The emergence of a 'School of Architecture' on the Sunshine Coast has some parallels with the acknowledged 'Sydney School'. Both commenced around the 1960s and were driven by local architects as a reaction to international Modernism. Both sought to temper universalisation using local knowledge, methods, and responses.
Uniquely and disproportionally, as a small region of 200,000 people in the early '70s, the emerging architecture of the Sunshine Coast achieved national recognition. By the 1990s, it had also received international interest and recognition through awards, publications, and exhibitions.
The Sunshine Coast School as a movement was celebrated in the acclaimed 2000 publication, 'Local Heroes, Architects of Australia's Sunshine Coast' by Peter Hyatt, which examined the work of the late Gabriel Poole, John Mainwaring, and Lindsay and Kerry Clare.
Stuart Vokes will discuss with John, Kerry and Lindsay the genesis of this movement, and how concern for local conditions, landscape and traditions were explored to create an authentic, identifiable architecture, and it's legacy and relevance.