After The Australian Ugliness

Fifty years after its first publication, Robin Boyd's bestselling The Australian Ugliness remains the definitive statement on how we live and think in the environments we create for ourselves. In it Boyd rallied against Australia's promotion of ornament, decorative approach to design and slavish imitation of all things American. 'The basis of the Australian ugliness,' he wrote, 'is an unwillingness to be committed on the level of ideas. In all the arts of living, in the shaping of all her artefacts, as in politics, Australia shuffles about vigorously in the middle - as she estimates the middle - of the road, picking up disconnected ideas wherever she finds them.' Boyd was a fierce critic, and an advocate of good design. He understood the significance of the connection between people and their dwellings, and argued passionately for a national architecture forged from a genuine Australian identity. His concerns are as important now, in an era of suburban sprawl and inner-city redevelopment, as they were half a century ago. Caustic and brilliant, The Australian Ugliness is a masterpiece that enables us to see our surroundings with fresh eyes. This handsome anniversary edition is complemented by Robin Boyd's original sketches for the book and a new afterword by major contemporary architects.

Robin Boyd: Late Works unveils the urban and public architectural projects designed by Robin Boyd, one of Australia's most iconic mid-century modernists, in the final decade before his untimely death in 1971. One of the few architects in Australia's history to have become a household name, Boyd rose to prominence as a public intellectual after the release of his book The Australian Ugliness in 1960, a biting attack on what he saw as the debased quality of Australia's cities and design culture. Upon its release, the book drew both condemnation and praise in Australia's media, but in the process gave Boyd a national platform from which to campaign throughout the 1960s for the betterment of Australia's built environment. Concomitant with his public pronouncements during this time, though, Boyd was hard at work attempting to prosecute his vision of a more coherent and contemporary Australian urban environment and culture. This work took the form of building and planning designs, at sometimes vast scales, that run counter to Boyd's reputation as an architect of polite modernist private houses.Robin Boyd: Late Works considers these important but largely forgotten architectural projects alongside his exhibition work, multimedia designs and his writing. Bringing to light material buried deep in the archives of several national institutions, this book documents Boyd's ambitions and struggles to shape Australia's understanding of itself as an urban nation during this time. For Boyd, the 1960s was a turbulent decade of architectural practice that, by the time of his death, had come with thwarted ambitions and high personal cost.

Now available in paperback, this highly acclaimed biography examines Boyd's career as an architect, writer and social critic, and as a man of his times.

Robert Hoge has done pretty much every kind of writing there is. He has worked as a journalist, a speechwriter, a science writer, and a political advisor. He's also written numerous short stories, articles, and interviews that have been published in Australia and overseas. When he's not writing, Robert enjoys photography and talking with people about looking different and being disabled. He lives in Brisbane, Australia and is married and has two amazing daughters. Visit him at RobertHoge.com and follow him @RobertHoge.

Aboriginal design is of a distinctly cultural nature, based in the Dreaming and in ancient practices grounded in Country. It is visible in the aerodynamic boomerang, the ingenious design of fish traps and the precise layouts of community settlements that strengthen social cohesion. Alison Page and Paul Memmott show how these design principles of sophisticated function, sustainability and storytelling, refined over many millennia, are now being applied to contemporary practices. Design: Building on Country issues a challenge for a new Australian design ethos, one that truly responds to the essence of Country and its people. About the series: Each book is a collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous writers and editors; the series is edited by Margo Neale, senior Indigenous curator at the National Museum of Australia. Other titles in the series include: Songlines by Margo Neale & Lynne Kelly (2020); Country by Bill Gammage & Bruce Pascoe (2021); Plants by Zena Cumpston, Michael Fletcher & Lesley Head (2022); Astronomy (2022); Innovation (2023).

Originally published: Australia: Giramondo, 2013.

After the departure of the woman he loves, Frank struggles to rebuild his life among the sugarcane and sand dunes that surround his oceanside shack. Forty years earlier, Leon is drafted to serve in Vietnam and finds himself suddenly confronting the same experiences that haunt his war-veteran father. As these two stories weave around each other—each narrated in a voice as tender as it is fierce—we learn what binds Frank and Leon together, and what may end up keeping them apart. Set in the unforgiving landscape of eastern Australia, Evie Wyld’s accomplished debut tackles the inescapability of the past, the ineffable ties of family, and the wars fought by fathers and sons.