Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemThe order of housing things : public housing policy discourse in New Zealand and Australia, 1983-1999( 2001)The purpose of this thesis is to examine discourses of housing assistance to understand how empirical knowledge came to be effected in the state housing assistance arrangements of New Zealand and Australia. To achieve this purpose a discursive methodology was crafted to account for both the constitution of empirical knowledge, and the bureaucratic apparatus by which housing assistance is administered. By pursuing the theoretical insights of US pragmatist thinkers, and recent French post-structuralist authors, empirical knowledge in the thesis was understood as a series of regular relations between abstract categories of 'things' or 'statements', as enunciated in the utterances of housing assistance policy actors and agents. Similarly the state was viewed as a discursive apparatus, which operates to constitute reality through the enunciation of this empirical order of things. The results of the methodological strategy were to be found in the empirical case studies of housing assistance in New Zealand and Australia during the period 1983 to 1999. In New Zealand a regular arrangement of housing policy discourse operated. until 1990. This 'order of housing things' constituted its subjects as unable to operate effectively in the housing market, thus requiring direct intervention via the housing assistance apparatus to ensure their needs were met. After 1990, this arrangement was replaced by an order in which the market was constituted as able to efficiently allocate housing to those in need, with maintenance of an adequate income becoming the sole basis for state action. In Australia, the order of housing things has consistently been one in which the directly provided subsidised state housing is the enunciated and practiced 'truth' of housing assistance. While alternative orders have been enunciated, such as the provision of assistance solely through an income payment, none of these alternatives obtained the status of the incumbent order during the study period. The thesis contributes to social scientific understanding through the careful and extensive empirical analysis of public housing policy in the two countries under consideration. Added to this understanding are the detailed theoretical explorations, which tease out recent post-structural approaches to discourse and the state, and which provide methodological solutions to questions of the nexus between empirical reality, language, practice, subjects and government policy.
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ItemLouis Reginald Williams( 2001)Louis Reginald Williams was Victoria's, and probably Australia's major ecclesiastical architect of the Arts and Crafts tradition from the 1920s to the 1970s. At a time when churches were largely outside the realm of cutting edge architecture, he was able to maintain a traditional regard for quality, craftsmanship and architectural integrity. He produced fine rather than exciting architecture, but contrasted strongly with some of his more experimental contemporaries. He was a gentleman architect, liked and respected by other architects, practising to the age of eighty-six and becoming a landmark of the architectural scene. Williams was born in Tasmania in 1890, where he attended school at Queens College, and was brought up in a strict religious environment. His father owned a large furniture manufacturing warehouse and hoped his son would take over the business. However Williams's great interest in churches led him into architecture, where he was fortunate to receive his training from one of the prominent architects of the day, Alexander North, who was Tasmania's Anglican Diocesan Architect. Williams later became North's junior partner, and after moving to the mainland about 1912 they set up their practice in Melbourne. Ecclesiastical architecture was foremost in Williams's own practice and during more than sixty-five years in this specialised field he was responsible for designing numerous churches, chapels, vicarages, Sunday schools, kindergartens, and church halls. He also carried out some domestic and commercial commissions. For a lengthy period he was Diocesan Architect to Bathurst and Grafton. He was advisory architect to the Chapter of the Goulburn Cathedral, and designed buildings for the Dioceses of Adelaide, North Queensland, the Dioceses of Perth and Bunbury in Western Australia, Devonport and Railton, as well as every Diocese in Victoria. He became the most sought after ecclesiastical architect of his time, and his churches are to be found throughout Australia. The Anglican Church was Williams's major client, for whom he carried out the majority of buildings in Victoria. He also worked for the Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Christian Scientists. His commission was usually to design a church to accommodate a certain number of people, within a set budget. Discussions with the client included siting the building, which materials would be used inside and out, and the important issue of style. He insisted that he design all the furniture and fittings so that they harmonised with the architecture. He worked under few restrictions, but kept the client fully informed as the work progressed, advising on lighting, stained glass, metalwork, altar furnishings, church plate, wood and stone carvings, murals, opus sectile mosaics, floor coverings, &c. He was strict, but very fair, and no shoddy work was tolerated. He has left a legacy of fine buildings ranging from small concrete and timber bush churches to large suburban brick buildings, including one cathedral and the completion of two others. He was a gracious man, whose first love was architecture, but he also had diverse interests, such as painting, photography and mountain climbing. He was well respected as a man who treated everyone with courtesy, regardless of their status. He never found it necessary to raise his voice on the site or in the•office, and managed unsophisticated committees with considerable aplomb. The author was private secretary to Williams for four years until about World War II when much architectural work was suspended. He moved his practice from his Queen Street offices to his Brighton home and remained there for the rest of his professional life. As no in-depth study has been made of his work to date, the present thesis aims to consider many of his buildings, and some of the innovations he introduced into his architecture to create a sense of space throughout the church, and a more comfortable environment for congregations in hot climates. He excelled in his designs for furniture and fittings and gathered around him a coterie of trusted craftsmen with whom he worked often and best. He earned the respect of his colleagues, staff, churchmen, builders, artisans and artists, and is remembered with affection by all those who knew him well.