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In 1960, Robin Boyd diagnosed the ‘Australian ugliness’ as a neurotic fixation on parts of the house rather than the aesthetic dimensions of the home as a whole. The ‘Australian Ugliness’ is the Metricon-style urban sprawl, its handmaiden is the plaster drywall, its foot soldier is the aluminium fly-screen frame and its spiritual leader is the hills hoist. The ‘Australian Ugliness is not necessarily ugly: today, it hides behind a thinly-veiled veneer of craft beers and open-plan work spaces and as it turns out, the Australian Ugliness isn’t even necessarily Australian. In Frank Lloyd Wright’s The Natural House, the father of modern architecture decries that the house is a “bedeviled box with a fussy lid…and with an especially ugly hole to go in and come out of.” According to Wright, architecture “seemed to consist in what was done to these holes.” The antiseptic, as outlined in The Natural House, is to create a new kind of home that considers the surrounding landscape as well as the needs of its inhabitants. The result is mid-century architecture as we know it — stripped of elaborate awnings, architraves and unnecessary pretence. What is needed in architecture, Wright concludes, is what is most needed in life: a sense of integrity and a commitment to reality. Reading The Natural House feels like a necessary antidote to Ugliness in all of its forms.

Words by: Kasumi Borczyk
Image by: Layla Cluer