Robin Boyd

Robin Boyd (3 January 1919 - 16 October 1971) was an influential Australian architect, writer, teacher and social commentator. He, along with Harry Seidler, stands as one of the foremost proponents for the International Modern Movement in Australian architecture.

Boyd was born into the prominent Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, with many relatives being painters, sculptors, architects or other arts professionals. He was the younger son of the painter Penleigh Boyd, and his own son, also named Robin, is an architect. Boyd's first commission, in fact, was a backyard studio for his cousin, the painter Arthur Boyd.

Boyd first came to notice in the late 1940s for his promotion of inexpensive, functional, partially prefabricated homes incorporating modernist aesthetics. Most of his architectural output was residential. In 1953 he joined forces with Frederick Romberg and Roy Grounds to form what would become a significant Melbourne firm, and through the 1950s and 1960s Boyd developed a number of important houses in the regional style, including a 1952 house for Australian historian Manning Clark.

For many years from 1947 he was director of the The Age Small Homes Service and influenced many people with his popular weekly articles on the subject. He was also lecturer in architecture at the University of Melbourne, and visiting professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1956-57.

Among his nine books are "Australia's Home" (1952), the first substantial history of Australian domestic architecture, and "The Australian Ugliness" (1960), a popular and outspoken criticism of prevailing establishment tastes in both architecture and popular culture.

Awards and Honors

Boyd was declared a Life Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and was presented with the RAIA Gold Medal in 1969. In his honour, the RAIA named their annual domestic architecture award the Robin Boyd Award.It has been 33 years since Robin Boyd died, in aged 52

External links

* [http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A130269b.htm Australian Dictionary of Biography]
* [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mic/488032815/ Bookcover of "The Australian Ugliness"]
* [http://www.saveboydhouse.blogspot.com/ The online campaign to save the Robin Boyd House II ]
* [http://www.boydhomesgroup.blogspot.com/ The Boyd Homes Group: the network for owners and friends of Robin Boyd's works ]

Further reading

* Geoffrey Serle, "Robin Boyd - A Life", Melbourne University Publishing, 1996, reissued 2004. ISBN 0-522-84742-0, represents the primary biography of Robin Boyd to date