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Volume:
John Wardle Architects by Leon van Schaik, et
al
Thames & Hudson, 2008
Hardcover, 316 pages
"Our work strives to be uneven in the experiences
created."
This quote by John Wardle, in an
interview with Davina Jackson, comes at the end of the first
monograph devoted to the Melbourne-based practice of John
Wardle Architects (JWA). After seeing the documentation
on 32 projects and reading four essays on the 23-year-old
firm's processes, design themes, aphorisms, craft, work
with artists, incorporation of allegories and other characteristics,
the statement comes as something of a surprise. With a large
body of built work falling neatly into single-family houses,
low-rise educational facilities, and high-rise urban projects
(residential, office, mixed-use), commonalities exist within
each type, as well as across them. Leon
van Schaik's opening essay sums up the various formal
techniques at Wardle's disposal, such as cross-sectional
extrusions, mannered cuts and frayed ends. These and other
themes or processes are evident in how the plans of single-family
houses seem to be pinched or bent to open up their ends
to desired views, for example. But to sum up Wardle's architecture
as merely reformulations of certain formal maneuvers is
to simplify a complex but liberating working process whose
best traits are found in the final buildings themselves.
A good expression of the firm's desire
to "create contrast within each project" -- extending
the top quote from the Wardle interview -- is this
week's dose, the Melbourne Grammar School in suburban
South Yarra. Contrast occurs on a number of levels, most
notably in the exterior's materiality and composition. A
primarily glass facade is strikingly composed as a series
of boxes corresponding both to internal functions and exterior
views, as the boxes jut out further than others, lean to
reflect the sky, or act as clerestories to bring daylight
inside. Brick seating below this glass front merely hints
at the contrast achieved by the solid masonry wall terminating
the street elevation. The textile-like brick pattern folds
and is further punctuated by "book-like bricks"
set vertically into the wall. It's as if a chip board model's
simple change in plane was taken to a conclusion hardly
logical but much more beautiful than one could have imagined
if the architect did not value the craftsmanship inherent
in making a building.
This tectonic skill and clarity is
prevalent in Wardle's work, becoming one of its defining
characteristics. (The copper inserts between the precast
concrete panels of The University of South Australia's Hawke
Building are a divine detail in their own right.) Combined
with the architect's articulated themes and processes, each
project is an exploration that tells a story as it unfolds.
The monograph's text may focus on a physical description
of each project, but the two-page spreads peppered with
sketches, trace-paper mark-ups, details, models and other
constructions help tell this story. These pages, and the
beautiful photographs by Trevor
Mein and others, elevate this monograph above others
on architects more well-known outside Australia. It is an
elegant document on a practice with a mature body of work
whose architecture deserves a following in all corners of
the globe.
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