Book Review: Glenn Murcutt
Glenn Murcutt: A Singluar Architectural Practice, by Haig Beck and Jackie Cooper, published by Images Publishing, 2002. (Amazon)
Glenn Murcutt is an anomaly of architecture: a celebrated and internationally well-known architect who eschews style and size in favor of functionalism and the level of control that comes from a "singular practice." His relatively solitary ways, deliberate process, and exceptional buildings earned Murcutt the Pritzker Prize in 2002. This monograph illuminates his working method and ideas about architecture while also dispelling some myths, mainly that he only builds remote, bush houses and only designs with linear plans. The book is broken into three sections: the first contains essays by the authors and the architect and a detailed description of Murcutt's design process, the second presents a selection of built and unbuilt projects (mainly houses), finally the third compiles working drawings of the projects presented. Through the projects we see an evolution from Miesian, flat-roof designs executed when he started his practice in the late 1960s to his more popular angular and curved roof sections done in corrugated metal. Along the way we see how Murcutt's linear plan usually arrives after initial ideas (usually courtyard) don't work, and we see a number of suburban houses Murcutt has completed. The consistent quality amongst all his buildings is their relationship to nature and culture, the way they are derived from natural elements, be they typical (heat/cold, wind, rain) or atypical (insects, wildfires, snakes) and the way the buildings respond to their context and the client's wishes. These responsibilities result in structures that not only tread lightly upon the land but also function in a way that - as Murcutt describes - "great poetic potential arises from the utilitarian."
Glenn Murcutt is an anomaly of architecture: a celebrated and internationally well-known architect who eschews style and size in favor of functionalism and the level of control that comes from a "singular practice." His relatively solitary ways, deliberate process, and exceptional buildings earned Murcutt the Pritzker Prize in 2002. This monograph illuminates his working method and ideas about architecture while also dispelling some myths, mainly that he only builds remote, bush houses and only designs with linear plans. The book is broken into three sections: the first contains essays by the authors and the architect and a detailed description of Murcutt's design process, the second presents a selection of built and unbuilt projects (mainly houses), finally the third compiles working drawings of the projects presented. Through the projects we see an evolution from Miesian, flat-roof designs executed when he started his practice in the late 1960s to his more popular angular and curved roof sections done in corrugated metal. Along the way we see how Murcutt's linear plan usually arrives after initial ideas (usually courtyard) don't work, and we see a number of suburban houses Murcutt has completed. The consistent quality amongst all his buildings is their relationship to nature and culture, the way they are derived from natural elements, be they typical (heat/cold, wind, rain) or atypical (insects, wildfires, snakes) and the way the buildings respond to their context and the client's wishes. These responsibilities result in structures that not only tread lightly upon the land but also function in a way that - as Murcutt describes - "great poetic potential arises from the utilitarian."
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