Making the Modern Australian Campus

In this seminar, Susan will discuss the forthcoming book Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities (UWA Press, 2021) the major outcome of a recently completed ARC Discovery Project. She will discuss select parts of the book including the policy context of the expansion of higher education in Australia in the post-WWII period, the planning and architecture of the ‘gumtree’ universities built in the 1960s and 70s, and the evolution of campus landscapes. She will also discuss the experience of working on a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research project, and ponder the question of what to do with an abundance of research and archival material when the project comes to an end!

Campus: Building Modern Australian Universities addresses a critical lacuna in contemporary built environment research in Australia: the design of the university campus post World War II, encompassing its origins, its built legacies, and the challenges ahead for contemporary planning and design. Past contributions and present innovations are acknowledged to frame key stories and lessons for the future, captured at a national scale. The book focuses on landscape, planning, and architecture. Eschewing an encyclopaedic approach, we instead use thematic investigations and selected case studies to reveal and reflect on the way the campus has evolved in response to governmental, institutional, cultural, environmental, and strategic shifts and demands within national and international contexts.

Image: Students gather in the Plaza at Flinders University to hear touring American radical author Allen Ginsberg, March 1972. Source: Flinders University. Photograph ID624.