Mid-Century Ipswich: 1946-1969 - Chasing Our Past At Home (Transcription)

[b]Deannah: [/b][i]Good evening everyone and welcome. My name is Deannah Vieth and I'm a Team Leader with the library's Public Programming team. Thank you very much for joining us this evening for Chasing Our Past at Home, the first one for 2021. We would like to commence the evening by acknowledging the traditional custodians on whose land we gather this evening and pay our respects to elders past, present and emerging. We are very glad that you've been able to join us tonight from the comfort of your own home. We just ask that everyone keep their microphones on mute for the presentation. If you do have a question you'll see a little chat button at the bottom or side of your screen and you can type your question in the chat. If your questions aren't responded to during the presentation, we will ensure they are at the end. Now the other thing we'd love you to do is we can see attendees login but we realise that there may be more than one person sitting in front of your computers or any of your devices this evening. Could you please indicate in the chat how many people are watching from your home tonight. We'd be very grateful. We will be recording tonight's session for inclusion in the Picture Ipswich collection as a resource but typed questions in the chat will not be part of the recording. Now tonight we have the pleasure of hearing from Melanie Rush, digital archivist and historian with Picture Ipswich. Melanie has been active in the history and heritage community in Ipswich for over 15 years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and three postgraduate qualifications. Melanie has been the digital archivist with Picture Ipswich since March 2019 and I'd love to hand over to Melanie. Hi Melanie.[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] Hi De, hi everybody else. Thank you for coming tonight. So are we ready to begin? [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Yep, I will disappear and see you all at the end.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Okay. Well welcome everybody tonight to another Chasing Our Past at Home and tonight our topic is mid-century Ipswich. So, as the 20th century dawned there was this cause for optimism in Ipswich although we were a reluctant participant in federation, with the city actually voting no in the referendum, we nevertheless embraced this new sense of nationhood. Yeah, we were supporting the Boer War in South Africa, the vote for women, we joined the rest of the British Empire in mourning the death of Queen Victoria, we developed a sense of confidence that resulted in Ipswich being declared a city in 1904. We also experienced some mini building boom with new estates, like the old Grange Racecourse site at Raceview, opening for development. This is a period when a number of landmark buildings were constructed, Fairy Knoll, St Mary's church, the post office. It was also a time when things were made in Ipswich with the Booval butter factory, the flour mill on the top of town, expansion of the railway workshops, coal mining and woollen mills. The city was producing soap, lollies, soft drinks, we had tailors and dressmakers, local tinsmiths. Everybody was creating things that could be made in Ipswich, sold in Ipswich. There was also the Dinmore pottery, brickworks, breweries, foundries, joineries, furniture makers, coach builders. Also in these early years there was culture. We had cafes, we had sporting clubs, bands, choirs, very strong musical influence that runs throughout Ipswich history. There were moving pictures that started talking. There was the motor car took us places, enabling picnics, holidays beyond the limits of the railway track. But we know the story of the 20th century. We know how things go, that they do not continue this way. The dark days were coming. There were the strikes, epidemics including plague, typhoid and diphtheria. Then there were the darkest days of them all - the war -followed by the 1918 and 1919 flu pandemic which I think we can all now appreciate just a little bit more. The 1920s were just as bleak with recession, job losses, mine closures, drought and the beginnings of the Great Depression. Just as things started to improve in the 1930s, those dark storm clouds from Europe again rolled over the city. But this time the war came to Ipswich. We were at the front line, the Brisbane line. We had the RAAF base at Amberley, in a military camp at Redbank. The city was inundated with American soldiers and just about everything was rationed. These were the formative years of the silent generation. This is the generation that came after the greatest generation. This is the generation that gave birth to the baby boomers. This silent generation grew up during the struggles of the depression and the war, and few would know economic security or peace in their childhoods. So it's a little wonder that this generation, this silent generation, my grandparent's generation, it's a little wonder that they were being sold, even as the war continued with no end in sight, this dream of tomorrow, of a better tomorrow, a post-war dream in the shape of land, health, all the modern conveniences electricity could provide and of course the ideal family, which at the time would have been the male breadwinner, the perfect housewife and the well-behaved children to go along with it. This post-war dream was called into service to keep morale high as the war continued. Now tonight's presentation is very much going to be focusing on architecture, domestic architecture, and how domestic architecture changed and how that change in domestic architecture also affected us as family units, as individuals. So the few homes that were built in Ipswich during the 1940s continued to reflect the styles of the 1930s and even the 1920s, with the popular design at the time being the adapted timber version of the California bungalow or by now the Queensland bungalow. The differences between houses that were built during the 1940s and the older homes that inspired them was the use of some cost cutting measures that could reduce material and transport costs and minimse labor, for instance joinery became simpler in design. Existing houses were extended by cheaper and, in some instances, more brutal means. Verandas were closed in to form sleepouts and other living spaces. The fate of many of our larger Ipswich homes was for them to be divided and converted to flats. This was after the land around where these grand estates had been was already subdivided and turned into new housing estates. For the most part however, during this, you know the early stages of the 1940s during the war, new building - it just simply ceased to exist during the war years. Non-essential industries were closed. Manufacturing that wasn't related to the war effort virtually ceased and all building materials were reserved for military and government use. Yes, I know this image on the screen is horrific but, if we have a look, there's a positive outcome when the verandas were removed. So our old houses were saved in the most part. With victory came the opportunity for Ipswich to take stock of its position. So, as we said, there'd been no new construction in the city for years and this had been part of the war effort. The city itself? Roads were damaged by the heavy military vehicles, council equipment needed upgrading, in fact a lot of things needed replacing from people's clothing to factory equipment. But there was some hope. Ipswich was doing reasonably well. We had new collieries and the Moreton Field remained the largest producer of coal in Queensland yielding 47% of the state's output in 1949. We had our meat and butter processing which expanded and there was an increase in the production of timber products, very important for all this new building that's about to start. There is chemical and tobacco manufacturing introduced in the city and Redbank saw a growth in industry. Ipswich experienced a population boom and, to cater for this excess of new residents, suburbs were expanded to the east. I love the two maps that we have up on the screen at the moment. The one on your left was taken on the 1st of May 1944 and the one on the right 20th of April 1969. I know the one on the right is a little bit blurry but, if you have a look closely, you can see the expansion of Ipswich suburbs and most of these were happening to the east. The eastern suburbs were preferred due to their proximity to the railway line and, if you know this map or if you can tell a layout of Ipswich quite well from an aerial photo, you will actually see the railway line in there and all the housing is really following that. So our new housing estates, they also brought about expansion of electricity, water and sewerage networks, although at first a lack of these services did keep rates low for new home builders. So that's another reason why these eastern suburbs were preferred. By the late 1950s, we had large estates planned for Redbank, Ebbw Vale and Riverview but, despite the availability of land, the post-war dream home would continue to be delayed for many until the middle of the 1950s. So, while saving for land and building materials, many newlyweds had no choice but to stay with in-laws and family, sleeping in their childhood bedrooms with spouse and young children due to a lack of rental accommodation in the city. If you'll indulge me for a moment, I'm going to talk about my grandparents. First up we have my father's parents and this is the house that they eventually built. They were married in 1947 and they had to live in my grandmother's childhood home with my grandmother's parents, my grandmother's brother and his wife. They were still there two years later when my aunt was born, so you have three couples and a baby sharing a house until the materials became available to build. My grandfather had already bought the land, they just needed the materials to be able to build it. Another, my other grandfather, he had a cousin who lived in a fibro garage whilst her husband built their fibro house. Now we come to my mother's parents. They married in 1950. They lived under the house that had belonged to my grandfather's grandparents so my grandma and grandpa lived downstairs and, by all accounts, my grandmother kept the cleanest dirt floor in all of Ipswich and my grandfather's sister and her family lived upstairs. So two couples, children, upstairs, downstairs, all living in the same house. Because once the war was over access to building materials actually remained restricted until the end of 1952. So the war ends in 1945 but the building material restriction doesn't end until 1952 and, because of this, the government actually placed controls on the sizes of new houses. Much like today's government mandate on new block sizes and housing estates due to limited land, well in this instance, it was due to limited building materials. So in this period our houses begin to become smaller. We have fewer rooms and we call the period Austerity, and these houses are our Austerity houses. So when we think of our great homes of Ipswich, we're usually thinking of the Colonial, the Victorian, Federation, the Queensland bungalows. These houses would never be built again in the city and this was simply because of limited building supplies and government regulations. But there was also something else that was happening. There was this attitudinal shift after the war so those quintessential elements of the classic Queenslander - the multiple gables, the cast iron lace balustrades, your cast iron or timber friezes, lattice panels, window hoods, the iconic wrap-around verandas - they were suddenly seen as frivolous and old-fashioned to a generation whose formative years were defined by depression and war. So our architectural taste simply changed during this period. What does the classic Austerity house look like? What are its features? Well, the first thing that you'll notice is the absence of the wrap-around verandas. With the limits on the overall floor plan, precious space and building materials could not be wasted on the verandas at the expense of the interior living space. So the veranda was the first element to go. It was replaced with a small porch or patio because of course it simply would not have been seen decent to invite a visitor directly into your house. You had to have that front landing first. To shade windows and add some limited climate control to the building, narrow eaves or overhangs were also used as a substitute for the absent veranda. Another thing that happens is houses begin to move closer to the ground. So a building directly onto a concrete slab was yet to become the norm but as you can see in the images on this slide and in the next one, houses are getting lower. They're still standing on stumps but they're just a lot lower than the neighboring Queenslanders. The one room in the house that was likely to be built on a concrete slab was the laundry as we can see in this plan So, I think I can get a little pen to demonstrate to you, this here is the laundry and it's built on a small slab at the back of the house with access to the main house via several steps from the laundry and it usually goes into the kitchen in these style of houses. Some other features of the 1950s house include a triple hipped roof, but the the roof lines were actually gradually getting lower during this period. You would have brick or timber walls, external walls, however timber still dominates as the building material of choice in Queensland. It's not until the century progressed that weatherboard and the fibro external walls were replaced with the ubiquitous brick which would characterise house design from the late 1960s on. That's purely because of the availability of timber, so southern states have a lot more brick buildings, brick houses whereas in Queensland we were building with timber because it was here, it was available. Windows would wrap around corners, terracotta roof tiles were becoming more available but, like timber, tin continued to dominate in Queensland for the the first part of this mid-century period. You would have the front porch and you would also have some glass louvres for better airflow. Another feature to note on this blueprint is the room size and functionality of those rooms. If you think of the typical Queenslander built with high ceilings to support airflow, well, they also had those spacious central hallways with the front and back doors opening at either end of the hallway and you'd have your rooms coming off the side. Here, and I'll show you again, is the hallway. As you can see it's not lined up with any doors. There's no direct access to the outside of the house unless you have windows open in the bathroom or the sleepout. The the other thing that changes because of the limited size and the size of the rooms and the limiting of number of rooms, is that our rooms have to start to serve multiple functions. So during this period we don't have a separate space for greeting your guests like a sitting room or parlour. Instead this would be done in the family's lounge room or, increasingly, the kitchen. The kitchen becomes important during this time. It becomes this combined space. So we also lose the separate dining room, and of course workers' cottages didn't have all these extra rooms but the bigger houses did. So we lose our separate dining room and the housewife, because you've got to remember this is the 1950s so it was definitely the housewife, would prepare the meal and the family would eat all in the same space as the meal preparation was taking place. This is a big change in our houses and the way the family interacts. This particular house has an extension that was added in the 1960s at the rear, a rumpus room. So this is a space that would become a key feature of new builds in the later part of the 1960s and 1970s and it becomes this substitute for the space that people lost when our houses got close to the ground. So if you think of, you know, the Queenslander, the Queensland bungalow, they're on the high stilts and underneath you have room for children to play. But now we start adding rumpus rooms to our houses so it's room for children to play in the rumpus room, it's a substitute for a parlour to receive visitors, it's a place for the family to relax and it gives you that direct access to the garden. Now interestingly, before I leave the rumpus room on this particular house, in the corner of this rumpus room there is also a shower installed. Different I know but showers were not common features of bathrooms when this house was first built in 1952. So can you just imagine what an interesting way to greet guests when they arrive at the back door as you are exiting the shower with towel in place? Anyway interesting. This house is actually the house my grandparents built and it's the house that I now live in so that's why I can tell you a fair bit about its history. The skeleton of the house also changed during this post-war period. It became a simple stud frame concealed behind weatherboard asbestos cement sheeting or, later, a brick veneer unlike the exposed frame and bracing of earlier houses. We also have this change internally from the traditional tongue and groove walls being replaced by new synthetic particle boards such as CSR's canaanite or masonite, or like the outside, we had the fibro sheeting. As I said earlier, roof pitches begin to drop becoming almost flat for some houses and most of the houses in the earlier part of 50s are very plain. They're fairly unadorned but they're not completely unadorned. There are accents with wrought and cast iron. They get extensively used on porches and patios and as verandas begin to make a comeback in the 1960s. So one of the most popular building materials of this period is of course the asbestos cement sheeting and it revolutionised the building industry in the 1950s when the product was at the height of its popularity. This is a display home in, I think, North Ipswich area with asbestos sheeting. So, interestingly, there's archaeological evidence that suggests asbestos was actually utilised as a material by early humans to strengthen urbanware pots and cooking utensils so, if you've ever seen asbestos rock, it's very, very fibrous and strong. It was initially imported to Australia in the early 1900s in the form of flat panels used for wall linings and as corrugated sheets for roofing, and as we know, James Hardy was one of the main producers of asbestos sheeting and it first started manufacturing fibro cement locally, calling it fibrolite. Oh the house is Toowoomba Road, Brassell. There was a second company, Wunderluch, or Wunderlich, I'm not sure. They manufactured you Durabestos which local hardware stores, like McKenzie and Jackson who are on the corner of East and Limestone Streets, they started stocking this product for the owner builders. At first the asbestos fibro cement was considered brittle and unattractive but the scarcity of other more expensive building materials and because of its fire retardant properties, it quickly became an ideal choice for houses built in the post-war era. It was used extensively in ceilings, floors, as backing of carpet and vinyl flooring, inside chimneys, roof sheeting, garages, carports, wet areas like bathroom, laundry and kitchen and, of course, your internal and external walls. By 1961, it had been estimated that sixty thousand Queensland homes had walls that were clad in asbestos cement. Thankfully it was less popular as a roofing material, particularly for those who still had tank water. One of the main decorative features of the fibro version of these houses was the D-mould cover strip on external walls. I am actually sitting in what used to be the front porch and you can see over in the corner there some of that de-mould cover strip, one of the few rooms that is actually asbestos walls in this house. So plans for small houses were widely available in newspapers, magazines and promotional material produced by companies like Wunderlich for the owner builder, and this is really the key thing about this period and about the use of asbestos, and why it was so popular was because you had a lot of owner builders. You know the families were trying to save money by building their own home so the plans were freely available everywhere, material was cheap and asbestos was, as we know now, very dangerous but it was kind of easy to work with. Having said that, we actually have a lot of builders that are active in Ipswich, particularly based around the eastern suburbs in the 1950s. I'm going to go through the next few slides very, very quickly because I just want to give you an impression of the number of builders that were actively working in Ipswich in 1956 and who were advertising in the UBD directory. So we have four volumes I think of the UBD directory on Picture Ipswich. I highly recommend that you go and have a look at them. They're a really good read for the advertising. Ads, and this is all from the 1956 UBD directory that I'm about to show you, so ads include samples of houses that they have built, the sketches that look like they come from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens, but I think it's a really interesting collection of houses and quite an array of builders. You also have some bathroom fittings coming in there and of course we start to get the electricity and household, this one we've got some furniture. So as you can see from that very quick display there's a lot, this is a real time of building boom in Ipswich, particularly in those eastern suburbs. Now we're just going to have a slight detour into public housing and the Queensland Housing Commission. So it was established in 1945 and became a major developer in the housing market during the post-war period. Previously the government had loaned money to families to build their homes with the Workers Dwelling Act in 1909 being the first of a number of legislative provisions in Queensland to provide loans up to 300 pounds to enable workers to build their own homes on their own land. After the Second World War, the Commonwealth provided funds to the states to address the housing shortage with the Queensland Housing Commission being the result. Unlike with the workers dwellings, the State built and retained ownership of the houses, renting them out at a modest rate. Now here's a bit of trivia for you - the first of the Commission's houses were actually built in Ipswich at numbers 14 and 16 Bostock Street, so there they are. To begin with the houses were built amongst existing privately owned houses, like the two in Bostock Street, but they were soon being built in larger groups and they were helping to create these new suburbs of Leichhardt and Riverview. The design of the Commission's houses were referred to as Modern but in reality they shared very few of the characteristics of the Brisbane Modern or even the postwar Brisbane Regional that was developing at this time as as a distinctive design, and we'll explore them in a moment. Instead these houses were simplified. They were unadorned versions of earlier house styles. They were characterised by their square or rectangular floor plans, small casement windows which required less glass and, as corrugated roof sheeting lost favour, they began to have concrete roof tiles. One observable difference between the Housing Commission builds and the private homes of this era was that the Commission homes were still being set high on concrete stumps thus enabling this economical way to make provision for a laundry and provide a covered ventilated area that was a substitute to the missing verandas. It could also be an area to park the car under the house, area for the children to play, you know the man to have his workbench. In the 1960s and even into the 1980s, many of the Housing Commission homes were still built as in this kind of style, this combination of, you know by the 80s, a brick lower level and then your weatherboard upper. Before we go and have a look at some other styles of houses, I think we should have some fun and have a look at some of the exceptional examples of 1950s house designs in Ipswich. So we have the Four Winds which is a post-war home in Jacaranda Street, North Booval. Then there is Zahnow residence which is on the corner of Glebe Road and Stafford Street at Booval and, perhaps the best known of them all, the Duce house built for Norm and Norma Duce in 1953 on the corner of Brisbane Road and Fox Street. There's an unusual feature to this house at the time and that is that it had a swimming pool. So one of the first private homes in Ipswich to actually have a swimming pool; swimming pools don't become popular in Ipswich suburbs and other suburbs until the 1970s. So this swimming pool was actually in the front yard and Brisbane Road's a very busy road so an interesting place to have a swimming pool. Because our houses at this period were not as adorned with all the fancy fretwork and the verandas and everything that the houses of earlier generations were, during the 1950s gardens become this essential element of the postwar dream home. So the lazy Sunday afternoon spent relaxing in the backyard, your own little piece of Australia, sound of lawn mowers, sprinklers - these are all synonymous with the sounds of an Australian summer. Front yards were adorned with green lawns, bright and colorful flower beds blooming with nasturtiums, sweet peas, snapdragons and, of course the perennial favorite, the roses along with shrubs and ornamental trees. There could be strip gardens on one side of the house and the other side would usually be dominated by a driveway and a carport and garage. In the backyard there would be more lawn, perfectly manicured lawn, trellises with climbing plants to screen the view of neighbours. There would be the fruiting trees, especially the Bowen mango. You had to have a mango tree, a lemon tree, a veggie patch, a garden shed and the Hills Hoist clothesline. During this period we have some garden competitions running in Ipswich. They're very popular and you could have whole streetscapes, like Coyne Street here in Leichhardt, that were just taken over by this explosion of colour come spring and summer and I know what we're all thinking right now, they didn't have to pay their water bills to be able to get flowers that incredible. Let's have a look at the inside of these houses. So when we think of this period, the first new piece of electrical equipment that we really think of is probably the TV and our lounge chairs and sofas. Instead of facing each other so we could have conversations, they suddenly turned and faced the TV. But there are other electrical appliances at this time, the ones that designed to help with housework that brought on a revolution. So women were still expected to leave work after marriage and certainly by the time they became mothers, so on offer to them was an array of labour-saving appliances. There are vacuum cleaners, washing machines in an assortment of Gaytone colours - if you look up this brand of washing machine have a look at some images, really bright colours, pastel colours - there was new gas or electric stoves, the refrigerators and how can we ever forget the stainless steel sink. You can never forget the kitchen sink. Attitudes were beginning to change by the 1960s and these labour-saving devices played their small part in the Women's Liberation Movement. You know, it allowed women to have a bit more free time. However, in 1961 there was still only 22 percent of Ipswich women who were in the workforce. Now I talked about the colour of the washing machines. Colour becomes everything. We become very colourful at this time so I'm sorry we've only got black and white photos. But you might be able to see in this image of the Cribb and Foote, i think 1959 Ipswich Show display, the venetian blinds are all a different colour. So I'm going to give you another 1950s kitchen because i just like 1950s kitchens, so I give you two. A key component component of interior design were light fittings. So you would have more subtle lighting favoured in lounge and bedrooms, either in the form of a central light or wall lights, and for kitchens and bathrooms there was the fluorescent light tube. So the fluorescent light tube is really starting to be used in homes in domestic settings at this time and you could have a assortment of light shades. This particular display is in the City Electric Light Company store in Brisbane Street 1951. So it's displaying a lot of glass blown light shades but, as the 50s progress into the 60s, we have more plastic shades, chrome, paper or cellulose and, you know, for the table and standing lights you can also have fabric. One of the other changes during this period internally was the designs and furniture. So furniture was still very heavy and solid at the beginning of the 50s. This is a Genoa lounge suite sold by Platz and Herbert in Brisbane Street. I actually have a Genoa lounge suite, sorry it's just there. I was going to film in the lounge room so you could see it but you just have to look at the photos. Then later on, as we approach the 60s, into the 60s, there's that influence of Scandinavian designers and our furniture becomes lighter in both form and fabric. If you want to spend a couple of really interesting hours, few hours, check out the Ikea Museum website. They have a complete collection of Ikea catalogues dating back from the 1950s on so it's a very good way to spend a few hours. You also have built-in wardrobes that come later in the 1960s. So prior to this we have freestanding and matching units as well. So the 1950s designs were a bit heavier and they were finished in a darker veneer but by the 60s, you have these lighter bedroom suites and usually made from laminated materials. So this collection, this suite is made by Jordan's Furniture at Wulkuraka in 1963. Again a lot of things are being made locally still. So let's have a look at the 1960s now, what is happening in Ipswich. There's a few major changes. For one, Brisbane and Limestone Streets are converted into their one-way system in June of 1961. In August of that year, the city's first traffic lights were installed at the intersection of Brisbane and Nicholas, Brisbane and East, Limestone and Nicholas, and Limestone and East Streets. So these are our first traffic lights. In 1961, Ipswich elected our first female Councillor, Vi Jordan, who was then elected as the Member for Ipswich West in 1966, and the Council itself was led by Mayor Jim Finnemore. He was first elected in 1949 and remained in that position until 1973. So he covers the entire mid-century period for us. In 1962, we had a ten pin bowling alley opened in Brisbane Street and, a little bit controversial, but a change in council bylaws actually allowed it to open on a Sunday. We had the David Trumpy Bridge opening in 1965, exactly a hundred years after the 1865 Bremer River Bridge was constructed. So the steel work was made by Scotts of Ipswich. By the end of the decade, the natural gas was introduced to Ipswich so the North Ipswich Gasworks site was closed. Beach holidays remained popular and there would be, you know, stories of little Ipswich where it seemed like there was an additional suburb on the beach just of Ipswich residents. But overseas air travel was becoming more affordable and you have more Ipswich residents who are undertaking grand tours of the mother country which of course is Britain and Europe. We do have some more darker times with the Korean War in the 50s and Vietnam War in the 1960s, and Air Force personnel from Amberley and young Ipswich men whose number had come up in the draft serving in the conflict. We have high schools being built and the school leaving age was increased to 15 so more Ipswich kids were spending their days in the classroom. One of the biggest changes to come in the 1960s would affect the retail sector of Ipswich. So in 1969, the Woolworths Family Centre opened at Booval. This is our first true suburban shopping centre. Big W was seen as a threat to the CBD traders who responded with facelifts and air conditioners for their stores and, in the case of Cribb and Foote, they built the city's first multi-story car park in Bell Street. It was also the first multi-story car park outside of Brisbane I understand. The decade ended with the end of an era, the last of the steam train services. So our Ipswich railway workshops move away from steam trains to the diesel and eventually electric. Let's return to some architecture. So before the war, the Queensland domestic architecture had its own unique style not found elsewhere in the country and it was characterised by its dominant building materials of timber and tin. So we're all familiar with the Queenslander. From the late 1950s however, that distinctive style was almost instantly replaced by this new global architecture. Almost as a reaction perhaps against the divisions of the early 20th century, globalisation came to characterise the second half of the 20th century. This idea that a world united could not fight against itself, obviously cold war tensions aside. Globalisation affected the manufacturing, food production, communication and entertainment, and architecture was not immune to these global forces and we have the introduction of the International style. This was characterised by sleek designs and most notably, if you know the United Nations Headquarters in New York, a really good example of the international style. So these new glass skyscrapers that celebrated the rectangle were domesticated with some flat roofed houses, complete with large panels of glass, such as exemplified in Rose Seidler House in New South Wales, designed for his mother by the architect Harry Seidler. In southeast Queensland the International style developed a vernacular variation and here enters Karl Langer. He was an Austrian who immigrated to Brisbane by 1939. He found work as an architect, a town planner, a part-time lecturer and he demonstrated to other Queensland architects that a house could successfully be built on a slab on the ground, with rooms that opened out to semi-tropical gardens that became this extension of the living space. In Ipswich, Langer designed several buildings including the new St John's Lutheran Church, and he designed this centenary building, the classroom block at Ipswich Grammar School, and for Ipswich Girls Grammar School he designed the assembly hall. A piece of domestic architecture which Karl Langer designed was this 1963 house for John McQueen at Raceview. So the post-war Brisbane Regional style is introduced by Langer and demonstrated how, as i said, how a house could sit on the ground, how it could open out to a semi-tropical garden, and that garden itself could act as an extension of the living space. We're very fortunate to have some interior photos taken by Whiteheads at the time the house was first built. So you can see in here the use of timber, the lighter furniture, those big glass panels, we have windows and doors that open out into the garden and, just a few more interiors, and then this next slide we have another swimming pool and we have a garden inside just for something a little bit different. So let's have a look at some more common domestic architecture from this time. Central concern of houses and architects at this time was climate. So this is in the era pre-air conditioners in the house so we're looking very much at passive cooling techniques, the low-pitched gable roof over the linear floor space to maximise cross ventilation and we also have, as i said roofs are getting much flatter, we have the eaves starting to extend out more to form verandas and these were accessed through glass sliding doors. There'll be blinds, screens, and panels could also feature between veranda posts providing shade and cooling to the house inside. There is adjustable glass aluminium louvres installed below sash windows and, sorry I should have pointed them out on the previous image, and this, you know, having the windows above and the louvres underneath was something that would also be incorporated into many classroom designs across green zones, you could get that cross ventilation across the classroom as well. The setting of the house moved away from those glorious manicured lawns we were looking at a few moments ago from the 1950s. So we begin to lose the flower beds and we begin to favour and accept more native trees and shrubs so the house and the landscape become more organically entwined in this period, which you can definitely see in this image here. Sorry, my image has moved over but the script on the page has not. I'll go to the next image, hope for the best. Okay, in Ipswich there were very few brick houses as I said that were built during the 19th and early 20th century when compared to southern states for the simple reason that timber was available in relatively cheap building materials. So our brick houses were reserved for commercial premises, institutional buildings and those grander Ipswich homes. Come the 1960s and 1970s however, brick begins to take over our suburbs. Unfortunately I didn't have a photo of the concrete breeze blocks but we do have a panel at the front of this house made of bricks, gives you the same kind of effect. So as I said you know concrete breezeway blocks have became very popular in the 1960s as well and they created the decorative walls, fences, screens between stumps and underneath elevated houses and, sorry I've lost myself... So also during this period you've got the timber frames of houses are also beginning to be replaced as a building material in favour of steel and concrete. So you could create these greater spans like those that were seen in the rooms of the McQueen house earlier. One thing that's a quite an obvious change to the house in this period is the construction of and location of the garage. So prior to this period, garages were built as separate freestanding buildings. Here's building plans for the garage at this house and you can see it's located in the back corner of the yard. They keep them in the back allotment. This was sort of a carry over day you know from the days of the horse and sulky and it worked well with the wider allotment perches. But as the width of the allotment contracted and also as car ownership rose, garages began to be incorporated into the house design. First you would have your single car garage, as you can see an example is up here, and then your two car garages as more families became two car families. So this brings about another change in the house design; to be able to fit the car under the house you've got to start to raise the house again. So in the early 50s we're lowering the house, in the early part of the 60s we're building straight onto the concrete slab but we begin to raise the house again so that we can fit that car and it also creates those new spaces underneath like your rumpus room. You would keep your laundry underneath there. As the family expanded you could add additional, you know convert spaces into additional bedrooms. Okay I don't have a photo for this, sorry. I tried to get one and it didn't work but I want you to to think about a particular road in Ipswich. If you know this road and if you know Ipswich well enough, I want you to think about Glebe Road from The Five Ways down through to Stafford Street. Next time you're out and about, drive along Glebe Road and start observing. Look at the houses as you drive through the suburbs. So Glebe Road covers Newtown, Booval, Silkstone. At The Five Ways you have those traditional and iconic Queenslanders. By the time you reach Cameron Park and Silkstone School, you start to see the Austerity era houses being spotted in and amongst the 1920s and 1930s Queensland bungalows. In a side street near the park are those first two Queensland Housing Commission houses I talked about. At the intersection of South Station Road turning north, you can head towards Brisbane Road intersection. A little bit further you've got the Booval train station so we're developing east. We've got a train station nearby. There of are course several churches along Glebe Road showing the importance that religion has played in suburban growth, then there's Booval Fair, the first suburban shopping centre in Ipswich. All of this adds to demonstrating the importance of the suburban satellite centres to Ipswich growth in the second part of the 20th century. It was beyond the South Station Road intersection and its block of more contemporary units, the houses from the later part of the 1950s begin to dominate the streetscape. So I like to think, when I drive along Glebe Road, I like to see it as like a microcosm of this transition of Ipswich in the mid 20th century period, where we have the houses from the earliest part of the 20th century up at The Five Ways and, as we head down Stafford Street, and we're sort of heading towards those 1950s and you're heading into the 1960s in our house design along the street. This focus on domestic architecture in this talk on mid-century Ipswich was purposeful. I think far removed from Robin Boyd's Australian ugliness, his description of our suburbs, in the mid century they actually offered a security and permanency to the generation who spent their formative years living through depression and war. Australia's population was small at the time. It was only seven and a half million and the country was and continues to be one of the world's most urbanised. It was estimated that about 300,000 homes were actually built in Australia in the immediate postwar period so personally I think it's quite a really interesting period to research. I think people living in these houses, they may not have seen these houses where they raised their families, they may not have seen them as an historical item in themselves but they are becoming this part of a vanishing suburbia which we do need to protect and tell the story more of. So just before I hand you back over to De, this is where you can come in. You might have noticed that this presentation is mainly focused on changes to homes in the 1950s more than the 1960s. Two reasons. Firstly I've just moved into like 12 months ago into an Austerity house so I've been interested in researching Austerity houses. Second reason, and this is where you can help, we, as in Picture Ipswich, have very few images of houses built in the 1960s up to today so hardly any interiors for any period, so if you have any photos can you please help us to expand a mid-century collection and contact me. So, De are you there? [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Yes, I'm here, here I am. Thanks so much Melanie, that was great. If you've got a question pop it in the chat. We do have a question from Angela that came in early and at the beginning of the presentation you were talking about the generation that moved into this time period and Angela's asked why are they called the Silent Generation?[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]you might have noticed I'm just about to Google it. I think I know the reason but I just want to double check. It's kind of the same thing like Generation X, you never hear about us anymore. It's all the Baby Boomers, the Millennials and the rest, and you know Generation X just completely gets forgotten about. So I know they're called the Silent Generation, I'm just not entirely sure why. I think it's because they come in between that period, that they weren't quite - I won't bother looking it up, I'll make it up - they weren't quite, you know, old enough to fight in the Second World War so they were kind of overlooked but the truth is they were the generation who raised the baby boomer generation. They were the ones who were shaping our houses and you're in this period so, yeah, I think it's more that they just, kind of like Generation X now, they've just kind of got forgotten and overlooked. [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]We've also had a comment from Bev who wants to talk about swimming pools. So Bev is saying that the first private swimming pool in Ipswich was at 1 Park Street so it was Dr Stuart Patterson's home which was originally George Brockwell Gill's home.[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] Okay, we will have to update the Picture Ipswich record then. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]And she's also said that Rockton had a private swimming pool.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Yes okay so i just don't know what order all the houses, the pools were built. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Okay, I've got a question. The blueprint that you so generously showed us of the house that you are in. Does Picture Ipswich hold many blueprints?[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]We hold, well we do have, they're not up online yet, but we do have blueprints for the Will Haenke collection. So he's building in the earlier part of the 20th century. With Will Haenke he is important, very important to our story always. I'm a big fan of the Haenke family and Will Haenke's role in Ipswich. So he had a brother who went over to America just after the San Francisco earthquake, sends back these plans for the California bungalow. So Will Haenke is starting to build the California bungalows in Ipswich. So we do have plans of those designs and how they morph from the California bungalow style into that Queensland bungalow style. So they're not on Picture Ipswich yet but we do have a significant collection of his work. But any other blueprints I'm sure we would be more than happy to take. [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]So that would be something too that people would, if people do have some blueprints at home of that period that you'd be interested in sharing with others through the collection.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Hm-mm [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Yep, so I've got a question from Nette. She's heard of housing called soldier settler homes and her understanding is that soldiers returning from World War Two were assisted in some way in housing. Melanie, do you have any information about that sort of housing off the top of your head.[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] Not specifically for Ipswich. I know I'm aware of the soldier settler homes but it's not a scheme that I've looked into in a great detail so i would have to do a little bit more research on that before i could answer. It did definitely happen elsewhere. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Yes, yes. Does anyone else have any questions they'd like to pop into the chat? We've got some, well if you do please do that, we've got some thank yous. So we've got "Thank you Melanie, well researched and appealing and informative in your content tonight and the presentation has encouraged me to look a bit more around as I'm driving around Ipswich". So that's great. So Stacey's asked, she's curious to know where the house with the skillion roof (slide referring to garages under the house), where is that house?[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] I'm just going to go back because I've actually been good this time and written down.. [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]that one potentially I think...[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] ... where the photos come from. Oh this sorry this one? [b]Deannah: [/b][i]No, I think it's that one. That's the one, no that one, that the one you were talking about the garage is under the house, so perhaps it's that one. Do we know where that one is, the bigger image there?[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] Split level home. No. No we don't. We know the photo was taken in 1969 but there's isn't the additional information to go with the image so if anybody knows where any of these images are... [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]Sorry Stacey yep, and someone's mentioned, and I'm assuming it's Tanya even though it's not saying Tanya's name, it's saying the device she's on, is saying that council has some copies of blueprints on microfilm but they could still be under copyright. So we've got some lovely thank yous coming in. It's given Sasha a better appreciation of older homes. We've got a couple of people from Mackay joining us that are saying thank you, and yes, it was Tanya, thanks Tanya for confirming that that is you. That's wonderful.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Hi Tanya [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Now from Nicholas. Hi Nick. How you going? "Did the weather like our floods affect the development of suburbs in Ipswich and styles of houses?"[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Probably not so much in this period. There was a bit of a flood in the 1950s but this is before 1974 which was our big flood and obviously after '74 you have areas like Bundamba developing up on on the higher points. So my parents for instance, deliberately bought land that was up high when they bought in '76. Yeah so I'm not sure how much flooding because we sort of have very short-term memories when it comes to that kind of thing and where the flood waters went. [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]Okay. Well thank you very much. There's some more thank yous coming in which is lovely. So a very special thank you Melanie to you tonight for this really interesting presentation. I've really enjoyed it and clearly other people have too. We've got some hands being raised which I'm hoping means that some people are agreeing with me and some thanks coming in in the chat. So I think we've got one more question from Nathan. "Is there any easy way to find out what period your house was built in?"[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]On the Picture Ipswich website we do have Margaret Cook's book, "Every House has a History", so you can go onto the Picture Ipswich website and download that book, "Every House has a History", and it'll you help you how to identify what style of house yours is and it'll give you some hints and tips on how to actually do some research into house design and land records and registry records. So that's a really good resource. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]And Melanie that might be, because this evening's been so popular, that might be something we look into is doing a session on how to research the history of your house.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Yep, well [b]Deannah:[/b] [i]It might be something[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] Tanya's watching tonight so we'll get her to talk to Danny. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Yes please. Okay, so we would really appreciate your feedback on tonight's event everyone so very shortly we'll be emailing you a short survey and it would be very appreciative if you could fill that out and give us some feedback because we use it for the future. So our next Chasing Our Past at Home will focus on the Greenham family and their contribution to the city of Ipswich. Registrations are now open via the library website and I'm sure that some of you will have already registered for that but great to see more of you come along online. It'll be on Zoom like this event. So many of you will know that we opened the new Ipswich Central Library in the Nicholas Street Precinct recently. There's a fantastic new training room in the library which hosts interesting tech sessions including Be Connected for over 50s, Tech Tips for digital help and our very own Melanie on Wednesday afternoons is in the training room exploring new additions to the Picture Ipswich collection. So if you're interested in any of those, or you know an over 50 that might need some digital assistance, let them know about it. Right next door to the training room is the new Ipswich History Room and Melanie is in there of a Wednesday morning and you can go in and have a look at the collection and Melanie can answer some of your questions. Melanie, have you got anything further and or we'll sign off?[/i] [b]Melanie:[/b] No I think that's everything but please leave your comments when you get your email and any suggestions for future talks, or maybe you have a fantastic topic of your own that you would like to present. Let us know and we'll get in touch with you. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]I think Tanya's just dobbed Danny in saying he would be interested and perhaps we could rein Margaret Cook in as well.[/i] [b]Melanie: [/b]Perfect. [b]Deannah: [/b][i]Well thanks very much everyone for joining us tonight. Take care and enjoy the rest of your evening.[/i]