Sub-tropical modernism, featurism and building innovation: The Institutional Projects of Stephen Trotter and James Birrell

Modernist architecture, its extension, and re-invention outside the cosmopolitan centres of Europe and America has been the focus of increasing interest. Willis and Goad’s survey of modernism within the Australian context, encourages greater localised historiographical studies in regional areas to provide a deeper valuing of experimentation brought on by economic, climate and context driven factors, which pushed beyond ‘pedigree’ examples of the central canon. Many young Queensland architects from the 50-70s cut their teeth through regional institutional commissions (planning and architecture) made possible by a national post-war public works agenda to increase educational campuses across the state. This paper reviews the institutional work of Stephen Trotter and James Birrell completed in Brisbane and the regional centres of Rockhampton and Townsville during the 60s and 70s. While James Birrell’s work has been the subject of many publications, the extent of Stephen Trotter’s institutional work is less well known. Birrell and Trotter were early recipients of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) Sisalkraft Travel Scholarship, established to promote exploration of architecture both here and across the globe. This influence and their exposure to regional life and practice enabled experimentation with material and building innovation within modernist and brutalist tropes. The paper reviews these works in view of artistic and environmental experimentation which Goad fits within the ‘lost tribe’ practitioners who broke the modernist cannon espoused by Robin Boyd.