Architecture

The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture edited by Philip Goad and Julie Willis

Item: The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture
Author: Gerard Vaughan

by Gerard Vaughan •

July–August 2012, no. 343

Cambridge University Press, $150 hb, 830 pp, 9780521888578

Architecture

The Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture edited by Philip Goad and Julie Willis

by Gerard Vaughan •

July–August 2012, no. 343

This is an impressive publication, a massive tome with high gloss pages, beautifully designed with the highest production values, lavishly illustrated, with entries provided (on my count) by 229 separate contributors. This monumental collective effort makes a defining contribution to the study and documentation of architecture in this country, and to Australian architectural history. It is astonishing in its breadth, and gives us for the first time as near to a complete understanding of the trajectory of architectural ideas and practice in this country as is possible. Put simply, we have never before had so much information instantly available in a condensed form.

Gerard Vaughan

Gerard Vaughan, appointed Director of the National Gallery of Victoria in 1999, is an art historian with extensive experience within the international art and museum worlds. His research interests are particularly concerned with the history of taste and art collecting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, ranging from neo-classicism to post-impressionism. He was previously director of the British Museum Development Trust and has recently been appointed Gervy Higgins Professorial Fellow in Art History at the University of Melbourne.