Elizabeth Farrelly

2 months ago | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Elizabeth Farrelly

Fires and floods. The message is getting harder to ignore, assiduously as we try. It is increasingly evident that nature has something to tell us. Something urgent. Basically, we’re not on top. In Australia, whose edges we cling to like ants fleeing a hotplate, we’re hearing calls for a “managed retreat”  from the coast. At the same time, increasingly destructive bushfires advocate a similar withdrawal from the bush. Then there’s all the floodplains we’ve approved for development in recent years.

Feb 25, 2025 | architectureau.com | Tom Grant |Elizabeth Farrelly

Just when you thought modernism’s Great Man theory of architecture might be safely entombed with the rest of that wildly destructive century, out pops a film like The Brutalist. Not since the 1949 film of The Fountainhead has an architecture flick been more seductive – nor more self-aggrandising, sententious and just plain wrong. Both films promote the misunderstood architect-hero.

Jan 20, 2025 | architectureau.com | Tom Grant |Elizabeth Farrelly

My favourite street sign reads “Beware. Pedestrians.” I love the implied image of pedestrians as fierce and ravening hordes that might attack some hapless car and devour it, bloodily, no questions asked. Yes! I think. Guerilla pedestrians! Those we need more of. Of course, the sign actually intends the opposite of this, a paternalistic protectionism that casts pedestrians as a victim class, deserving tolerance but not respect.

Nov 26, 2024 | architectureau.com | Tom Grant |Elizabeth Farrelly

Anyone who’s been apartment-hunting lately knows that the despised ’70s redbrick walk-ups, though considered mean at the time, generally offer more protective benevolence – more sense of home – than anything built this century. Not only are they more solidly built and reliably waterproof, but their more generous space standards also typically come with such old-school luxuries as separate kitchens, laundries, toilets and linen cupboards. And true, some of this bespeaks regulatory or policy change.

Nov 15, 2024 | thesaturdaypaper.com.au | Elizabeth Farrelly

The ideal city – can we even imagine such a thing? Two-and-a-half millennia ago, about 375BC, Plato did exactly that. His Republic described a city shaped by absolute beauty, truth and, above all, justice. This may seem absurd now, but maybe that’s why our cities are riven by ugliness, distrust and inequity. How might Plato’s ideal look now, on the cold, hard ground of modernity?