New Classicism? Ten Melbourne Architects

About the exhibition
This exhibition presented the projects of ten Melbourne architects in response to ‘classicism’ as they perceived it in the 1980s. The projects and the exhibition grew out of discussions among the practitioners about how ‘classicism’—which ‘began’ more than two thousand years ago—was still alive and well in contemporary Australian architecture.

Their ideas about architectural classicism were highly individualistic, even idiosyncratic, and had nothing to do with ‘revival’, nor with a view of themselves as ‘classicists’. Their projects, specially designed and made for the exhibition, were in fact frequently critical of the institutional and political uses which classical architecture has served in the past. Other projects revamped traditionally classical forms and design concepts.

The title of the projects indicated how varied the exhibition was: Arch de Fab; Blake’s Gallery; Furphy Memorial; Gearing Up; Main Street Melbourne: A Pub; Melbourne Headquarters, the Ministry of Perfection, Order and Hope; Murdoch Tower; Resurrection City II; and Tower.

The show also included a profile photographic survey of traditional classical buildings, from the Parthenon to two entries in the most recent Victorian State Library Museum competition.

Acknowledgements
The exhibition was assisted by the Vera Moore Fund of Monash University and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Victoria Chapter.

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^{Image: Francesco Timpano and Anna Butler, Melbourne Headquarters, The Ministry of Perfection, Order and Hope 1985, architectural drawing}