Stephanie G. Mathis He was known for his attendance at every RMIT University exhibition. His unwavering dedication to RMIT University was a key factor in the school’s current status as an architecture school. He would spend three to four hours lectures on architecture history, accompanied by hundreds of pictures, in which he would explain the principles of modern architects. They were both dramatic characters and architects, and they all had hopes and disappointments.
He saw these “centers,” unlike many Australian architects who tend to view architecture produced in overseas metropolises as a reliable standard of excellence. He placed Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn into a context that was unfamiliar to us, namely the American culture of anxiety. He also rejected Australia’s cultural cringe.
He was a man of integrity and integrity alone. He would stop us in our tracks if he felt we were slipping, glossing over, or choosing easy options. He was always at war with fuzzy thinking, for example, by challenging the common assumption that Australia is a “suburban wilderness.”
He would think all the time. Corrigan, at least in architecture, did not follow the usual intellectual progression: from a young enactment or passion of someone else to a fixed pattern and certainty that defined their identity.
He never really belonged to any particular school or movement. Integrity and a commitment to architecture were the only elements that could not be reduced in his building designs.
He was always amazed at the stories he told, which were mostly about his and other people’s amazing luck. He would relate an issue to a larger point and use a vivid story of a miraculous event in order to illustrate the point.
A tower with polygonal shapes bumped up against the rounded facets of a living room wing. The upper hooded windows looked like a mouth. What was wrong with some domestic aspiration when a huge crystal chandelier was the focal point of the main hall? Did Australian buildings have to be in a divine order?
Corrigan’s designs were based on this sense of “movement” and “energy,” as Corrigan described it. Edmond and Corrigan designed buildings that were characterized by a theatrical flair and a sense of mobility.
Athan House from the rear perspective. via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
The Athan House, a semi-rural residence in a v shape with a triangular open courtyard at its center, showed me the many dramatic possibilities of a finished building. Instead of a continuous porch around the house, the ramps, walkways, and bridges almost stagger out into the bush.
The house wings were mirrored backward, allowing you to see another room between two windows, with exterior space in the middle. This makes the interior of the house look like the compressed and half-viewed apartments found within inner city areas.
The sky was the limit for architecture, as it did not have to be perfected through simplification.
The Parish School in Melbourne, which was visited by students and architects from around the world when I brought my students there, featured the vibrant 19th-century polychrome stripes that can be seen on so many Melbourne suburban terraces or railway stations.
He loved the suburban bungalow with its veranda. The Parish Church had bay windows, and a wide Vatican II nave. The wide veranda has a slouching, blowsy curve.
Inspiring an entire movement
It was now possible for Australian architects to stay at home and “bite and battle,” as Corrigan put it: You didn’t need to travel overseas to practice “proper” architectural design. He felt it was your duty to stay in Australia and immerse yourself in the complexity of its culture to solve this problem here.
His influence led to more young architects staying in Melbourne during the 1970s and 1980s and opening offices. Sydney, on the other hand, absorbed bright young architects into established firms, assimilation them into wider, less questioned traditions.
Corrigan played a pivotal role in the transformation of Australian architecture from the 1970s through the 1990s, which was the most radical change since the Federation Period of 1890-1910 or the full explosion of architectural modernism in the period between 1930 and 1950.
The Victorian College of the Arts Theatre in Southbank, Melbourne. Rory Hyde/Flickr CC-BY-SA
Peter Corrigan, in this way, was at the forefront of the new Melburnian-style movement that emerged during the 1990s. Foreign architects gravitated towards Melbourne in increasing numbers, often confused, attracted by the creativity and innovations of the time.
He spent a lot of time abroad despite his strong feelings for Australia. Corrigan chose to study in the United States when most Australians opted for British education. He went to Asia in 1963, a year that was not favorable for him. Through Laos and Vietnam, which were at war, he made his way to Japan to study Noh.
Peter rejected orthodoxy, but he did not abandon a long-held myth of architectural modernism, the hero architect who reforms. He was drawn to architects who, despite being marginalized or isolated, used their designs to spread their ideas.
This idea was viewed in many ways as dated in the 1980s, partly due to feminist criticism of the concept of “heroes” and partly because historians and critics were skeptical and cautious.
His pursuit of integrity included his desire to see many of his students become heroes.
It was only natural that, with his broad intelligence and enthusiasm as a base, his greatest personal quality would be generosity. Even if a razor-sharp mouth often tempered this. He was disappointed by those who lived in an eternal Coventry.
