Sunday, January 17, 2010

A Sunday afternoon stroll

A while back I noticed plaques had popped up in front of the various Northbourne Flat groupings. I've always loved the flats so going to see what the plaques were all about was high on my list of cultural things to do this year. Alas, I'm usually barrelling past them at a rate of knots in either a bus or a car but today I made the time to wander down Northbourne Ave and check them out.

Plaque number one is outside the bedsitter flats:Plaque number two is supposedly across the road outside the paired housing but there was no sign of it that I could find.

(Although plaque number three, further down the road outside the flats looked suspiciously like it is actually plaque number two, in the wrong place...)And back across the road by the maisonettes is plaque number 4:There's no sign of anything back where the courtyard housing is (my favorites)
The Northbourne housing precinct is apparently the only example of Bauhaus architecture in Canberra. I think would they would be fabulous recreated in miniature, especially as they would have been when they were built in 1962. They were regarded as luxury flats back then and were photographed by Max Dupain...

1 comment :

Rebecca said...

Wow, I had no idea! Either that these were a Bauhaus design, or the only example in Canberra. (Really? There are none in Red Hill or other expensive suburbs?) I wonder who (if anyone in particular) designed the flats in Ainslie - the ones on Ainslie Avenue, I think I mean? (I used to clean some of them many years ago!)