Just as exposure to activity imbeds action in the memory of muscle, we are reminded of the comparable imprint into the soul when formative life is spent within great architecture. ‘Morton House’ is an impeccable example of Australian 20th Century domestic design stemming directly from the childhood experiences of second-generation Modernists.
Designed and built (c.1979) by Deirdre and Ivor Morton, a couple who had both been raised in Walter Burley Griffin’s Castlecrag Estate and thus so inescapably immersed in the progressive and creative lives which these, our first bohemians, pursued. So here we find this home stemming from such illustrious foundations, literally placed inside glorious Australian bushland, a central courtyard with magnificent eucalypt at its heart and blanketed in a roof-garden where lyrebirds nest.
Built as a light and shade dappled womb of mudbrick, slate and timber, embracing ideals of indigenous environmental allegiance and architecture ancient yet optimistically futurist all at once. A place that embodies and exudes a set of philosophies where one seeks comfort more and more these days, while the outside world remains adrift, fighting against itself in a ceaseless parade of screaming digital and political milieus. *Sigh*
View the listing here, and original MA article here.
Run by Patricia Callan and Pete Bakacs, Modernist Australia is the passion-project/website dedicated to raising the profile of mid-century design and modernist principles in Australia. For more swell eye-candy, visit Modernistaustralia.com.
