| Historical notes: | STATEMENT OF COUNTRY
Ball-Eastaway House and Setting is on Dharug Country (AIATSIS 1996). It takes in the catchment of Dyarubbin (the Hawkesbury River) which provided a rich diversity of riverine resources together with the land-based resources of the adjacent valleys and hills. Dyarubbin is part of an important and complex cultural landscape. Local clans may include the Tuga, Cattai, and Bidji. Evidence of habitation in the area has been sourced at nearby Marramarra National Park including shelters, art, grinding grooves, middens, scarred trees, stone arrangements, and other occupational deposits (NPWS 2025, Hills Shire Council 2025).
The area was colonised from the late 18th century, resulting in violence, disease and ongoing clearing of river Country. Despite this, Dharug people have survived and continue to practice culture on Country.
DYARUBBIN AND GLENORIE HISTORY
Darug people lived in the area for up to 60,000 years prior to colonisation. They made use of both the rich diversity of the Dyarubbin/Hawkesbury River resources as well as land animals and plants found in the adjacent valleys and hills. The inland Darug were culturally distinct from the coastal Darug, speaking both a different dialect and hunted kangaroos, emus and other animals with stone axes. The Darug clans in the area included the Tuga, Cattai and Bidi. (Karskens 2020)
European exploration of the area began in 1789 when Governor Arthur Phillip took his second trip up the Hawkesbury River. Now known as the Hawkesbury and Nepean Wars, a series of bloody conflicts took place from 1794 triggered by the theft of Country along the river and the ever-increasing number of settlers arriving. By 1816, Lachlan Macquarie had declared the area surrounding Glenorie as open for settlement. Construction of the Great North Road began in 1825 connecting Sydney to the fertile Hunter Valley to the north further opening the area to European farming. It is likely that the Great North Road was developed along a Darug pathway. (Karskens 2020)
Glenorie was originally known as North Dural or Upper Dural. The name was officially changed to Glenorie in 1894 and is likely to be a Darug word meaning 'much water' reflecting the high number of fresh water springs in the area.
Notable 19th century figures associated with the area include Darug man Billy Faulkner worked independently selling oysters and fish at Dural during the 1860s and 1870s. Biddy, also known as Sarah Wallace (an Aboriginal woman connected to Bungaree's group at Broken Bay), settled with John Lewis at Marramarra Creek where John worked as a limeburner. Descendants of Wallace and Lewis remain connected to the area (GML 2021).
The land on which the Ball-Eastaway House sits may have been partially cleared at some point in the past but, due to the shallow soil was not suitable for agriculture so was abandoned, allowing vegetation to grow back (Rowland 2008, Downie North 2025)
THE BALL-EASTAWAY HOUSE
Lynne Eastaway met Sydney Ball while she was a student in the early 1970s at the National Art School in Sydney. By the time Eastaway had completed her studies, she and Ball were a couple and had began working alongside each other. While both Eastaway and Ball worked on their art and taught at universities, eventually Ball wanted to focus purely on his painting and they purchased the Glenorie property in 1976.
Ball and Eastaway had seen Murcutt's work in a number of publications and Murcutt was keen to work with artists as clients as they understood the creative process. Discussion about the commission began in 1977. Ball requested an unusually long interior wall to hang a large work he'd completed in New York.
The Ball-Eastaway house is a turning point in Murcutt's work, departing from the wool-shed thematic of his earlier houses. It is the first residential work by Murcutt that is clad entirely in corrugated iron, a material that would go on to become his trademark internationally.
Murcutt states that that 'Fire was the most important element informing the design of this house which is designed to resist the impact of fire. First, by siting the building on a rock shelf, in a less-wooded area and using tallowwood, a very dense timber, for all essential timber framing.' Murcutt also ensured flammable materials were not exposed. Water was located at a distance, sprinklers installed to drench the roof and walls and downpipes were blocked mechanically to inundate all areas. (Murcutt 2025)
The rock platform was chosen as no trees were required to be removed. Murcutt specifically selected a particularly sculptural eucalypt growing out of the rock to define the house's western edge and establish the geometrical centre line of the house as it projects north east. The drill holes for the columns were filled in with cement mixed with the natural rock sand so that if the house was taken away it would be difficult to see where it had been. Along with the brick base to the fireplace, the columns are the only points where the house touches the ground, giving the house a visual lightness.
The Ball-Eastaway House is the first of Murcutt's that is sited directly and immersed in the unaltered bushland of the site. Up until this point, Murcutt's work had been on rural or suburban sites, with native bushland well away from the houses. The house is modest in size and economical in form. Murcutt believes it may be the building he designed on the smallest budget that was affordable to the commissioning artists.
In Murcutt's words, " As a tough building in a tough landscape, I think it is appropriate. That's all I'm interested in. Not international standard. I am looking for a standard that is appropriate to its place." (Murcutt, 2025).
Ball and Eastaway moved into the house in 1983, then separated in 1984. Ball lived there until his death in 2017 at age 83. Eastaway returned to live in the house after Ball's death and continues to live in the house in 2025.
The house won the Wilkinson Award in 1984 and has been extensively published, referenced in lectures and visited by architects.
GLENN MURCUTT
Glenn Murcutt was born in London in 1936 during his parents' round-the-world tour. His early childhood was spent in the island of New Guinea in Papua New Guinea where his father was managing a gold mine. The five years Glenn spent living at the mine proved a strong influence and he remembers the family home built by his father, which had a roof of lightweight, corrugated iron and was perched on long stilts to keep out water and animals. His time in New Guinea taught Murcutt what he calls 'the architecture of the essential'.
Glenn Murcutt began a part-time architecture course at the Sydney Technical College in 1956 and credits teacher Noel Bazeley as an influence, through his focus on environment in the architectural process. During his training he worked in the offices of influential Sydney architects Neville Gruzman and Bill and Ruth Lucas. Glenn graduated in 1962 and married in the same year. He and his wife then travelled to Europe where he worked briefly with the modernist architecture firm Ian Fraser and Associates in London before travelling to France, Scandinavia and Greece to study buildings. Returning to Sydney in 1964, Murcutt joined the Ancher, Mortlock, Murray and Woolley (AMMW) practice, which would be instrumental in the creation of the 'Sydney School' of architecture.
In 1969 Murcutt left AMMW to start his own architectural practice. He has remained a sole practitioner ever since. This independence to experiment has contributed greatly to the development of Murcutt's distinctive style. However, in the few larger projects he takes on, the Newport Mosque in Melbourne for example, he often works with younger architects.
Glenn Murcutt's architectural style is built on his deep understanding of the natural environment and he selects materials that have consumed as little energy as possible in their manufacture, and will consume as little as possible in the operation of the house. His use of corrugated iron is as much a practical decision as it is related to the material's regional history. Murcutt has said: 'In iron roof sheeting you have one of the thinnest, most economic, rigid materials that could be carried and fixed by one person in a single sheet.' (National Museum of Australia 2025)
SYDNEY BALL
Sydney Ball was born in Adelaide in 1933. He was a pioneer of post-painterly abstraction in Australia. This term describes a generation of painters who reacted to mid-century abstract expressionism through hard-edge works, or using washes or poured areas of saturated, intense colour.
In 1965, Ball exhibited his paintings at the Museum of Modern Art and Design in Melbourne, where he was immediately recognised for his facility with colour. He went on to exhibit his work in a number of high-profile Australian and American exhibitions, including the landmark exhibition The Field at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1968, before travelling to New York. There he met Clement Greenberg, and through him artists such as Kenneth Noland, and travelled the east coast with Australians Elwyn Lynn and Patrick McCaughey, familiarising himself with the work of other abstractionists including Helen Frankenthaler, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko. This period was to prove a lasting influence on his work.
In the 1970s Ball's work continued to gain in profile and praise. He held exhibitions of new series, including the 'Stain' paintings in which the canvas was washed and stained with successive layers of colour. He was included in the inaugural Biennale of Sydney in 1973 and the international touring exhibition and ABC television documentary Ten Australians in 1975 and had his first survey exhibition, at Newcastle Region Art Gallery, the same year. He started to teach in the 1970s, continuing into the 1990s in Australia and Asia. (Art Gallery of NSW, 2025) |