Sketchbooks Of Australian Cities

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 4

Sketchbooks Of Australian Cities

Adelaide Sketchbook. Text by Max Lamshed, drawings

by Jeanette McLeod. 62 pp. Rigby. Brisbane Sketchbook. Text by P. Newell, drawings by L'nk White. 62 pp. Rigby. Melbourne Sketchbook. Text by W. H. Newnham, drawings by link White. 62 pp. Rigby.

The Australian publishers, Rigby. Ltd, have added these three books to their popular Sketchbook series in which, in letterpress and picture, interpretations of old and interesting buildings in Australia's cities are presented. Sketchbooks on Sydney and Perth have already appeared in the series. The Melbourne book includes a selection of the grand, substantial-looking

ernmental. educational, commercial—for which the substantial dty of Melbourne is well known. Two sketches that specially please this viewer are of Captain Cook’s Cottage, set in Fitzroy Gardens, and of the Mitre Tavern. a survivor of the day* when Melbourne provided one hotel to every 294 people, compared to one to 2079 in 1965. The lovely Como House is sketched most attractively. Climate, conditions of settlement, and development along different lines are perhaps responsible for denying Brisbane a building “character” of its own. Nevertheless, among Brisbane’s mixture of architectural styles are some very attractive items. The Town Hall, of course, dominates Brisbane’s governmental buildings, and Parliament House is a worthy specimen of the architecture of its age. Newstead House, built in 1846, with its deep, shady verandahs, is one expression of building for Brisbane’s semi-tropical climate; Harriesvale, and an example of the "high stump” houses are others. The Bellevue Hotel could be tet in St Louis without any Aibarras-

ment to the hotel or the ’ Southern United States City. : The work of the convict > builders is preserved in many ! of Brisbane’s old structures. The city of Adelaide boasts - some of Australia’s best i architecture. The dty has its I full share of Grecian columns, ’ and apparently less of the i romantic and baroque re- ; main* to be sketched than in I the dtie* further east. Adelt aide’s reputation as “the city i Of churches” is fully sustained ' by the sketches in the Ade- , laide Sketchbook. The pride is i St Peter’s Cathedral, the i sketch of which is reproduced ' here. Max Lamshed’s text dis- ■ closes an interesting South • Island of New Zealand con- ' tribution to this cathedral. . Plans to build the cathedral t in brick were vetoed by the ■ Bishop, who insisted* upon

stone. Amendments to the original plans, Mr Lamshed records, included “Tea Tree Gully stone for the facings, Murray Bridge freestone for the dressings, and New Zealand Mount Summer* stone for the caps and columns of’ the principal ‘ openings.” “Mount Summers” should,: of course, be Mount Somers, the name- of a now-dosed quarry from which a stone rather harder than the Oamaru stone was takeu.

With Australia’s five main cities dealt with in the Sketchbook series, one must naturally wonder whether Messrs Rigby will venture across the Tasman for more subjects; or Is there an enterprising New Zealand publisher who will emulate a most worthy publishing venture? ’(f