"THE LANDSCAPE IS THE DOMINANT THING, IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN"

Phillip Cox is a Sydney based architect, who established his practice, Phillip Cox and Associates, in 1967. Cox has been described as positive aggressive and a battler, and his work has been described as a commitment to an 'Australianness in design'. Some of his better known projects include the Market Three Campus for the New South Wales Institute of Technology, Haymarket, Sydney, 1980; the Yulara Tourist Village, Ayers Rock, N.T., 1982 ,The Melbourne Tennis Centre and three of the buildings in the Darling Harbour Redevelopment Project. We asked Phillip Cox to comment of the "Australianness" of architecture in this country and the future of Australian building designs.

"There is an Australian style of architecture that has been developing since 26th January 1788. It has always been a reaction to the climate, the landscape and the society which has created it. Although then genesis might have been entirely European or Anglo-Celtic, the day the first buildings went up they could not help but be affected by the geographic conditions. Aboriginal structures were also part of that influence. Although the traditional histories of Australian architecture deny that the aborigines had very much influence, you only have to look at the earliest structures that were made of bark and rush; they were very much the types of buildings around the harbour in the early days.

It is very easy for Australian identification during the colonial period where that fusion of culture is expressed. Then you can see influences by the early regiments: Macquarie from India, with the Indian bungalow, and the experience of the British colonies throughout the then known empire. It so happened that in Australia, buildings did have a certain uniqueness about them; the encircling verandah and the high pitched roof, or the reaction to the climate in Queensland by raising the floor of the house from the natural earth, which is very different to other parts of the southern hemisphere. You can say, oh but it was a derivation from Java or Patavia or any one of those areas, but if you look closely enough you see it is quite uniquely Australian.

"The Australian colonial is obviously the thing that's been confused as an Australian style, whereas Victorian buildings like the Town Hall were developed as a result of the gold rush and Federation - statements of wealth and prosperity in buildings that are equally responsively Australian. You don't find other buildings in the world which have that streetscape, richness and diversity of the buildings of the towns during the 'boom years'."

Another element that Cox considers unique to Australia is the expression of structure which has come through in our architecture due largely to the lack of extravagance and the minimal nature of it.

"The lack of extravagance because we haven't had the personal wealth or the inclination to spend on our buildings, whether they be woolsheds or whatever. Therefore, it is the structure that has always come through as the raison d'etre. There has always been a no nonsense approach to design. If you look closely enough you see it is quite uniquely Australian.

"We are uniquely Australian because of our ethnic mix and geographic position of relative isolation. The landscape is the dominant thing and always has been. What makes our architecture unique is within our Australian culture and character. Because of our isolation, we've had to be very practically minded in dealing with the problems of our incredibly harsh environment.

"From the very earliest days, Australians had a very marked response to the environment; tank stands became very important elements in architecture, the windmill became synonymous with the Australian homestead, and the verandah has prevented the heat build up in wall surfaces. Australia has led the world in that sort of conservation of energy, in an active and a passive way. The better architects today have incorporated these features within their designs so, it's a commonsense approach without stylistic overtones and that is what I admire in Australian architecture."

Cox believes that Australia shows a "Pioneering daring" in architecture and cites the Darling harbour scheme in Sydney as a "very brave attempt at urban renewal on a massive scale that has no parallel anywhere in the world". Another example he cites is the Yulara Tourist Resort. "Here you have the third largest town in the Northern Territory and it is unique in the world'; a town that has been designed and planned and works and functions and is responsive to climate, so if you're playing a pocket game with the rest of the world you could put up Yulara. Where is a town like it in America? There isn't one, and it's amazing that all these visiting architects come out and are absolutely stunned.

"One should really learn from the past, from cities like London, Paris or Rome, because one thing is universal: cities are dynamic and not static, and the present never respects the past in any sense." Cox cites St. Peters in Rome as an example. "St. Peters was pillaged from classical times, and the popes had no hesitation in pulling down Trajan's work and repiling it in St. Peters. I delight in Rome, I like seeing death and decay, I like the dynamics of that city and the way they are expressed."

"There are some monuments that society wants and should remember and venerate, but we are losing our confidence in the present by saying that the Victorian period produced such excellence that we cannot touch it. It's a denial that you can do better. I believe that our cities can change for the better with that confidence, so you preserve what you have to, but you change those areas according to the dynamic economicism, society or politics."

Australians are not demanding enough of their architects. If Australia is going to progress, the public ought to be much more conscious of the art of architecture, instead of a vernacular architecture which responds to the physical and social conditions of our country. We've been led away by consumerism, and the consumer house product has been totally unsatisfactory." Cox believes that this is due to the fact that architecture is not taught at schools, alongside with art, music and literature.

"Until architecture is considered as a serious art form, we will be continually creating ghettos of suburbia or buildings not of excellence or merit."

Cox's three favourite landmarks in Australia are Ayers Rock, the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour itself. "Ayers Rock because I think it is symbolically the navel of Australia, around which the whole continent revolves. The Sydney Opera House because it is the only building that has the spirit of what I believe Sydney is all about, and it's a sort of cosmic fusion of water and sky and an evocation of a free spirit.

"The Sydney Harbour I always come back to. If I've been overseas and I come into Sydney Harbour again, it's magical, it's got something going for it that nothing else has."