Launch of the Naarm Architecture Foundation

I begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands – the Wurundjeri People of the Eastern Kulin Nation – and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present.

And I would like to thank and acknowledge Wurundjeri Elder Uncle Bill Nicholson for his warm Welcome this evening.

The launch of Naarm Architecture Foundation speaks to a simple idea:

The architecture we build today tells the story of our time.

What one generation creates, the next inherits, interprets and makes their own.

Each generation, in turn, adds something to this story.

Here in Victoria, this inheritance runs deep.

First Peoples have passed down knowledge across countless generations.

And they have left their mark on the landscape.

At Budj Bim, now a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Gunditjmara developed an extensive aquaculture system and built stone houses in the area. In a very long history few markers remain.

Architecture is but one thread of this much longer story.

But in the designs of generations past, we find a visible record of place and culture.

Our built environment tells us how our sense of self – in performance or learning or living – has evolved over time.

The discovery of gold in Victoria in the 1850s led to a major transformation of Naarm, or Melbourne as the early colonial settlers called it.

People and wealth poured in from around the world.

By the 1880s, Melbourne had become one of the richest cities in the world.

That confidence found physical manifestation in grand public buildings, banks, arcades and railway stations.

It was the era of ‘Marvellous Melbourne’.

The spectacular growth in population and wealth over such a short period gave us buildings influenced by European traditions, from Gothic and Gothic Revival through to Classical and Renaissance styles drawing on Greek and Roman examples.

Many were built in anticipation of the large and grand city Melbourne might become.

They have remained over 150 years later, not as relics of a past era, but as working parts of the city.

And so, the State Library, Supreme Court, Parliament House, the Exhibition Building and Government House continue to define and work as part of the civic landscape of our city.

Then, from the early 20^th century and into the post-war years, successive waves of migration brought new ideas about architecture and suburban living, including modernism, that shaped our institutions, corporate as well as civic, our suburbs and our domestic spaces.

Again, we see those influences around us. Melbourne was shaped largely in those two periods.

My former RMIT colleague Leon van Schaik makes the point in Spatial Intelligence that we do not always recognise this process in our own cities.

He writes:

“We are laying down a stratum that records our culture … that the architecture and the artefacts of our time are indeed all of a piece, and tell the story of our present culture.”

One of the great privileges of my time at RMIT was to be part of that story – not only through the work of staff and alumni, but also through the campus itself.

As Vice-Chancellor, I was involved in shaping a city campus that was self-consciously reflecting, and layering itself into, Melbourne.

The design process and architectural innovation of that campus, in and of the city, began in the 1990s, led by Leon van Schaik, with projects including Edmond & Corrigan’s Building 8 and ARM’s Storey Hall.

It traversed an urban landscape which recreated its own architectural layers, from Gothic Revival to Beaux-Arts, with Peter Elliott and Lovell Chen.

The Design Hub by Sean Godsell and Swanston Academic Building and then the now Academic Street led by Lyons Architects continued that change to cityscape and brought new dimensions to the campus.

It was architecture that was confident in where it came from, self-assuredly Melburnian, and many of the architects and practices represented here today were part of that story.

Not every new layer or expression was initially welcomed, but they spoke to and of the city.

Architecture is, of course, one of the most public, and sometimes most contentious, of the arts.

Through architecture, we express and debate our ideas about how best to move, to work and to live — and, ultimately, how we see ourselves.

It occupies the space between experience and aesthetics, guaranteeing a plurality of responses.

It is for this reason that any city with a serious architectural culture must leave room for debate and for people willing to try something different.

That takes more than talented architects.

It requires clients prepared to consider new ideas.

Institutions willing to support experimentation.

And places where people have the freedom to research, question and collaborate, to find the ideas of tomorrow in the story of today.

That is where the Naarm Architecture Foundation has such an important role to play.

There is something fitting in the Foundation making its home in the former offices of Edmond and Corrigan.

A place associated with an important chapter in Melbourne’s architectural culture is now giving another generation the space to explore new ideas and confront the challenges we face as a city.

And there is no shortage of those challenges.

How do we house a growing population?

How do we design for a changing climate?

And how do we hold onto our status as one of the world’s most liveable cities as the conditions around us change?

These are questions that many people in this room will help answer.

And the answers they discover will shape the city that future generations inherit.

When those generations look back on the architecture of our time, I hope they too find some understanding of who we were.

I hope they see a city that understood its responsibility to those who call it home…

And a people that thought carefully about what they would leave behind.

My thanks to everyone whose hard work and commitment have made the Naarm Architecture Foundation possible.

Thank you.