Restoration Australia Season-2 Episode 3 Jack Clarke

"The 1960s introduced us to shag rugs, lava lamps, minimalism and bright, open spaces. Melbourne couple Laura and Reece are leaving inner Melbourne for suburbia, with plans to restore a modernist home to its former glory."

The 1960s house in South Frankston designed by Clarke Hopkins Clarke is subject to Episode 3. But again, restoration is a complete misnomer. It should really be called Demolition Australia. 

The architects claim:

"While the Frankston House is in essence a restoration, it is not a restoration that returns the home to how it was originally built, rather it is a restoration that captures the inspiration that lay behind the first design."

Perhaps their inspiration was Viollet-le-Duc, who said of restoration:

"To restore a building is not to maintain it, repair it or remake it: it is to re-establish it in a complete state which may never have existed at any given moment." 

It is certainly made into something that had never existed.

But even Viollet recognised the primacy of the fabric: The "re-establishment" had to be scientifically documented with plans and photographs and archaeological records, which would guarantee exactness. The restoration had to involve not just the appearance of the monument, or the effect that it produced, but also its structure; it had to use the most efficient means to assure the long life of the building, including using more solid materials, used more wisely. It had to exclude any modification contrary to obvious evidence; but the structure could be adapted to conform to more modern or rational uses and practices, which meant alterations to the original plan; and it should preserve older modifications made to the building, with the exception of those which compromised its stability or its conservation, or those which gravely violated the value of its historical presence.

This could just about be the Burra Charter, with more emphasis put on the reconstruction end of the scale.

Little of the house is left intact. The interior walls are striped of their plaster, several are removed entirely, the ceilings are pulled out, the floor tiles lifted, the built in furniture is stripped, the unfortunate bluestone bar is demolished, the back wall is removed and re-positioned so they can push out the main bedroom to build an en suite, the roof is lifted, the pool is demolished, the garden is cleared out.

Stuart Harrison remarks that it is "gutsy to not knock down a house that is not heritage listed. He makes it sound like demolishing the old and building a new McMansion is some form of enforced social obligation, rather than a demonstration of competitive status seeking.

Jan 2010 the original rusty roof

2016 new roofing iron and solar panels

Oct 2017 the old bedrooms are demolished

2017 renno underway new framing installed

Feb 2018 new roof, raised and extended, pool demo

Jan 2019 landscaping in

Laura feels sorry for the house - they've demolished half of it. So many of the original modernist features have been removed that Laura and Reece must turn to the interior decoration to recapture the Modernist inspiration - so they use some tiles like ones FLW used on some building in Japan. Sheesh what's wrong with Frank Walker. 

Some change might be justified in order to meet modern standards of construction, services and thermal insulation. Calling it a restoration though is dangerous. We are already in a period of relaxed versions of heritage protection. More buildings are facaded or gutted and only token heritage fabric retained. Developers push the envelope both in what then can remove, and what they can put in its place. So to present this sort of show as restoration gives the green light to all those other historic building owners that would like to turn them into open plan, double their size or make space for a big new development and not have to be bothered with fixing up some old bit of building.

Restoration Australia Season 2 has fallen into the usual home renovation show cliches and stereotypes, where ripping out and replacing demonstrates your success. And it is about DRAMA! A roof beam is rotten! The pool is in the wrong place! Wikipedia lists about 116 home renovation TV series. Add one more.

The show does have a thin layer of architectural history overlain over the home renovation template. We learn a bit about Modernism. It was optimistic apparently. and it is about light, and the outdoors, and clean lines, and honest materials.

The Frankston house was designed by a firm closely involved in the Small Homes Service, a scheme to provide modern designs for houses in the economically constrained post war period of suburban expansion. Houses that addressed the suburban mode of living, improved living conditions with indoor toilets, shared living areas and less formal layouts, that made use of the positive aspects of the Australian environment - sun, air and the bush.

Built for Jack Clarke's friend,  Brian Gregory Gloury, (an engineer in the Commonwealth Department of Works and Housing and one time air force cadet and stalwart of the Frankston Cricket Club),  the Ronald Ave house expresses the break with tradition both in its design, and position, turned as it is at a 45 degree skew on the block.

The original design was apparently introduced as a slightly modified version of service plan V376, for "a split level home with a reduced floor area and only 3 bedrooms."

The do-it-yourselfers from the first season appear to have been replace by cashed up hipsters and wealthy elites in the new one.  While the owners are the main actors in front of the camera, the real work is being done by architects and professional building contractors.  This renno cost around $600,000. Houses in Frankston South sell for $700-900,000. The 'modest' Hunting Ground fixup was over a quarter of a million dollars. Paganin wasn't disclosed.

Why they have changed from the budget conscious hands-on owner, to the well-paid contractors format, is unclear, except that the first season took a lot longer to make. The visits were spread out more, and the delays were more prominent. This might be why the new season seems to lack drama and pathos. If you have plenty of money, the issues and conflicts are more readily resolved. If you employ professionals, you also have their egos taking over, and their solutions tend to be more immediate.  None of this waiting until you have time or money or can find the right materials at the price. And we don't even see the conflict between client and architect and contractor. If we did, it might make the series more entertaining.

The Mid-Century Domestic Architecture facebook group has featured the house, and commenting about the Restoration Australia screening that some might find the extent of alterations and modifications confronting. 

The restoration is described as "Elective heritage work" making it sound like cosmetic surgery or a hip replacement. They want to reuse the bricks because you can't get them any more so the tradies spend ages chipping off mortar. Then they don't have enough then they find a perfect match. So they didn't really have to elect to use the old bricks. 

What we are left with are the renovation fetishes; fussing over what sort of tiles, or whether the bricks will exactly match, how much timber paneling is enough, the smoothness of the glass tiles in the bath, how the team "... re-imagines the home through the lens of Julius Shulman’s iconic images" to suggest Frankston is some sort of Palm Springs on the Bay. There is a focus on appearance rather than substance culminating in shots of ironic Warhol cardboard boxes for the move, an Eames chair artfully placed in a sunlit corner and the show's cast padding along the stepping stones in a Mon Oncle garden.

Shame really. The Small Homes Service and modest mid century modernist homes offer salutary lessons about using simple but effective designs, relatively cheap mass-produced materials in innovative ways, and living in a more sustainable and environmentally healthy manner. Fetishising style becomes a neurosis.

There are fortunately other houses and buildings by Clarke Hopkins Clarke that have remained. - 18 Borrell Street Keilor from the 'V375' - Service Plan, 21 Brewster St, Essendon, 14 Nunga Court Mount Eliza. and Jack Clarke's own home at 18 Hutchison Avenue Beaumaris

18 Borrell Street, Keilor

See them before the restorers restorer the life out of them.