| Historical notes: | STATEMENT OF COUNTRY
The Woolley Townhouse is on Gadigal land (AIATSIS) which practically and spiritually sustained the Gadigal for millennia. Early European accounts noted the area today known as Paddington was the place of the Maroo, a path used by local Aboriginal people, and a road of some form was built by Governor Hunter along this track to the South Head as early as 1803. Despite the impact of colonisation, Gadigal culture has survived and Aboriginal people have continued to retain links to the area.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE LOCAL AREA
Paddington was largely developed during the last quarter of the nineteenth century with the subdivision of the Underwood Estate. In 1875 the Underwood 'Paddington' Estate subdivision offered for 606 lots with largely 20 ft street frontages, laid out along Sutherland, Hargrave, Windsor, Paddington and Underwood Streets. The land on which the Woolley Townhouse sits was once part of the Deep Dene Estate off Glenmore Road, which contained 33 allotments offered for auction in 1877. By 1886, a sizeable house was located on Lot 32, shown on a survey plan of the area (Lucas, Stapleton & Partners).
WOOLLEY TOWNHOUSE
In 1978, the land at 8 Cooper Street was subdivided and Lot 2 DP 573941 was sold to the renowned architect Ken Woolley. The Woolley Townhouse was designed and constructed between 1980-81. The already compact design was not completed, due to financial limitations. Ken Woolley occupied the house until 1987.
The Woolley Townhouse is the last of three residences he designed for himself, each of which reflect the evolution of his creative endeavours; including the Palm Beach house (1986), and the first Woolley house in Mosman (1962). Woolley challenged himself to design a small house on a steep incline and to design for efficiency, after years of designing project homes. The home, set in deep gardens on its block, was designed to present from the street as a walled compound. Woolley was known at this time to be interested in Post Modern design theory and was aware of international Post Modern architects referencing traditional architecture in their designs. The Woolley Townhouse reflects these interests, demonstrating some Post Modern influence. . The house began a new period of his style that is characterised less by the materiality of the first period and more by an interest in history and urban context. This results in a more playful design compared to his first two homes. This is seen in features such as an enlarged moon window in the front faade, echoed in circular motifs throughout the house's design.
Ken Woolley received the 1981 Royal Institute of Architects (NSW Chapter) Merit Award and the 1983 Wilkinson Award for his design of the Woolley Townhouse. The 1981 award citation states 'the importance of the work as an urban paradigm - grading public to private, street to view, front to back, closed to open, etc. - is more significant than any criticism that could be made of its episodic, non-holistic formal nature - or even the eccentricity of its 'signs'. (Royal Institute of Architects, "Merit Award - Woolley Townhouse," Architecture in Australia vol 70 no 6, 1981, pp. 28-9).
KEN WOOLLEY
Ken Woolley (1933-2015) was born in Sydney and began his architectural career as a trainee in the Government Architects Branch, whilst studying architecture at the University of Sydney, from which he graduated with Honours and the University Medal in 1954. Before he was 30 he had completed a number of famous Sydney buildings, including the University of Sydney's Fisher Library, the State Office Block on the corner of Macquarie and Bent Streets (demolished in 1997 for Aurora Place), the Woolley House in Mosman, the Lidcombe Hospital Recreation Hall and Chapel and the first Pettit & Sevitt project home houses.
He is often associated with a group of architects including Peter Muller, Bruce Rickard, Bill Lucas, Russell Jack and Don Gazzard who developed a style known as the Sydney School. They all designed houses that shared distinct characteristics such as roughly textured bricks, timber and tiles, considered relationships to sites, disciplined planning and spatially complex interiors often with changes of level. Unlike contemporaries such as Harry Seidler who was inspired by early European modernism, the Sydney School architects design with the intent of harmonising with the natural landscape, rather than work against it.
Woolley won the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship in 1955 and subsequently became an assistant architect for Chamberlin, Powell and Bon in London, the crucible of modernism and the International style. During his time here, he is said to have been exposed to the Smithsons, New Brutalism and New Liberty styles.
Woolley joined the partnership of Ancher Mortlock and Murray in 1964 and became a director of the company in 1969. His time here contributed to over 6000 dwelling units and production houses, as well as his three Wilkinson Award-winning homes. By 1982, Woolley had become sole principal and design director and oversaw the majority of the firm's work from this point.
Woolley saw himself as a late modernist, influenced by many international contemporaries such as Alvar Aalto, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. He was incredibly attuned to the development of styles overseas such as Brutalism and the theoretical aspects of post-modernism and reattachment to traditions.
His public and commercial works include the Australian Embassy in Bangkok, the Parramatta Federal Courts, several student union buildings and education facilities, the Park Hyatt Hotel, Sydney Town Hall House and Sydney Square, the ABC Radio and Goossens Hall, Australia's pavilion at the 1988 Expo, the State Library of Victoria extension, Sydney Airport Control Tower, Sydney Olympics 2000 sports halls and a theatre at Sydney Opera House. His body of work across NSW is immense and diverse.
Later in his career, Woolley worked on refurbishment of the Queen Victoria Building, an effort at revival of the Pettit & Sevitt houses and other collaborative projects with his former practice, Ancher Mortlock Woolley. He was a visiting professor at University of NSW and University of Sydney and chaired or was a member on various award, review and competition juries. Woolley was interested in architectural theory and was working on a book, 'People in Glass Houses' about the key point in Modernist architecture, around 1930, when he died.
Throughout his career Woolley received numerous awards, including the Royal Institute of Architects Taubman House Competition Prize (with Michael Dysart) in 1958, Sulman Medal and Bronze Medal in 1962, the Blacket Award in 1964 and 1969, and four Wilkinson Awards. He was also awarded the St. Regis ACI Sisalkraft Travelling Scholarship in 1968, and received Merit Awards from the RAIA, NSW Chapter, in 1972, 1976 and 1978. Ken Woolley was made a Life Fellow of the RAIA in 1976 and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1993. He was made a member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1988 and received a Centenary Medal in 2003 for services to structural engineering.
Ken Woolley died in late 2015. |