“Good design makes people’s lives better.” – Robin Boyd

Stepping over the threshold into the Robin Boyd’s Walsh Street house on a cool autumn afternoon I felt something akin to a religious experience; it felt like I’d entered a sacred space. And indeed, I’m not the only one to feel this. This is how Daryl Jackson, architect and Chairman of the Heritage Council of Victoria identified this small residential building on Melbourne TV Channel 31’s Sacred Spaces series in August 2010.

Buildings of outstanding design can render you awestruck: cathedrals and large public buildings can overwhelm the senses and provide a reverential experience. You don’t expect to feel that in a small inner city Melbourne residence.

It’s quiet inside this South Yarra house that Robin Boyd built for his family in 1958. Although no longer a family home (it is the home of the Robin Boyd Foundation) the house retains its intimacy and is incredibly private. The suspended timber slatted ceiling curves down, hovering over the living areas, stopping short of the green and leafy central courtyard. From inside the house, or in the courtyard, the neighbouring houses are not visible.

Architect Tony Lee is the Executive Director of the Robin Boyd Foundation, set up in 2005 to continue the work of Robin Boyd, one of Australia’s most influential architects. Boyd was an outspoken public commentator and educator in the 1950s and 60s. Passionate about good design, Boyd felt very strongly about the responsibility of the architect:

“Architecture is the art and science of forming the total environment of society. Therefore, it is a responsibility of each architect to make sure that he is behaving in a socially correct and responsible way. Everyone who creates a bad building is creating a crime against society – it is a major act of vandalism” – Robin Boyd, 1967.

Lee sees the Robin Boyd Foundation as an educational institution targeted at the general public, “particularly those who have an awareness of design but may not be designers”, but also at professionals and students. Its main aim is to “fuel the spark of interest” in good design, which isn’t just about what a house looks like, or what it’s built of, it’s about how it makes you feel, and whether it meets your requirements “physically, practically and operationally”.

“Robin Boyd identifies four drivers of architecture: surface, space, structure and spirit. Surface being the look of the building, the way it is articulated; space and volumes and the way you respond to them, the way they work; structure is the way building is actually physically built and then spirit is probably the one that defines Robin from most other architects and that is very much about embodying the spirit of the occupants.”

The unconventional Walsh Street house wouldn’t suit everybody. Near the street frontage is the two-story parents’ section comprising the main bedroom on the upper floor, which is an open platform, with the bathroom, kitchen and living areas below. A smaller single-story section for the children of the family is on the other side of the courtyard, not quite on the back boundary, and houses two bedrooms, a smaller living space and bathroom. Both sections have full height glass walls facing the courtyard and are connected by a path.

A radical departure from the architectural norm of the era, Boyd’s Walsh Street house is modernist in style and is the antithesis of the 1950s suburban house, which was sited in the centre of the block surrounded by mostly underutilized land. Some of the tenets of architecture which ideally are true for all practitioners, but which certainly hold true for Robin Boyd, are respect for the client and the desire to embody the client’s aspirations in the house.

Tony Lee tells an anecdote involving Harry Seidler, a renowned and controversial modernist architect, a contemporary of Boyd’s. A client was referred to Boyd rather than Seidler because “if you use Harry Seidler, you’ll have to learn how to live in Harry’s house, but if you use Robin Boyd, you’ll get the house you’ve always dreamt of”.

It is Boyd’s spirit that is still very much evident in the Walsh Street house; it feels enveloping and comfortable, at once familiar and different to anything I’ve ever been in before. It is, in a way, an autobiographical house, a reflection of Robin Boyd and his family and how they lived.

Boyd’s Walsh Street house is an inspiring house and important in Melbourne’s architectural history, and it feels very much like a hallowed, sacred place.

For more information: www.robinboyd.org.au

Reference: Boyd, Robin 1970, Living in Australia, 2013 edition, Robin Boyd Foundation, South Yarra.