Fabulous, Far Away and Gigantic: Myth in Australian Architectural Authorship

Abstract

This paper represents a foray into a new research area, which explores questions of architectural authorship, myth, and representation (1). It is concerned more with the reception than the production of architecture, and in particular with the way that architecture is understood (or not), appreciated (or not), and constructed in the popular mind. There are two broader questions that underlie this enquiry, which constitute its secret motivation: the first is the question of why, in architecture, the author seemingly never died. This is of course a reference to Roland Barthes' seminal 1968 essay, 'The Death of the Author', to which the paper will return. The second question is a pondering on the topic of why (aside from the accepted fact that he is a good architect) the work of the Australian architect Glenn Murcutt is so well liked and well received, in Australia and internationally. These two questions fit within the broader context of a generally post-colonial exploration of how identity is constructed in and through architecture, to what instrumental ends it is used, and what this means both for architecture and for culture more broadly.