The Australian is eulogising Colin Madigan, the architect who gave us the High Court and the National Gallery.
THE architect behind two of the country’s most distinctive buildings, the National Gallery of Australia and the High Court, was a visionary who linked design to cultural identity.
Colin Madigan, whose brutalist, concrete-dominated style remains a shorthand for Canberra architectural design, died, aged 90, on Saturday.
Australian Institute of Architects chief executive David Parken said Madigan’s cultural legacy could not be overstated.
“Colin was a thinker. To use concrete in a way that expresses such beauty is simply amazing, and I don’t think you’ll see the likes of it again,” he said.
“He saw architecture as an important part of Australian cultural identity. He helped to shape not only Canberra’s architectural identity, but that of Australia, too.”
UPDATE:
We’ve had this in the mail:
Your article ‘The man who defined Canberra architecture shuffles off this mortal coil’ suggests the High Court building was designed by Colin Madigan.
This is incorrect.
The High Court of Australia was designed by architect Chris Kringas. Kringas was director in charge and led the design team, which included Feiko Bouman and Rod Lawrence. The team completed the design in 1973 working from a terrace house in McMahon’s Point, Sydney.
Construction documentation was substantially complete at the time of Kringas’s death in March 1975, just one month before construction began.
Architect Hans Marelli supervised construction of the design.
The constructed building is relevantly identical to the winning competition design.
While there are similarities in material and style between Madigan’s National Gallery and Kringas’s High Court, there are significant differences in architectural form and space.
Please publish a correction.
Simon Kringas
Senior Lecturer in Architecture, University of Canberra
[Photo by Josh]