S. 74 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 27/15, Box #15734 O/S. 75 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 27/15, Box #15734 O/S. 76 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Heat Wears Wives, Superblock Suggested’, 25 May 1951, 3. 77 Queensland Times (Ipswich), ‘Science Congress in Brisbane’, 24 July 1950, 1;

Construction (Sydney), ‘ANZAAS Congress, Brisbane May 1951’, 28 March 1951. 78 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Steady Improvement in Tone of Economy’, 17 September

1953, 2. 79 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 26/23, Box #15732 O/S. The Pfitzenmaier

house was possibly also the prototype of Langer’s use of the butterfly roof for the bar at Lennons Broadbeach. 80 The Carapark project was later offered to Hayes and Scott at a different location. Karl

Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 26/10, Box #15736 O/S. South Coast News (Southport), ‘Cara-Park Executive at Surfers’, 19 June 1954, 3. 81 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 6/7, Location: Level 3 and Map Cabinet

4E/1-F20. 82 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 11/9, Box #15485 O/S. 83 Gott, ‘Japanese Touch for a Queensland Style’, 25. 84 Ross W. Johnston and Diane Byrne, Diane, ‘A Setting for Art and Life: The Val Vallis

House by Karl Langer’, State Library of Queensland Magazine, no. 4 (Winter 2009), 9.

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Another modest house around this time was the Callinan House, St. Lucia (1955). See Grace Garlick, ‘Small Home at St Lucia has Air of Luxurious Space’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Gracious Living Section, 11 February 1956, 7. 85 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 2/2, Location: Level 3. 86 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 30/1, Location: Level 3. 87 Karl Langer Architectural Plans, R83, Roll 19/7, Location: Level 3. 88 Susan R. Ferguson, The Residential Design Legacy of RP Froud, BArch dissertation,

University of Queensland, 2001, 41.

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FIGURE 7.1 Karl Langer, proposed Queen St development, perspective from Edward St up Queen St towards Victoria Bridge, 1966. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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7 MAN ABOUT TOWN Robert Riddel

When the Langers arrived in Sydney from Vienna in May 1939, they were received as high-profile visitors and both were interviewed separately in the press.1 Yet there was no obvious employment to be had. At the age of thirty-five, Karl had a considerable reputation as an architect in Vienna, but he was also trained as a horticulturist, engineer and town planner with a PhD. While it would take almost a decade to establish his own architectural practice, his town planning credentials were more in demand and initially became his main focus. The discipline of planning, at that time, was simply part of his architectural training and not seen by architects as the speciality that it later became. Planning was very much integral with the design and placement of civic buildings which would define town centres, which at that time, Australian cities and particularly regional towns lacked. This chapter describes a number of Langer’s town planning schemes and the approach he took.

Mackay: A model dream city Following the stress of the failed Brisbane City Council planning appointment, discussed in detail in Chapter 2, the Langers were invited to holiday with friends in the northern city of Mackay. Their presence did not go unnoticed. The local newspaper described the visitors as two distinguished scholars from overseas. Karl was interviewed about his ideas for designing in the tropics and Gertrude gave an address to the Rotary Club, reported the following day under the bi-line of ‘Culture’.2 Her talk encouraged the wider provision of cultural amenity in the form of regional art galleries and libraries to form part of a civic centre.3 The progressive mayor, Alderman Ian Wood, met with the Langers to discuss how Mackay could benefit from better cultural facilities and planning. A survey of the city was

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suggested as a first step. Wood, who was unusually far-sighted, had tourism interests and was seeking to promote Mackay as the logical departure point for exploring Queensland’s greatest natural asset, the Great Barrier Reef and the nearby Whitsunday Islands. Langer agreed to prepare a new town plan for Mackay which anticipated substantial growth. At that time, he was still an employee of the Railways and therefore could technically not charge for his services. However, the opportunity was too good to miss. It was reported in November 1944 that Langer was undertaking a civic survey on behalf of the Mackay City Council.4 In May the following year, the Langers were back in Mackay before holidaying on the reef islands.5 They visited Brampton, Linderman and Hayman Island after first presenting the town plan to the council. On leaving Mackay, the Langers flew to Rockhampton at the request of its council for Karl to advise on the future development of the seaside satellite town of Yepoon.6 The Mackay plan (Figure 7.2) was the first of its kind in Australia. H.J. Summers, writing in the Brisbane Courier-Mail, described it as being a plan ‘that could be a model for any city in the Commonwealth, it has set the pace for progress that Brisbane and lots of other places would do well to follow’.7 It envisaged a population for Mackay of 40,000 at a time when it was 12,500 and with an arterial road system that would be adequate for double the projected increase. It did not impact greatly on the existing business district but expanded to new areas to the west and south, some of which required reclamation. The plan had six ‘neighbourhood’ areas, all grouped around a civic centre. Each neighbourhood was designed for family needs with every home located within walking distance of shopping, sports ground, park, a centre with club rooms, library, playground and child-minding facility. Schools were conveniently positioned and parkland was generous, calculated as 10 acres for 100 people. Strips of parkland ran through every neighbourhood, linking the amenities. The provision of shade through mass tree planting was an important aspect of the proposal. At the heart of the plan was the civic centre, which contained administrative offices, separate concert hall, open air theatre, library, museum, health centre and public square (Figure 7.3). Langer believed that the square was the most essential space in a city and was as important as the living room in a home.8 There was more. Noxious industries were to be relocated across the Pioneer River and the rail network into the town centre was to be reconfigured with a new station with the railway tracks surrounded by a protective belt of parkland. Main roads were to be planted with avenues of trees on both sides and with a central green dividing strip. There were to be three swimming pools, with the closest to the centre of town being of Olympic size. A water tower would be required and this was designed to be a sculptural element at the entrance to the city park. While the whole plan may have taken many years to accomplish, the advantage was that it could be started immediately and it put Mackay at the forefront of enlightened planning in postwar Australia.9

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FIGURE 7.2 Karl Langer, Mackay town plan, 1945. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 18/1.

FIGURE 7.3 Karl Langer, civic centre, Mackay, 1945, perspective. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL58, Folder Misc. 6, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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Private practice With the cessation of wartime hostilities, Langer’s position with the Railways came to an end and, when he was released in early 1946, he prepared to enter private practice as an architect and town planner, based in Brisbane. He had already become naturalized as an Australian citizen and was officially appointed as town planner and consulting architect for Mackay. At the same time, he was interviewed for preparing town plans for Sarina and Ingham in the north and Southport (later Gold Coast) in the south of Queensland.10 In June that year, the Mackay plan was adopted by the council.11 Langer was also approached at this time, by the Ratepayers’ Association in Perth, to advise on the best site for the new civic centre for Perth. After investigating no fewer than twenty possible sites, he presented his report in July 1946.12 His recommendation was Stirling Square adjacent to Government House and where Council House was subsequently located. He continued to work on the Mackay plan and was commissioned to design some of the new public buildings that would be required. He was initially requested to design the Olympic pool and lay out a new cemetery and crematorium at Mt Pleasant. Then followed designs for the transport terminal building and the water tower. It took until 25 April 1952 for the plan to be finally approved by state government.13 Then, barely one month later, a new council was elected on a platform of reduced rates. Once in office they immediately dismissed Langer and started to dismantle the plan by first selling the site for the proposed transport terminal.14 After seven years of work it was a huge disappointment. At the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) conference in Brisbane in November 1952, the drawings for Mackay were exhibited including the finished plan, Olympic pool, crematorium and water tower, none of which were realized.15 What did get built in Mackay, were new laboratories and offices for the Sugar Research Institute, which opened in 1953,16 and a housing development for pensioners.17 However, the experience in Mackay had increased Langer’s exposure as a town planner and new opportunities were soon offered.

A vision for Sydney On 7 August 1947, Langer left Brisbane for Sydney to undertake a commission for Cumberland County Council to prepare a plan for Sydney and was initially there for three weeks.18 On his return to Brisbane he continued to be consultant to Cumberland and first produced a bold and ambitious plan for a national sports facility (discussed in Chapter 8).19 In 1948, Langer was again in Sydney and set up a temporary office in Hyde Park.20 An exhibition of the proposals for a future Sydney was held by the council later that year and Langer was interviewed in the Sunday Sun about his ideas. Among them were plans to beautify some redundant industrial sites but the most discussed issue involved the plan to redesign Circular

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Quay by removing the tram terminus on Bennelong Point and to build a ‘magnificent’ opera house, to create an elevated public square and to improve the overseas passenger terminal facilities. He advocated tall buildings behind the Quay as well as a number of public swimming pools including locations in the Botanical Gardens and Hyde Park.21 There was also a plan to build a coastal highway in both directions from the Heads. Many of these ideas did later come to fruition, but the building of the opera house on its remarkable site, remains the most potent and tangible.22 Credit for this decision taken by Premier Cahill in 1957 is often given to Eugene Goosens (then conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra), who advocated for an opera house on its present site before leaving Australia in 1956. However, it is likely that Goosens took the idea from Langer who had suggested it much earlier.23 Langer also entered the competition for the design of the Sydney Opera House in 1956 along with 232 other contestants (Figure 7.4). The drawings that survive in his collection at the Fryer Library show a big box structure with a formal front of the pattern he had proposed for other locations but with an enormous sculpture on its forecourt suggesting a harp.24 He was not enamoured with Utzon’s winning design. In a lecture he gave at the Queensland Art Gallery in 1964, he described it as ‘a symphony of shells’ that failed to take into account ‘sound penetration from the harbour, inside acoustic properties, or visibility of the stage and seating capacity’. He considered this tendency of modern architecture to

FIGURE 7.4 Karl Langer, proposed Sydney Opera House, competition entry, 1956, sketch. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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dream up a form as a ‘statement’ and squeeze everything required into it, as a return to the practices of the Renaissance and, by inference, a regressive step.25

Town plans and civic centres galore As a result of his work in Mackay, other councils saw the potential for improving their cultural facilities and sought meetings with Langer. In far North Queensland he prepared drawings for town plans or civic centres in Ayr, Home Hill, Ingham and Sarina, as well as giving advice in Cairns, Bowen, Townsville, Mt Isa, Yepoon and Bundaberg.26 He was commissioned to prepare a town plan for Toowoomba in 1946 (Figure 7.5A) but it was abandoned after three years over fears of compensation costs for the resumptions necessary.27 Again, as in Mackay, the decision followed a change in the administration. The Toowoomba plan included the separation of industrial and commercial zones from residential areas. It also envisaged a tourist road along the escarpment of the range for a length of ten miles. This would provide panoramic views towards the coast. The existing town hall, although preserved, was to be enlarged with a

(A) FIGURE 7.5 Karl Langer, proposed civic centre, Toowoomba, c. 1947: (A) plan; (B) perspective view from main square towards Ruthven St; (C) perspective view of sculpture court. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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(B)

(C) FIGURE 7.5 (Continued).

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new auditorium which was entered from a civic square behind the original building. The scheme also provided for an art gallery and museum, convention centre and incorporated an existing library and child welfare centre as well as the civic administrative offices. A bus terminal provided public access (Figure 7.5B, C). What had begun as a free-standing clock tower, taller than the existing town hall and to provide a strong focal emphasis, was shown as a tall obelisk identified as a women’s memorial in a later scheme. Across Victoria St and behind the civic square, was envisaged as the site for an Olympic swimming pool. Although the scheme required some land resumptions, it was planned as a staged development, which avoided the immediate reclamation of land.28 The prominent British town planner, Sir Patrick Abercrombie, when shown the plan on a visit to Toowoomba in 1948, made the following comment to members of the council: ‘I think Toowoomba is a city which needs my advice less than many others in Australia. You have shown that you are alive to all the implications in the development and growth of your city. The council had shown great wisdom in seeking the advice of the noted town planner (Karl Langer)’.29 In 1949, a change of council saw the scheme dropped in an all too familiar scenario. The new mayor, Dr McGregor, said at the time, it was a sad day for Toowoomba but blamed the apathy of the state government for not encouraging forward planning by local authorities. He also blamed the previous administration for its informal engagement of Langer.30 31

The Peanut Capital

In 1948, Langer was invited to prepare a town plan for Kingaroy, in the South Burnett region of southern Queensland (Figure 7.6).32 This is one of the few plans to be realized and then only in part. Langer presented his plan for the town in 1950, which was described by the Courier-Mail as proposing a new town hall which could seat 1,700 people and a civic square which could accommodate 6,000, as well as other facilities.33 Langer maintained that the square was just as important as the buildings around it, as it was the meeting place for the citizens of the community.34 The square was to contain a large reflecting pool, fountain and shade trees. The town hall itself was a modern yet classically inspired monumental structure with a simplified ‘temple front’ of five bays and four slender columns with the building raised above the level of the square, on a plinth of concrete stairs. Light and ventilation were admitted to the hall by canting the side walls in a saw tooth pattern with vertically glazed slit openings.35 The finished plan envisaged single-storey wings symmetrically placed on either side of the town hall to enclose the square and contain on the left, supper and club rooms, art gallery and library with administrative offices opposite. The square extended across Glendon St to form a U-shaped cluster of buildings on axis with

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 7.6 Karl Langer, Kingaroy Civic Centre, 1949: (A) perspective; (B) plan. Karl Langer Collection, Fryer Library, University of Queensland, UQFL 158, job. no. 1123b-3, c-2, 1-3.

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the town hall, a Maternal Child and Welfare Clinic, bus station, cafe and toilets on one side and a kindergarten balancing it on the other. The design had many of the components of Langer’s vision for Mackay and Toowoomba, although each had been adapted to its individual site and its context. At Kingaroy, the outcome was better than the previous plans and the civic centre project got underway with the successful resumption of the four-and-ahalf-acre site by November 1950.36 The council were so convinced by the concept that Langer was requested to also design the buildings in a staged programme. Progress was slow, however and drawings for the town hall were not commissioned until December 1953. Construction, when it commenced in 1957, was for a public toilet block that would form part of the future bus terminal. In 1960, the new town hall was started and opened on 7 March 1963. While the balance of the plan did not eventuate, the civic square was completed. In 1979, new administrative offices were built and placed according to Langer’s plan but not to his design.

A touch of Greece in Queensland In the three designs for Mackay, Toowoomba and Kingaroy, one can see Langer’s consistent desire to create in each regional town a civic heart that was both the geographical and cultural focus of the community. Langer knew well the ethos of European artistic city planning derived from the Viennese writer Camillo Sitte, ideas which were popularized by Raymond Unwin for English readers and well known in Australia.37 But undoubtedly Langer’s first-hand experience of planning in Austria gave him a deeper understanding than his Australian contemporaries. He would have been aware of the impact that Otto Wagner’s planning schemes had achieved in Vienna. Equally important to him was the relation of building, site and the wider landscape as in ancient Greece, which Langer spent some weeks visiting and drawing on his way to Australia.38 Greece marked that interlude between the loss of an old life and the new life that Karl and Gertrude planned in Australia. Gertrude later recalled their last time in Greece, when making an early morning visit to the ruins of the Parthenon. She spoke of: ‘the glory of that morning, with the soft sunlight causing the shimmering marble to mirror every misty cloud and causing the sea to gleam in brightness’ and that this ‘was a memory, a cherished possession that none could take away from them’.39 When Langer was later lecturing on town planning to students in Brisbane at the University of Queensland, he returned to the principles evident in a number of ancient sites, not only in Greece but also in the older remains of Mohenjo-Daro in (contemporary) Pakistan from 2500 BC. Here, he argued, civic values were expressed democratically and he strove, in his own work, to embody the tradition of Agora and Acropolis which he saw as fundamental to a meaningful urban experience.40

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Canberra Langer also influenced the planning of Canberra through his work for the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC). Designed in 1912 by American architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, the city was arranged around three nodes dedicated to a civic centre, a market centre and the achievements (both scientific and cultural) of the Australian people (represented by the Capitol Building sited on Capitol Hill and set above Parliament House), each linked to the surrounding landscape via prominent sight lines and axes.41 In 1955, Langer gave evidence to a Senate Select Committee on the design and development of the Griffin plan.42 In this he had the support of his erstwhile patron, Ian Wood, the former mayor of Mackay, who now sat in the Senate, representing Queensland and remained a friend as well as an advocate for good town planning. In Langer’s report to the committee, he said that he would preserve much of the Griffin plan, which he maintained had not developed so far that it could not be reworked and rectify what he saw as the plan’s faults. What Canberra lacked, in Langer’s opinion, was a city centre or main street to which most Australians were accustomed. He described the layout of the city as confusing and that personally he could only find his way about with a map. The vacuum, which Langer identified at the centre of the city, should, he suggested, be utilized for housing. Asked by Senator Wood for his views on the proposed lake scheme, Langer confirmed he was very much in favour of providing lakes, with parkland and recreational uses around the shores. He continued: ‘If in Canberra, we have such huge vistas, we must put something there to fill them and we must have big features at the beginning and the end of them’.43 On the question of the most suitable site for the new and permanent Parliament House, he admitted that Camp Hill would be more convenient than Capitol Hill but, whichever site was chosen, the building would need to be tall enough to be seen from a distance. Sketches in the Langer archive show that he had begun exploring how this could be achieved (Figure 7.7). He assured the committee that he was confident that he could redesign Canberra within six months.44 Although Langer did not get the opportunity to redesign Canberra, some of his recommendations were adopted. In 1963, the NCDC did engage him for a major expansion to the national capital in the Woden Valley on the outskirts of the city.45 This involved the design of the main shopping district and town centre for a satellite town of eleven new suburbs with a projected population of 60,000 residents within fifteen years.46 As a satellite development, four miles to the south of the centre, it was to have a higher density than the Griffin’s plan, with as many people housed in an area about one-third the size of the main city. Hughes was the first new suburb of this plan, officially opened in May 1964 and followed by Curtin, Lyons and Chifley, all named after former prime ministers. The plans adopted the Radburn principle where the pedestrian was considered more important than the car and travel distances were walkable and separated from roads. The infrastructure for each

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FIGURE 7.7 Karl Langer, undated sketch showing the new Parliament House on Capitol Hill as a tall building that could be seen from afar. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 14, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

suburb was completed before the construction of housing commenced, which occurred over the next decade.47 The town centre which contained government offices and the Mint was established in 1966 and construction began in 1968, shortly before Langer’s death. The centre has subsequently undergone considerable change.

Modernising Brisbane In Brisbane, the Langers became a formidable presence. In 1956, Gertrude had been appointed the art critic for the Courier-Mail, the city’s principal newspaper and Karl, as president of the Town Planning Institute, made his views known on the proposed development of the city, at every opportunity. He was less than optimistic of the Brisbane City Council’s town plan, introduced in 1953. He said that it failed to consider an arterial road system and simply endorsed what was already happening and in no way tried to improve the outcome of what was possible or desirable. He likened the plan to building an eight-storey building and when it was finished deciding where to locate the lift.48 When the future of King George Square, which fronted Brisbane’s City Hall, became a topic of public debate in the 1960s, Langer was vocal in advocating a better solution.49 In 1930, when the city hall was completed, it was the finest of its kind in the country, carried out in the style of a confident inter-war classicism. The frontage stretched across a whole city block between Adelaide St and Ann St and was set back

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from Albert St to create a rather mean and narrow square as a forecourt. As early as 1940, there had been moves to enlarge the original forecourt with a plan to create an immense square by demolishing a whole city block.50 The intention was to create more civic space in the city centre, provide a better setting for the city hall and, to encourage retail expansion. Nothing further happened until 1961 when Clem Jones became Lord Mayor. But by then the emphasis had moved from an enlarged civic square to an underground parking station that a square could make possible. This move was assisted by an arterial roads study which recommended the provision of more parking facilities in the city centre.51 In 1962, the city architect, C.K.G. Smith, was instructed to prepare drawings for a parking station below an enlarged King George Square, but only increasing the depth of the square by a more achievable ninety feet. While property resumptions were in train, the council appointed a Design Panel,52 chaired by Langer’s colleague Robert Cummings, then professor of architecture at the University of Queensland. At this time, Langer wrote an impassioned letter to advocate for a livelier civic centre of which cultural facilities were an essential part.53 After the Design Panel produced its preferred design, Langer offered an alternative proposal which provided for much more activity within the square (Figure 7.8). His scheme was more commercial than cultural and introduced shopping and cafés on the square as well as the car park below. The design was also more sophisticated than that of the Design Panel, which was built. Langer’s scheme proposed to reduce the open space of the square by enclosing it with a U-shaped single-storey block of arcaded shops and cafés, formally arranged on axis with the city hall. The narrower view of the hall had the effect of exaggerating the height of the clock tower, an idea which was perhaps inspired by some of the great piazzas of Europe that Langer would have known. He well understood that the open square proposed would actually diminish the scale of the city hall. The council, predictably, rejected Langer’s design, being more focused on the provision of a parking facility, where the square functioned simply as a lid rather than an enlivened civic space. Langer’s ideas for improving Brisbane were not restricted to King George Square. He proposed integrating the square with a pedestrianized Queen St, using a series of elevated and grade-separated walkways in a design which drew on Victor Gruen’s design for Fort Worth, Texas of ten years earlier (see Figure 7.1).54 On the subject of the motor car, ‘which is barely fifty years old and in that short time, has destroyed the pleasure of living in cities’, Langer, like many of his generation, was in favour of the separation of motorist and pedestrian. In existing cities, he admitted that such a solution was unlikely and that better use be made of the present street layout, which in the centre should be ‘used only by those vehicles that are essential to [the] life of the area. Buses, taxis, delivery vans. Private cars should not enter the core at all’ and be parked on the fringe.55 Previously, Langer had published a scheme to extend Albert St through the Botanical Gardens to connect with Woolloongabba via a new bridge.56 When the fruit and vegetable markets were removed from Roma St in 1964, Langer suggested

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FIGURE 7.8 Karl Langer, proposed King George Square, showing commercial uses, 1966. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

an artificial lake fed by a waterfall to fill the void created. While none of these schemes for the centre of Brisbane became reality, the ideas were often subsequently taken up. The Queen St Mall and the Captain Cook Bridge demonstrate his foresight, yet such initiatives were attributed to others when they became reality.57 Langer’s largest commission for a public building and his last major work was the new head office for the Queensland Main Roads Department (Figure 7.9). It was a time of substantial growth of vehicle ownership and on-going road congestion in the tightly constrained Brisbane central business district (CBD). It was decided to locate the largest government building of the day at the edge of the CBD where it would have connected with an inner ring road proposed by city planner W.J. Earle in 1949, but never built. This decentralized planning strategy was matched by the civic symbolism of Langer’s design. Langer was appointed in June 1959 and by 1963 had provided a design which he described as a sculptural landmark. A fourteen-storey slab block was arranged parallel to Boundary St with glazing to the two largest elevations facing north and south and with almost solid ends to east and west. As a response to its context of mostly low scale timber cottages, it was set back from Boundary St to provide a spacious forecourt incorporating water features and sculpture fronting a classically proportioned two-storey podium housing the public functions of vehicle registration and licencing. The Main Roads Building was, at the time, the largest office building to be built in Queensland and also the largest project constructed of reinforced concrete. The

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FIGURE 7.9 Karl Langer, Main Roads Department, Queensland, perspective view, October 1963. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job. no. 1098-2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

end elevations and service core, which was attached to the northern side, were clad in textured off-form concrete panels. The building as a whole has a tough and monumental presence, yet when it was opened in February 1968 it must have seemed mannered compared to the Brutalism then on the ascendant. When reviewed by Cross-Section, an architectural pamphlet produced by the University of Melbourne, this massive modernist work by Langer was criticized for using offform finishes that were ‘not rugged enough for the scale of the building’ and said nothing positive about the amount of space given over to civic uses or of its stateof-the-art facilities.58

The Gold Coast: a foretaste of White Shoes 59

The design of three luxury hotels for the Lennons group of Brisbane did much more for Langer’s reputation than any other project (see Chapter 8). Since 1884 Lennons

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George St Hotel was the place to stay in Brisbane. The original building was replaced by an up-to-date, more streamlined structure in 1941.60 It was chosen by General Douglas MacArthur as his base during the Second World War because of its reputation. Langer extended it first with a roof top addition and later with a new six-level block on the corner of Ann St. This followed his designs for two new hotels for the same client at Broadbeach on the Gold Coast and in Toowoomba, opposite the town hall. Soon after the Broadbeach hotel was opened, Langer was approached by several Gold Coast developers including Alfred Grant and Bruce Small. Langer had already designed some tourist facilities at Hayman Island in Northern Queensland on the reef but the coast scene in south-east Queensland was very different. In 1955, Grant began his own land development company and having visited Florida and Hawaii was convinced that the area around the Nerang River behind Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach was suitable for canal and country club development. Using Langer’s expertise, together they developed the first canal estates in Australia, known as Miami Keys and Rio Vista (Figure 7.10). They were marketed together in 1957 as the ‘1 Million Pound Gold Coast man-made miracle’.61 Langer revealed that the system of reclamation and a geometric canal pattern had its origin in Holland. The idea was to excavate a series of parallel channels connected to the tidal system of the river. The fill from the excavation was used to build up the level of the adjoining land as building blocks with water frontage and access to a central street. The street pattern was also based on the Radburn principle.62 Many similar developments followed as a result. Small – later Sir Bruce Small – also sought Langer’s expertise. He had made his fortune manufacturing Malvern Star bicycles before launching into real estate and development, first in Melbourne and then Surfers Paradise. In 1958, he bought flood-prone, mangrove-covered land opposite Alfred Grant’s Rio Vista project and, again using Langer’s planning credentials, set about developing Paradise City (later known as the Isle of Capri). This ambitious development was launched in the winter of 1960 and boasted of two miles of canals and a civic square with its own shopping centre. In 1967, Small was elected mayor of the Gold Coast but saw no conflict in continuing his development activities. A new bridge across the Nerang River connected his development to Surfers Paradise.

The Lutheran connection and St. Peter’s School Langer’s association with the Lutheran community generated commissions including the chapel and master plan of St. Peter’s School, his best work still in existence. The Lutheran Church in 1944 purchased a former grazier’s mansion at Indooroopilly, Brisbane, on a site of sixteen acres, which opened as St. Peter’s School in 1945. Soon after its acquisition, Langer was consulted to prepare a master plan for a boarding school, laying out a plan which he helped realize until his death

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FIGURE 7.10 Karl Langer, Miami Keys/Rio Vista development for Alfred Grant, 1957. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 23 December 1957, 5. News Ltd/Newspix.

in 1969.63 The Lutherans were an ideal client and Langer was able to achieve most of his aspirations for its layout, for which he also designed the buildings and their landscaped setting. It was a long-term project. The first building to be constructed was a chaplain’s residence followed by a dormitory to accommodate 140 students, which was opened in November 1954, ten years after the school was established.

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On the opening of the dormitory block, Langer designed and presented to the school, a twelve-foot-high sandstone obelisk, to commemorate Lutherans who perished in the Second World War.64 Over the next fifteen years, Langer designed other buildings for the Indooroopilly campus including the dining hall (1966), a concrete footbridge (1966–67), the science block (1967–68), entrance fence and gates (1968) and finally, the chapel (Figure 7.11), which opened on 14 June 1968. A little more than a year later, it was the venue for a memorial service following Langer’s untimely death.65 The school buildings were laid out around a long paved central courtyard with the chapel at its far (eastern) end and a proposed library at the other end. The open space between was the highest part of the site and Langer saw the opportunity to create the civic ‘acropolis’ that he had envisaged for so many of his town centres. Like the Greek examples, the chapel was the focus, with a forecourt and reflecting pool a few steps lower, before meeting the plinth on which the chapel was raised. The building itself took the form of a stylised Classical temple which bowed forward in a gentle curve. With five openings and four slender columns it was entirely faced with white marble. To the right was placed a tall, tapered campanile, while to the left the dining hall opened onto the forecourt on an axis perpendicular to the principal axis of the chapel. With a simplified temple front consisting of eight columns in painted cement render, it was intentionally lower in the hierarchy. This theme had been first explored in Kingaroy in the town hall (1963) and a similar approach can be seen in the assembly hall Langer designed for the Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School (1964). While these buildings were all different in execution, they shared a common origin. At St. Peter’s, Langer was able to place his buildings within a landscape that he controlled and which made it even closer to the Greek ideal he so admired. Around the open central civic space of human scale, planted with indigenous trees and with hedges of lemon scented tea tree, were arranged the classrooms. Following his introduction to the Lutherans at St. Peter’s, Langer was commissioned for further work, including two extraordinary Lutheran churches, first in Bundaberg (1960) and then at Ipswich (1961). In Bundaberg he created a church with a monumental scale in a city that was then only one or two stories in height. The nave took the form externally of an elongated box of textured brickwork with a conventionally tiled steeply pitched gable roof. Internally, the space was dominated by a larger-than-life figure of Christ carved in pine and fixed to a crucifix made out of Silky Oak, placed centrally above the altar on the sanctuary wall. The carving was commissioned from a Bavarian-trained woodcarver, Albert Schubert.66 The west front, however, appeared as a giant billboard in a boxed parapet form, but raised above a concrete colonnaded porch, which stretched across the entire width of the nave. On the face of the western elevation, which was conceived as an abstracted open bible, was a passage from St. John’s gospel, spelled out in two-foot-high letters.67 Crowning this almost square elevation was an

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elegant four-sided spire of copper, with a cross at its peak, also in copper. A row of tall palms completed the setting. A modern landmark had been created within an almost featureless landscape. The spire and its cross were visible from a great many locations in the city, as it was nearly 155 feet high. At ground level, the intended design had an entry forecourt, formed by extending and bending the colonnade at an angle to meet the street. The enclosed space was envisaged as a gathering area,

(A) FIGURE 7.11 Karl Langer, St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg, 1960. (A) Front elevation, black and white photo: Photographer: Richard Stringer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (B) Site plan. Karl Langer Architectural Drawings, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 8/1.

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(B) FIGURE 7.11 (Continued).

which included Langer’s signature reflecting pool. Alas, these elements were omitted, probably to reduce cost. The church was modern, dramatic and beautiful and fitted well with the aspirations of the Lutheran faith and the post-war expansion that it sought. The Ipswich church, also St. John’s, has a family relationship with the larger Bundaberg building using simple geometric forms and textured brickwork. The street elevation expressed the gable form of the building. The church has a similar spire but mounted beside the nave on a tall square base and with a cross at its peak. In Ipswich the cross is in aluminium and illuminated at night with red neon. The church is sited on a corner and as the ground slopes towards the street, one enters via a stepped path along the side of the building to a wide forecourt at the side entrance. Compared with the Bundaberg church, it is less dramatic without its literal scriptural references, but demonstrating a confident handling of texture and proportion. The street elevation has a large crucifix outlined with projecting headers within the pattern of its brickwork and this is repeated inside above the altar. The chapel at St. Peter’s became Langer’s swansong and developed and refined the ideas of these earlier churches (Figure 7.12). Unlike the Bundaberg and Ipswich buildings, it was fan shaped in plan with a sloping floor giving it a greater capacity, as it was also used by the school for general assembly. Consequently, it also had a

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FIGURE 7.12 Karl Langer, St. Peter’s Lutheran School, Indooroopilly, the chapel, 1968. Photographer: Richard Stringer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

bigger budget, which allowed more scope for furniture and art works. The school since its inception had been receiving and seeking donations for its chapel fund and, after more than twenty years, sufficient money had been raised to support a loan for the balance of the cost. Externally the walls were yellow brick with a stepped blade form on both sides, focusing indirect natural light into the sanctuary. The white plaster ceiling followed the gentle slope of the floor and then bent in a subtle curve to seamlessly become the east wall behind the altar. Above the entry, the underside of the choir loft, which stretches the full width of the west front, reduced the scale in the narthex, which is open to the main volume. The balustrade to the choir and other furniture was of dark Black-bean timber contrasting with the walls. The altar was of Helidon sandstone, with carved alpha and omega symbols. To the south side were appended the vestries and at the front a cylindrically shaped meditation chapel that supported the three-finned campanile. This intimate worship room was accessed by a narrow corridor linking it to the main space. Its interior was, like the auditorium, naturally ventilated and lit. It too featured wood carving by Schubert as in the Bundaberg church. The chapel was Langer’s last and perhaps his most complete work. It marks a fitting end to his career.

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A civic designer As a planner, Langer was most inspired by the democratic ideals of ancient Greek culture, to the extent that he sought to replicate their example in designing his civic centres. He modelled his civic idea on (ancient) Greece where, Langer argued, there was ‘no stratification of society and . . . every free citizen has his democratic rights’.68 Langer’s public buildings were always grouped around a forecourt or piazza which addressed the principal building. The stylized ‘temple front’ of this building was also a reference to actual Greek temples, yet they were expressed in a modernist architectural language that avoided replication. Art and sculpture and the incorporation of the surrounding landscape and topography were all incorporated into his civic ideal. The lessons learned from Sitte about enclosure of public space were testament to his Viennese background. Langer died shortly before British planner Lewis Keeble arrived to set up a planning discipline separate to architecture at the University of Queensland in 1970. Langer’s work gives us an excellent example of mid-twentieth-century civic design before the specialization of the professions that he and many of his contemporaries opposed. For Langer, a continuity existed between the organiaation of the city and the planning of individual buildings: between the space of civic life and the ethos of civic culture.

Notes 1 Also discussed in Chapter 3. 2 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Tropical Housing – Some Essential Features’, 28 September

1944, 2. 3 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Culture. Everyone can be Artistic’, 11 October 1944, 2. 4 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Civic Survey – Planning Mackay for the Future’, 16

November 1944, 2. 5 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Visit to City by Dr Langer’, 13 June 1945, 4. 6 ‘Visit to City by Dr Langer’, 4 7 H.J. Summers, ‘Mackay Points Way to Model Dream City’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane),

9 November 1946, 2. 8 See ‘Town Planning Suggestions’, Queensland Times (Ipswich), 3 February 1947, 8;

Letter from Karl Langer to Kingaroy Council, dated 15 January 1948. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #5, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 9 Summers, ‘Mackay Points Way to Model Dream City’, 2. As the existing commercial

centre was not disturbed the council commissioned Langer to design new buildings, including the transport terminal, swimming pool, water tower and cemetery. 10 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Beach Shade Trees Soon?’, 30 December 1946, 2. 11 Daily Mercury (Mackay) ‘New Mackay Town Plan Approved’, 25 April 1952, 1.

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12 West Australian (Perth), ‘Town Hall Site’, 3 August 1946, 10 and 19 October 1946, 19.

The full report is held in the Battye Library within the Western Australia State Library, call no. ACC 639A OSM. 13 Daily Mercury (Mackay) ‘New Mackay Town Plan Approved’, 25 April 1952, 1. 14 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Doctor Langer Sacked’, 24 June 1952, 2. 15 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Off the Record’, 15 November 1952, 2. 16 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Sugar Research Opens Saturday’, 19 August 1953, 4. 17 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘12 Modern Homes for Pensioners’, 31 October 1953, 2. 18 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Personal’, 7 August 1947, 4. 19 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Sydney Plan for National Sports Area’, 20 January 1948, 2. 20 Sun (Sydney), ‘Sydney Diary’, 19 February 1948, 2. 21 Sunday Sun (Sydney), ‘He Thought Sydney Needed Its Face Lifted’, 15 February 1948, 7. 22 H. Pitt, The House, Sydney, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2018, 58–73. 23 Goosens was likely known to Langer through his work in Sydney and also through

Gertrude’s connection with the music scene in Australia. See also house which may have been designed for Goosens: Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job #1188-1. 24 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, acc 190226. 25 ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’, given at The Sensation of Architecture:

Second Convention at Toowoomba of the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 23–25 October 1964. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39. 26 ‘Town Planning Suggestions’, Queensland Times (Ipswich), 3 February 1947, 8. Langer

was invited to Bundaberg at the invitation of the council and addressed a citizen’s meeting. 27 Warwick Daily News, ‘Toowoomba Not to Proceed with Town Plan’, 20 December 1949,

3. 28 See Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 190226. 29 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 20 November 1946, 4. 30 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Mayor Blames Govt. “Apathy” ’, 26 December 1949, 3. 31 Kingaroy is known as the peanut capital owing to the large production of the crop

within the surrounding region. It was also the home of Johannes Bjelke-Petersen, who later became premier of the state after serving on the Kingaroy Shire Council. 32 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job. #1123 b-3, c-2, 1-3. 33 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘4½ Acres Already Resumed’, 14 November 1950, 5. 34 Letter from Langer to Kingaroy Council, dated 15 January 1948. Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Box #5. 35 Alice Hampson and Janina Gosseye, ‘Healthy Minds in Healthy Bodies: Building

Queensland’s Community, One Weatherboard at a Time’, in John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015, 249. 36 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘4½ Acres Already Resumed’, 14 November 1950, 5. 37 Camillo Sitte, Der Städtebau Nach Seinen Künstlerischen Grundsätzen, Braunschweig/:

Vieweg, 1889 (reprinted 1983); Raymond Unwin, Town Planning in Practice: An

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Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs, London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1909, 312–313. 38 Alice Hampson and Fiona Gardiner, From the Acropolis to Kingaroy: Creating Civic

Culture in Queensland’, in Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Canberra (5–8 July 2017), 215–225. Langer visited Greece in 1933 and 1939. 39 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Culture. Everyone can be Artistic’, 11 October 1944, 2. 40 Interview by author with former Langer student, Robert Collin, 2018. 41 Walter Burley Griffin, ‘Planning a Federal Capital City Complete’, Improvement Bulletin

(Minneapolis), 55, 25 (6 November 1912), 16. 42 Karl Langer, ‘Could Redesign Plan in Six Months’, Canberra Times, 16 March 1955, 2. 43 Langer, ‘Could Redesign Plan in Six Months’, 2. 44 Langer, ‘Could Redesign Plan in Six Months’, 2. 45 Peter Harrison, the chief town planner at the NCDC between 1959 and 1968, had no

doubt known Langer from his time with the Cumberland Council. Canberra Times, 6 November 1968, 20. 46 Canberra Times, ‘Top Planners for Big Suburbs Job’, 3 May 1963, 13. 47 ‘Top Planners for Big Suburbs Job’, 13. 48 Langer cited in J. Mulcaby, ‘Town Plan a Scrap of Paper?’, Sunday Mail (Brisbane),

18 October 1953, 6. 49 For a wider discussion of Brisbane’s core and its city squares, see John Macarthur,

Robert Riddel and Donald Watson, ‘Urban Visions for Brisbane’, in John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015, 217–236. 50 Courier Mail (Brisbane), 16 April 1940, 19. This was one of the suggestions of the

Brisbane Town Planning Association. 51 The Brisbane City Council was anticipating the findings of the Arterial Roads study,

which was released in 1963 and given more authority by the Wilbur Smith report on transportation of 1965. 52 Robert Percy Cummings. Report of the Panel Appointed to Design the City Square,

Brisbane, Brisbane City Archives, BCA 0861. 53 Karl Langer, ‘Brisbane Should Have a Living Heart’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 18

February 1965. Clippings file, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland, unpaginated. 54 Victor Gruen was known to Langer from Vienna and correspondence between them is

held in the Langer Collection (UQFL,158 Box ?36). Langer and Gruen were the same age and had both worked in the Vienna office of Peter Behrens where Langer was Chief Architect. Gruen’s Master Plan for Fort Worth, Texas was designed in 1956. 55 ‘The Ideal City Versus the Motor Car’, undated (c. 1965?), Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #57. 56 Also included in the 1940 proposal by the Brisbane Town Planning Association;

Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Ambitious Plan to Develop Gabba’, 16 July 1961, 5. 57 The bridge to Woolloongabba became part of the Riverside Expressway 1965–74 while

the Queen St Mall was attributed to Robin Gibson when it was realized in 1982. Keith

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Enchelmaier, ‘Planning the City for the People’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 2 November 1982, 0. 58 Cross-Section, no. 185 (1 March 1968), University of Melbourne Department of

Architecture. 59 The property developers who made the Gold Coast and their fortunes, were a

colourful, slightly sleezy and politically conservative bunch. During the 1980s in Queensland, they were known as the White Shoe Brigade, which referred to their preferred dress code. Langer’s clients were an earlier generation but exhibited similar traits. 60 Designed by architect Emil Sodersten. 61 Alfred Grant, ‘Full page advertisement, Surfers Paradise-Broadbeach’, Courier-Mail,

Brisbane, 23 December 1957, 5. 62 Karl Langer, ‘Development of Canal Estate on the Gold Coast’, Architecture in Australia

(January/March 1959). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37. 63 Karl Langer, Architectural Plans, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 16/1-6. 64 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 29 October 1954, 15 65 Ian Sinnamon, ‘Langer, Karl (1903–1969)’, in Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 15

(2000, online 2006), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. He was 66 years of age when he died. His memorial service was at St Peter’s Chapel followed by cremation at Mt Thompson crematorium which he had also designed. 66 Australian Women’s Weekly, 10 May 1960, 18. 67 As noted in Chapter 2, this was an idea that Langer had explored earlier in the

competition entry for the Friedenskirche in Urfahr, Linz (1931–34), when he worked as chief architect in the office of Behrens and Popp in Vienna. 68 Langer, ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’, 1.

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FIGURE 8.1 View of the main (front) façade of West’s furniture showroom, looking out onto Wickham St in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. Fryer Library. Photographer: unknown. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 196

8 A TOUCH OF VIENNA, A PINCH OF AMERICA AND A WHIFF OF EXOTICISM Karl Langer’s Architecture for Leisure and Lifestyle in Australia Janina Gosseye

In December 1956, Lennons Broadbeach Hotel opened at the Gold Coast. A few months later, noticeably charmed, Cross-Section, the Melbourne-based architectural journal, published a review. It described the complex as ‘. . . a highly successful blend of Brazilian bravado . . . Californian cosiness . . . and European-Australian earthiness’.1 ‘Brazilian bravado’ the periodical ascribed to the bar and garden design. Topped with an elongated butterfly-roof that was held aloft by beautifully textured river-stone walls, the bar did indeed evoke the expressive forms and rough materiality that were symptomatic of high modernism in Brazil. Likewise, the crisp circular forms of the dance floor and bandstand, along with the hotel’s undulating perimeter walls, the freeform planter boxes that were scattered across the garden and the slender serpentine canopy casting shade on the pathway lining the western edge of the organically-shaped pool, all evoked a Niemeyerian aesthetic.2 ‘Californian cosiness’, Cross-Section contended, could be recognized in the beach pavilion that marked the divide between the hotel’s highly curated and green inner oasis and the sandy dunes that tumbled down into the Pacific Ocean beyond. With a flat roof and patterned brickwork walls, this clean-cut rectangular box evoked the casual, yet chic, architectural style that was burgeoning 13,000 kilometres away, along the west coast of the USA. ‘European-Australian earthiness’, the journal finally attributed to the hotel building proper. Constructed of 12-inch

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flat concrete slabs supported by pairs of concrete columns,3 this five-storey building was sober in appearance and functional in its construction. The same was true of its interior organization. The rooms – sixty-four double rooms, twentyeight single rooms and eight suites – were distributed over the four upper levels of the hotel in such a way that the number of bed units per floor could be serviced by two maids.4 The diverging influences that Cross-Section identified in Broadbeach Hotel recur in many of Karl Langer’s designs for leisure, examples of which abound. This chapter presents a selection of such projects to demonstrate how they gave the prolific émigré architect the opportunity to explore dissonances and resonances between his European architectural training (which focused by and large on slum clearance and housing for the greatest number5) on the one hand and his fascination with the formal and visual languages of foreign cultures on the other. The first part of the chapter, ‘Holidaying: Hotels, motels and caravan parks’, discusses Langer’s designs for holiday infrastructure, while the second part of the chapter, ‘Leisure and lifestyle: From sporting to spending’, focuses on his architectural designs for leisure and lifestyle. Of the more than two dozen designs discussed across these two sections, only four were ever built. Accordingly, the chapter also questions why so few of these projects were realized, thereby revealing something of Langer’s approach to running a small architectural practice in mid-century Queensland.

Holidaying: Hotels, motels and caravan parks Throughout the twentieth century, concepts of leisure and mobility in Australia changed dramatically. As travel became more affordable, Australians from all walks of life increasingly seized the opportunity to holiday. This not only led to a stark increase in hotels across the country – mostly in the major cities and along the (eastern) seaboard – but also gave rise to the development of new types of holiday facilities, such as the motel and caravan park.6 Langer relished the opportunities that this booming holiday industry and the emergence of these new building types afforded. From the late 1930s, when he first arrived in Australia, he was at the forefront of this development and, over the following decades, up until his death in 1969, he produced a large number of designs for hotels, motels and caravan parks and associated holiday facilities.

Paper architecture along Queensland’s coastline: Langer’s early unbuilt tourism projects On 2 May 1939, the Queensland Temperance League authorized the establishment of a Canberra Hotel at Cairns.7 This was to be the third ‘Canberra Hotel’ constructed

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in the state by the Temperance League, following the success of their Brisbane and Toowoomba ventures. The latter had opened in 19388 as a large, high-class, private hotel in a provincial centre, an enterprise described by the Townsville Daily Bulletin as ‘somewhat in the nature of an experiment’ that had not been trialled before. However, the Toowoomba hotel turned out to be very successful. So much so that the Temperance League promptly decided to open similar facilities in other provincial cities in Queensland. Cairns, the Townsville Daily Bulletin reported, was selected ‘through the appreciation of the Board of the tremendous pressure of tourist business there’.9 On 22 May 1939, twenty days after the Temperance League decided to build a new Canberra Hotel in Cairns, Karl Langer arrived in Sydney from Vienna aboard the Remo. Upon arrival, he confided to the Sydney Daily Telegraph that while he hoped to be able to carry on his work as an architect in Australia, he would ‘start bricklaying again’ if necessary.10 Fortunately for the European immigrant, this was not necessary. After only a few short months in Sydney, Langer moved north, to Brisbane, where he joined the architectural firm Cook & Kerrison, who had then just been given the commission to design the Canberra Hotel in Cairns for an estimated £55,000.11 The design brief stipulated that the building would be situated on the Esplanade between Aplin and Florence Streets and was to accommodate up to 100 guests and staff. Additionally, the Temperance League also expressed the desire for the building to be of modern design, fireproof and adapted to tropical conditions.12 Langer, who was given the job at Cook & Kerrison, designed a grand threestorey building, which was U-shaped and which had a rectangular pool at the centre on the ground floor. The hotel’s entrance was placed in the bridge of the U, which aligned with the Esplanade overlooking Trinity Bay. The perspective drawing that Langer prepared showing this front façade betrayed his European training. Its sleek white render, rhythmic sequence of clean-cut recessed windows and slender metal railings, echo Ernst May’s Neue Frankfurt housing estates. But other influences are apparent too. The ground floor columns, for instance, which counterintuitively widen in diameter as they rise and seamlessly blend with the slab that they support, bring to mind Frank Lloyd Wright’s Johnson Wax Headquarters in Wisconsin – a building that had opened only two years earlier, in 1936. At the same time, Langer also made clear attempts to firmly anchor the hotel in its North Queensland surroundings, by completing the scene with palm trees and lush foliage. Although the overall effect was perhaps a bit more Havana than Cairns, ‘tropicality’ was certainly a theme (see Figure 8.2). Rationality was key in the interior organization. Smaller single and double rooms with a sink in the room proper were positioned at the extremes of the U, while the larger family units and more luxurious rooms equipped with separate bathrooms (fitted with bathtubs) were located closer to the bridge of the U. Here, Langer also foresaw communal facilities, such as a writing room and a sundeck.

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FIGURE 8.2 Perspective drawing of Canberra Hotel in Cairns, c. 1938. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 9/7.

The latter was situated at the front, on the first floor of the building, giving guests the opportunity to observe the hustle and bustle on the Esplanade below and a good view of Trinity Bay beyond. With a north-east orientation, it assumedly also enabled holidaymakers to take optimum advantage of the midday sun. And yet, Langer’s axonometric of Canberra Hotel shows the south-eastern and southwestern façades bathing in sunlight, while the north-eastern façade and the sundeck are cast in shade. Positioning the sun at the highest point in the south is, however, a forgivable error for an architect from the northern hemisphere who had only arrived in Australia a few months earlier (see Figure 8.3). Sadly, like much of the architecture for leisure that Langer would dream up over the following decades, his design for the Canberra Hotel in Cairns was never realized.13 The eruption of the Second World War halted unnecessary construction work (and especially architecture for leisure) and Langer, following manpower regulations, was seconded to the Queensland Railways where he remained until the mid-1940s. In 1946, then, after a failed bid to become assistant town planner for Brisbane (see Chapter 3), Langer was appointed consultant architect to the Mackay City Council (see Chapter 7). In this capacity, he was given the task to design beach amenities for Eimeo and Slade Point. Both Eimeo and Slade Point were located in the shire of Pioneer, a local government area surrounding the city of Mackay and administered from Mackay

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FIGURE 8.3 Aerial perspective drawing of Canberra Hotel in Cairns, c. 1938. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 9/7.

itself. When the Pioneer Shire Council solicited the Mackay City Council to share the cost of their beach conveniences, the latter agreed on the condition that Langer prepare the scheme.14 The Pioneer Shire Council was, however, reluctant. Their conviction that the council’s own foreman could easily ‘do the job with a bulldozer’15 resulted in months of toing-and-froing.16 It was only in September 1948, two years

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later, that Langer’s plans for the seaside dressing sheds and conveniences at Eimeo and Slade Point were approved, for a total cost of £6,750 and £8,250 respectively.17 Both pavilions provided for dressing rooms, toilets, showers, a café and open and covered terraces,18 and both made optimal use of the natural rock formations along the beach. And yet, while firmly anchored in their site, the formal language of these beach amenities visibly drew inspiration from faraway shores. Their horizontality and materiality – a combination of rough stone and rendered walls – referenced the work of the Prairie School, while the slender pilotis and the semi-circular spaces evoked Le Corbusier’s ocean liner aesthetics. Bickering between the two councils, however, continued even after the designs were completed.19 As a result, Langer’s beach amenities for Eimeo and Slade Point were never realized. But, his fame (or notoriety?) in the shire of Pioneer did lead to further commissions. In 1949, Mrs L. Driscall, a local hotelier, for instance, invited Langer to ‘prepare plans for a modern hotel at Eimeo’.20 Visibly delighted with this commission, he drew up a bold scheme for a grand and resolutely modern seaside structure that could be built in phases (see Figure 8.4). The three-storey building had a dramatic curve and, like the beach pavilions that Langer had designed for Eimeo and Slade Point only one year earlier, made optimal use of the natural topography of the site. Langer envisaged that in a first phase only the northern segment of this elongated hotel would be built. This section would house thirty-five rooms with beds for fifty guests on the upper two levels and would culminate (at the northernmost point) in a semi-circle, which featured a large beer garden and terrace on the first and second floor respectively. The ground floor included a lounge, a bar and a large dining room, which opened out onto a generous semi-circular terrace overlooking the ocean.

FIGURE 8.4 Perspective drawing of the hotel at Eimeo Point for Mrs L. Driscall. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 25/16.

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And yet, Langer again despaired of success. Like his Canberra Hotel in Cairns, his ambitious proposal for Eimeo Hotel was never built. Or certainly not to Langer’s design.21 However, the expertise that he built up in preparing plans for modern hotels and leisure facilities would serve him well a few years later, when Lennons won the tender for a hotel licence at Broadbeach.

Lennons Hotels In August 1954, the Brisbane Sunday Mail announced that ‘a new luxury hotel may go up on the stretch of Queensland’s “sun” coast’, at Broadbeach, which the newspaper described as ‘the area most favoured [by tourists] and which has shown the greatest development’.22 Surely enough, the following month, in September 1954, with only 1,234 of the state’s 1,342 hotel licenses in force, the Queensland Licensing Commission called for tenders for an additional three hotels to be opened along Queensland’s South Coast. Each of these hotels, the Licensing Commission stipulated, were to provide bedroom accommodation for a minimum of seventy-six guests. Furthermore, every bedroom was to be ‘fitted with a wall washbasin, with hot and cold running water, bed-reading lamp and adequate artificial wall mirror or dressing table’.23 Tenderers were required to supply the Licensing Commission with brief specifications and sketch plans of the proposed premises, as well as a site plan and description of the accommodation, including bathing conveniences, sanitary arrangements, number and situation of bars and an estimated total cost.24 When bidding ended on 13 December 1954, eight tenders had been submitted for the three new hotels.25 Lennons Hotel Ltd, which had made record profits the previous year, put in a £3,000 bid for the licence for a £500,000 hotel at Broadbeach, between Thornton St and Tallebudgera Creek, that would accommodate approximately 200 guests.26 Plans for this bid, which was announced successful on 27 December 1954,27 had been drawn up by Langer, who had involved himself in the discussion on the new hotels early on. The same day that the Licensing Commission opened the bidding, he (quite astutely) advised reporters that ‘a hotel accommodating 76 guests would cost approximately £240,000’ – a statement which was duly published (and republished) in various newspaper outlets the following day.28 But it was certainly not only Langer’s business instincts that won him the commission for Broadbeach Hotel. His strong interest and involvement in architecture for leisure made him an outstanding candidate for the job. The proposal that Langer drew up in December 1954 as part of Lennons’ winning bid is remarkably similar to the hotel complex that was eventually built (see Figure 8.5). The tight timeframe likely did not allow for many changes to be made to the project. Less than two years after Lennons won the bid, Broadbeach hotel was in business. From Monday, 17 December 1956, following an opening gala dinner two days earlier, holidaymakers could book a single bed-sitting room

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FIGURE 8.5 Aerial view of Lennons Broadbeach Hotel. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

for £3–5 a day, a double bed-sitting room for £5–10 a day, or a luxury suite for £8–15 a day. For these prices, in addition to staying in a room that was ‘a Lounge by day [and] convertible to a Bedroom in a few minutes’ by night,29 guests could enjoy the many attractions that Broadbeach Hotel had to offer. They could laze by the pool, have a drink in one of the hotel bars, socialize in the beer garden, have supper in the dining room, boogie-woogie on the dance floor, or bathe in the ‘mushroom shower’ besides the beach pavilion (see Figure 8.6). All these amenities featured sculptural, artistic and/or landscaping elements that steeped the hotel complex in a curious blend of exoticism and Hollywood glamour. A reflecting pool bordered the round dance floor, the surface of which was painted in a colourful circular pattern that complemented the linear geometric floor pattern of the adjoining bandstand platform (Figure 8.7A); by the pool, a terrazzo waterspout in the shape of a seal designed by the Brisbane-based sculptor Leonard Shillam, delighted young and old; and two Aboriginal artists – the brothers Yttca from across the state border in Tweed – contributed paintings and totems throughout the public interiors and outdoor zones (Figure 8.7B).30 At that time, the application of Aboriginal motifs was quite common in Australia’s hospitality business, where they were used to appeal to patrons’ escapist

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FIGURE 8.6 Plan of Lennons Broadbeach Hotel, as published in Architecture Australia. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Job. no. 1006-2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

desires. A noteworthy early example can be found in the Victorian Government Tourist Bureau in Melbourne (1939), which was designed by Stephenson & Turner and which featured Aboriginal motifs on the floor. Also here, as in Langer’s Broadbeach hotel, the architects mixed and matched different types (and styles) of artwork. Apart from the Aboriginal floor patterns, the tourist bureau also included a large photomural by émigré artist Gert Sellheim. Langer seemed to have few qualms about the appropriation of Aboriginal culture for commercial ends. His interest in Aboriginal and Indigenous art was part and parcel of his fascination with the formal and visual languages of foreign cultures or, more accurately, of cultures that were foreign to him. He also had a broad and quite eclectic taste in art.31 The limited holdings that have been preserved of his library not only include books on Aboriginal decorative art,32 but also magazine clippings on the work of Naum Gabo, the Russian constructivist sculptor and painter and the artistic production of various pioneers of op-art, including Victor Vasarely, Michael Kidner and Julian Stanczak, to name only a few.33 Drawing seemingly indiscriminately on such varied artistic references allowed Langer to tap into the contemporary zeitgeist, as the inclusion of his Broadbeach ‘luxury hotel’ in the April 1957 issue of the magazine Architecture and Arts demonstrates.34 Lennons Broadbeach Hotel was only one component of Lennons larger £1,000,000 expansion plan,35 which also included a £300,000 extension to the Lennons Hotel Brisbane and a new, £250,000 hotel in the main street of

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 8.7 Broadbeach Hotel: (A) the dance floor and bandstand platform; (B) exterior view of the beachside bar. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. 206

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Toowoomba, opposite the town hall.36 Langer was engaged for the design of both projects. On 31 December 1954, less than one week after Lennons had won the tender for Broadbeach Hotel, the Brisbane Telegraph published a sketch of his design for the Lennons Toowoomba Hotel. This new hotel, the newspaper announced, would be built on a one-acre site in Ruthven St, opposite the city hall and would be able to accommodate up to 150 guests.37 Around the same time, Langer also proposed an eight-storey extension (on the corner of Ann and George Streets) to the Brisbane Lennons, which had originally been designed by Emil Sodersten. With this extension, which reportedly added 70 per cent to the hotel’s existing capacity,38 Lennons Brisbane, the company alleged, would become ‘the largest and most modern [hotel] in the country’.39 The extension to Lennons Brisbane Hotel opened late in 1956, while the new Toowoomba Hotel opened early in 1957.40 Both buildings featured strong stereometric façades. While the orange brick front of the Toowoomba Hotel along Ruthven St was defined by a vertical array of protruding and horizontalizing balconies in a creamy white hue, the Brisbane Hotel had visually distinctive horizontal bands (five in total) of operable vertical fins along Ann St. These provided the necessary shade for this north-west facing façade (see Figure 8.8).

FIGURE 8.8 Lennons Hotel in Brisbane, 1965. Photographer: Wolfgang Sievers. National Library of Australia, NLA: nla.obj-160364357.

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However, located within an urban context and targeting a more mixed clientele of both tourists and business guests, the designs of the Brisbane and Toowoomba Lennons Hotels were far less playful and exotic than that of their Gold Coast sibling. Lennons Broadbeach Hotel was a high point in Langer’s career and marked a climax in his architecture for leisure oeuvre. Although he continued to design schemes for holiday and entertainment facilities over the following fifteen years, it is uncertain if any of these ever came to fruition. Most evidence points to the contrary. It is nonetheless interesting to examine some of this treasure trove of paper architecture, as these projects not only illustrate Langer’s dedication to test, develop and introduce novel types of holiday facilities in Queensland, but also reveal his broad and varied interest in architecture from across the globe and, importantly, his entrepreneurial go-getter approach to architectural practice.

Catering for the motor car: The Existenzminimum, American style Langer appears to have been fascinated by the holiday opportunities that shorter work-weeks, paid leave and the advance of the motor car afforded and used his skills as an architect and urban planner to prepare Queensland for the burgeoning tourism boom: he enthusiastically collected postcards and brochures from hotels, motels and resorts from around the world;41 he studied the design of noteworthy precursors in international architecture magazines;42 he advocated for the need to build modern holiday facilities; and he endeavoured to educate local councils, as well as his fellow Queensland architects in the correct design of emerging holiday amenities, such as motels and caravan parks, which became popular in Australia during the 1950s. In the November 1949 issue of its monthly magazine, The Road Ahead, the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland (RACQ) published a piece entitled ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’.43 Stating that ‘Every year more and more southerners are realizing the attractions that Queensland has to offer to holiday makers and caravans are appearing on our roads in ever-increasing numbers’, the article posited the such activities should ‘be encouraged by providing a chain of well-equipped motor camps stretching from Coolangatta to Cairns’44 – basically the entire length of Queensland’s eastern coastline. Apart from a detailed description of the different facilities and conveniences that such ‘motor camps’ or ‘caravan parks’ should offer – a store, a canteen, a community hall, shower rooms, a lending library, etc. – the article also featured a plan and perspective of a seaside caravan park of fifty units, which has been ‘specially drawn by a Brisbane architect’ on behalf of the RACQ. The objective of this piece, which likely relied on Langer’s knowledge on the subject, was to instruct local authorities, architects and planners in the (design)

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requirements of a caravan park. The same motivation also transpired in Langer’s 1957 ‘Need for Motels’.45 In this text, which drew strong comparisons between Australia and the US, Langer argued that approximately 4,000 new motels would need to be built across Australia to satisfy the demand caused by the contemporary tourism boom. Much like the 1949 article on caravan parks in The Road Ahead, his notes on motels offered guidelines (both textual and visual) for those interested in developing such a new holiday facility. Langer described the motel as ‘smaller than the hotel’ and also less expensive in its construction. He added: ‘[Motels] make the tired, road-dirty traveller comfortable and preserve his privacy. In a vacation motel the patron does not expect to stay put after he has arrived. Even after a long trip by boat, train or plan, he is likely to hire a car and set out to see the countryside. In a motel a patron expects: informality’.46 In 1958, Langer designed a motel and caravan park for Far Beach in Mackay, which was organized around a large lagoon (see Figure 8.9). Its entrance was demarcated by a small service station to one side and an elongated building housing an office, shop, café and bar to the other. Upon entering, holidaymakers reached the southern tip of the lagoon, which offered a direct view of the dance floor and assembly hall across the water. At this point, they could either turn right, towards the twenty-four motel units that were housed in twelve two-flat buildings, clustered in groups of three around a shared courtyard, or left, towards the twenty-five caravan

FIGURE 8.9 Plan of the motel and caravan park in Far Beach, Mackay, 1958. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 19/8.

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units with conveniences situated along the western end of the lagoon. Fatidic as ever, Langer’s scheme already anticipated future expansion and determined areas for an additional 150 caravan units, spread over six plots and twenty-seven extra two-flat buildings, clustered in nine groups of three. This motel and caravan park wasn’t Langer’s first scheme for the tranquil white sands of Far Beach. A decade earlier, in 1948, he had already designed a new beach pavilion for the area47 – an 80 × 30 foot concrete structure that housed dressing sheds, showers, conveniences and washbasins. This beach pavilion was operational by September 1952.48 However, Langer’s motel and caravan park proposal for Far Beach – like most projects that he designed for Mackay – was never built. Neither was the Hervey Bay Motel that he proposed the following year (1959). For this motel project in Hervey Bay, Langer devised numerous motel-unit variations: from single-bed sitting rooms (ranging from 143 to 148 square feet), to double-bed sitting rooms (ranging from 223 to 247 square feet), to luxury and executive suites of more than 300 square feet (see Figure 8.10). These floorplan exercises were part of a larger study that Langer conducted into ‘motel standards’,49 and clearly betrayed his European background. Having trained and practised in ‘Red Vienna’50 during the 1920s and 1930s, where public housing (for workers) was a pressing issue, Langer was visibly well versed in designing compact or ‘minimal’ accommodations. Ironically, the search for the Existenzminimum – the minimum requirements for living – which had been a somewhat grim necessity for him in inter-war Europe, became one of his greatest assets in designing hotel and motel accommodations for post-war Queensland. Apart from demonstrating his proficiency in designing ‘minimum dwellings’, Langer’s motel and caravan park proposals also revealed his strong fascination with the (then) budding American car culture. Langer was (allegedly) the proud owner of a Dodge,51 a car so large that it virtually matched his minimal dwelling units in square meterage. In 1960, he designed a type-motel which, he imagined, would be built along a predetermined ‘Overlander’ route. Travelling overland routes had gained in popularity with Australian holidaymakers since the early 1950s, in step with the growth in car ownership. The most travelled route was the one from Brisbane to Perth, which first led motorists down to Adelaide via Sydney and Melbourne and then on to Perth along the Great Australian Bight, past Port Augusta, the Nullabor Plains and the Madura Pass.52 Langer, however, saw tourism potential in travelling directly inland, into the rugged and dry Outback, rather than along Australia’s more temperate coastline. This idea, which was informed by the belief that the diversity of Australia’s landscapes was to be treasured and unlocked, was likely informed by Langer’s interest in the American National Parks System. Originally established in the late nineteenth century, the expanse of the American National Parks System had increased steadily during the first half of the twentieth century and so had its popularity, which grew apace with the growth of the highway network and privately-owned vehicles. Langer collected books on the American National Parks

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(A) FIGURE 8.10 Variations on a theme: Studies of motel units, 1959. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box#67, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

– his library included publications on the Crater Lake National Park in Oregon (1902), the Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado (1906) and the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona (1919) – and he was particularly interested in the tourism appeal of this initiative.53 It inspired him to develop his Overlander route, which sought to replicate the success of this American venture in Australia and introduce motoring tourists to the bucolic charm of Queensland’s hinterland.

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(B) FIGURE 8.10 (Continued).

Langer’s Overlander route led tourists from Brisbane to Mount Isa via Roma, Charleville, Blackall, Longreach, Winton and Cloncurry and then out to the coast again; to Townsville via Hughenden and Charters Towers (see Figure 8.11). In each of these towns Langer planned to build a type-motel, the ‘Motel for Inlanders’, which had a highly manicured garden, replete with waterfall, Japanese rock patch and totem pole set. Langer remarked that he wanted the surrounds of the motel to be ‘landscaped in such a way that they create a kind of oasis’.54 He thus hoped that his Inlander motels would offer tired and road-dirty motorists a reprieve; a comfortable

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(C) FIGURE 8.10 (Continued).

and lush abode that stood in sharp contrast with the dry and desolate landscapes that they would have encountered on their drive there (see Figure 8.12). Langer studied the town plans of the selected settlements along the Overlander route meticulously and, in each of them, he chose a number of potential sites for the construction of the motel, always taking into consideration the site’s visibility from the road and its accessibility by car. Langer also collected newspaper clippings that emphasized the tourism potential of these towns, including one describing

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FIGURE 8.11 Overlander route through Queensland, drawn by Karl Langer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL 158, Box #55, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

FIGURE 8.12 ‘Motel for Inlanders’, c. 1960. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 31/18.

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Winton as the ‘pastoral heart’ of the state; one labelling Longreach ‘Queensland’s City of the Plains’ and one calling Roma ‘a town in waiting’.55 These documents informed the prospectus that ‘Jolly Motels Ltd’ (which subsequently became ‘Inlanders Ltd’) assembled for the Commonwealth Trading Bank of Australia and other prospective backers, to secure financing for the scheme. Langer was one of six founding directors of Jolly Motels Ltd, along with Senator Ian Wood, whom he knew through his work for the Mackay City Council. However, procuring funds for the Overlander route and Inlander motels was not an easy task and after the Board decided that ‘no Directors Fees would be paid until the Company was earning profits sufficient to provide shareholders with a reasonable dividend’, Langer stepped down.56 He saw the writing on the wall. With insufficient financial support, the Overlander route never came to fruition and no Langer-designed Inlander motels were ever built. Apart from demonstrating Langer’s interest in the tourism industry and his skills as a designer, the Motel for Inlanders scheme also reveals his nose for business and his entrepreneurial spirit. Langer did not wait for work to land on his doorstep, but actively sought out commissions; either by creating new companies (as he did for the Inlander motels), or by speculatively developing preliminary designs for sites that had come up for sale, as he did for Daydream Island, a sun-drenched sanctuary in Queensland’s Whitsundays onto which many holiday dreams were projected during the twentieth century.

Daydreaming In 1933, Mr and Mrs Catherwood from Brisbane signed a twenty-year lease for Daydream Island, one of the seven islands of the Molle Group.57 From then on, Daydream Island was open for business – tourism, to be precise. One mile long and about half a mile wide, it was ‘thickly timbered with magnificent pine trees and tropical growth’,58 and drew admiration from all those who visited it.59 From the mid1930s, it became a venue for weddings60 and films,61 as well as the subject of poetry.62 However, for the Catherwoods, the dream did not last. In January 1948, little more than one year after the Queensland Tourist Development Board pinpointed the Great Barrier Reef as ‘the principal and unique attraction which Queensland has to offer . . . so far as inter-State and overseas tourist trade was concerned’,63 Barrier Reef Islands Pty Ltd bought the Daydream Island lease from the Catherwoods for £9,750.64 Three months later, the government, in a bid to accelerate development of the Great Barrier Reef as a tourist resort,65 sold the island (along with Hayman Island) to the company outright, for approximately £20,000 to £30,000.66 Barrier Reef Islands Pty Ltd was a subsidiary of Ansett Transport Industry Ltd and in the early 1950s invested heavily in the construction of a ‘palatial hotel’ on Hayman Island.67 However, no comparable investment was made in Daydream Island, where the company instead opted to exploit the existing tourist

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accommodation. So, when in 1952 the supply of fresh water to Daydream Island became an issue, Ansett’s decision to concentrate their tourist activities in the Barrier Reef on Hayman Island exclusively, was quickly made. Daydream Island was closed on 18 August 1952 and was put up for private sale.68 The following year, Ansett dismantled the resort and shipped the buildings to Hayman Island. Daydream Island subsequently remained for sale for nearly fifteen years until Bernard Elsey, a Gold Coast hotelier, acquired it on a thirty-year establishment lease in 1967 and built a luxury ‘holiday playground’ at the southern tip the following year.69 In the interim, prior to Elsey acquiring Daydream Island, several schemes were drawn up for its redevelopment, including one by Karl Langer in 1963. Like Elsey’s later project, Langer’s proposal was situated on the island’s southern tip. There, he placed a modest resort that spoke of a desire to go back to basics – back-to-the-land even. Langer sprinkled approximately twenty small cabins, each consisting of two twin bedrooms, across the woodland and placed a large communal centre along with some ancillary facilities and a separate residential wing with an array of twin-bed-sitting rooms, a bit further north, in a clearing in the forest (see Figure 8.13). This proposal was far removed not only from the luxurious resort that Elsey would build a few years later, but also from the more swish Lennons Hotel at Broadbeach that Langer had himself designed almost a decade earlier. Even so, even in this spartan scheme, Langer did not lose sight of the comfort and wellbeing of his guests. As part of this proposal, he drew a series of eight small cartoons, each of which humorously depicted one of the ‘usual complaints’ proffered by holidaymakers. These ranged from inadequate water pressure to cheap furniture, noisy rooms, lack of mirrors, small bathrooms and shonky luggage racks (Figure 8.14A). These sketches not only showcased Langer’s drafting skills, but also affirmed his expertise in designing holiday accommodation; expertise that he put to good use in his design for the holiday units at Daydream Island. An interior perspective of one of the twin-bed-sitting rooms, for instance, shows a compactly

FIGURE 8.13 Daydream Island, 1963. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 30/5/1.

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(A) FIGURE 8.14 (A) ‘The usual complaints’, Daydream Island, 1963. (B) Interior perspective of a twin bed-sitting room at Daydream Island. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Rolls 30/5/2 and 30/5/3.

designed carpentry unit, which includes two beds with ‘innerspring mattresses’ and swivel spots overhead, a writing desk with built-in drawers and a large, wallmounted mirror behind the make-up table (Figure 8.14B). Langer also sought to reduce the possibility for noise disturbance in this scheme by constructing the walls that separated the twin-bed-sitting units of 8-inch Besser blocks, filled with poured concrete.70

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(B) FIGURE 8.14 (Continued).

Langer’s Daydream Island resort was never realized. It was speculative in nature, which is likely the reason why this project, along with many of Langer’s other holiday schemes, never made it off the drawing board. Nevertheless, even if most of these designs remain on paper, they do reveal an evolution in his approach to holiday architecture, from the late 1930s to the late 1960s. While they all blend references to different places, buildings, architects and styles, the overall emphasis shifted over time; from a predominantly International Style modernism that

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betrayed his European background (as shown in the Canberra Hotel in Cairns) to a heroic, playful and curvaceous architecture that had its roots in Brazil and the American West Coast (best exemplified by his Lennons Broadbeach Hotel) to, finally, a more casual, place-related style that reveals an awareness of emerging regionalist trends (seen in Daydream Island). This evolution in Langer’s design approach was in tune with shifting sentiment in the tourism industry, of which he kept keenly abreast. Amongst his extensive records on tourism and travel is one newspaper article, published in The Australian of 11 March 1967, which captures the experiences of a group of international tourists in Australia. In a thick black pen, Langer underlined the following passages: They branded some resorts copies of more comfortable attractions overseas . . . being particularly contemptuous of ‘Little Miamis’ like the Gold Coast. They attacked ‘American’ touches – which they said had already ruined some resorts forever . . . One of them said before boarding a plane in Sydney: ‘Knock the Gold Coast off your must-see list – every country has an American facsimile like that . . . Give us koalas we can surprise in their natural settings – not ersatz Nevadas. Get moving with national parks like Kruger and Yellowstone and let us meet open, frank people in comfortable resorts outback and in Central Australia’.71 Although the criticism levelled at the architecture and urbanism of the Gold Coast (a scheme that Langer was involved in) must have hurt, the plea for Australia to develop national parks and outback resorts – ideas with which Langer had been toying with for several years – must have been gratifying.

Leisure and lifestyle: From sporting to spending In the post-war years, the personal and social benefits of recreational time became well established. From the 1950s, following a long struggle for reduced working days, which for the most part took place between the mid-nineteenth and the midtwentieth century – from eight-hour working days in 1860 to the 40-hour workweek in 1947 – expectations for infrastructure where people could spend their increased leisure time grew. As a result, new recreational facilities such as sports stadia and amusement parks cropped up across Australia and, gradually, a new lifestyle emerged. Around the same time, a new aesthetic was introduced to the country by magazines such as Australian House and Garden and Australian Home Beautiful. This new aesthetic, which was sleek, functional and bright, was also championed by local architects, such as Karl Langer. His numerous designs for leisure introduced a refined international modernism into the country, which

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drew on both his European experiences and his admiration for American architecture and which always carefully balanced commercial interests with cultural aspirations.

Gearing up for the Olympics, from Sydney to Melbourne In August 1947, the Brisbane Courier-Mail reported that ‘Dr. Karl Langer . . . will leave Brisbane to-day with his wife, Dr. Gertrude Langer, to start his duties as consultant in the re-planning of Sydney’.72 At that time, the Langers stayed in Sydney for a total of three weeks, before returning to Brisbane, from where Karl continued his consultancy activities to the Cumberland County Council. In the late 1940s, as a result of this collaboration, Langer developed several urban design projects – both small and large – to give Sydney the ‘facelift’ that he thought it needed.73 One of these proposed the conversion of Sydney’s disused brick pits into swimming pools. To demonstrate how this could be achieved, Langer drafted a proposal for the conversion of the old Mooreview pit at the junction of Tennyson and Victoria Roads in Ryde, which was at that time already ‘undergoing a “beauty treatment” at the hands of the British United Shoe Machinery Company’.74 This proposal was included in the public exhibition that the Cumberland County Council organized from early March to the end of June 1948, which displayed a masterplan for the future development of Sydney and its environs.75 Amongst other things, this masterplan proposed to decentralize industrial sites and to provide more parks and playgrounds. Langer’s brick pit scheme fit this plan to a T, as did his suggestion to scrap the tram sheds at Fort Macquarie to construct ‘a magnificent opera house, with a seaside esplanade’.76 Another component of Sydney’s new masterplan was the design of a national sports area of 1,200 acres near Bankstown.77 Six hundred acres of this area would be devoted to sporting interests, while the other 600 were designated as a ‘memorial forest’, centred on a natural amphitheatre that was formed by a bowl in the rolling hills. The design that Langer proposed for this national sports area was ambitious. In addition to a large stadium to host Test cricket and Davis Cup tennis matches, it included ‘a huge oval for ceremonial parades; three ovals for cricket and football; many smaller areas for other games, tennis courts and parking spaces for cars; [and] an artificial lake to be formed by dredging marshland along the river’.78 This scheme was made in anticipation of the 1956 Olympic Games, which Sydney hoped to host. Langer’s plan for a national sports area near Bankstown in Sydney was, however, never executed. In 1950, it was announced that Melbourne rather than Sydney had been elected to host the 1956 Olympic Games. And so, a committee was appointed to examine the possible sites in the city (of Melbourne) where a major new athletic stadium could be built. This, contemporary newspapers reported, was a delicate

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decision as the new stadium was to be of use after the Games and should therefore fit ‘into a definite pattern of development and civic planning’.79 It was, however, also pointed out that ‘by wise planning the event of the Olympic Games [could] . . . be a stimulus to the development of the city . . . and [would] benefit Australian tourist attractions for all time’.80 This entanglement of civic planning, city development and tourism in one single project undoubtedly sounded like music to Langer’s ears. So, when in mid-1952 the committee announced a ‘worldwide competition for the design of the Athletic Stadium’, he duly entered.81 The new stadium was to be erected in Princes Park in Carlton, where it could capitalize on the close connection to Melbourne University. This was a strategic decision, intended to support the development of a hub for tertiary education in the area. The stadium that Langer designed on this site had an elliptical shape and could – in line with the competition guidelines – accommodate up to 125,000 spectators (see Figure 8.15). It was composed of three concentric rings of tiered seating, the outer one of which only partially circumscribed the inner two. As a result, at its vertexes, the elliptical stadium consisted of two rather than three bays of tiered seating. The main entrance was located at the vertex closest to Sydney Road (today ‘Royal Parade’) and was demarcated by a cantilevered canopy that

FIGURE 8.15 Perspective of Karl Langer’s entry for the Melbourne Athletic Stadium competition, 1952. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 13, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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titled up at the edge. Here, Langer placed the Olympic logo. The most memorable component of Langer’s stadium design was undoubtedly its imposing double colonnade, which was formed by the slender, rectangular concrete columns that held aloft the three rings of tiered seating. This colonnade – an architectural element that recurred regularly in Langer’s public designs – bestowed the building with a civic dignity reminiscent of Classical antiquity. Also striking was the tall and austere lookout tower-slab – the ‘Olympic Tower’ – that Langer positioned to the left of the entrance to the stadium. Langer’s proposal for the Melbourne Athletic Stadium shared similarities with the ‘Olympiastadion’ that architect Werner March had designed for the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. It too had a colonnaded exterior; it too was accompanied by not one but several tall (lookout-tower) slabs, which were similar (in both shape and proportion) to the one proposed by Langer; and it too was partially sunken into the ground. In Langer’s proposal, half of the bottom ring of tiered seating was dug into the ground, while in March’s Berlin Olympiastadion, the lower ring of tiers was entirely below ground level. Langer did not win the bid for the £1,000,000 stadium and neither did fellow Austrian expat Harry Seidler, who had also submitted a design.82 In November 1952, Melbourne-based architect Frank Heath was announced the winner of the competition, which had yielded a total of 115 entries. Apart from Heath, five other firms – all Australian – received meritorious mentions and a £500 premium. Neither Langer nor Seidler were amongst this list of runners-up.83 In the case of Langer, this was perhaps not so surprising, given the visual resemblance of his scheme to that of the Berlin Olympiastadion – a complex that (for many) still conjured connotations with Nazi Germany.84 The fact that Langer was based in Brisbane (and not Melbourne) likely did not help either.

Civic architecture for consumption In 1954, another opportunity to design a sizeable piece of leisure infrastructure presented itself. On 15 August, around the same time that the Queensland State Licensing Commission called for tenders for (what eventually became) Lennons Broadbeach hotel, the president of the Clontarf Beach Progress Association, Mr E.W. Rogers, announced his plan to build a £220,000 ‘tropic paradise’ in Clontarf, at the junction of the North Coast Road and the Hornibrook Highway, seventeen miles north of Brisbane.85 The number of vehicles using the Hornibrook Highway, it was reported, had more than tripled in just one decade, from 16,970 in 1944 to 64,944 in 1954.86 In a bid to arrest the flow of southern visitors driving past on their way to North Queensland and to derive some income from this caravan of holidaymakers, Mr Rogers proposed to build a two-storey, thirty-bedroom hotel, which was to be accompanied by a ‘recreation club’ the likes of which ‘Queensland [had] never seen before’.87 In addition to an Olympic swimming pool, it was to

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include a dance hall, cabaret and restaurant, bowling alleys, shooting galleries and ‘other amusement club facilities’.88 Prominently positioned along the shoreline of Moreton Bay, the Clontarf concept unmistakably drew inspiration from the modern amusement parks that had emerged on both the eastern and western seaboards of the Atlantic around the turn of the twentieth century, such as in Blackpool (UK) and at Coney Island (US) and which soon found introduction in Australia as well.89 The commission to design an amusement park, a type that has historical roots in both Europe and the US – e.g. European Pleasure Gardens and the 1893 World’s Columbian exposition – and that traditionally combined civic aspirations with commercial pursuits, must have appealed to Langer. Visibly energized, he drew up several proposals, each of which he illustrated with a large (and impressively detailed) bird’s-eye perspective. Apart from showing the park’s close relationship to Moreton Bay, these drawings all emphasized the amusement park’s connection to the highway and all featured sizeable car parks. Langer’s designs for Clontarf walked a tightrope between civic-mindedness and commerciality and, once again, betrayed his European ancestry as well as his love for American (car) culture. One of his schemes included a tall slender arch that strongly resembled the St. Louis Gateway Arch designed in 1947 by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen (but not completed until 1965) (see Figure 8.16). Perpendicular to the centre of this arch, Langer positioned a wide, tree-lined promenade, that led from the car park to the seashore and that gathered a generous pond and circular dance floor along its

FIGURE 8.16 Perspective drawing of the ‘Clontarf Pool’ design by Karl Langer. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 8/2/1.

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way. To the left and right of this central boulevard were low (one-storey) buildings which housed different entertainment functions and which were interconnected through covered walkways, such as the ones used by van den Broek and Bakema in their Rotterdam Lijnbaan shopping centre, which had opened only a few months earlier, in October 1953. The Clontarf scheme was, however, plagued by opposition from the onset. Within one week of the project being announced in local newspapers, the Reverend Arthur Preston, of the Methodist Church, received a letter urging him to prevent the project’s realization – a plea that he referred to the Queensland Temperance League.90 Mr Rogers vigorously defended the scheme, arguing that ‘it would not be just a beer house’,91 but a luxurious complex that nonetheless would ‘cater for the majority and not the select few’.92 But, to no avail. Like so many of Langer’s leisure projects, Clontarf ’s amusement park never made it off of the drawing board. Commercial projects, such as the amusement park at Clontarf – although not the bread and butter of Langer’s practice – crop up regularly in Langer’s archival records, which include proposals for shopping arcades, beauty parlours, beach clubs, shops and showrooms. Few of these projects were realized, making West’s furniture showroom in Brisbane a notable exception. In 1952, baffled by the lack of local interest in interior design, Laurie West, the son of a Brisbane-based furniture retailer, who had spent a short time studying architecture at the Central Technical College in Brisbane, started his own furniture business. West’s furniture aspired to bring international modern design to Australia and in 1956 secured the exclusive licence to sell a range of furniture from the American design firm Knoll in the sunburnt country. Due to stringent import restrictions, West had to manufacture the Knoll range locally, with the aid of prototypes and local craftsmen. In 1953, seeking a venue that could complement the modern furniture on sale, West commissioned his good friend, Karl Langer, to design a showroom on a narrow and deep plot of land that he had purchased along Wickham St in Fortitude Valley. ‘Requirements’, the journal Architecture reported, ‘were as follows’: A furniture shop and showroom designed with the utmost economy in the contemporary manner. Something unusually striking was needed to attract attention, since the premises are located outside the ordinary shopping area. Goods to be visible from the street without interference from reflection and glare. Interior to the well-lighted to compensate for the difficulty of daylighting resulting from the great depth of the shop and to be dust proof to save cleaning of goods.93 In response to this brief, Langer designed an inventive glass box that displayed the modern furniture for all to see. The window facing Wickham St was slanted inwards by 30 degrees to minimize reflection and glare. Resting on concrete and rubber pads, the entire shop window along the south-eastern and south-western edges of

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FIGURE 8.17 Plan and section of West’s furniture showroom, as published in the January-March 1954 issue of Architecture.

the showroom, was also slightly submerged in an elongated and irregularly shaped pond (Figure 8.17). This pond, which was filled with brightly coloured fish, penetrated the interior of the shop, much like the pond that Richard Neutra embedded in Constance Perkins’ house in Pasadena, which was designed and constructed around the same time (1952–55). A dramatic cantilevered timber awning, which spanned the width of the footpath along Wickham St, protected prospective buyers from both sun and rain as they examined the merchandise on display. Multiple light-wells perforating the roof ensured that the showroom (and its contents) were well lit. Finally, a wall of natural stone, along with a protruding bright yellow entry door abutting it, completed the daring modern design.94 Like Broadbeach Hotel, West’s furniture showroom was seductive and sleek and brought to mind the aesthetic that the American periodical Art & Architecture promoted from the mid-1940s through to the late 1960s – an aesthetic that has since become known as ‘West Coast modernism’. In addition to bringing California cool to Fortitude Valley, it also heralded a new, modern lifestyle in Queensland and introduced a novel type (or understanding) of ‘civic’ space – a commerciallydriven civic space – to Brisbane’s urban fabric, at a time when the city began to change drastically.

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A recipe for success? Of all the buildings included in this chapter, West’s furniture showroom is the only project that survives in a quasi-unaltered state.95 The Lennons Hotels in Brisbane and at Broadbeach have both been demolished and their Toowoomba sibling is only a shadow of the edifice that used to be. In their heyday, Langer’s Lennons and his West’s showroom were at the forefront of a campaign to introduce a new kind of infrastructure for holidaying, leisure and lifestyle in Queensland and brought a hint of glamour and glitz to Australia’s Sunshine State. Realized in the mid-1950s, about fifteen years after Langer first arrived on the continent and approximately fifteen years before his untimely death, these buildings all unambiguously demonstrate the émigré architect’s admiration for American West Coast modernism. But they do more than that; they also reveal Langer’s fascination with the formal and visual languages of foreign and (Australian) Indigenous cultures, while maintaining a certain restraint, a ‘measuredness’, both in their layout and their composition. While highly inventive, these buildings all responded to a civic ideal that had been instilled in the young architect during his European architectural training. Even if Langer’s West’s furniture showroom and his Lennons Hotels were among the most accomplished new architecture for leisure and lifestyle to grace mid-century Queensland, few, if any, of his other (numerous) proposals for hotels, motels, caravan and amusement parks, ever made it to completion. Passionate about introducing new holiday, leisure and lifestyle types and typologies to Queensland (and Australia, more broadly), the Austrian émigré dreamt up project after project, often speculatively, sometimes as part of a new business venture. Langer was determined to carve out a successful architectural career for himself in Australia and explored different opportunities and avenues to achieve this goal. His drive to design new buildings for leisure and lifestyle was in equal measure informed by his passion for architecture, as it was by his love for his newly adopted country. He wanted foreign visitors to discover Australia’s natural beauty, from the pristine white sands lining Queensland’s coast to the rugged and dry outback, just as much as he wanted to give the ‘unfinished continent’96 that had offered him a home, a suitable and civic-minded architectural finish.

Notes 1 Cross-Section, no. 55 (1 May 1957), University of Melbourne Department of

Architecture. 2 In 1943, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brazil Builds: Architecture

New and Old, 1652–1942. The book was authored by Philip L. Goodwin and illustrated with photographs by G.E. Kidder Smith. It featured several leisure projects by Oscar Niemeyer, including his hotel at Ouro Preto (Minas Gerais, 1942) and his so-called

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‘Island Restaurant’ in Pampulha (Belo Horizonte, 1942). Langer was likely aware of this book. In the house plans that he prepared for his 1944 publication ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, he drew figures in elevation, a technique that was also used by Niemeyer in the plans that were included in Brazil Builds for the two aforementioned projects. Beyond drawing technique, the architecture of Lennons Broadbeach Hotel was also undeniably influenced by these projects by the Brazilian modern master. 3 Architecture in Australia, ‘Hotel at Broadbeach, Queensland’, vol. 46 (October 1957), 51. 4 Baumeister, ‘Strandhotel bei Brisbane’, no. 57 (1960), 217. 5 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Slum Clearance. Austrian Expert’s Views’, 23 May 1939, 13. 6 Paul Hogben and Judith O’Callaghan (eds.), Leisure Space: The Transformation of

Sydney, 1945–1970, Sydney, NSW: UNSW Press, 2014; Janina Gosseye, ‘Travel and Shopping’, in Hannah Lewi and Philip Goad (eds.), Australia Modern: Architecture, Landscape & Design, Melbourne, VIC: Thames & Hudson Australia, 2019, 210–215. 7 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘A Canberra Hotel for Cairns’, 2 May 1939, 1; Courier-Mail

(Brisbane), ‘Hotel Canberra for Cairns’, 3 May 1939, 5. 8 Townsville Daily Bulletin, ‘Canberra Hotels: Next One in Cairns’, 6 April 1939, 7. 9 ‘Canberra Hotels: Next One in Cairns’, 7. 10 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Will Lay Bricks if Necessary’, 23 May 1939, 5. 11 Cairns Post, ‘Hotel Canberra’, 5 July 1939, 6. 12 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Hotel Canberra for Cairns’, 3 May 1939. 13 In 1954, there were still newspaper reports announcing the construction of a chain of

Temperance Hotels in North Queensland, including Cairns. See Townsville Daily Bulletin, ‘Temperance Hotels for N.Q. Planned’, 20 July 1954, 1. 14 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Beach Amenities: Council Discussion’, 24 September 1946, 2. 15 ‘Beach Amenities: Council Discussion’, 2; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Divided Opinion in

City Council on Seaside Amenities’, 30 October 1946, 5; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Beach Amenities at Local Resorts’, 21 November 1946, 5. 16 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Further Decision by Shire Council’, 21 November 1946, 5. 17 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Approval for Beach Plans’, 21 September 1948. 18 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘New Beach Amenities Proposed’, 15 September 1948, 2. 19 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Amenities Plan for Beaches Too Costly’, 17 February 1949, 3;

Daily Mercury (Brisbane), ‘Pioneer Will Proceed with Beach Amenities’, 5 November 1949, 3; Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Pioneer to Build Amenities’, 17 November 1949, 2. 20 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Tourist Trade Still Rising in Mackay’, 28 May 1949, 6. 21 A ‘Pacific Hotel’ did get built at Eimeo Point in the late 1940s–early 1950s, which was

commissioned by Driscall, but which looked nothing like what Langer had proposed. 22 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Luxury Coast Hotel’, 1 August 1954, 7. 23 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Open 3 South Coast Hotel: Bids Dec 13’, 28 September 1954, 3. 24 ‘Open 3 South Coast Hotel: Bids Dec 13’, 3. 25 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Eight Tenders Submitted for 3 New Hotels’, 14 December

1954, 3. 26 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Coast Hotel Plans’, 13 December 1954, 2. 27 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘£½m. Hotel for Broadbeach’, 27 December 1954, 3.

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28 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Open 3 South Coast Hotel: Bids Dec 13’, 28 September 1954,

3; Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Three Large Hotels for South Coast’, 28 September 1954, 1; Queensland Times (Ipswich), ‘Three More Hotels for South Coast?’, 28 September 1954, 2; Warwick Daily News, ‘South Coast to Get Three More Modern Hotels’, 28 September 1954, 1. 29 Argus (Melbourne), ‘Lennons Magnificent Broadbeach Hotel’, 3 November 1956, 7. 30 Andrew Leach, Gold Coast: City and Architecture, London: Lund Humphries, 2018, 69. 31 His knowledge of art was likely informed by his wife Gertrude, who by 1956 had

become the chief art critic for the Courier-Mail as well as Brisbane’s leading authority in the field. Source: Nancy D.H. Underhill, ‘Langer, Gertrude (1908–1984)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 18 (2012, online 2012), Canberra, ACT: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. 32 F. David McCarthy, Australia Aboriginal Decorative Arts Book, Sydney, NSW:

Australian Museum, 1948. 33 Chapter 2 in this book reveals that Langer’s diverse artistic interests can largely be

attributed to his and his wife Gertrude Langer’s studies with Professor Josef Strzygowski at the Vienna Art School in the early 1930s. 34 Architecture and Arts, ‘Luxury Hotel, Broadbeach’, vol. 44 (April 1957), 26–27. 35 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘£1M. in Lennons Hotel Plans’, 14 December 1954, 3. 36 ‘£1M. in Lennons Hotel Plans’, 3. 37 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘New Toowoomba Hotel’, 31 December 1954, 6. 38 Argus (Melbourne), ‘Lennon’s Progress’, 13 October 1956, 20. 39 Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton), ‘Largest Hotel Project in Australia’,

9 February 1956, 24. 40 Argus (Melbourne), ‘Lennon’s Progress’, 13 October 1956, 20. 41 These include the Hotel Plaza in Madrid (Spain), the Princess Kailulani Hotel in

Waikiki (Honolulu), the Royal Hotel in Copenhagen (Denmark), the Hotel Eungella in Mackay (QLD, Australia), the Ingleside Resort in Staunton (VA, USA), the Singapore Resort Motel at Miami Beach in Bal Harbour (VA, USA), etc. 42 In Langer’s collection of magazine clippings are numerous articles relating to tourism

development in the US. A noteworthy one is by Frank Fogarty (‘Land III: Leisure’s Lush Acres’, Architectural Forum (April 1957), 149–151, 246–251), who documents the American boom in resort building from California, Arizona and New Mexico to Colorado, New England and Massachusetts. Source: Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 78. 43 The Road Ahead, ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’, November 1949,

12–13, 24–25. 44 ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’, 12. 45 Karl Langer, ‘Need for Motels’, Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 66. 46 Karl Langer, ‘Need for Motels’, Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 66. 47 ‘ “New Look” for Far Beach’, Daily Mercury, 20 September 1948, 2. 48 ‘Amenities for Far Beach’, Daily Mercury, 25 January 1952, 2. 49 Karl Langer, ‘Need for Motels’, Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 66.

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50 Eve Blau, The Architecture of Red Vienna 1919–1934, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. 51 At an oral history event focusing on Karl Langer, which was organized at the University

of Queensland on 22 September 2009, there was some disagreement about precisely what brand of car Langer owned. However, everyone agreed that Langer’s car was of American provenance. 52 See, for instance: Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘East-West Route is Not Terrifying for Everyday

Motorist’, 11 January 1954, 9; Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘On the Overland Route’, 2 June 1954, 19. 53 Box 51 of the Langer Collection, which is held by the Fryer Library at the University of

Queensland, comprises books about the American National Park System as well as several loose pages torn out of a printed publication that carry the title ‘American Planning and Civic Annual, 1937’. In these pages, Langer underlined several sentences, including one stating that ‘Some 10 million people did in fact visit the 26 [American] National Parks last year’. Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 55. 54 Karl Langer, letter addressed to Messrs. A.L. Nevitt & Co., Stock and Sharebrokers in

Brisbane, dated 26 October 1960. Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 55. 55 Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 53. 56 This decision was registered in the ‘Minutes of Board Meeting of Directors held at the

registered office of the company, 99 Creek Street, Brisbane, on Friday 4th November 1960 at 11.00 am’. In subsequent company documents, Langer is listed as ‘consulting architect’. Fryer Library, UQFL158 Karl Langer Collection, Box 5. 57 In the early 1930s, the leases of all the Molle Group Islands were purchased from the

Department of Lands by Mr. Harry G. Lamond. Some time later, Major Lee Murray of Sydney and his wife sailed their yacht, Daydream, up to the North, where they were so impressed by the island that they acquired a sublease from Mr. Lamond. In 1933, Murray took Mr. E.M. Catherwood into partnership to cater for tourist trade, who subsequently bought out his partners’ interests in the lease to manage the property independently. See Bowen Independent, ‘West Molle Changes Ownership’, 7 February 1934, 2; Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘In Town and Out’, 1 February 1934, 16; Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Daydream Island: Rich in Tropical Beauty’, 23 October 1934, 16. 58 ‘In Town and Out’, 16; ‘Daydream Island: Rich in Tropical Beauty’, 16. 59 Bowen Independent, ‘Praise for Daydream Island’, 22 April 1936, 3. 60 Queensland Times (Ipswich), ‘Daydream Island Wedding’, 14 April 1938, 8. 61 Bowen Independent, ‘Barrier Reef Film: From Daydream to Green Island’, 5 December

1938, 3. 62 Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton), ‘Poets’ Corner’, 2 February 1939, 8. 63 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘The Barrier Reef is the State’s Main Scenic Asset’, 22 October

1946, 5. 64 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Company to Develop Daydream Island’, 14 January

1948, 4. 65 Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton), ‘Tenders for Reef Development’, 10 April 1948, 1. 66 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Island Resort to Close’, 21 July 1952, 3; Sunday Mail

(Brisbane), ‘Holiday Dream Will Fade’, 20 July 1952, 6. 67 Smith’s Weekly (Sydney), ‘Ansett’s Bold Bid for Q’land Tourist Trade’, 27 May 1950, 7.

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68 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Island Resort Closing’, 23 July 1952, 2; Sydney Morning

Herald, ‘Island Resort to Close’, 21 July 1952, 3. 69 Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Millionaire at Work: Daydream Island – New Holiday

Playground’, 5 June 1968, 18. 70 By contrast, the exterior walls of both the woodland cabins and the twin-bed sitting

rooms were designed of single course brickwork. 71 Ian Moffitt, ‘The Tourist Wave is About to Break Over Our Heads and We’re Sitting Idly

in the Sun’, The Australian, 11 March 1967. 72 Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Personal’, 7 August 1947, 4. 73 Sunday Sun (Sydney), ‘He Thought Sydney Needed Its Face Lifted’, 15 February

1948, 7. 74 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Beauty Treatment for Brickpit’, 14 February 1948, 2. 75 Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘55,000 Examine Development Plan’, 15 June 1948, 7. 76 Sunday Sun (Sydney), ‘He Thought Sydney Needed Its Face Lifted’, 15 February

1948, 7. 77 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Sydney Plan for National Sports Area’, 20 January 1948, 2. 78 ‘Sydney Plan for National Sports Area’, 2. 79 Cairns Post, ‘Olympic Games for 1956: Melbourne Venue’, 13 January 1950, 3. 80 ‘Olympic Games for 1956: Melbourne Venue’, 3. 81 Newcastle Sun, ‘Olympic Stadium’, 6 June 1952, 2. 82 Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Olympic Stadium Model’, 9 December 1952, 2. 83 The runners-up included Keith W. Payne & Bruce Shaw (from Sydney), Stephenson &

Turner’s Sydney and Melbourne offices, Bates, Smart & McCutcheon (Melbourne), and John G. Barton, also from Melbourne. Source: Building: Lighting: Engineering, ‘Olympic Stadium Competition’, 24 November 1952, 55. 84 When the Nazis came to power, they used the 1936 Olympic Games for propaganda

purposes. 85 Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘£220,000 Plan for “Paradise” at Clontarf ’, 15 August

1954, 3. 86 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Hotel Plea Based on Rapid Bay Growth’, 9 December 1954, 17. 87 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Tourist Aim for Hotel’, 21 August 1954, 18; Sunday Mail

(Brisbane), ‘£220,000 Plan for “Paradise” at Clontarf ’, 15 August 1954, 3. 88 ‘Tourist Aim for Hotel’, 18; ‘£220,000 Plan for “Paradise” at Clontarf ’, 3. 89 The Melbourne Luna Park in St. Kilda opened in 1912, while the Sydney Luna Park at

Milsons Point opened in 1935. 90 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Tourist Aim for Hotel’, 21 August 1954, 18. 91 ‘Tourist Aim for Hotel’, 18. 92 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Clontarf has Plan for Luxury Hotel’, 20 October 1954, 3. 93 Architecture, ‘Furniture Shop: Brisbane, Queensland’, January/March 1954, 17. 94 ‘West’s Furniture Showroom’, in John Macarthur, Deborah van der Plaat, Janina

Gosseye and Andrew Wilson (eds.), Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture 1945–1975, London: Artifice, 2015, 47.

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95 For many years, Langer’s design lay hidden behind a more conventional shopfront

façade. With Wests ceasing operation in 1963, subsequent owners removed some of the building’s more innovative details, such as the angled front window, the pond and the numerous skylights. In 2008, Brisbane firm Riddel Architecture, headed by architect Robert Riddel, instigated and managed the restoration of Langer’s design, with the assistance of former owner Laurie West. Source: Deborah van der Plaat, ‘620 Wickham Street’, Architecture Australia, vol. 99, no. 1 (January 2010), 72–76. 96 In an article published in the Australian Women’s Weekly, Karl and Gertrude Langer

suggested that they decided to move to Australia after having seen a film called ‘Australia the Unfinished Continent’. Source: ‘Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry: Romantic Viennese Couple Get Acquainted with Our Language’, 3 June 1939, 2. Discussed in more detail in Chapter 2.

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FIGURE 9.1 Aerial view of proposed landscape treatment for a coastal drive, NSW. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL15, Misc. 11/0002, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

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9 A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN Karl Langer’s Landscape Australia Andrew Saniga and Andrew Wilson

Landscape and the Brisbane scene When Karl Langer arrived in Australia in May 1939, landscape architecture was not an organized profession and would remain that way until close to his death in 1969. The predominant culture of landscape design was English in origin, with notable exceptions due to the influence of people like Walter Burley Griffin (1876– 1937) and Marion Mahony Griffin (1871–1961), who introduced innovative ideas and an appreciation of Australian indigenous plants and landscapes. The most outstanding achievements in landscape architecture were informed by Picturesque or Gardenesque principles applied to the creation of botanic gardens and parklands, when opportunity allowed, in every major capital city. For domestic garden design, the arts and crafts had played a significant role, with garden designers, such as Edna Walling (1895–1973) in Victoria and Jocelyn Brown (1898–1971) and Paul Sorensen (1891–1983) in New South Wales, producing domestic garden schemes that further inculcated a sense of Englishness. Those with most influence on public landscapes went by titles such as ‘curator of grounds’, or ‘superintendent of parks and gardens’. In the main, their role was landscape management, often dealing with day-to-day horticultural and gardening issues as well as having varying amounts of design influence on the evolving form of urban public landscapes. At the Brisbane City Council, Harry Oakman (1906–2002) was superintendent of parks from 1946 to 1963 whereupon he became the first director of the Landscape Architecture Division with the National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) in Canberra, a position he held until retirement in 1973.

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Upon moving to Brisbane, Oakman discovered ‘an incredible situation in that the parks were completely run down’1 – their management had for many years fallen within the Engineering Department’s jurisdiction. He set out to take control, establishing more than one hundred recreational reserves and mentoring new recruits such as George Trapnell (1918–1998) and Keith Williams (b. 1916), plant enthusiasts and promoters of Queensland’s native plant species. English-born Alan Edward Wilson (b. 1919) worked under Oakman in Brisbane (1958–59) before becoming superintendent of the Parks and Recreation Department in Townsville, Queensland. Hamburg-born Arne Fink (1930–1993) also worked under Oakman (1959–61), having received extensive training in various horticultural academies in Germany before emigrating to Australia in 1952.2 Fink’s professional reach extended to Ipswich, Toowoomba, Mackay, Longreach, Redcliffe, Miles and Tweed Heads, helping to extend the horticultural bases for practice in Queensland. Oakman, who published many books (on plants) that were pitched at the general public,3 stimulated the horticultural and gardening scene in Queensland. He and his protégés’ landscape management skills were often ‘hands-on’, enmeshed as they were in public service. Langer’s practice was of a different kind, encompassing planning, design, documentation and supervision and while his inclusion of landscape design within his private architectural practice was not necessarily unique, his ideas for landscape were pervasive and comprehensive. Such comparisons between Langer and Oakman were symptomatic of the uneven profile and uncertain identity of landscape practitioners nationally at that time. The establishment in 1966 of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) represented the coming together of diverse disciplinary groups, often with disparate notions of what defined landscape practice. Langer was a figurehead for the Queensland arm of the profession, occupying a unique place within the complex framework of landscape practitioners that defined the Australian profession in the post-Second World War years. He found creative expression over multiple dimensions of work, from teacher to practitioner and at scales ranging from garden to landscape planning, forging new appreciations of Australia’s indigenous landscapes.

City and landscape ideals Karl Langer’s European training fostered a spatial appreciation of the city, landscape context and broader social and cultural visions that afforded artistic expression. His studies at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts ranged across engineering, architecture, planning, landscape and horticulture, under Peter Behrens and later from 1928 to 1934, through experience gained as senior architect in Alexander Popp and Behrens’ Vienna atelier (see Chapter 1).4 In his formative years, he was exposed to a number of influential architects before commencing his own practice

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in 1934: Hans Prutscher, Joseph Frank and Oskar Vlach, Peter Behrens along with Alexander Popp, Heinrich Schmid and Hermann Aichinger, the latter two taught by Otto Wagner.5 An unbuilt scheme by Langer for the Cityhaus Projekt in the old core of Vienna in 1927 consisted of a number of large rectilinear volumes banded horizontally in alternating colours from the lower to upper levels, of red, orange and yellow6 – bold abstract ideas in the context of Vienna’s historic architecture and streetscapes. The city, civic ideals, planning and landscape came within a rich frame of architectural theory. For example, Langer was familiar with the work of German architect and planner Walter Schwagenscheidt (1886–1968), who had exhibited in Vienna in the 1920s.7 Architectural historian Elke Sohn explained the influence of Schwagenscheidt and his contemporaries, architects Hans Scharoun (1893–1972) and Hans Bernhard Reichow (1899–1974), who supported organicism as a methodological underpinning for city planning to achieve cities that could ‘function in a healthy, whole way’.8 Reichow and Schwagenscheidt studied at the Technical University of Munich under Theodor Fischer (1862–1938), who was active in the Garden City movement and advocated that ‘the city should be understood as an organism and its design developed from given landscape characteristics’.9 Langer’s early practice in Australia pre-empted Schwagenscheidt’s Die Raumstadt (The Spatial City) of 1949, in which the concept of ideal cities, Sohn explained, included interdependent systems analogous to living organisms.10 In 1946, whilst completing a consultancy for the City of Perth Ratepayers’Association11 on the selection of a site for a civic centre,12 Langer’s report described how the city in all its parts should be interrelated, stating: ‘like a Persian rug of intricate pattern’ it should be ‘a living organism . . . [a] . . . part of life’13 and that certain buildings and their landscapes had the potential to become ‘the point of concentration and crystallisation of the city organism’.14 Conceiving the city in such abstract terms enabled Langer a holistic and creative practice, one that was inclusive of landscape architecture and a broad objective of connecting people with ‘nature’. He drew inspiration from Australian landscape scenery, combining architecture and nature in evocatively powerful ways (see Figure 9.2). Australian poet Thomas Shapcott recalled seeing a 1951 exhibition in Brisbane of black and white drawings by Karl Langer and noted the drawings depicted: . . . buildings, prospects, views in which nature and architecture dramatically interconnected. It was the first time in my life that architecture even entered into my perception as something actually connected with art.15 Karl and his wife Gertrude were shocked at the state of art, culture and architecture and by the lack of public gardens in the Australian city.16 As humanists their response was to undertake a mutual and harmonious pursuit of ‘aesthetic modernism’17 in their respective fields, with Gertrude being perhaps the more

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FIGURE 9.2 Sketch of Grass Tree by Karl Langer, published on front cover of Centreline for the Public Relations Committee, Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, no. 47 (April 1966).

overt. In a state of expatriation, Karl’s correspondence with others who fled Vienna sheds light on like-minded architect-town planners such as Otto Rudolf Hellwig (South Australia), Johannes Schreiner (United Kingdom) and Victor Gruen (1903–1988) and Rudolf Baumfeld (1903–1988) in North America.18 In 1952,

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Gruen and Langer began planning a project in Australia but these plans went unfulfilled.19 Gruen, notable architect of the modern shopping mall,20 labelled himself and his peers as ‘environmental architects’ who had dedicated themselves to designing cities to aid human exchange – of ideas, goods and of individual, social and cultural expression – and to provide ‘the greatest attainable amount of choice between solitude and privacy on the one hand and sociability and gregariousness on the other’.21 The phenomenon of the city as a cultural expression was crucial: in 1946, Langer had implored [his underlining] ‘. . . a Civic Centre must be a work of art’.22 Langer’s appreciation of the importance of landscape filled a void and served well the changing needs of the times. From 1940 through to the early 1950s, the war years and post-war condition saw the emergence of organizations such as the Department of Post-War Reconstruction (1942), State Housing Commissions, Australian Institute of Urban Studies (1966) and various advisory committees,23 where the skills of practitioners like Langer were readily taken up. In September 1943, Langer forwarded his research into sub-tropical and tropical housing24 to L.P.D. O’Connor, chairman of the Commonwealth Housing Commission in Sydney for consideration in the context of a federal survey of housing.25 Between 1943 and 1944, he corresponded with the commission’s executive officer, Walter Bunning (1912–1977), who soon after would take on the role of chairman of the New South Wales Town and Country Planning Advisory Committee (1945–64).26 Despite Bunning not offering Langer a position in Sydney at that time,27 Langer would go on to complete two- to four-week consultancies between 1947 and 1948 for the Cumberland County Council, set up under the Local Government (Town and Country Planning) Amendment Act 1945 to coordinate town planning across Sydney.28 Langer also received invitations to move interstate permanently, in part a result of the media coverage he received in 1944 when being denied the position of Brisbane’s deputy town planner on account of being an ‘alien’.29 In October and November 1945, Edward F. Billson architects and landscape architects invited Langer to move to Melbourne and take up employment within Billson’s office whilst also suggesting the possibility of both he and Gertrude securing work at the University of Melbourne.30 Edward Billson (1892–1986) had been exposed to landscape architecture when he worked in the Griffins’ office between 1915 and 1921 as the firm’s first Australian assistant.31 Langer’s influential 1944 publication ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’,32 inextricably linked architecture, planning and landscape and exemplified his capacity to synthesize his observations of the state of planning and design with the Australian environment. The dissemination of these ideas reached beyond Brisbane and bridged professional consultancies and training. His commission in 1946 for the Perth Ratepayers’ Association on the other side of the continent is another example of his widening reputation.33 At the national level, Langer advised the Senate Select Committee on the Development of Canberra

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(1955), the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Australian Capital Territory (1957–68) and consulted for the NCDC. Langer envisaged open spaces functioning as integral and continuous elements in progressive and efficient modern communities, providing recreational facilities within developments that catered for the pedestrian as much as for the car. His planting designs were functional and pragmatic: trees were used to define physical or visual edges or to provide an accent around architectural elements within a broader planting framework for a site. A formality defined by geometry tended to follow. Langer favoured order in lines of conical, spherical, or columnar-shaped trees in median strips, beside circulation routes and to demarcate functional areas.34 Although he appreciated Australian plants and landscapes, his drawings often portrayed trees suggestive of evergreen trees like the Italian Cypress (Cupressus sempervirens) and the deciduous Lombardy Poplar (Populus nigra ‘Italica’). Elsewhere, drawings suggest the conical-shaped Araucaria heterophylla, or Norfolk Island Pine, often used as foreshore and avenue planting in parts of Australia at the time.35 Roads and car parks were often lined with single or paired planting arrangements, repeating sets of two or three evenly spaced trees and small clusters of plants between roads and buildings. Often, planting anchored the presence of a structure in space36 or defined open turfed spaces, typically circular and sometimes inclusive of focal points such as a monument. Infrastructure and landscape were symbiotic in Langer’s pursuit of modern and progressive urban living. For the Cumberland County Council in NSW, his scheme for a six-lane coastal freeway winding along the cliff-tops embraced the car and the highway as inevitable components of an efficient modern city. In a dramatic aerial sketch (see Figure 9.1), impressive columnar-shaped trees and low shrub plantings occur in segments along the roadside with lines of trees defining edges and creating distant landmarks.37 A walled viewing platform with an amoeba-shaped roof was perched on the cliff-top and featured rectangular holes framing views to the ocean. For the land around Sydney’s Wolli Creek and Cooks River38 adjacent to Sydney Airport, his impressive aerial view suggests formal plantings of non-indigenous species in evenly spaced lines and circular configurations. When rivers or creeks formed part of Langer’s ideal neighbourhoods, paths cross the water course, but seldom do they follow alongside,39 the resistance to coupling the pedestrian and the stream perhaps indicative of a time when urban watercourses were considered fit only for one purpose, as drains. Langer’s ideas for urban landscapes advanced a comprehensive and commanding vision. Few in Australia were thinking in this way, one notable exception being architect turned landscape architect John Oldham (1907–1999) in Western Australia. From the mid-1950s, Oldham artfully managed to elevate landscape concerns in the context of the Public Works Department (WA) with comprehensive landscape master plans of comparable planting strategies for the tourist landscape of Serpentine Dam (c. 1960) and more prominently, for the

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parklands at the Narrows Interchange in Perth (mid-1960s).40 Like Langer, Oldham initiated landscape schemes when no formal brief seemed to have been supplied: both had self-motivated ‘drive’, combining a furtive spirit to meet what they saw as a necessary change in the Australian condition. Langer’s early work on ‘standard layout’ schemes for rural centres, district centres and neighbourhoods often went way beyond expectations for Australia’s small rural centres, substantiating what some have claimed was the ‘heroic theatrical impact’41 of his civic centre designs. Oldham and Langer regarded landscape as a natural resource to be utilized. This included the appropriation of Australian natural and cultural references. Lennons Broadbeach Hotel (1956) was an opportunistic tourist development, built on the site of a former sand mine and ultimately providing a catalyst for the ongoing transformation of the South Coast region (now called the Gold Coast). Langer’s landscape detailing was distinctly modern, with sinuous forms and circular or biomorphic shapes, indicative of Brazilian modernism in Niemeyer’s and Burle Marx’s Casa do Baile (or, Pampulha Dance Hall, 1942) in Belo Horizonte42 and Garden of the Larragoiti Hospital (1957) in Rio de Janeiro,43 and Burle Marx’s Parque do Barreiro at Araxá (c. 1946).44 Lennons was richly infused with references to local materials – for example, the planting design included Australian native plants, particularly the Casuarina and Banksia species, along with other plants suitable for coastal environments and some of the detailing such as a lathwork shade structure took on organic forms and materiality indicative of ‘tropicalia’45 (see Figure 9.3). However, as Sinnamon noted, the unfortunate impact of Lennons’ success on its setting was that it ‘killed it, by means of the real estate boom it caused . . . the surrounding bushland proved even more ephemeral than the building’.46 Langer’s procurement of ‘totem poles’ created by local Indigenous artists to adorn the gardens of the hotel also resembles an approach taken by Oldham.47 At Serpentine Dam, Oldham laid out a parterre garden (1961) based on a pattern scored from a rubbing taken of an Aboriginal artefact because he saw the necessity of expressing Australia’s unique qualities to achieve modern landscape architecture as something that had broken ties to England. Albeit of their time and inherently disrespectful of Indigenous cultural symbols and meanings, these were nonetheless a form of conservation where Australian landscape and its Indigenous culture was seen as something to appreciate and interpret. For example, in 1953 Langer wrote an article concerning architecture and landscape in the domestic context, labelling over-scaled and elaborate façades as a: . . . vulgar expression of the economic power of their owner. And they were not part of the surroundings, the cityscape or landscape – they were self-contained dominating structures reflecting clearly the elevated social status and the inflated ego of the owner . . . This particular type of architecture dominates the landscape . . . overpower[ing] the delicate tonal values of the Australian landscape, shouting their message harshly into the quiet rural surroundings’.48

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FIGURE 9.3 Organic forms expressed in lathwork shade structure combined ‘tropicalia’ with a modern landscape at Lennons Broadbeach Hotel (main block in background). Architecture and Arts (April 1957), 27.

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Tensions exist between progress and sensitivity to ecological conservation. Langer’s proposals for residential subdivisions in Queensland in the late 1950s relied on highly engineered canal systems demonstrating an opportunistic use of natural resources. Sinnamon described his approach as being erudite, in combining Dutch engineering (creating geometries from indigenous marshlands and sea) and garden city principles (Radburnesque parks substituted for canals).49 The scale and formality of the transformation was enormous, setting models for development in other states.50 Langer clearly weighed-in on the development side of the ledger with proposals, particularly earlier in his career, imbued with efficiency and rationality. For example, in 1946 for Perth’s civic spaces he recognized the special qualities of existing trees in Stirling Square but had no qualms should they be lost under new development, particularly in the context of his large-scale vision for the greater precinct including the Swan River landscape. He stated: Some of the trees on the present Stirling Square and in the adjoining parks are very attractive and, though they are old, worthy of preservation. It would be possible to preserve some of them in the new scheme, but even if all these trees should have to go, it would not be a loss in the long run, as the whole area along the Swan River would have to be landscaped and thousands of trees planted so that the parks and recreation grounds recommended could be created.51 Still, his contribution to conservation whilst enriching a new culture of landscape design in Australia evades easy categorization and no doubt evolved significantly over twenty or so years. For example, he was an active member of the National Trust in Queensland, helping to advocate the significance of the nineteenth-century historical home of Wolston Farmhouse, Brisbane, which became one of the earliest listings for the State.52 There is also evidence to suggest that Langer was thoughtful in pursuing Japanese garden design principles in his civic design work. Christopher Tunnard’s Gardens in the Modern Landscape (1938, second edition 1948) is relevant here, for Tunnard promoted the ability for Japanese design to symbolically connect people to nature, that by compacting the experience of broad-scale landscapes one could compensate for expanding urbanization via ‘landscape planned for form and with imagination’.53 In Langer’s scheme for a model civic centre54 (which strongly resembled Langer’s ‘Standard Lay-Out of Civic Centres for Cumberland Council’55), landscape elements such as ponds, bridges and stepping-stones are evident, as are clumps of manicured trees and shrubs, appearing to be arranged with a quality of asymmetrical balance (see Figure 9.4).56 Langer’s exploration of the modern garden derived from Japanese design bridged the civic and domestic, the garden he created at his own residence in St. Lucia remaining perhaps the clearest illustration.

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FIGURE 9.4 Aerial view of landscape scheme for a typical rural centre including distinctive v-shaped courtyard (lower left side) with formal planting in asymmetrical balance. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0006, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

The modern garden In 1941, while Langer was employed as an architect with Cook and Kerrison, he was producing garden plans exhibiting American trends, in particular the dissolution of the boundary between inside and outside.57 Around this time there is evidence to suggest that Langer was interested in the recent work and ideas of Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra and Frank Lloyd Wright. In a handwritten note within the margins of an article on Neutra, Langer posited, ‘genius loci’.58 Landscape historian Elizabeth Rogers pointed out that Dan Kiley, Frank Lloyd Wright and Tunnard were in fact all inspired by Japanese design with its ‘underlying asymmetrical compositional balance and continuous, interpenetrating spatial organization’.59 Landscape historian Marc Treib noted Christopher Tunnard’s Gardens in the Modern Landscape was a critical benchmark for landscape modernism at that time,60 with ‘the next major statement’ coming twelve years later by way of Garrett Eckbo’s Landscape for Living.61 Sinnamon claimed that Langer travelled to Japan in the years between 1934 and 1938,62 before Tunnard published his book and in his days in Vienna he had access to literature within the Japanese Consulate.63 Langer was familiar with the ideas in Garrett Eckbo’s Landscape for Living (1950); Eckbo summed up the Japanese garden as:

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. . . a most precisely controlled and ordered plastic composition in which there are almost no simple or geometric lines. These are sculptural gardens, arrangements of volumes and masses in space, with relations of a complexity and richness which cannot be reduced to paper.64 In the modern Japanese garden, meticulously clipped shrubbery was used extensively and often substituted for the use of rocks in symbolic ways.65 Designer Katsuo Saito discussed the yearly pruning of shrubs to symbolize forms such as mountains and the select use of ‘vertically rising trees’ to impart ‘solemnity’, ‘sublimity’ and ‘sobriety’.66 In The Art of Home Landscaping of 1956, Eckbo summarizes the use of rock and ‘rock as sculpture’, suggesting that Chinese and Japanese rock work has been unrivalled in form and groupings, the aim of which is ‘the intensification and expression of nature, not her imitation’.67 The symbolic connection with nature echoes Tunnard’s observations of the way plant materials are handled in the Japanese garden, of vegetation . . . controlled, but not abused . . . trunks of the trees in front of the house have been trained to their present angles and the low azalea bushes to shapes required of them by the rhythm and movement of the composition.68 These ideas are apparent in Langer’s residential schemes.69 Following precedents established in California, Langer’s John Cooper residence sketch design of January 1941 (see Figure 6.1) was a house and garden design that linked indoor and outdoor living space within a rectilinear external space between the house and street. The garden included pure forms in plant materials along with a round water feature flanked by stepping-stones and a sculpture offset to one corner.70 ‘Sub-tropical Housing’ presented alternative garden layouts with garden spaces defined by pruned shrubs. In one of these (bottom image Figure 9.5), sculpturally distinctive trees were shown, their trunks presumably either dead or in a deciduous state. A person was shown reclining in a hammock strung between two trees, gazing at a bird perched on the bowed limb of one of them, suggestive of a symbolic connection between people and nature. In an unpublished version of the same garden (top image Figure 9.5), the dead trees became leafy and tropical. Langer included an ‘open air shower’ (possibly targeted at coastal settings) and added an outdoor sink alongside the open fire place for cooking, making for a more complete outdoor kitchen. Additional variations included stepping-stone path with garden beds in a Japanese style and an altered meridian. Still another variation (not included here) depicted a productive garden, reminiscent of those advocated by Josef Frank and others associated with the Viennese Settlement Movement (öVSK, Austrian Association for Settlements and Small Gardens), Vienna, after World War One.71 Beyond ideas from Japan and elsewhere combined, Langer’s modern gardens resonate with Eckbo’s Landscape for Living more generally. A pool garden in Beverly

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FIGURE 9.5 Two versions of house and garden plan: (top) original drawing by Karl Langer; (bottom) version published in ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Original drawing, Karl Langer Collection, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland, UQFL158, Folder Misc. 29; ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, UQFL158, Box #36.

Hills, California of 1948, admittedly of a domestic scale, resonates with Langer’s ideas for Lennons Broadbeach Hotel (1956). Eckbo used a masonry wall to unify the scheme, offering solar advantage as a suntrap as well as a sculptural effect that he labelled as a ‘structuro-sculptural-mural’72 This wall consisted of mixed materials including brick, pumice blocks and found objects in the form of bottles which provided a circular-textured motif. Despite Eckbo’s wall taking the alignment of a long sweeping curve with Langer’s wall at Lennons marking a more serpentine figure (see Figure 9.6), the combination of functional and sculptural effect complemented in biomorphic form compares favourably. Eckbo’s plan layouts exhibit non-regular

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FIGURE 9.6 Serpentine wall at Lennons Broadbeach Hotel with dance floor in the foreground and biomorphic forms. Black and white photo. Photographer: Karl Langer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland.

geometries in garden bed edges as much as paved surfaces or lawns.73 A plan for a garden in Los Angeles (1947) included a narrow entrance court ‘visually widened with free paving and step pattern’,74 a quality explored in Langer’s gardens. His design for the Monte Gorton residence in Bowen, Queensland (1951) had a central paved patio area with barbecue, bench and a splayed-non-regularrectangular pool, the lines of which created a sense of asymmetrical balance with the lines of the garden bed edges. The most explicit Japanese garden references in landscapes designed by Langer appeared soon after an influential article on Japanese gardens was published in Architectural Forum in March 1952.75 Langer’s patio terrace for the Levy Addition in Southport in 1952 combined multiple forms in a non-regular arrangement: an amorphous-shaped pond with stone surround and sculptural planting and a masonry fireplace and barbeque positioned off-grid in relation to the regular paving units upon which it rested (see Figure 6.8). At the garden for Dr Skyring in Rockhampton (Figure 9.7), a fountain pool with sculpture within and offset to one side is surrounded by lawn and a garden bed assembling plants in an array of sculptural forms and textures. Of Langer’s own garden, columnist Virginia Langdon for Australian House and Garden perceptively noted that even given the local culture in St. Lucia, where

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FIGURE 9.7 Dr Skyring’s garden, Rockhampton, undated. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 27/11.

innovative architects had chosen to live, ‘the Langer house carries its own message of independent thought and outlook’.76 The front courtyard garden contained a small Japanese garden with pool, stone lantern (ishi-dōrō) and sculptural planting more or less as a ‘set piece’ (see Figure 9.8A). Langer claimed it required regular management to retain its integrity.77 A further distillation of the essence of Chinese and Japanese design, Eckbo briefly elucidates via the notion of ‘mass-and-void’, the articulation of which he argued could not be described via plan drawings but rather ‘must be worked out on the ground by arranging and rearranging the actual garden materials’.78 Langer’s ongoing interaction with the rear garden was an example of reaching a design without extensive articulation via plan drawings. Practical gardening and experimentation included such things as using worms as an aid to cultivation and plant selection to optimize success in terms of both aesthetic and functional requirements – all ideas that were transmitted to his students.79 It was here in his own garden that Langer perhaps found ultimate expression of his appreciation of Australian indigenous landscapes, more so than in his professional work. In the rear garden he claimed to emulate – not copy – the qualities of a rainforest of indigenous shade-loving plants in accordance with the aspect of the site as well as from what he observed first-hand in Queensland’s rainforests, including features such as a waterhole.80 The garden included macrozamia palms, grass trees and other plants not in commercial cultivation, an ethos based on his own procurement of Australian rainforest plants.81 Gertrude’s poetry written for Karl, Love Transcends

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(A) FIGURE 9.8 (A) View of pond in the Langers’ front garden, St. Lucia. Photographer: Karl Langer. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 3 Folder, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. (B) View towards house from rear rainforest garden at Langers’ residence in St. Lucia. Photograph in Ian Sinnamon, ‘Landscape with Classical Figures – A German Influence on Queensland’s Architecture’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988, 245–256.

Death Poems for My Beloved Karl82 (1987) included references to ‘nature’ and to their own garden, substantiating the notion that their garden in St. Lucia was mutually significant, not only for its sensorial qualities, but in personally meaningful ways. Gertrude claimed that the Australian rainforest garden as viewed from the interior of the house through six double-paned windows captured it ‘just like a Japanese screen unfolding . . . Karl didn’t want any curtains at all’.83 The bedrooms opened to a roof terrace on the first floor that aided complete immersion in the rainforest garden (see Figure 9.8B). In this way, the St. Lucia garden, front and rear, exemplified Karl Langer’s landscape ideas, combining symbols of nature in both Japanese-inspired and Australian-inspired landscapes. Karl Langer’s appreciation for the Australian landscape corresponded with broader change beginning in the early 1950s when a number of key landscape designers were beginning to develop an awareness of the Australian landscape.

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(B) FIGURE 9.8 (Continued).

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The ‘Bush School’ in Melbourne saw alternative lifestyles emerge in the fringe suburb of Eltham, with designers and builders of houses and gardens such as Ellis Stones (1895–1975), Alistair Knox (1912–1986), Gordon Ford (1918–1999) and Peter Glass (1917–1997). They were generating a new appreciation of the indigenous landscape based on reconstructed vignettes with nostalgic overtones linked to a lament over environmental degradation. Edna Walling’s The Australian Roadside (1952) was a plea for the appreciation and protection of the Australian landscape and saw her promote conservation. In Sydney, architects and landscape architects Bruce Rickard (1929–2010) and Harry Howard (1930–2000) and the work of landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie (b. 1932) in the 1960s onwards were similarly driven by a bid to reconnect with Australian landscape. Karl and Gertrude’s association with Binna Burra Lodge in the Lamington National Park adjacent to Queensland’s southern border to New South Wales via art circles (Romeo and Vida Lahey) and professor of architecture Robert Cummings and his associates at the University of Queensland (UQ), further inculcated in the Langers’ psyche the qualities of the natural landscape, its flora, forms and sensorial qualities. Karl’s attuned understanding, as Sinnamon concluded, developed via studying indigenous landscape qualities when making landscape and botanical sketches that captured ‘the subtleties of colour and texture’ (see Figure 9.9).84 Artistic drawings, for Langer, were also a form of analysis. Evidence, however, of Langer completing professional commissions in the construction of ‘bush gardens’ – or reconstructing facsimiles of Australian natural landscapes – has not been found. In this sense, the quality of his ideas in terms of Australia’s nascent ecological consciousness needs tempering. Here one could challenge the tenor of Sinnamon’s analysis of Langer’s contribution that was published in Landscape Australia in 1985 and to date has formed the definitive account. Sinnamon argued that Langer brought his European culture to Australia yet unlike the ‘white custodians’ who had been responsible for widespread destruction, Langer’s approach was ‘venerable and dynamic’ and reliant on ‘an acute eye which was quick to recognise a whole new physical ecology’.85 Langer’s designed landscapes were indeed rich and explorative but his methods were partly ‘of their time’ in terms of conserving or reconstructing the indigenous environments in the wake of infrastructure and partly defined by symbolic rather than scientific or nostalgic bases. He offered an intellectual (aesthetic modernist) reading of the Australian bush garden rather than a romantic one. Landscape design aside, he was undoubtedly charged by the immersive experiences that he and Gertrude shared in natural places. Langer’s commitment to the recovery of landscape, urban or natural, was essential in his outlook, a need so well expressed by his contemporary Harry Oakman, who perhaps also in part influenced by his observations of the state of Brisbane’s parks and gardens in 1946 later reflected: ‘. . . if ever you want to promote something, it’s the acquisition and the retention of open space’.86

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(A)

(B) FIGURE 9.9 (A) Oil painting of landscape and plant materials by Karl Langer (with caption by Sinnamon as published): ‘He . . . “learned an understanding, indeed a reverence for plant life in all forms” ’. ‘An Educated Eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7, no. 1 (1985), 48. (B) Landscape sketch of Glasshouse Mountains by Karl Langer (with caption by Sinnamon as published): ‘Karl Langer’s drawings show his response to the Australian landscape; one of delight and curiosity’. Sinnamon, ‘An Educated Eye’, 51. 250

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Queensland landscape architecture In the context of the emergence of landscape architecture in Australia, Karl Langer was a catalyst and advocate of the profession in Queensland. He had an invigorating effect, introducing through his town planning subject at the University of Queensland, the importance of civic space and pedestrianization, scale, detail and a European sensibility to the concept of landscape and open space for the public.87 Langer can also be distinguished from his contemporaries, perhaps partly because of his central European background. Notwithstanding the controversial decision not to appoint Langer to the Brisbane City Council near the end of the Second World War,88 one gets a sense that Langer was relatively self-contained in terms of professional relations – committees and the like – despite monitoring their progress in concerned and interested ways.89 Geographic and professional isolation may have aided Langer’s freedom as a designer, a condition that others have noted of the émigré condition.90 When Langer passed away in 1969, the loss of a leader and father figure of the group impacted Queensland founder of the profession, architect and landscape architect Malcolm Bunzli, who noted the influence Langer had in the profession and the media despite commanding an office of relatively small size.91 This perhaps had broader ramifications, as Bunzli stated: I think Queensland landscape developed in isolation to what was happening down south. I think that’s probably true . . . we didn’t hear a great deal of what was happening down south . . . Landscape architecture finished at the New South Wales/Queensland border.92 Langer inspired architecture and town planning students to take up landscape architecture, widening their appreciation of issues beyond the usual constraints of site boundary or planning strategy. His teaching at the University of Queensland swayed architecture students Bunzli, George Williams and Lawrie Smith to develop careers in landscape architecture. Smith, who graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Queensland in 1968 and a Diploma of Landscape Architecture from Queensland Institute of Technology in 1972, claimed Langer’s lectures ‘opened [his] eyes to the value and significance of the profession’.93 In 1964, when moves to form an institute were occurring nationally, Langer initiated a group of five people with the purpose of advancing landscape architecture in Queensland. This group consisted of himself along with Barbara van den Broek, Bernie Ryan, Arne Fink and soon after Malcolm Bunzli.94 Their discussions held at the Old Vienna Coffee Inn in the basement of Brisbane Arcade95 culminated in the formation of the Queensland Association of Landscape Architects (QALA) in 1965, which ultimately formed a chapter of the national body, the AILA. Langer’s initial hesitance to join the AILA (Bunzli prevailed in encouraging him to apply96) perhaps stemmed from the aforementioned degree of

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autonomy he had already secured, including the multi-dimensional nature of his professional practice. The QALA endured into the 1970s, co-existing with the AILA at the national level; their contribution included generating national codes of professional conduct, scales of fees and more. Karl Langer was a league of his own that was defined by culture, training, experience and his personality. ‘Dr Karl’, as he was and is still referred to today, conjures the image of a person who was endearing and who commanded respect. Principally an architect and town planner, his exploration of landscape architecture redressed the imbalances in the state of Brisbane’s parks and gardens in ways that were intellectually complex, founded on nature as symbol and linked to European, American and Japanese landscape ideas reinterpreted in distinctive ways in the context of Queensland’s (and Australia’s) cultural awakening after the Second World War. The freedom with which he did this was enabling, allowing him to pursue a broad scope of creativity that combined landscape and urbanism while also allowing him to transgress professional boundaries and likewise inspire a generation of students to diverge and pursue landscape architecture. The intellectual and disciplinary bases Langer brought to landscape architecture in Queensland were steadfast and marked by generosity – to his peers, students and to his home city and state. Correspondingly, the identity of the Queensland profession was distinctive and richly independent from its national counterparts, yet it was also cohesive. Queensland landscape architecture played a crucial role in leading the emergence of the profession across the nation.

Acknowledgements The authors would like to express their sincere appreciation for the guidance and advice of Deborah van der Plaat and John Macarthur and the important contributions of: Malcolm Bunzli, Rob Freestone, Anne Latreille, Jeannie Sim, Lawrie Smith, Marc Treib, George Williams and many staff of the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland and the John Oxley Library within the State Library of Queensland. We also wish to acknowledge the research funding of the Australian Research Council: ‘Architecture and Industry: The Migrant Contribution to Nation-building’ (grant no. DP190101531).

Notes 1 Harry Oakman, ‘Harry Oakman’, in An Evening with Harry Oakman, Malcolm Bunzli,

George Trapnell, George Williams, Occasional Paper no. 1, Brisbane, QLD: Australian Institute of Landscape Architects Queensland Group (16 October 1979), 3. 2 See Andrew Saniga, Making Landscape Architecture in Australia, Sydney, NSW: UNSW

Press, 2012, 87.

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3 See Harry Oakman. Colourful Trees for Landscapes and Gardens in Temperate and

Subtropical Regions, Sydney, NSW: Angus & Robertson, 1967; Tropical and Subtropical Gardening, Milton, QLD: Jacaranda Press, 1975; Garden and Landscape Trees in Australia, Brisbane, QLD: Rigby, 1979; Harry Oakman’s Shrubs, Milton, QLD: The Jacaranda Press, 1990. 4 Ian Sinnamon, ‘An Educated Eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, Landscape Australia, vol. 7,

no. 1 (1985), 49. 5 Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158 Box #36. Fryer Library, The University of

Queensland. 6 Iris Meder and Judith Eiblmayr, Haus Hoch: Das Hochhaus Herrengasse und seine

berühmten Bewohner, Wien: Metroverlag, 2009, 46. 7 A book by Walter Schwagenscheidt entitled City in Space, Social City (Aachen: Peter

Ulrichs, 1922) is noted in a paper written by Langer for the Congress of Architecture, Melbourne, 1953 entitled, ‘The Japanese House in Relation to Australian Conditions, Especially as to Modular Planning; The Example of Bata and the Experiment of Vienna’, paper presented to the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Congress of Architecture, Melbourne, January 1953. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39. 8 Elke Sohn, ‘Organicist Concepts of City Landscape in German Planning after the

Second World War’, Landscape Research, vol. 32, no. 4 (2007), 510. 9 Elke Sohn paraphrasing the content of Theodor Fischer’s Six Lectures on Urban Design

(1920); in Sohn, ‘Organicist Concepts’, 514. 10 Walter Schwagenscheidt, Die Raumstadt, Heidelberg: Verlag Lambert Schneider, 1949. 11 The City of Perth Ratepayers’ Association was formed in 1899 as a body to represent

ratepayers’ concerns to the city of Perth, to comment on city proposals and as an advocacy group. See West Australian (Perth), ‘City of Perth Ratepayers’ Association Annual Meeting’, 1 August 1899, 3. 12 See articles in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 13 Karl Langer, ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City

of Perth Ratepayers’ Association (Central Ward) on the Selection of a Site for a Civic Centre’, dated February 1946, 2, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 14 Langer, ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City of

Perth Ratepayers’ Association’, 4. 15 Thomas Shapcott, ‘Remembering Gertrude Langer’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan

Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August 1987, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988, 258. 16 Gertrude Langer, interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982, National Library of

Australia. 17 D. Helen Fridemanis (Wilesmith), Contemporary Art Society, Queensland Branch,

1961–1973: A Study of the Post-War Emergence and Dissemination of Aesthetic Modernism in Brisbane, MA thesis, Department of History, The University of Queensland, February 1989, 9. 18 See correspondence found in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. Gruen and

Baumfeld were partners in practice. See Matthias Boeckl, ‘Is there Modernism After the Banishment of Architects? The Fate of Architects Expelled from Austria in 1938’, in

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Peter Weibel and Friedrich Stadler (eds.), Vertreibung der Vernunft: The Cultural Exodus from Austria, Wien: Locker Verlag, 1993, 272. 19 See letters in Karl Langer Collection: V. Gruen to K. Langer, 8 November 1952,

UQFL158 Box #36; V. Gruen to K. Langer, 24 September 1956, UQFL158 Box #36. 20 Boeckl, ‘Is there Modernism After the Banishment of Architects?’, 272. 21 Victor Gruen, architect and planner, speech at the AIA, San Fernando Valley Chapter,

undated. 22 Langer, ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City of

Perth Ratepayers’ Association’. 23 For example, in Brisbane Langer based his community planning on ideas promoted by

the Brisbane City Council Community Centre’s Advisory Committee formed in 1944. 24 Langer referred to both ‘tropical’ and ‘sub-tropical’ in his research in a letter to

Professor Hook dated 17 September 1943, noting a ‘town planning scheme for a tropical and sub-tropical climate. I got the idea of sending seven standard plans for houses designed for the Queensland climate (out of this scheme) to the Housing Commission’. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 25 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Federal Survey of Housing’, 28 April 1943, 4. 26 See letter from W. Bunning to Karl Langer, dated 12 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection,

UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3. 27 Langer applied for the council’s chief county planner position (1947–48) and was

shortlisted. See Australian Planner, vol. 46, no. 1 (2009). 28 See series of work dates in 1947 and 1948 in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158,

Box #36. 29 Quoted in Ian Sinnamon, ‘Landscape with Classical Figures – A German Influence on

Queensland’s Architecture’, in Manfred Jurgensen and Alan Corkhill (eds.), The German Presence in Queensland Over the Last 150 Years: Proceedings of an International Symposium, 24–26 August 1987, St. Lucia, QLD: Department of German, The University of Queensland, 1988, 247. 30 See letters from E.F. Billson to K. Langer, dated 1 October, 14 October and 20

November 1945. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36. 31 Philip Goad, ‘Billson, Edward’, in Philip Goad and Julie Willis (eds.), The Encyclopedia

of Australian Architecture, Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press, 2012, 82–83. 32 Karl Langer, ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’, Papers of the Faculty of Engineering, The University

of Queensland, vol. 1, no. 7 (29 May 1944). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #54. 33 See Langer, ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City

of Perth Ratepayers’ Association’. 34 Interestingly, the cover image on Schwagenscheidt’s Die Raumstadt (1949) includes

graphic representations of trees that are unmistakably conical and spherical in form. See front cover graphic of Walter Schwagenscheidt, Die Raumstadt: Hausbau und Stadtebau fur jung und alt, fur Laien und was sich Fachleute nennt. Skizzen mit Randbemerkungen zu einem verworrenen Thema, Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1949. 35 See unmarked and unlabelled drawing in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc.

11/0005.PDF aerial perspective sketch.

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36 See unmarked and unlabelled aerial perspective sketch drawings: Karl Langer

Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0005.PDF and UQFL158, Misc. 11/0006.PDF. 37 See Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0002.PDF perspective sketch. 38 See drawing in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0004.PDF perspective

sketch. 39 See Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0016.PDF. 40 Andrew Saniga, Making Landscape Architecture in Australia, Sydney, NSW: UNSW

Press, 2012, 123–147. 41 Alice Hampson and Fiona Gardiner, ‘From the Acropolis to Kingaroy: Creating Civic

Culture in Queensland’, in Gevork Hartoonian and John Ting (eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, Canberra (5–8 July 2017), 223. 42 Philip L. Goodwin [Photographs by G.E. Kidder Smith], Brazil Builds: Architecture New

and Old 1652–1942, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1943, 182–193. 43 P.M. Bardi, The Tropical Gardens of Burle Marx, London: The Architectural Press, 1964,

87. 44 Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Depositions, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2018,

125. For a detailed analysis of links between Australia and Brazil see: Andrew Saniga, ‘Layered Landscapes: Links Between Brazil and Australia After the Second World War’, in Fabrications: The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, vol. 31, no. 1 (2021), 85–108. 45 Jeannie C. Sim, ‘Tropicalia: Gardens with Tropical Attitude’, in Glenn R. Cooke (ed.),

Tropical Pleasures: A Focus on Queensland Gardens, Proceedings of the 24th National Australian Garden History Society Conference, Special edition of the Queensland Review, vol. 10, no. 2, 1–24. 46 Sinnamon, ‘Landscape with Classical Figures’, 255. 47 See Anne Latreille, Garden Voices, Melbourne, VIC: Bloomings Books, 2013, 100.

Langer’s use of Indigenous artists is also discussed in Chapter 8. 48 Karl Langer, ‘Contemporary Renaissance’, Architecture Journal of the Royal Australian

Institute of Architects (October/December 1953), 100. 49 Sinnamon, ‘An Educated Eye: Karl Langer in Australia’, 54–55. Langer acknowledged

both these sources in ‘Development of Canal Estate on the Gold Coast’, Architecture in Australia (January/March 1959). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39. 50 Robert Freestone, Urban Nation Australia’s Planning Heritage, Collingwood, VIC:

CSIRO Publishing, 2010, 194. 51 Langer, ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City of

Perth Ratepayers’ Association’. 52 Malcolm Bunzli, personal communication, 10 February 2019. 53 Christopher Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape, London: The Architectural

Press, 1948, 132. 54 See drawing in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0006.PDF. 55 See drawing in Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Misc. 11/0011.PDF. 56 Langer kept a copy of ‘Japanese Gardens’, Architectural Forum, vol. 96, no. 3 (March

1952), 108–111. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #69.

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57 See the writings of Garrett Eckbo, Daniel U. Kiley and James C. Rose: ‘Landscape

Design in the Urban Environment’, Architectural Record, vol. 85, no. 5 (May 1939), 70–77; ‘Landscape Design in the Rural Environment’, Architectural Record, vol. 86, no. 8 (August 1939), 68–74; ‘Landscape Design in the Primeval Environment’, Architectural Record, vol. 87, no. 2 (February 1940), 74–79. 58 See handwritten note ‘genius loci’ by Karl Langer on extract from: Richard J. Neutra,

Richard Neutra on Building: Mystery and Realities of the Site, Scarsdale, NY: Morgan & Morgan, 1951. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #69, Folder #40 ‘Spiritual Content’. 59 Elizabeth B. Rogers, Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, New York:

Harry N. Abrams, 2001, 453. 60 Marc Treib, ‘Formal Problems’, in Marc Treib (ed.), Settings and Stray Paths: Writings on

Landscapes and Gardens, London: Routledge, 2005, 98 [originally published in Studies in the History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, vol. 18, no. 2 (April/June 1998)]. 61 Garrett Eckbo, Landscape for Living, New York: F.W. Dodge, 1950. 62 Ian Sinnamon, ‘From the Vienna Woods: A Modernist in Brisbane’, Lecture Notes

(8 November 2002), referenced in Latreille, Garden Voices, 97. 63 See Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #69. 64 Eckbo, Landscape for Living, 68. 65 Rogers, Landscape Design, 308. 66 Katsuo Saito, Japanese Gardening Hints, Tokyo: Japan Publications, 1972, 52–53. 67 Garrett Eckbo, The Art of Home Landscaping, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956, 160. 68 Tunnard, Gardens in the Modern Landscape, 86. 69 It is Langer’s residential designs that remain the focus here. Langer also completed a

number of gardens in association with commercial design work such as: Main Roads Department Building, Spring Hill, Brisbane; Kingaroy Civic Centre; Mackay Sugar Research Centre, Mackay. 70 See plan by Karl Langer, ‘Sketch Plan for Residence John Cooper Esq Brisbane January

1941’, source: Karl Langer, Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83, Roll 26/9, Location: Box #15735 O/S. 71 O. Neurath, Österreichs Kleingärtner-und Siedlerorganisation, Wien: Kommissionsverlag

der Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1923, 9. This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 2. 72 Eckbo, Landscape for Living, 149. See also pool wall on pages 152–153. 73 Eckbo, Landscape for Living, 150–151. 74 Eckbo, Landscape for Living, 139. 75 Architectural Forum, ‘Japanese Gardens’, vol. 96, no. 3 (March 1952), 108–111. 76 Virginia Langdon, ‘All This on a Fifty-foot Lot’, Australian House and Garden, vol. 10,

no. 4 (September 1953), 26. 77 Karl Langer discusses the qualities and the making of his rainforest garden in detail in

Karl Langer, ‘A Landscaper Landscapes His Own Garden’, Sunday Mail (Brisbane), Bonus Garden Book, 24 March 1968, 12. 78 Eckbo, The Art of Home Landscaping, 70. 79 Lawrence Smith, Correspondence with Andrew Saniga, 18 December 2019.

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80 Langer, ‘A Landscaper Landscapes His Own Garden’, 12. 81 Langdon, ‘All This on a Fifty-foot Lot’, 26 and 55. 82 Gertrude Langer, Love Transcends Death Poems for My Beloved Karl, Brisbane, QLD:

Langer Memorial Committee, 1987. 83 Gertrude Langer, interview with with Barbara Blackman, January 1982, National

Library of Australia. 84 Sinnamon, ‘Landscape with Classical Figures’, 255. 85 Sinnamon, ‘An Educated Eye’, 50. 86 Harry Oakman, ‘Harry Oakman’, in An Evening with Harry Oakman, Malcolm Bunzli,

George Trapnell, George Williams, 4. 87 Malcolm Bunzli and George Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. 88 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Manpower Not Freeing Dr Langer’, 17 August, 1944, 2. 89 Bunzli described Langer in the following way: ‘I don’t think he was shy and he was a

very contained man. He wasn’t a conversationalist’. Bunzli and Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. 90 See Christopher Long, ‘Becoming American: Paul T. Frankl’s Passage to a New Design

Aesthetic’, in Alison J. Clarke and Elana Shapira (eds.), Émigré Cultures in Design and Architecture, London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 79. 91 Bunzli and Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. 92 Bunzli and Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. 93 Lawrie Smith, ‘QIT Memories’, in George Williams (ed.), Landscape Architecture

Education at QIT/QUT: Stories from the First 50 Years, unpublished manuscript, Queensland University of Technology Digital Collections, 40. 94 Bunzli and Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. 95 Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Coffee at 10 Sire?’, 1 October 1953, 4. 96 Bunzli and Williams, interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018.

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258

‘SUB-TROPICAL HOUSING’ PLATES

PLATE 1 STH Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions. 259

PLATE 2 STH Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions.

260

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PLATE 3 STH Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions.

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PLATE 4 STH Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions.

262

‘SUB-TROPICAL HOUSING’ PLATES

PLATE 5 STH Standardised house plan for Brisbane conditions.

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263

PLATE 6 STH Aspect planning: diagrams of streets running in various directions. 264

‘SUB-TROPICAL HOUSING’ PLATES

PLATE 7 STH Aspect planning: diagrams of streets running in various directions. ‘SUB-TROPICAL HOUSING’ PLATES

265

PLATE 8 STH Schematic layout for a community of approximately 2000, with walking distances, maximum 10 minutes. 266

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PLATE 9 STH Sun chart for Brisbane.

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PLATE 10 STH Table showing width of overhangs for various aspects for latitude for Brisbane. 268

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PLATE 11 STH Deflection of wind currents and exterior and interior wind pressure.

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269

PLATE 12 STH Relative distribution of light and reduction of the window factor.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Archival collections Karl Langer plans, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Douglas H.K. Lee, Papers, UQFL538, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Karl Langer Architectural Plans, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, R83. Brisbane City Archives (BCA). National Archives of Australia (NAA). Universitätsarchiv der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (University Archive of the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna). University of Vienna Archives.

Primary sources Adams, John and J. James. ‘Cottage near the Sea,’ Australian Home Beautiful, vol. 29, no. 4 (April 1950), 26–27, 29. Behrens, Peter. Exit testimony for Karl Langer, enrolment record, Langer, Karl (2) 1923–1926 (Dokument), Universitätsarchiv der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien. Behrens, Peter. Letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 10 March 1934. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Billson, E.F. Letters to K. Langer, dated 1 October, 14 October and 20 November 1945. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Bunning, Walter. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 12 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Bunzli, Malcolm and George Williams. Interview with Andrew Saniga, 29 May 2018. Cilento, Sir Raphael, Colin Clark, Douglas H.K. Lee, L.P.D. O’Connor, E.J.A. Weller and R.P. Cummings. Report on Tropical Housing: Draft, 1943. Sir Raphael Cilento Papers, UQFL44, Box #29, Item #219, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Co-ordinator-General correspondence, dated 1 October1965, proposed Lutheran College, Queensland State Archives, ID 2281810. Cowan, Professor. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 5 March 1957. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Cummings, Robert Percy. Report of the Panel Appointed to Design the City Square, Brisbane, Brisbane City Archives, BCA 0861.

271

Cummings, Robert Percy. ‘Modern Tendencies in Architecture’, lecture delivered via radio station 4QG (now ABC), 4 September 1934, unpublished typescript, private collection. Cummings, Robert Percy. Reference for Karl Langer, dated 5 November 1941. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Cummings, Robert Percy. ‘A Community Planned for Living’, Planning Exhibition, Lecture, Town Hall, Brisbane, 7 November 1944. Development of Canal Estates on the Gold Coast, Architecture in Australia, January/ March 1959 issue, original manuscript. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #38, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Exam, Sub-Tropical Housing, The University of Queensland, Architectural Atelier, 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Examiner’s Report, Rigorosenakt Des Karl Langer Praes, dated 1 July 1933. Referenten: PT Herr. Prof. Dr Strzygowski, PT Herr. Prof. Dr Dopsch, 20 September 1933, Philosophische Fakultat der Universität Wien, #11.879. Ferguson, Susan R. The Residential Design Legacy of RP Froud, BArch dissertation, University of Queensland, 2001. Frank, Josef and Oskar Vlach. Letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 30 January 1926. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Fröschel, Gertrude. Universität Wien Yearbooks for 1929–1933, University of Vienna Archives. Gruen, Victor. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 8 November 1952. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Gruen, Victor. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 24 September 1956. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Hampson, Alice. The Fifties in Queensland. Why Not! Why?, BArch thesis, School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1987. Hesse, Robyn. Oral history interview with Deborah van der Plaat, 23 April 2014, Digital Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland, https://qldarch.net/ architect/interview/2571?architectId=428 [accessed 23 November 2018]. Hook, Alfred. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 6 July 1939. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Gertrude. ‘On Chinese Culture’, lecture given to the International Knowledge League Club, 7 May 1948. Gertrude Langer Papers, UQFL157, Box #69, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Gertrude. Interview with Barbara Blackman, January 1982, National Library of Australia, https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-215284049 [accessed 18 June 2018]. Langer, Gertrude. Love Transcends Death Poems for My Beloved Karl, Brisbane, QLD: Langer Memorial Committee, 1987. Langer, Karl. Job cards. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Boxes #34/35, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Entry 26, Sporting Arena for XVI Olympiad Stadium, Royal Parade and Carlton St. Melbourne, Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Folder Misc. #13 Langer, Karl. Competition proposal for Friedenskirche in Urfahr, Linz. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, #Box 75, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Workbook, Staatsgewerbeschule, Vienna, 1922–1923. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #86, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Universität Wien Yearbooks for 1929–1933, University of Vienna Archives.

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Langer, Karl. The Origins of Concrete Construction, doctoral thesis, 1933. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #40, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Griechenland 1933, sketchbook. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #87, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Working drawing, Raimund Uch House, Wittgenstein Strasse 18, Mauer bel Wien, undated (c. 1934). Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #44, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Personal Statement by Alien Passenger, 10 May 1939. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID A12508, 21/2818. Langer, Karl. Staff card, 15 May 1941–20 February 1946, Queensland Rail Records Management, Queensland State Archives. Langer, Karl. Letter to Professor Alfred Hook, dated 26 October 1941. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to Professor Alfred Hook, dated 17 September 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Entry for Westmead (Housing) Competition, 1943, Community Layout. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, acc 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to the Chief Engineer of the Queensland Railways, dated 11 April 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #3, Folders 3/4, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to Douglas H.K. Lee, dated 16 June 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to Leslie Wilkinson, dated 19 January 1945. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to J.D. Moore, dated 17 September 1945. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. ‘Report of Dr. Karl Langer Architect and Consultant Town Planner to City of Perth Ratepayers’ Association (Central Ward) on the Selection of a Site for a Civic Centre’, dated 2 February 1946. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to A.S. Hook dated 26 October 1946. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to Ernst Plischke, dated 15 December 1946. Ernst Plischke Private Collection, Judith Rataitz (quoted with permission). Langer, Karl. Letter to Johannes Schreiner, dated 19 October 1947. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter to Kingaroy Council, dated 15 January 1948. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #5, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Curriculum vitae, dated 12 December 1955. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #1, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Karl Langer. Proposed Sydney Opera House, competition entry, 1956, perspective: Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, misc. acc. 190226, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Letter addressed to Messrs. A.L. Nevitt & Co., Stock and Sharebrokers in Brisbane, dated 26 October 1960. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #55, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl and Gertrude Langer. Application for Permit to Enter Australia, dated 15 September 1938. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID A997, 1938/423.

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Langer, Karl and Gertrude Langer. Landing Permit, Sydney, dated 10 May 1939. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 7244492. Langer, Karl and Gertrude Langer. Naturalisation Application. National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 7769189. Lawrence-Drew, Margaret. Lucas & Cummings Architects, BArch thesis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 1986. Lee, Douglas H.K. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 24 September 1943. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Lewis, Brian. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 14 August 1959. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Melbourne University. Post-Graduate Courses in Tropical Architecture, brochure outlining short course, Melbourne University, c. 1963, private collection. Minutes of Board Meeting of Directors held at the registered office of the company, 99 Creek Street, Brisbane, on Friday 4th November 1960 at 11.00 am. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #55, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Pie, Geoffrey. Oral history interview with John Macarthur and Deborah van der Plaat, Brisbane, 3 May 2013, Digital Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland, https://qldarch.net/architect/interview/2574?architectId=123 [accessed 16 December 2018]. Popp, Alexander. Letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 3 July 1939. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Prutscher, Hans. Letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 15 March 1925. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Reilly, Angela. Interview with Campbell Scott, Early Practice, 7 May 1998. UQFL569, Item #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Rowe, Charles. Robert Percy Cummings and the Story of Queensland Architecture, MArch thesis, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 2011. Rudofsky, Bernard. Eine primitive Betonbauweise auf den südlichen Kykladen, nebst dem Versuch einer Datierung derselben (A primitive concrete construction on the Southern Cyclades, as well as an attempt to date them), PhD thesis, TU Wien, 1931. Schmid, Heinrich and Hermann Aichinger. Letter of reference for Karl Langer, dated 22 March 1928. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box 36, Folder #2, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. ‘The Ideal City Versus the Motor Car’, undated (c. 1965?), Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #57, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Walduck, Barry. Oral history interview with Bob Riddel and Janina Gosseye, 23 January 2013, Digital Archives of Queensland Architecture, The University of Queensland, https://qldarch.net/architect/interview/2577?architectId=141 [accessed 26 January 2019]. Wilkinson, Leslie. Letter to Karl Langer, dated 7 July 1944. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #36, Folder #3, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Wood, Ian. Interview with Ron Hurst for the Parliament’s oral history project [sound recording], https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-218054564/listen [accessed 22 January 2019]. World War I Intelligence section case files, National Archives of Australia, NAA ID 332016.

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Unpublished papers Cummings, Robert Percy. ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, part 1 of a paper presented at the ANZAAS (Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science) Congress, Brisbane, 1951. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Folder #4, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland,. Cummings, Robert Percy. ‘Planning in Queensland’, unpublished manuscript, 30 April 1959. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #38, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Fridemanis (Wilesmith), D. Helen. Contemporary Art Society, Queensland Branch, 1961–1973: A Study of the Post-War Emergence and Dissemination of Aesthetic Modernism in Brisbane, MA thesis, Department of History, The University of Queensland, February 1989. Langer, Karl. ‘Need for Motels’. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #66, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. ‘The Japanese House in Relation to Australian Conditions, Especially as to Modular Planning; The Example of Bata and the Experiment of Vienna’, paper presented to the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Congress of Architecture, Melbourne, January 1953. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’, paper presented to the symposium on Man and Animals in the Tropics, School of Physics, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Brisbane, 24–25 May 1956. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. ‘Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’, paper presented to the University of Sydney extension course on Architectural Science, 26 August 1957, pp. 73–77. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #37, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’, given at The Sensation of Architecture: Second Convention at Toowoomba of the Queensland Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, 23–25 October 1964. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl. Six lectures on landscape architecture, 23 February 1952. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #24, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Langer, Karl and Robert Percy Cummings. ‘Climatic Aspects of Town Planning’, part 2 of a paper presented at the ANZAAS (Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science) Congress, Brisbane, 1951. Karl Langer Collection, UQFL158, Box #39, Fryer Library, The University of Queensland. Smith, Lawrie. ‘QIT Memories’, in George Williams (ed.), Landscape Architecture Education at QIT/QUT: Stories from the First 50 Years, unpublished manuscript, Queensland University of Technology Digital Collections, https://digitalcollections.qut.edu. au/4513/.

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Architectural Forum, ‘Orientation for Sunshine: A Review of Recent Research in Progress’, vol. 68, no. 6 (June 1938), 20–22. Architectural Forum, ‘The Vanishing Store Front’, vol. 93, no. 1 (July 1950), 64–66. Architectural Forum, ‘Japanese Gardens’, vol. 96, no. 3 (March 1952), 108–111. Architectural Record, ‘Indoor–Outdoor Extensible Living Area’, vol. 96, no. 6 (‘The Postwar House’ issue) (December 1944), 76–77. Architectural Review, ‘The Architecture of Australia: A Special Number of the Architectural Review’, vol. 104, no. 619 (July 1948). Architecture, ‘In Queensland’ (October 1951), 102. Architecture, ‘Furniture Shop: Brisbane, Queensland’ (January/March 1954), 17. Architecture and Arts, ‘Award’, vol. 44 (April 1957), 26. Architecture and Arts, ‘Luxury Hotel, Broadbeach’, vol. 44 (April 1957), 26–27. Architecture in Australia, ‘Hotel at Broadbeach, Queensland’, vol. 46 (October 1957), 49–52. Architecture and Building Journal of Queensland, ‘Subtropical Housing. Problems Discussed with Interesting Plans by Dr Karl Langer’ (1 August 1944), 6. Architecture and Building Journal of Queensland, ‘Trial Homes for North’, vol. 22, no. 9 (March 1944), 16. Argus (Melbourne), ‘Model Cities of the Future. Swan Hill’s Lead’, 7 February 1941, 4. Argus (Melbourne), ‘Lennon’s Progress’, 13 October 1956, 20. Argus (Melbourne), ‘Lennons Magnificent Broadbeach Hotel’, 3 November 1956, 7. Arts and Architecture, ‘Project for House in Santa Barbara’, vol. 66, no. 3 (March 1949), 26–29. Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Saw Film of Australia – Decided to Marry: Romantic Viennese Couple Get Acquainted with Our Language’, 3 June 1939, 26. Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘On the Overland Route’, 2 June 1954, 19. Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘Millionaire at Work: Daydream Island – New Holiday Playground’, 5 June 1968, 18. Barton, Dr. ‘Lecture on Climate’, Moreton Bay Courier, 30 August 1860, 4. Baumeister, ‘Strandhotel bei Brisbane’, no. 57 (1960), 217 Bowen Independent, ‘West Molle Changes Ownership’, 7 February 1934, 2. Bowen Independent, ‘Praise for Daydream Island’, 22 April 1936, 3. Bowen Independent, ‘Barrier Reef Film: From Daydream to Green Island’, 5 December 1938, 3. Bowen Independent, ‘Queensland Housing Criticised. “Mostly Bad” Says Professor DHK Lee’, 19 January 1943, 1. Brisbane Courier, ‘Peace and Quiet: Pensioner’s Camp at Tarragindi’, 25 July 1928, 16. Brisbane Courier, ‘Building Art: Trend in Europe’, 14 March 1933, 12. Building: Lighting: Engineering, ‘Olympic Stadium Competition’, 24 November 1952, 55. Cairns Post, ‘Hotel Canberra’, 5 July 1939, 6. Cairns Post, ‘Olympic Games for 1956: Melbourne Venue’, 13 January 1950, 3. Cairns Post, ‘Brisbane Climate Uncomfortable Easier to Live in North, Dr. Langer’s Address to Scientists, Brisbane’, 25 May 1951, 5. Canberra Times, ‘Top Planners for Big Suburbs Job’, 3 May 1963, 13. Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton), ‘Poets’ Corner’, 2 February 1939, 8. Central Queensland Herald (Rockhampton), ‘Largest Hotel Project in Australia’, 9 February 1956, 24. Construction (Sydney), ‘ANZAAS Congress, Brisbane May 1951’, 28 March 1951. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘In Town and Out’, 1 February 1934, 16.

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Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Hotel Canberra for Cairns’, 3 May 1939, 5. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘New Community Centre Move’, 23 September 1943, 4. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Austrian Refugee to Help Plan City’, 9 May 1944, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘New Type of Home for Tropical Areas’, 29 September 1944, 4. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Students Plan Model Suburb’, 30 September 1944, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘D.S. Prangley, 1st Prize in Class B’, 3 June 1945, 4. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘The Courier-Mail Presents Your Post-War Home’, July 1945, 6. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Double Probe on Shanties’, 21 September 1946, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Relocation Notice’, 10 May 1947, 4. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Personal’, 7 August 1947, 4. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Mayor Blames Govt. “Apathy” ’, 26 December 1949, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘4½ Acres Already Resumed’, 14 November 1950, 5. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Heat Wears Wives, Superblock Suggested’, 25 May 1951, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Brisbane House in Colour Story’, 1 July 1953, 10. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘A Kitchen to Dream Of ’, 14 September 1953, 18. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Eight Tenders Submitted for 3 New Hotels’, 14 December 1954, 3. Courier-Mail (Brisbane), ‘Open 3 South Coast Hotel: Bids Dec 13’, 28 September 1954, 3. Cross-Section, no. 55 (1 May 1957), University of Melbourne Department of Architecture. Cross-Section, no. 185 (1 March 1968), University of Melbourne Department of Architecture. Cummings, Robert Percy (under the pseudonym Murato), ‘Home Building Ideals’, Telegraph (Brisbane), 1 March 1936, 15. Cummings, Robert Percy. ‘Natural Light and Ventilation’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Modern Home Supplement, 27 September 1955, 1 Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Tropical Housing’, 17 July 1943, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Homes Should Suit Climate’, 1 August 1944, 6. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Ainscow: re Reclamation in East Mackay’, 17 August 1944, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Tropical Housing – Some Essential Features’, 28 September 1944, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Culture. Everyone can be Artistic’, 11 October 1944, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘The Langers on Culture and a Civic Centre’, 11 October 1944, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Colin Clark on Anticipated Population Growth’, 14 October 1944, 5. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Civic Survey – Planning Mackay for the Future’, 16 November 1944, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘New Town Plan for Mackay is Completed: Adoption Proposed by City Council’, 22 May 1945, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Town Plan: Gift to Dr. Langer to be Sought’, 24 July 1945, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Beach Amenities: Council Discussion’, 24 September 1946, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘The Barrier Reef is the State’s Main Scenic Asset’, 22 October 1946, 5. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Divided Opinion in City Council on Seaside Amenities’, 30 October 1946, 5. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Beach Amenities at Local Resorts’, 21 November 1946, 5. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Further Decision by Shire Council’, 21 November 1946, 5. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Cement Shortage’, 7 January 1948, 4. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘New Beach Amenities Proposed’, 15 September 1948, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘ “New Look” for Far Beach’, 20 September 1948, 2.

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Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Approval for Beach Plans’, 21 September 1948, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Amenities Plan for Beaches Too Costly’, 17 February 1949, 3. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Tourist Trade Still Rising in Mackay’, 28 May 1949, 6. Daily Mercury (Brisbane), ‘Pioneer Will Proceed with Beach Amenities’, 5 November 1949, 3. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Pioneer to Build Amenities’, 17 November 1949, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Amenities for Far Beach’, 25 January 1952, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay) ‘New Mackay Town Plan Approved’, 25 April 1952, 1. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Doctor Langer Sacked’, 24 June 1952, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Island Resort Closing’, 23 July 1952, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Off the Record’, 15 November 1952, 2. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘Sugar Research Opens Saturday’, 19 August 1953, 4. Daily Mercury (Mackay), ‘12 Modern Homes for Pensioners’, 31 October 1953, 2. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘World-Famous Designer of Flats for Workmen’, 23 May 1939, 5. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Will Lay Bricks if Necessary’, 23 May 1939, 5. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘Famous Architect Praises Workers’ Flats. Better than in Vienna’, 26 May 1939, 5. Daily Telegraph (Sydney), ‘55,000 Examine Development Plan’, 15 June 1948, 7. Decoration and Glass, ‘Last Year – to Australia in General and the Building Trade in Particular – Marked a Return to Activity Approaching that of Boom Times. It Held Out that a Normal Prosperity is Possible of Achievement in the Near Future’, Editorial, 1 January 1937, 7. Die Bau und Werke Kunst, ‘Rabenhof ’, vol. 7, no. 12 (September 1931), 275–277. Enchelmaier, Keith. ‘Planning the City for the People’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 2 November 1982, 0. Garlick, Grace. ‘Country Homestead in the Heart of Ascot’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Gracious Living Section, 4 December 1954, 9. Garlick, Grace. ‘A Trip to California Inspired an Art House by the Sea’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Gracious Living Section, 11 December 1954, 9. Garlick, Grace. ‘Small Home at St Lucia has Air of Luxurious Space’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), Gracious Living Section, 11 February 1956, 7. Gott, Marlene. ‘Japanese Touch for a Queensland Style’, For Women, Gracious Living Section, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 4 April 1963, 25. Gott, Shirley. ‘Magnificent View, Built for a Narrow Sloping Site’, For Women, Gracious Living Section, The Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 18 July 1963, 20. Grant, Alfred. ‘Full page advertisement, Surfers Paradise-Broadbeach’, Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 23 December 1957, 5. Griffith Taylor, Thomas. ‘Tropical Problems’, Argus (Melbourne), 14 October 1922, 11. Griffith Taylor, Thomas. ‘Australia’s Millions: Where Will they Settle? Professor Taylor on the Future of Australia’, Daily Witness (Young), 12 May 1924, 2. Langer, Gertrude. Lecture ‘On Medieval Art’, Telegraph (Brisbane), 4 April 1949, 16. Langer, Gertrude. ‘Desert Art’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 3 September 1977. Langer, Gertrude. ‘Superb Aboriginal Batik’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 24 January 1984. Langer, Karl. ‘It Costs Less to Spend More. City Planning Can Save Millions’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 20 September 1946, 2. Langer, Karl. Cited in ‘Town Planning Suggestions’, Queensland Times (Ipswich), 3 February 1947, 8. Langer, Karl. ‘Advertisement for Architect to Write Specifications’, Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 5 September 1953, 1.

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Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘The Hill Could be THE Suburb: Vision of Wide Streets, Tall Flats and Gardens’, 30 December 1951, 6. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Holiday Dream Will Fade’, 20 July 1952, 6. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘£220,000 Plan for “Paradise” at Clontarf ’, 15 August 1954, 3. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Ambitious Plan to Develop Gabba’, 16 July 1961, 5. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Still Building on His Dream’, 9 June 1968, 10. Sunday Sun (Sydney), ‘He Thought Sydney Needed Its Face Lifted’, 15 February 1948, 7. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Erskineville Housing Scheme’, 6 August 1937, 11. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Slum Clearance. Austrian Expert’s Views’, 23 May 1939, 13. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Island Resort to Close’, 21 July 1952, 3. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Steady Improvement in Tone of Economy’, 17 September 1953, 2. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘State Advances Architect’s Win’, 3 June 1945, 4. Sunday Mail (Brisbane), ‘Luxury Coast Hotel’, 1 August 1954, 7. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Sydney Plan for National Sports Area’, 20 January 1948, 2. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Beauty Treatment for Brickpit’, 14 February 1948, 2. Sydney Morning Herald, ‘Olympic Stadium Model’, 9 December 1952, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Daydream Island: Rich in Tropical Beauty’, 23 October 1934, 16. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Speaking Horizontally: What is this “Modernism”?’ 17 November 1936, 10. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘A Canberra Hotel for Cairns’, 2 May 1939, 1. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘John Cooper’s Art Exhibition’, 24 June 1939, 9. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Dr Gertrude Langer on Music and Art’, 19 September 1941, 3. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Architectural Award to Queen Street Building’, 7 October 1941, 10. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Unusual Home Designing’, 14 August 1942, 5 [review of Langer’s Gasking’s house]. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Acute Housing Need Demands Action’, 7 January 1943, 3. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Federal Survey of Housing’, 28 April 1943, 4. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing Commission has a New Plan’, 18 November 1943, 6. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Two-Storey Houses Unsuitable Here, Lecturer Says’, 15 June 1944, 4. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Manpower Not Freeing Dr Langer’, 17 August, 1944, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing Demands Clear Action’, Editorial, 7 July 1945, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Housing a Gigantic Problem’, 23 August 1945, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘People Sick to Death of Restrictions’, 21 November 1946, 9. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Says 46,000 are a Minimum’, 5 December 1946, 10. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Beach Shade Trees Soon?’, 30 December 1946, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Coffee at 10 Sire?’, 1 October 1953, 4. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘East-West Route is Not Terrifying for Everyday Motorist’, 11 January 1954, 9. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Can’t We Build Cheaper Houses: A Vital Question for All Young Couples’, 27 July 1954, 13. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Tourist Aim for Hotel’, 21 August 1954, 18. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Clontarf has Plan for Luxury Hotel’, 20 October 1954, 3. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Hotel Plea Based on Rapid Bay Growth’, 9 December 1954, 17. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘Coast Hotel Plans’, 13 December 1954, 2. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘£1M. in Lennons Hotel Plans’, 14 December 1954, 3. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘£½m. Hotel for Broadbeach’, 27 December 1954, 3. Telegraph (Brisbane), ‘New Toowoomba Hotel’, 31 December 1954, 6. The Road Ahead, ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’, November 1949, 12–13, 24–25.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

291

292

INDEX

The letter f following an entry indicates a page that includes a figure. The letter pl following an entry indicates a page that includes a plate. Abercrombie, Patrick 178 Aboriginal/Indigenous culture 28–9, 204–5, 239 Achtung Australien! Achtung Asien! (Ross, Colin) 40 Adler, Alfred 15 Adler Planetarium 60 African mud architecture 30, 31f Aichinger, Hermann 22, 235 AILA (Australian Institute of Landscape Architects) 234, 251 Ainscow, P.H. 64 Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts), Vienna 18 Allen, Leslie 80 Amaleion Orphanage (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 35–6, 40 America 3, 24, 210–11, 219, 223, 225, 226, 242 American Architect 30 Amos, Victor 80 Anderson, Stanford 24 Ansett Transport Industry Ltd 215–16 ‘Architect in a Changing Environment, The’ (Newell, Peter) 134 Architects Group, Brisbane 81 Architectural Forum 30 Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’ (Langer, Karl) 125 Architectural Record 30 architecture human aspect 61–3, 106, 107f, 130–5 Architecture in Australia (Freeland, J.M.) 4

Architecture in Vienna (Sarnitz, August) 1 Architektur und Bautechnik 24 Arden House (Langer, Karl) 162 Arkitekturo Internacia 30 Armstrong, A.E. 83–4 Art of Home Landscaping, The (Eckbo, Garrett) 243 ‘Art of Today and Yesterday, The’ lecture series (Spiegel, Hedi) 28 Asian art 27–8 see also Japanese garden design aspect planning 138 n. 58, 264pl–5pl Aufbau, Der 22 Australia see also Queensland and Sydney bureaucracy 4 Canberra 181–2f Daydream Island 215–19 Gold Coast 186, 187f, 219 Great Barrier Reef 215–16 holiday industry 198–219, 222–4, 226 see also Lennons Hotels housing 88, 105–8, 125–7, 132, 143–64, 237 Melbourne 89, 125, 204, 220–2, 249 migration to 5–6 modernism 3–6 nationalism 6 Perth 174, 235, 241 White Australia Policies 6 Australian Architecture (Johnson, Donald Leslie) 4 Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (AILA) 234, 251

293

Australian Roadside, The (Walling, Edna) 249 Australia’s Home (Boyd, Robin) 4 Austria 1 see also Vienna Austrian Pavilions (competition entries) (Langer, Karl) 35f Banfield, Gordon 149 Barnes, Cyril 80 Barrier Reef Islands Pty Ltd 215–16 Bauen zu Frankreich – Bauen in Eisen – Bauen in Beton (Giedion, Siegfried) 30 Bauhaus 29, 59 Baumfeld, Rudolf (Rudi) 20, 236 Beck, Hugh 80 Behrens, Peter 18, 20, 89, 157, 234, 235 see also Behrens and Popp Clara Ganz villa 26 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Behrens, Peter and Oppler-Legband, Else Ring der Frauen (Ring of Women) 30, 31f Behrens and Popp 24–6, 234 Bell, David 149 Surfers Paradise Hotel 77 Bennett, Thomas 127 Berger, George 28 Beton-Eisen 30 Billson, Edward 237 Binna Burra Lodge 249 Birrell, James 77, 88, 134 ‘Neighbours of the Campus’ 134 Born, P.W. 36 Bouma, Johannes 80 Boyd, Robin 4, 55, 61, 141 n. 109, 151 Australia’s Home 4 Australian Ugliness, The 151 ‘Major Steps of Stylism 9: Waterfall Front’ 54f Brazil Builds (Museum of Modern Art) 63, 226 n. 2 Brenner, Anton 18 Breuer, Marcel 5 Brisbane 152, 182–5 architecture 52–6f, 75–7, 81 civic centre 85 climate 120, 129–30 housing 143

294

INDEX

Queen St development 170f, 183 Spring Hill 127–8 topography 150 Brisbane civic centre (Langer, Karl) 85 Brisbane town plan (Langer, Karl) 182–5 Broek van der, Barbara 224, 251 Brooks, Gwyn 80 Brown, Jocelyn233 Buhrich, Eva 5 Buhrich, Hugh 5 Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative (Henderson, Susan) 109 Buildings of Queensland (Weller, E.J.A.) 75–7 Bundaberg church (Langer, Karl) xviiif, 26, 188–90f Bunning, Walter 58, 237 Homes in the Sun: The Past, Present and Future of Australian Housing 58 Post-War Home, The 58 Bunning House (Keck, George) 60 Bunzli, Malcolm 251 Burbello, Jarko 79–80, 81 Burle Marx, Roberto 154 Parque do Barreiro 239 Burle Marx, Roberto and Niemeyer, Oscar Casa do Baile (Pampulha Dance Hall) 239 Garden of the Larragoiti Hospital 239 ‘Bush School’, Melbourne 249 Cairns 199 Cairns railway terminal (Langer, Karl) 64f–5 canal estates 186, 242 Canberra 181–2f Canberra Hotel, Cairns (Langer, Karl) 198–200f, 201f Canberra town plan (Langer, Karl) 181–2f car use 126, 183, 208–15, 223, 238 caravans 208–9 Casa do Baile (Pampulha Dance Hall) (Burle Marx, Roberto and Niemeyer, Oscar) 239 Catherwood, Mr and Mrs 215 Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 14f, 32–3f

Cautley, Marjorie Sewell 152 CEBS (Commonwealth Experimental Building Station) 61–2 Sunshine and Shade in Australasia 60–1 CHC (Commonwealth Housing Commission) 57–8 Chicago 131, 152 Choisy, Auguste Histoire de l’Architecture 30 Church, Thomas 146 Chuter, Charles Edward 63, 64, 83, 88 Chuter, Ted 79 CIAM (Congrès internationaux d’architecture moderne) 59–60 Cilento, Raphael 112 cities 234–7 ‘Cities in the Sun: Do our cities adequately satisfy the needs of people living and working in climates such as ours’ (Trotter, Steven) 134 Cityhaus Projekt (Langer, Karl) 235 civic centre, Mackay (Langer, Karl) 33, 34–5; Clara Ganz villa (Behrens, Peter) 26 Clark, Colin 63, 64 climate 105, 106–12, 160, 267pl–70pl economics 125–30 race 112 town planning 120–5 ‘Climatic Aspects in Town Planning’ (Langer, Karl) 109 Clontarf scheme (Langer, Karl) 222–4 Clyden Ave house (Langer, Karl) 153 Collected Works (Le Corbusier and Jeanneret, Pierre) 30 Collin, J.M. 53–4 model homes competition 53–4, 55f Colour-coded Austrian paper clips Commonwealth Experimental Building Station (CEBS) See CEBS Commonwealth Housing Commission (CHC) 57–8 communities 152 concrete architecture 30–1, 184–5f ‘Concrete in the Past and Present, Its Emergence and Development to this Day’ (Langer, Karl) 30–1f Condon House (Langer, Karl) 162

Congrès internationaux d’architecture modern (CIAM) 59–60 Conradi, Hanns ‘Grosskraftwagenhaus in Rom’ 31 ‘Neue Gedanken für Garagenbauten’ 31 Constance Perkins’ house, Pasadena (Neutra, Richard) 225 Cook & Kerrison 3, 52 Corbett, Ronald 149 Core-House (Kernhaus) project 151 Coronation Drive House (Langer, Karl) 146, 147f Costello, Frank 54–5, 88, 134 ‘Machine to Make Citizens, A’134 Cowan, Henry J. 125 Crane, Margaret 79 Crofts, Ted 149 Cross-Section 89, 197 cultures, different 28–9 Cummings, Robert 53, 75, 93, 96, 133, 151, 249 see also Lucas & Cummings Brisbane 183 housing density 127 ‘Housing Economics’ 140 n. 82 ‘Quick Look at History, A’ 134 town planning 121–3, 127 University of Queensland 88, 93 Daydream Island 215–19 Daydream Island (Langer, Karl) 216–18f de la Vega de León, Macarena 4 ‘Tale of Inconsistency, A’ 4 Deutsche Bauzeitung 30 Dirnuber, Karl Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Domato, Jose and Scasso, Juan Antonio Estadio Centenario 30 domestic labour 105–6, 108–11, 113, 128–9 Donoghue, J.P. 53, 80 Masel residence, Stanthorpe 53 Nudgee Junior School, Indooroopilly 53 Dr Skyring house and garden (Langer, Karl) 154, 245, 246f Driml, Jan 80 Driscall, Mrs L. 202 Driver, Horace 53 Dudok, Willem 53

INDEX

295

Earles, W.J. 184 Eastman, Gregory 80 Eckbo, Garrett 10, 145, 242–5, 246 Art of Home Landscaping, The 243 Landscape for Living 242, 243 economics 125–7, 150, 162 Edmiston, Robin 80, 81 Edquist, Harriet 17 Edward F. Billson 237 Ehn, Karl 22 Karl Marx Hof 15, 145 Eimeo beach amenities (Langer, Karl) 200–2 Eimeo Hotel 202f–3 Einstein Tower (Mendelsohn, Erich) 30 Eisler, Max 21 El Lissitsky Wolkenbügel (Cloud Iron or Cloud Stirrups) 30 Elischer, Julius 5 Ellesmere (Pollitt, J.H.) 57 Elsey, Bernard 216 Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, The 5 environmental architects 237 Epstein, Henry 5, 16 Erskineville Housing Scheme, Sydney (Herman, Morton and Richardson, W.R.)) 50, 51f, 143 Estadio Centenario (Scasso, Juan Antonio and Domato, Jose) 30 Europe architecture 53–3 modernism 3–6 shadow curves 59

Fisher, Howard T. 60 flats 126–9, 130–1 Flats, New Farm (Weller, E.J.A.) 56f Foley, Margaret 80 Foley, T.A. 80 Fooks, Ernest 4–5, 16 Ford, Gordon 249 Form, Die 30 Foy & Gibson conversion (Langer, Karl) 85 Frank, Josef 16, 21–2, 61, 145, 157, 162, 235, 243 see also Frank and Vlach Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart 157 Frank and Vlach 21, 36, 157 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Frank Lloyd Wright (Fries, H. de) 30 Franz Josef Monument (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 36 Fraser East Residence (Lucas & Cummings) 54f Fraser Residence, Northgate (Voller, Rod) 54, 56f Freeland, J.M. 4 Architecture in Australia 4 Freney House (Langer, Karl) 161 Freud, Sigmund 15 Friedenskirche, Urfahr (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 26, 195 n. 67 Fries, H. de Frank Lloyd Wright 30 Frobenius, Leo Viktor 30 Fröschel, Channa (Anna) 50, 57 Froud, Robert 149, 162 see also Job and Froud Fuchs, Ernest. See Fooks, Ernest Fulton, C.W.T. 53, 80 Masel residence, Stanthorpe 53 Nudgee Junior School, Indooroopilly 53

family house, Austria (Langer, Karl) 144f, 145 Far Beach motel and caravan park (Langer, Karl) 209f–10 Far Beach pavilion (Langer, Karl) 210 fatigue 108–12 Fink, Arne 234, 251 First Church of Christ Scientist (Lucas & Cummings) 80–1 Fischer, Theodor 235

Gabo, Naum 205 Garage Citroën, Paris 30 garden cities 126–7, 152 garden design 20, 24, 116, 145–8f, 150, 154, 158–60, 242–50f see also landscape architecture bush gardens 249 Japanese 158, 241, 242–3, 245, 246 labour 129 motels 212–13

Duldig, Karl 16 Duldig, Slawa 16

296

INDEX

productive 58, 129, 151, 243 Queensland 58 Garden of the Larragoiti Hospital (Niemeyer, Oscar and Burle Marx, Roberto) 239 Gardens in the Modern Landscape (Tunnard, Christopher) 241, 242 Gardiner, Fiona and Hampson, Alice 31 Gasking, Douglas 146 Gasking, Elizabeth (Betty) 146 Gasking House, St Lucia (Langer, Karl) 57, 146 Gerstl, Michael 16 Gesamtschaffen des Architekten, das (Mendelsohn, Erich) 30 Gessner, Hubert 22 Gibson, Robin 134 ‘Psychology of Selling’ 134 Giedion, Siegfried 4 Bauen zu Frankreich – Bauen in Eisen – Bauen in Beton 30 glare 108–9, 112–13 Glass, Peter 249 Goad, Philip and Willis, Julie 5 Gold Coast 186, 187f, 219 Goosens, Eugene 175 Gorge, Hugo 21 Gorton, Monte 82, 162 Gorton House, Bowen (Langer, Karl) 82, 245 Grant, Alfred 186 graphic design 89–92f Great Barrier Reef 215–16 Griffin, Marion Mahony 4, 233 Canberra 181 Griffin, Walter Burley 4, 233 Canberra 181 Gropius, Walter 3, 5, 18 Strzygowski, Josef 29 ‘Grosskraftwagenhaus in Rom’ (Conradi, Hanns) 31 Gruen, Victor David 1, 3, 20, 183, 236–7 Grünbaum, Viktor David. See Gruen, Victor David Gustav Levi House (Langer, Karl) 81, 153 Hackett, Brian 80 Haddrill residence proposal (Langer, Karl) 161

Hammerschmidt, Carl 80 Hampson, Alice and Gardiner, Fiona 31 Hansenstrasse apartment interior (Langer, Karl) 37f–8f, 39 Haus & Garten 21, 36 Hawcroft, Rebecca 3, 4, 5, 6, 17 Other Moderns, The 3, 5 Hayes, Edwin 149 see also Hayes and Scott Hayes and Scott 149 Pfitzenmaier House 161 Heath, C.P. 52 Heath, Frank 152, 222 Hecht, Robert 81 Hecht nightclub (Langer, Karl) 81, 82f Hellwig, Otto Rudolf 236 Henderson, Susan 109 Building Culture: Ernst May and the New Frankfurt Initiative 109 Hennessy & Hennessy University of Queensland 88 Henriques, Aldary 63 Herman, Morton and Richardson, W.R. Erskineville Housing Scheme, Sydney 50, 51f, 143 Hervey Bay Motel (Langer, Karl) 210 ‘He’s been with us since the architect’s first sketch’ (Sutton, Shannon) 134f Hesse, Robyn 80 hipped roofs 53, 59 Histoire de l’Architecture (Choisy, Auguste) 30 History of Early Chinese Art, A (Siren, Oswald) 30 Hitch, John 77 Hochhaus, Herrengass (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 24, 32 Hoey House (Langer, Karl) 153 Hoffman, Josef 42 n. 10 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Holgar, Helen 5 Holgar, John 5 holiday industry 198–215, 226 see also Lennons Hotels Clontarf scheme 222–4 Daydream Island 215–19 Holzmeister, Clemens 16, 18, 20, 35 Homes in the Sun: The Past, Present and Future of Australian Housing (Bunning, Walter) 58

INDEX

297

Hook, Alfred S. 51–2 Hot Modernism: Queensland Architecture, 1945–1975 (Macarthur, John; van der Plaat, Deborah; Gosseye, Janina; Wilson, Andrew) 77 hotels 203 see also Lennons Hotels and motels House of Tomorrow (Keck, George) 60 housing 88, 105–8, 132, 143–64, 237 density 127 economics 125–7, 150 ‘Housing Economics’ (Cummings, Robert) 140 n. 82 Howard, Charles 149 Howard, Ebenezer 152 Howard, Harry 249 human aspect 61–3, 106, 107f, 130–5 ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’ (Langer, Karl) 133–5 Inlanders Ltd 215 insolation 59–61 International Modernism 3 interior design 21–2 Ipswich church (Langer, Karl) 188, 190 Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School (Langer, Karl) 188 Itten, Johannes 29 Iwanoff, Iwan 5 ‘Ja, wenn die modernen Herren Architecten die Fenster selb putzen mus, wurden si in die Hauser bauen’ 133f Jacobsohn, Heinz 63 Jacobsohn, Heymann 55 Janeba, Fritz 4, 5, 16, 21 Japanese garden design 158, 241, 242–3, 245, 246 Jeanneret, Pierre and Le Corbusier Collected Works 30 Jessup, Colin 149 Jimbour Cottage, Southport (Langer, Karl) 57, 146–8f Job Cards 76f Job and Froud Torbreck 162 John Cooper residence (Langer, Karl) 142f, 145–6, 243 Johnson, Donald Leslie 4 Australian Architecture 4

298

INDEX

Johnston, Fergus 80 Jolly Motels Ltd 215 Jones, Clem 183 Kafka, Paul 16 Kangaroo Point flats (Langer, Karl) 107f–8f, 128f, 162 Karau, George 151 Karl Marx Hof (Ehn, Karl) 15, 145 Kaufmann, Edgar, Jr. 55 Kearney, Michael 80 Keeble, Lewis 192 Keck, George 60 Bunning House 60 House of Tomorrow 60 Kedron teachers training college (Langer, Karl) 88 Kelvey, Dan 80 Kidner, Michael 205 Kiley, Dan 146, 242 Kimeklis, Benjamin 80 King Edward Chambers, Brisbane 85 Kingaroy Civic Centre (Langer, Karl) 122f Kingaroy town plan (Langer, Karl) 178–80, 188 Knox, Alistair 249 Koenig, Otakar 80 Kokoschka, Oskar 27 König, Carl 21 Kramreiter, Robert 18 Kramrisch, Stella 28, 29 Krams, Elmar 80 Kraus, Karl 15 Kunst der Gegenwart (Contemporary Art) (Strzygowski, Josef) 29 Küttner, L. 59 Lahey, Romeo 249 Lahey, Vida 249 landscape architecture 20, 120–1, 154, 158–60, 212–13, 233–42f, 249–52 see also garden design Billson, Edward 237 Brisbane 233–4 city and landscape ideals 234–42f Melbourne 249 Oldham, John 238–9 Queensland 251–2 Sydney 249

Landscape for Living (Eckbo, Garrett) 242 Langdon, Virginia 246–7 Langer, Gertrude (née Fröschel) 17, 26–9, 31, 32, 77 Aboriginal art 28 art critic for Courier-Mail 6, 182 Australia, thoughts on 235–6 Binna Burra Lodge 249 emigration 2, 6, 40–1,48f, 50 Greece 31, 180 Langer House 9f, 156f, 247 Love Transcends Death Poems for My Beloved Karl 246–7 Mackay holidays 171–2 ‘Pillared Statues of the Chartres Royal Kingdom: The Origin of the Medieval Pillar Figure, The’ (‘Die Säulenstatuen der Chartreser Königspforte. Zur Entstehungsfrage der mittelalterlichen Säulenfigur‘) 28 Langer, Karl LIFE: birth 17; Brisbane 52, 57–8; death/funeral/memorial 98, 188, 192; education 17–20, 26–7, 29–31, 234; emigration to Australia 2f–3, 5, 6, 9f, 40–1, 48f, 50, 199; Mackay holidays 171–2; marriage 26–7; naturalisation 63, 65, 174; politics 100 n. 40; religion 39–40; Sydney 50–1, 52; Vienna 16 CAREER: 6, 237–8; AILA 251–2; apprenticeships 17, 21; architectural competitions 89; archive 77, 205; awards 98; Behrens and Popp 24–6, 234; as bricklayer 164 n. 2; Brisbane City town planner 63–4, 237; Brisbane practice 174 Brisbane practice clients 81–8; Brisbane practice offices 77–8f; Brisbane practice staff 79–81; Cook & Kerrison 3, 52, 57, 199; Cumberland County Council 174–6, 220, 237, 238; Edward F. Billson 237; entrepreneurship 215; Frank and Vlach 143, 157; holiday infrastructure 83–4f, 198–219, 222–4 (see also Lennons hotels); housing 105–8, 143–64, 237; Gold Coast 186, 187f, 219; Inlanders

Ltd 215; Jolly Motels Ltd 215; landscape architecture 97; Lutheran Church 87, 186–91; Mackay town planner 174; motels 209–15; NCDC 181–2; private practice 32–9, 77–8f, 174–88; QALA 251–2; Queensland government 87–8; Queensland Railways 3, 45, 57, 63–5, 200; Schmid & Aichinger 22–4, 143, 145; shop design 36f–9; Sydney Opera House 4; teaching 93–8, 125, 149, 180, 251; town planning 63–4, 120–5, 171–92, 235–7; typography 89–92f; University College, Auckland 93; University of Queensland 49, 57, 93–7; University of Sydney 96 IDEAS/INFLUENCES/INTERESTS: 18–20, 162–4, 218–19, 234–5; Aboriginal/Indigenous culture 45  n. 57, 204–5, 239; affordable housing 105, 108, 125–7, 145, 150, 152, 162 America/American National Parks 24, 210–11, 219, 223, 225, 226, 242; aspect planning 138 n. 58, 264pl–5pl; Australia 235– 6; budget 105, 108, 125–7, 145, 150, 152, 162; Binna Burra Lodge 249; canal estates 186, 242; cars 126, 183, 208–15, 223, 238; civic squares 124; class 110, 239; climate 49, 110–11, 116, 120–5, 129, 160, 267pl–70pl; colour 24, 148–9; conservation 241; constructivism 205; Cummings, Robert 249; domestic labour 105–6, 108–11, 113, 128–9; Europe 16, 180, 183, 198, 199, 210; flats 126–7, 128f–9, 130–1, 143–5; form 20; garden cities 126–7; garden design 20, 24, 58, 116, 129, 145–8f, 150, 151, 154, 158–60, 212–13, 242–3, 245–7f, 249–50f; Greece 31, 32f, 50, 180, 188, 192; holiday infrastructure 83–4f, 198–219, 222–4, 226 (see also Lennons hotels); human aspect 61–3, 106, 107f, 130–5; interior design 18–20, 37f–8f, 39; Japan 158, 241, 242–3, 245, 246; landscape architecture 20, 120–1, 154,

INDEX

299

158–60, 212–13, 234, 235, 238–42f, 249–52; minimum dwellings 210; modernism 20, 132, 135, 151, 218– 19; motels 209–15; Nazi influence 77, 102 n. 82, 222; Neutra, Richard 242; op art 205; orientation 59–61, 150, 200; outdoor living 145–8, 152; Overlander Route 210–15; Pakistan 180; Radburn, New Jersey 58, 116, 126, 151–2; recreation 113, 219–26; roof forms160–4; soil 121; standardized house plans 113–15f, 149; sub-tropical conditions 49, 110–11, 116; sub-tropical fatigue 108–12, 150; sub-tropical glare 108–9, 112–13, 116–20; subtropical housing 148–53; suburbs 113–16, 126–7, 181–2; superblocks 129–30f, 160; technology 106, 110, 131; topography 120–1, 150; town/ city planning 63–4, 120–5, 171–92, 235–7; traffic 116; Vienna School of Art History 29; water 121, 122f; West Coast modernism 225, 226; weekend houses/settlements 24; Wright, Frank Lloyd 59 RECEPTION/REVIEWS: Abercrombie, Patrick 178; Bunzli, Malcolm 251; Cross-Section 185, 197–8; Design for Today 36 WORKS: Amaleion Orphanage (competition entry) 35–6, 40; Architectural Planning in Relation to Climate’ 125; Architektur und Bautechnik 24; Arden House 162; Austrian Pavilions (competition entries) 35f; Brisbane civic centre 85; Brisbane town plan 182–5; Bundaberg church xviiif, 26, 188– 90f; Cairns railway terminal 64f–5; Canberra Hotel, Cairns 198–200f, 201f; Canberra town plan 181–2f; Catholic Cathedral, Belgrade (competition entry) 14f, 32–3f; Cityhaus Projekt 235; Clara Ganz villa 26; ‘Climatic Aspects in Town Planning’ 109; Clontarf scheme 222–4; Clyden Ave house 153; ‘Concrete in the Past and Present,

300

INDEX

Its Emergence and Development to this Day’ 30–1f; Condon House 162; Coronation Drive House 146, 147f; Daydream Island 216–18f; Dr Skyring house and garden 154, 245, 246f; ecclesiastical buildings 21, 26, 33, 186, 195 n. 67; Eimeo beach amenities 200–2; Eimeo Hotel 202f–3; family house, Austria 144f, 145; Far Beach motel and caravan park 209f–10; Far Beach pavilion 210; Foy & Gibson conversion 85; Franz Josef Monument (competition entry) 36; Freney House 161; Friedenskirche, Urfahr (competition entry) 26, 195 n. 67; Gasking House, St Lucia 57, 146; Gorton House, Bowen 82, 245; Haddrill residence proposal 161; Hansenstrasse apartment interior 37f–8f, 39; Hecht nightclub 81, 82f; Hervey Bay Motel 210; Hochhaus, Herrengass (competition entry) 24, 32; Hoey House 153; ‘Humanity and Monumentality in Architecture’ 133–5; Ipswich church (Langer, Karl) 188, 190; Ipswich Girl’s Grammar School 188; Jimbour Cottage, Southport 57, 146–8f; John Cooper residence 142f, 145–6, 243; Kangaroo Point flats 107f–8f, 128f, 162; Kedron teachers training college 88; Kingaroy Civic Centre 122f; Kingaroy town plan 178–80, 188; Langer House, St Lucia 9f–10, 112, 116, 117f–18f, 154–7, 241, 245– 8f; Lefmann House 153; Lennons Brisbane Hotel 205, 207; Lennons Broadbeach Hotel 77, 81, 85–7, 160, 186, 197–8, 203–6f, 208, 226, 239, 240f, 244–5f; Lennons George St Hotel 185–6; Lennons Toowoomba Hotel 77, 87, 186, 207–8, 226; Levi House 81, 153; Levy House, Southport 82, 158–60, 245; Levy House, Tambourine 81, 153–4; M. Neumann shop 36f–9; Mackay City 123f; Mackay civic centre 33, 34–5, 172, 173f; Mackay town plan

64, 83, 172–4; McQueen House, Raceview 162, 163f; Main Roads Building 80, 88, 89, 104f, 184–5f; Margaretengürte housing 22, 23f; Melbourne Olympics (competition entries) 89, 221f–2; Miami Keys/ Rio Vista 186, 187f; ‘Monument to Work’ (competition entry) 35; Münsterplatz, Ulm (competition entry) 32; Naxos, Santorini sketches 32f; ‘Need for Motels’ 209; Nettheim House 158; nightclub for Robert Hecht 81, 82f; NSW coastal drive 232f, 238; Opera House and Conservatorium, Istanbul (competition entry) 33–4f; Origins of Concrete Construction, The (Langer, Karl) 93, 94f–5f; Paradise City (Isle of Capri) 186; Parliament House, Canberra 181, 182f; Pearce House 153; People’s Hall, Riga (competition entry) 32; Perc Miller salon 92f; Perth civic centre report 174, 235, 237, 241; Perth Government Offices (competition entry) 89, 90f–1f; Pinter House 154; plan drawings 61–2f; ‘Planning and the Citizen’ 131; Popper House 154; Power House 154; Queen St, Brisbane development 170f, 183; Rabbit Island tourist resort 83–4f; Rabenhof housing 22, 23f; Raimund Uch house 39; Reichsbrücke (competition entry) 33; Roma Street Gardens (competition entry) 89; Ryan House 157–8f; Sanders House 85, 86f; ‘Schematic Lay-out for a Community of approximately 2000 people’ 151, 266pl; site plan, competition entry #124816 62f; Sketch of Grass Tree 236f; Slade Point beach amenities 200–2; Spiegel House 154; sports architecture 220–2; St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg xviiif, 26, 188–90f; St. John’s Lutheran Church, Ipswich 188, 190; St Peter’s School and chapel 97f, 98, 186–8, 190–1f; student project for a flower

kiosk and tea salon 19f, 20; ‘SubTropical Housing’ (STH) 24, 58–61, 62f, 105–6, 107f–8f, 120, 125–6, 129, 132, 149–51, 152, 237, 243, 244f, 259pl–70pl; Sugar Research Station 80–1, 174; Superblock, Brisbane 130f; Supermarket Centre 85, 86f; Surfers Paradise flats proposal 161f–2; Sydney Opera House (competition entry) 74f, 89, 175f; Sydney town plan 174–6, 220, 237; Taringa flats 82, 162; Tobacco Factory, Linz 25f; Toowong flats 82, 162; Toowoomba town plan 176f–8; tourist resorts 83–4f; ’Town Planning for the Tropics’ 120, 129; University of Queensland Great Hall (competition entry) 89; Vallis House 162; ‘Vanishing Store Front, The’ 119f–20; Vidgen House 160; Volksbildungshaus, Vienna 39; Watt’s flats, Newmarket 83f, 87; Westmead competition entry 58–9, 89; West’s Furniture Store 117–19, 120, 196f, 224–6; Williamson Cottage 154 Langer Residence, St Lucia (Langer, Karl) 9f–10, 112, 116, 117f–18f, 154–7, 241, 245–8f Lawrence, Harry 80 Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) 18, 61, 129, 162 Swiss Pavilion 59–60 Le Corbusier and Jeanneret, Pierre Collected Works 30 Lee, Douglas H.K. 57, 58, 63, 108, 112, 150 Lefmann House (Langer, Karl) 153 leisure 113, 219–26 Lennons Hotels 85–7 Brisbane Hotel 205, 207–8, 226 Broadbeach Hotel (Langer, Karl) 77, 81, 85–7, 160, 186, 197–8, 203–6f, 208, 226, 239, 240f, 244–5f George St Hotel (Langer, Karl) 185–6 Toowoomba Hotel (Langer, Karl) 77, 87, 186, 207–8, 226 Lessitzky, El 91 Levi, Gustav 81 Levy, L. 82 Levy, Rudolph 82

INDEX

301

Levy House, Southport (Langer, Karl) 82, 158–60, 245 Levy House, Tambourine (Langer, Karl) 81, 153–4 Lewis, Brian 125 lifestyle 219–26 Lihotzky, Greta 136 n. 17 Lihotzky, Margarete 157 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Loggias 157 Longland, A.T. 53 Loos, Adolf 15, 24, 27, 42 n. 10, 145, 157 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Lorimer, Mrs N. ‘Woman’s Last Word, The’ 134 Love Transcends Death Poems for My Beloved Karl (Langer, Gerturde) 246–7 Lucas, Bruce 53, 57, 96 see also Lucas & Cummings Lucas & Cummings First Church of Christ Scientist 80–1 Fraser East Residence 54f Luker, S.L. 81 Lurje, Victor 21 Lutheran Church 87, 186–91 M. Neumann shop (Langer, Karl) 36f–9 MacArthur, Douglas 186 ‘Machine to Make Citizens, A’ (Costello, Frank) 134 McInnes, R.A. 57, 63 Mackay 171–4 civic centre (Langer, Karl) 33, 34–5, 172, 173f Eimeo and Slade Point beach amenities 200–2 Far Beach motel and caravan park (Langer, Karl) 209f–10 Far Beach pavilion (Langer, Karl) 210 Mackay City (Langer, Karl) 123f Sugar Research Station (Langer, Karl) 80–1, 174 town plan (Langer, Karl) 64, 83, 172–4 Wood, Ian 64, 82–4 Mackenzie, Bruce 249 McQueen House, Raceview (Langer, Karl) 162, 163f; Mahoney Griffin, Marion 61

302

INDEX

Main Roads Building (Langer, Karl) 80, 88, 89, 104f, 184–5f Main Roads Department 88 ‘Major Steps of Stylism 9: Waterfall Front’ (Boyd, Robin) 54f March, Werner Olympiastadion, Berlin 222 Margaretengürte housing (Schmid & Aichinger) 22, 23f Maria vom Berge Karmel (Prutscher, Hans) 32–3 Masel residence, Stanthorpe (Fulton, C.W.T. and Donoghue, J.P.) 53 May, Ernst 20 Neue Frankfurt housing estate199 Mayo, Daphne 67 n. 35 Melbourne landscape architecture 249 Olympic Games 220–2 Victorian Government Tourist Bureau (Stephenson & Turner) 204 Melbourne Olympics (competition entries) (Langer, Karl) 89, 221f–2 Melbourne University 125 Melnikov, Konstantin Rusakov Workers’ Club 30 Mendelsohn, Erich Einstein Tower 30 Gesamtschaffen des Architekten, das 30 Meyer, Hannes 59 Miami Keys/Rio Vista (Langer, Karl) 186, 187f Mies van der Rohe, Ludwig 18, 131, 157 Migge, Leberecht 24 migration 3, 4, 5 German 87 race 111f–12 from Vienna 16–17 White Australia Policies 6, 111 Milton, Ernst 5 Moderne Bauformen 30 ‘Moderne Bauprobleme: Grossstadtgaragen’ (Zucker, Paul) 31 modernism 3–6, 113–20, 132–3f, 134f, 135 Brisbane architects 53–5f concrete architecture 30 Vienna 15 ‘Monument to Work’ (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 35

Moore, Gladys 52 Moore, John D. 52, 58 Moore, Tony 79 motels 209–15 see also hotels Muller, George 80 Muller, Kurt 80 Münsterplatz, Ulm (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 32 Murgatroyd, A.D. 130 Museum of Modern Art Brazil Builds 63, 226 n. 2 National Capital Development Commission (NCDC) 181–2 National Trust of Queensland 137 n. 35 nationalism 6 Naxos, Santorini sketches (Langer, Karl) 32f NCDC (National Capital Development Commission) 181–2 Neale, Douglas 20 ‘Need for Motels’ (Langer, Karl) 209 ‘Neighbours of the Campus’ (Birrell, James) 134 Nettheim House (Langer, Karl) 158 ‘Neue Gedanken für Garagenbauten’ (Conradi, Hanns) 31 Neufert, Ernst 79 Neumann-Veitel, Elizabeth 27 Neutra, Richard 150, 242 Constance Perkins’ house, Pasadena 225 Wie baut Amerika 30 New Parliament House site 89 Newell, Peter ‘Architect in a Changing Environment, The’ 134 Niedermoser, Otto 18 Niemeyer, Oscar 5, 154, 197 Niemeyer, Oscar and Burle Marx, Roberto Casa do Baile (Pampulha Dance Hall) 239 Garden of the Larragoiti Hospital 239 nightclub for Robert Hecht 81, 82f non-European art 27–9 NSW coastal drive (Langer, Karl) 232f, 238 Nudgee Junior School, Indooroopilly (Fulton, C.W.T. and Donoghue, J.P.) 53 Oakman, Harry 233–4, 249 O’Connor, L.P.D. 237

Office 1955–58, Isles Love Building, Adelaide St, Brisbane 78f Office 1958–69, proposed renovations, 57 Gregory Terrace, Spring Hill 78f Oldham, John 238–9 Olympiastadion, Berlin (March, Werner) 222 Olympic Games 89, 220–1 Opera House and Conservatorium, Istanbul (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 33–4f Oppler-Legband , Else and Behrens, Peter Ring der Frauen (Ring of Women) 30, 31f orientation 59–61, 150, 200 Orientation of Buildings, The (RIBA) 60 Origins of Concrete Construction, The (Langer, Karl) 93, 94f–5f Oser, Hans Peter 16 Osthaus, Karl Ernst 29 Other Moderns, The (Hawcroft, Rebecca) 3, 5 Otto, Christian and Pommer, Richard 22 outdoor living 145–8 Overlander Route 210–15 Paradise City (Isle of Capri) (Langer, Karl) 186 Parliament House, Canberra (Langer, Karl) 181, 182f Parque do Barreiro (Burle Marx, Roberto) 239 Pavlyshyn, Roman 79, 80–1, 85, 88 Sugar Research Station 80–1 Pearce House (Langer, Karl) 153 Pelikan ink bottles 91 People’s Hall, Riga (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 32 Perc Miller salon (Langer, Karl) 92f Perry, Clarence 152 Perth civic centre report (Langer, Karl) 174, 235, 241 Perth Government Offices (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 89, 90f–1f Pethebridge, Kevin 55, 61 Pfitzenmaier House (Hayes and Scott) 161 Phillips, R.O. 60 ‘Pillared Statues of the Chartres Royal Kingdom: The Origin of the

INDEX

303

Medieval Pillar Figure, The’ (‘Die Säulenstatuen der Chartreser Königspforte. Zur Entstehungsfrage der mittelalterlichen Säulenfigur‘) (Langer, Gertrude) 28 Pinter House (Langer, Karl) 154 Pioneer Shire Council 201–2 ‘Planning and the Citizen’ (Langer, Karl) 131 plans illustrating people in 61–3, 106, 107f, 150 standardized 113–15f, 149 Plischke, Ernst 20–1 Pollitt, J.H. Ellesmere 57 Pommer, Richard and Otto, Christian 22 Popp, Alexander 18, 26, 235 see also Behrens and Popp Popper, Kurt 16 Popper House (Langer, Karl) 154 Post-War Home, The (Bunning, Walter) 58 Power House (Langer, Karl) 154 Prangley, Dean 59, 149 Preston, Arthur 224 Preston, Margaret 28 Pritchard, Edna 52 Prutscher, Hans 21, 235 Maria vom Berge Karmel 32–3 psychology. See human aspect ‘Psychology of Selling’ (Gibson, Robin) 134 QALA (Queensland Association of Landscape Architects) 251–2 Queen St, Brisbane development (Langer, Karl) 170f, 183 Queensland 105 see also Brisbane and Mackay architecture 4, 52–6f, 106–8 Cairns 199 climate 110–11 gardens 58 housing 105–8, 149, 153 inhabitants, race of 111f–12 Kingaroy 122f, 178–80, 188 landscape architecture 251–2 tourism 198–219 town planning 121–4, 126 Queensland Association of Landscape Architects (QALA) 251–2 Queensland Housing Commission 88

304

INDEX

‘Queensland housewife’ 105, 108–10, 112, 113, 128 Queensland Licensing Commission 203 ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’ (Road Ahead, The) 208 Queensland Temperance League 198–9 ‘Quick Look at History, A’ (Cummings, Robert) 134 Quinlem, Kennedy 80 Rabbit Island tourist resort (Langer, Karl) 83–4f Rabenhof housing (Schmid & Aichinger) 22, 23f race 111f–12 Radburn, New Jersey 58, 116, 126, 151–2 RAIA (Royal Australian Institute of Architects) 51, 97–8 Raimund Uch house (Langer, Karl) 39 Raumstadt, Die (The Spatial City) (Schwagenscheidt, Walter) 235 Raymond, Antonin 60 recreation 113, 219–26 Reichow, Hans Bernhard 235 Reichsbrücke (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 33 Rhoades House, Brisbane 85 RIBA Orientation of Buildings, The 60 Richardson, W.R. and Herman, Morton Erskineville Housing Scheme, Sydney 50, 51f, 143 Rickard, Bruce 249 Ring der Frauen (Ring of Women) (Behrens, Peter and OpplerLegband, Else) 30, 31f Road Ahead, The 208 ‘Queensland Requires a Chain of Caravan Parks’ 208 Roberts, Gareth 98 Rogers, E.W. 222, 224 Rogers, Elizabeth 242 Roma Street Gardens (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 89 Romberg, Frederick 4 Rome 53 roof forms 160–4 hipped roofs 53, 59 Rose, James C. 146

Ross, Colin 2, 40 Achtung Australien! Achtung Asien! 40 unvollendete Kontinent, Der 40 Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) 51, 97–8 Rubis, Juris 80, 81 Rudofsky, Bernard 31, 63, 93 Rusakov Workers’ Club (Melnikov, Konstantin) 30 Russell, Charles 57, 147 Ryan, Bernie 251 Ryan House (Langer, Karl) 157–8f Saarinen, Eero (St. Louis Gateway Arch) 223 SAC (State Advances Corporation) 53, 88 Saini, Balwant Singh 125 Saito, Katsuo 243 Salmon, Frank 59, 79, 149 Sanders, Louis Joseph 77, 82, 84–5 Sanders Chemical Co. 84–5 Sanders House, Brisbane (Langer, Karl) 85, 86f Sarnitz, August 1 Architecture in Vienna 1 Scasso, Juan Antonio and Domato, Jose Estadio Centenario 30 Scharoun, Hans 235 ‘Schematic Lay-out for a Community of approximately 2000 people’ (Langer, Karl) 151, 266pl Schindler, Rudolf 150, 151, 242 Schläfrig, Robert 5, 16 Schlesinger, Norbert 32 Schmid, Heinrich 22, 235 Schmid & Aichinger 22–4 Margaretengürte housing 22, 23f Rabenhof housing 22, 23f Schönberg, Arnold 15, 27 Schreiner, Johannes 236 Schubert, Albert 188 Schulpig, Karl 91 Schuster, Franz Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Schütte-Lihotzky, Margarete 42 n. 19, 151 Schwagenscheidt, Walter 20, 235 Raumstadt, Die (The Spatial City) 235 Schwarzwald, Eugenie 27 Schwarzwald schools 27 Schweikher, Paul 60

Scorer, Fred 54–5 Scott, Campbell 149 see also Hayes and Scott Seidler, Harry 4, 5, 222 Selkey, Peter von 80 Sellheim, Gert 205 ‘Sensation of Architecture, The’ conference 133–4 Shapcott, Thomas 235 Shillam, Leonard 204 Sinnamon, Ian 77, 239, 241, 242, 249 Siren, Oswald History of Early Chinese Art, A 30 site plan, competition entry #124816 (Langer, Karl) 62f Sitte, Camillo 17, 20, 34–5, 126, 180, 192 Sitte, Siegfried 17, 126 Sketch of Grass Tree (Langer, Karl) 236f slab on ground construction 151 Slade Point beach amenities (Langer, Karl) 200–2 Small, Bruce 186 Smith, C.K.G. 183 Smith, Laurie 251 Snowy Hydro-Electric Scheme 5 Sobotka, Walter 21, 36 Sodersten, Emil 207 Sohn, Elke 235 soil cement slabs 151 Sorensen, Paul 233 Speer, Albert 18 Spiegel, Edgar 154 Spiegel, Hedwig (Hedi) 28, 154 ‘Art of Today and Yesterday, The’ lecture series 28 Spiegel House (Langer, Karl) 154 Spiel, Hilda 27 Spring Hill, Brisbane 127–8 St. John’s Lutheran Church, Bundaberg (Langer, Karl) xviiif, 26, 188–90f St. John’s Lutheran Church, Ipswich (Langer, Karl) 188, 190 St. Louis Gateway Arch (Saarinen, Eero) 223 St. Lucia house. See Langer House St. Peter’s School and Chapel (Langer, Karl) 97f, 98, 186–8, 190–1f Staatsgewerbeschule (Federal Trade School/State Vocational School), Vienna 17, 20 Stanczak, Julian 205

INDEX

305

standardized house plans (Langer, Karl) 113–15f, 149 Starkey, Alan 80 State Advances Corporation (SAC) 53, 88 Stein, Clarence 151 Stephenson & Turner Victorian Government Tourist Bureau, Melbourne 204 Sterne, Frederick 16 STH (‘Sub-Tropical Housing’) (Langer, Karl). See ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ Stones, Ellis 249 Stossel, Hugo 5, 16 Strauss, Henry Gustav 81 Strnad, Oscar 16, 21 Winarsky-hof, Vienna 157 Strzygowski, Josef 21, 27–9, 30, 93 Kunst der Gegenwart (Contemporary Art) 29 student project for a flower kiosk and tea salon (Langer, Karl) 19f, 20 sub-tropical fatigue 108–12, 150 sub-tropical glare 108–9, 112–13, 116–20 ‘Sub-Tropical Housing’ (STH) (Langer, Karl) 24, 58–61, 62f, 105–6, 107f–8f, 120, 125–6, 129, 132, 149–51, 152, 237, 243, 244f, 259pl–70pl suburbs 113–16, 126–7 Sugar Research Station, Mackay (Langer, Karl) 80–1 sun charts 59–61, 150, 267pl Sunshine and Shade in Australasia (CEBS) 60–1 Superblock, Brisbane (Langer, Karl) 130f superblocks 129–30f, 143–5 Supermarket Centre, Brisbane (Langer, Karl) 85, 86f Surfers Paradise flats proposal (Langer, Karl)161f–2 Surfers Paradise Hotel (Bell, David) 77 Sutton, Basil 80 Svoboda, Jiri 80 Swan Hill, Victoria 152 Swiss Pavilion (Le Corbusier) 59–60 Sydney 174–6 architecture 5 Erskineville Housing Scheme (Herman, Morton and Richardson, W.R.) 50, 51f, 143

306

INDEX

landscape architecture 249 migration 5–6 opera house 4, 74f, 89, 175f town plan (Langer, Karl) 174–6, 220, 237 Sydney Opera House (Utzon, Jørn) 4, 175 Sydney Opera House(competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 74f, 89, 175f ‘Tale of Inconsistency, A’ (de la Vega de León, Macarena) 4 Taringa flats (Langer, Karl) 82, 162 Taylor, Thomas Griffith 110, 111 technology 106, 110, 131 Tesch, Colin 80, 102 n. 66, 149 Theiss, Siegfried 18 Tobacco Factory, Linz (Langer, Karl) 25f Toombes, Arthur 57 Toowong flats (Langer, Karl) 82, 162 Toowoomba town plan (Langer, Karl) 176f–8 Torbreck (Job and Froud) 162 town planning 63–4, 120–5, 171–92, 235–7 ‘Town Planning for the Tropics’ (Langer, Karl) 120, 129 Townsville 120, 130 traffic 113–16 see also car use Trapnell, George 234 Trapp, Colin 149 Treib, Marc 242 Trotter, Steven 134 ‘Cities in the Sun: Do our cities adequately satisfy the needs of people living and working in climates such as ours’ 134 Tschichold, Jan 9 Tunnard, Christopher 242, 243 Gardens in the Modern Landscape 241, 242 University of Queensland (Hennessy & Hennessy) 88 University of Queensland Great Hall (competition entry) (Langer, Karl) 89 Unwin, Raymond 180 unvollendete Kontinent, Der (Ross, Colin) 40 Utzon, Jørn Sydney Opera House 4, 175

Vallis House (Langer, Karl) 162 ‘Vanishing Store Front, The’ (Langer, Karl) 119f–20 Vasarely, Victor 205 Veblen, Thorstein 151 Venturi, Robert 93 Victor Gruen Associates 1 Victorian Government Tourist Bureau, Melbourne (Stephenson & Turner) 204 Vidgen House (Langer, Karl) 160 Vienna 1, 15, 145 Akademie der Bildenden Künste (Academy of Fine Arts) 18 architectural education 15–16 Core-House (Kernhaus) project 151 Frank, Josef 22 Karl Marx-Hof 15, 145 migration from 16–17 modernism 15 Staatsgewerbeschule (Federal Trade School/State Vocational School) 17, 20 superblocks 143–5 Vienna School of Art History 15, 27 Winarsky-hof 157 Vienna School of Art History 15, 27, 29 Vlach, Oskar 21, 157, 235 see also Frank and Vlach Volksbildungshaus, Vienna (Langer, Karl) 39 Voller, Rod 54 Fraser Residence, Northgate 54, 56f Wagner, Otto 18, 22, 61, 180, 235 Walduck, Barry 80 Walling, Edna 233, 249 Australian Roadside, The 249 Watt, James Alexander 82, 85–7 Watt’s flats, Newmarket (Langer, Karl) 83f, 87 WCTU (Women’s Christian Temperance Union) 99 n. 10 weekend houses/settlements 24 Weigel, Helena 27 Weissenhofsiedlung, Stuttgart (Frank, Josef) 157 Weller, E.J.A. 53, 54, 88 Flats, New Farm 56f

West, Laurie 80, 224 West, Margaret 80 West Coast modernism 225 Westmead competition entry (Langer, Karl) 58–9, 89 West’s Furniture Store (Langer, Karl) 117–19, 120, 196f, 224–6 White Australia Policies 6, 111 Wie baut Amerika (Neutra, Richard) 30 Wiener Bau-Gesellschaft (Viennese Construction Company) 17 Wiesenthal, Grete 27 Wilkinson, Leslie 51, 58–9, 61, 96 Williams, George 251 Williams, Keith 234 Williamson Cottage (Langer, Karl) 154 Willis, Julie and Goad, Philip 5 Wilson, Alan Edward 234 Winarsky-hof, Vienna (Lihotzky, Maragrete; Hoffman, Josef; Behrens, Peter; Loos, Adolf; Frank and Vlach; Strnad, Oscar; Schuster, Frank; Dirnuber, Karl) 157 With, Karl 29 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 15 Wolkenbügel (Cloud Iron or Cloud Stirrups) (El Lissitsky) 30 ‘Woman’s Last Word, The’ (Lorimer, Mrs N.) 134 Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) 99 n. 10 Wood, Ian 64, 82–4, 171–2, 181, 215 Woodruff, Charles Edward 112 Works Department 88 Wright, Frank Lloyd 30, 59, 106, 150, 162, 242 Chicago 152 human aspect 131–2 Johnson Wax Headquarters 199 Wright, Henry 152 Yttca brothers 204 Yzelman, Gary 80 Zucker, Paul ‘Moderne Bauprobleme: Grossstadtgaragen’ 31

INDEX

307

308

309

310