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The Australian Ugliness
The highly acclaimed bestseller from one of Australia's greatest architects, with an introduction by Christos Tsiolkas. Fifty years on, Robin Boyd's The Australian Ugliness remains the definitive statement on how we live and think in the environments we create for ourselves. In it Boyd railed against Australia's decorative approach to design and slavish imitation of all things American. His concerns are as important now, in an era of sustainability, suburban sprawl and inner-city redevelopment, as they were half a century ago. Caustic and brilliant, The Australian Ugliness is a masterpiece that enables us to see our surroundings with fresh eyes. Robin Boyd's original sketches and an afterword by major contemporary architects complement this handsome anniversary edition. 'Effortlessly readable, sharply observant and wittyâ ¦an Australian classic.' Brenda Niall
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 29, 1960
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 23, 2024
One thing I’ve noticed about the vast majority of books on architecture I’ve read is that they tend to be really well-written with some lovely use of language etc. The only positive thing I could say about this is the nice hand drawn illustrations, which show real skill – unlike the text. I’m a big fan of Cristos Tsiolkas but his intro to this seemed both lazy and pointless (as so many introductions tend to be).
If I had to sum this book in one word I would use “punishing”. Unlike other “classic” books to emerge from Australia around the same time, this has not aged well at all. This is possibly the most tedious book on architecture or urbanism I have ever read, its plagued with some truly horrible writing and Boyd comes across like some Victorian scholar giving a long-winded lecture to a room of bored students. Ultimately this is as dry and lifeless as the vast desert which blankets so much of the sun-baked continent the author hails from.
July 7, 2015
An Australian classic. Sadly as relevant today as when it was first published.
February 2, 2013
I was expecting something less technical and so was pleasantly surprised by what I learnt. A real eye-opener of a book. I cannot walk down the street of my city (Melbourne) without Boyd's perspective shaping my perception of the architecture, fashions and trends all around me.
January 21, 2022
Thanks Robin Boyd - a stimulating read! And thanks to my godmother Gretchen Alexander who gave me this book, fresh of the press, in 1960. It's taken me 62 years to get round to reading this brave and withering analysis of the Australian National psyche and well worth the wait. Essential reading if you feel the need to understand, and not just laugh at Australia's ridiculous barbarities. Boyd's insights (though anchored in the 1950s) are as relevant today as in they were in 1960 when the book was published. I suspect he would be horrified at how Australia has 'matured'.
Featurism, is described by Boyd as a form of aesthetic chattering; a subordination of the essential whole by accentuating separate features. But Featurism goes deeper than the built environment (veneer and camouflage) and reveals itself in Government policies (White Australia Policy) as well as in a mishmash of ideologies adopted as arbitrary distractions competing for attention by people who desperately want to be noticed.
Following an extensive (sometimes dated) analysis, Boyd shifts gear into possible solutions. Here, with the benefit of hindsight, I found his faith in modernism and his optimism about industrialised construction somewhat inconsistent. This is mainly because my view of architecture and its impossibilities was shaped by Christopher Alexander and his emphasis on the connectedness of living buildings i.e. buildings that we recognise as being alive. Connectedness includes the importance of context and surrounds. Boyd’s faith stems from what he calls scientific building where somehow perfection of space enclosure is achieved by building technologies.
Yet he then refers to Frank Lloyd Wright’s assertion that a building without poetry has no right to exist. He proposes two kinds of buildings: good universal (machined shelter) and good particular (by the artist architect). That many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings were unfit for purpose doesn’t seem to exclude them from being ‘good’. Part 3 extends the angst about the relevance of architecture and architects as Boyd searches for an objective system of making beauty. I was particularly interested in his references the work of Talbot Hamlin, Architecture – an Art for All Men, as he had clearly influenced Christopher Alexander’s 15 properties of living centres. Ultimately Boyd rejects golden dimensions and ideas of beauty in favour of pertinence by which he means definite form that reflects specific solutions to the problems at hand.
Featurism, is described by Boyd as a form of aesthetic chattering; a subordination of the essential whole by accentuating separate features. But Featurism goes deeper than the built environment (veneer and camouflage) and reveals itself in Government policies (White Australia Policy) as well as in a mishmash of ideologies adopted as arbitrary distractions competing for attention by people who desperately want to be noticed.
Many sensitive Australians are uncomfortably aware of the rootless nature of their artificial environment. Nevertheless Featurism is frequently perpetrated as much by the artistic section of the community as by the commercialisers, as mush by sentimentalists as by the crass and uncaring. P.34
Following an extensive (sometimes dated) analysis, Boyd shifts gear into possible solutions. Here, with the benefit of hindsight, I found his faith in modernism and his optimism about industrialised construction somewhat inconsistent. This is mainly because my view of architecture and its impossibilities was shaped by Christopher Alexander and his emphasis on the connectedness of living buildings i.e. buildings that we recognise as being alive. Connectedness includes the importance of context and surrounds. Boyd’s faith stems from what he calls scientific building where somehow perfection of space enclosure is achieved by building technologies.
At last buildings can be erected without a trace of an architect’s individuality or evidence of any sort of emotion. p. 136
Yet he then refers to Frank Lloyd Wright’s assertion that a building without poetry has no right to exist. He proposes two kinds of buildings: good universal (machined shelter) and good particular (by the artist architect). That many of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings were unfit for purpose doesn’t seem to exclude them from being ‘good’. Part 3 extends the angst about the relevance of architecture and architects as Boyd searches for an objective system of making beauty. I was particularly interested in his references the work of Talbot Hamlin, Architecture – an Art for All Men, as he had clearly influenced Christopher Alexander’s 15 properties of living centres. Ultimately Boyd rejects golden dimensions and ideas of beauty in favour of pertinence by which he means definite form that reflects specific solutions to the problems at hand.
The universal visual art: the art of shaping the human environment, is an intellectual, ethical, and emotional exercise as well as a mean of expression. It involves the strange sort of possessive love with which people have always regarded their shelters. The Australian ugliness begins with fear of reality, denial of the need for the everyday environment to reflect the heart of the human problem, satisfaction with veneer and cosmetic effects. It ends in betrayal of the element of love and a chill near the root of national self-respect. p.251
December 22, 2021
Written in 1960, it is interesting to review this now through a 2021 lens. The Australian Ugliness derides the clutter and kitsch of an emerging Australia that struggled with British patriotism, and American consumerism against a stark, dramatic and dry landscape. The proceeding wave of simple, slick architecture has not ended, and some would argue that it needs to (aka me). The cluttered, hodge-podge picture cast of the suburbs has been replaced with acre after acre of the same house with the same trimmed garden, in other words, my idea of hell. Every rear extension, every beach house mansion is white or grey aluminium cladding, with the same big windows facing the street, a flat roof and a cavernous garage. Bring back the clutter, bring back the mess, bring back a bit more diversity that actually reflects the society. I did enjoy the first few chapters which really interrogated the Australian identity. However, that is now probably the most outdated part of the book as Australia has rapidly changed in terms of multiculturalism (with still a long way to go). The end was painful, some very densely written theory with dashes of Le Corbusier (who I scoff at). Anyway......architects....pfffff
April 7, 2013
Surprising or depressing, depending upon your perspective, fifty years after its first publication Robin Boyd’s Australian Ugliness still resonates strongly as the base upon which much of urban Australia is built. While the current Victorian Government undertakes public consultation for the next phase of urban planning, Melbourne councils are under the same pressures from small but articulate groups hoping to influence taste and sensibility in planning and construction matters. Personally I don’t too much like their chances.
Reading this book makes me despair the more. All the arguments I have had with local laws officers, among other departments called in by neighbours who don’t like my need and desire for greenery of the indigenous variety on my suburban block, come back to the same attitudes so dully applied and referred to by Boyd. After more than three years involvement on a local restructure plan group in my suburb, the final plan adopted by council is a bland collage of images from elsewhere and a total failure to lead a collective design process.
At every turn the same discounting of each players’ influence is applied. Despite the potential to actively seek visionary and inclusive designers for target sites, the councillors themselves renege on their responsibilities to show the community how it can be done. It begins with a will to do something memorable. Unfortunately that still falls in the category Boyd dubs Featurism. One detail which is countable and photogenic for the mayor of the day, that can be completed within their term, is more important than a lastly flavour of an area for generations to come. And so generation will continue to be from impoverished and hybrid seeds.
Part of the problem is that we still do not have cooperative efforts in education or conferences for architects, town planners, engineers, and ordinary citizens to come together in an artistic chaos of relationships. Until we learn how to talk to each other, envision effectively together, and have those who are planning to live in a particular development embedded in the process of creating the lifestyle they want within the structures built on their behalf, ugliness and compromise is all we will achieve. Even the Docklands development so lauded by a previous state government here in Melbourne, is receiving negative returns by the closure of shops as the initial leases fall due, as the promised customers are not continuing to come. Restaurants have closed as well. And reports are that many of the high rise apartments are not on suitable foundations less than a decade after the grand plan was undertaken. Overseas investors and occupiers are now targeted for whole buildings, as the locals refuse to buy in to a project which has grown beyond the capacity of the community to support. The same principles of splashed on colour to make up for poor design elements from other perspectives continues to play a large part in these structures. Many look like an overturned playbox of scattered blocks.
While the book is written in a very approachable style, there are plenty of references to architects and styles which make it easy for the keen reader to undertake further research. While none of this covers the more recent developments of green buildings, it does at least give a sense of developing an aesthetic sense from which to overcome the blind-spots of our culture. Hopefully movements such as the Kitchen Garden programs now in many primary schools will also have some influence here, but they are not enough on their own. The built space needs to become more accessible to the minds of students as an environment over which they have some say texturally as well as contexturally, for a real difference to become possible into the future.
Healthy buildings are also a more modern approach which this book does not really cover. The high reliance on air conditioning is not only harmful from the point of view of failure to maintain adequate cleaning of filters or the risks of air-borne diseases, but the electrical currents and field radiations of energy use with such structures is still going largely unrecorded and unattended to. We assault ourselves constantly by such ignorance.
In a recent conversation with an architect friend we discussed the ad hoc copyist nature of many of the buildings which gain some interest from local heritage groups. As heritage works on many levels it makes it difficult for the marginally interested citizen to come to terms with. Mostly, his conclusion was, people are only fighting for the retention of what is familiar, not what attains to any specific merit artistically or architecturally. They are just not aware of these aspects for the most part, or many of them would be looking for more experimental and forward thinking architects for new buildings now.
Perhaps some of the stark contrasts Robin Boyd presents might still reach a few more citizens to wake them up to the possibilities and opportunities they have been letting slip by. A platform is needed on a high enough scale, but with local roots and branches, to bring enough momentum behind these issues in an effective way. Perhaps that might become another topic within the Melbourne designation of a centre for books and ideas. Invitations to other major cities and regional centres could gain the momentum we need as a nation.
Reading this book makes me despair the more. All the arguments I have had with local laws officers, among other departments called in by neighbours who don’t like my need and desire for greenery of the indigenous variety on my suburban block, come back to the same attitudes so dully applied and referred to by Boyd. After more than three years involvement on a local restructure plan group in my suburb, the final plan adopted by council is a bland collage of images from elsewhere and a total failure to lead a collective design process.
At every turn the same discounting of each players’ influence is applied. Despite the potential to actively seek visionary and inclusive designers for target sites, the councillors themselves renege on their responsibilities to show the community how it can be done. It begins with a will to do something memorable. Unfortunately that still falls in the category Boyd dubs Featurism. One detail which is countable and photogenic for the mayor of the day, that can be completed within their term, is more important than a lastly flavour of an area for generations to come. And so generation will continue to be from impoverished and hybrid seeds.
Part of the problem is that we still do not have cooperative efforts in education or conferences for architects, town planners, engineers, and ordinary citizens to come together in an artistic chaos of relationships. Until we learn how to talk to each other, envision effectively together, and have those who are planning to live in a particular development embedded in the process of creating the lifestyle they want within the structures built on their behalf, ugliness and compromise is all we will achieve. Even the Docklands development so lauded by a previous state government here in Melbourne, is receiving negative returns by the closure of shops as the initial leases fall due, as the promised customers are not continuing to come. Restaurants have closed as well. And reports are that many of the high rise apartments are not on suitable foundations less than a decade after the grand plan was undertaken. Overseas investors and occupiers are now targeted for whole buildings, as the locals refuse to buy in to a project which has grown beyond the capacity of the community to support. The same principles of splashed on colour to make up for poor design elements from other perspectives continues to play a large part in these structures. Many look like an overturned playbox of scattered blocks.
While the book is written in a very approachable style, there are plenty of references to architects and styles which make it easy for the keen reader to undertake further research. While none of this covers the more recent developments of green buildings, it does at least give a sense of developing an aesthetic sense from which to overcome the blind-spots of our culture. Hopefully movements such as the Kitchen Garden programs now in many primary schools will also have some influence here, but they are not enough on their own. The built space needs to become more accessible to the minds of students as an environment over which they have some say texturally as well as contexturally, for a real difference to become possible into the future.
Healthy buildings are also a more modern approach which this book does not really cover. The high reliance on air conditioning is not only harmful from the point of view of failure to maintain adequate cleaning of filters or the risks of air-borne diseases, but the electrical currents and field radiations of energy use with such structures is still going largely unrecorded and unattended to. We assault ourselves constantly by such ignorance.
In a recent conversation with an architect friend we discussed the ad hoc copyist nature of many of the buildings which gain some interest from local heritage groups. As heritage works on many levels it makes it difficult for the marginally interested citizen to come to terms with. Mostly, his conclusion was, people are only fighting for the retention of what is familiar, not what attains to any specific merit artistically or architecturally. They are just not aware of these aspects for the most part, or many of them would be looking for more experimental and forward thinking architects for new buildings now.
Perhaps some of the stark contrasts Robin Boyd presents might still reach a few more citizens to wake them up to the possibilities and opportunities they have been letting slip by. A platform is needed on a high enough scale, but with local roots and branches, to bring enough momentum behind these issues in an effective way. Perhaps that might become another topic within the Melbourne designation of a centre for books and ideas. Invitations to other major cities and regional centres could gain the momentum we need as a nation.
Read
January 2, 2024Boyd can be called the most successful Australian modern architect; he was a prolific writer and ugliness was is the most enduring and relevant of his books. In Australian Ugliness, Boyd analyses with a satirical eye the culture and built environments of Australia. While this book is focused on Australia, it is relevant to non-Australians in two ways: 1-Much of the ugliness identified is the product of mass-production/globalisation, and is something most of the world is reckoning with. 2- It is good practice to apply the same attitude and look into your own turf with the analytical eye the way Boyd does. He argues that Australians need to build beautifully and cohesively. I DNF this book as it was too satirical for me and concerned mainly with the critique and 'holding a magnet' to the ugliness and not much time presenting ways to address it.
February 24, 2025
Published in 1961, this book recorded Boyd’s observations of the development of architecture in Australia from the perspective of an architect with considerable awareness of and insight into the evolution of built architecture and architectural theory and found the result less than satisfactory. He takes particular issue with what he terms “Featurism", veneers of pretention and ostentation which he described as giving the desired effect without anyone having to work Saturdays to get the whole thing right. He defined Featurism as the subordination of the whole and the accentuation of selected separate features and in the most common form - these features are not required – they mean little and do nothing. In his treatise against mediocrity, he saw a scale between genuinely creative architects and machine building and argued for an elimination of the in-between styles which are neither rational nor poetic. He described Australian ugliness as an unwillingness to be committed on the level of ideas which are the key to design.
He also saw the late 19th century mechanised multiplication of ornamentation as initially spreading ugliness by making suburbs appear as if they want to be mass produced but that this industrialisation had the potential to eliminate unnecessary ornamentation. Although written close to 60 years ago, his insight into the development of architecture in Australia still resonates with the built architecture today and the persistence of Featurism and ugliness in much of Australian architecture, especially in the housing stock would, if he were alive today, not surprise him.
He also saw the late 19th century mechanised multiplication of ornamentation as initially spreading ugliness by making suburbs appear as if they want to be mass produced but that this industrialisation had the potential to eliminate unnecessary ornamentation. Although written close to 60 years ago, his insight into the development of architecture in Australia still resonates with the built architecture today and the persistence of Featurism and ugliness in much of Australian architecture, especially in the housing stock would, if he were alive today, not surprise him.
February 28, 2015
"Cruel but kind — a precise description of one element in the pervasive ambivalence of the national character. Here also are vitality, energy, strength and optimism in one's own ability, yet indolence, carelessness, the "she'll do, mate" attitude to the job to be done. Here is insistence on the freedom of the individual, yet resigned acceptance of social restrictions and censorship narrower than in almost any other democratic country in the world. Here is love of justice and devotion to law and order, yet the persistent habit of crowds to stone the umpire and trip the policeman in the course of duty. Here is preoccupation with material things — note, for example, the hospitals: better for a broken leg than a mental deviation — yet impatience with polish and precision in material things. The Australian is forcefully loquacious, until the moment of expressing any emotion. He is aggressively committed to equality and equal opportunity for all men, except for black Australians. He has high assurance in anything he does combined with a gnawing lack of confidence in anything he thinks."
November 13, 2015
I'm glad I hung in there and finished it as it was a bit tedious compared to "Australia's Home" which was a great and rewarding read. The Australian Ugliness was a great idea as a statement on architectural history in Australia and Robin's pet hate "featurism" and eventually proved a worthwhile read. However as great a writer the tragically short lived architect became, this book of 'isms' and grindingly slow argument on his topic may well have been a better as a short thesis rather than a novelized history.
I admire the man immensely and am proud to have lived in a house designed in part by him, but his writing here is ponderous in making his point and a little self absorbed in coined language and 'isms'. Nevertheless, all hail the Boyd.
I own a copy or so... and have various covers liking to collect various reprints and cover designs which reflect the history of the book as much as the content.
I admire the man immensely and am proud to have lived in a house designed in part by him, but his writing here is ponderous in making his point and a little self absorbed in coined language and 'isms'. Nevertheless, all hail the Boyd.
I own a copy or so... and have various covers liking to collect various reprints and cover designs which reflect the history of the book as much as the content.
May 22, 2013
I only have a fairly casual interest in architecture, but what's so amazing is the the insights Boyd has into Australian identity. They still hold true half a century later, and the book's worth a read for that in itself.
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December 29, 2014I'm sorry, Robin Boyd! I tried to get all up with your theory but I just can't agree with it. And besides that, I'm on holiday and don't got time for your poetic voice about architecture. Maybe another time I will re-address this book but just too intense! Soz buddy.
September 11, 2016
Cruel but kind, features over function and form
November 11, 2021
3.5 stars
A scathing critique of Australian culture and architecture/design that’s still highly relevant today. Very prescient in terms of environmental and urban planning issues, as well as the shape of the national character.
I don’t quite agree with the later chapters that argue so heavy handedly for utter modernity in architecture. I’m an aesthete and I like beauty for the sake of beauty, and under Boyd’s definition, that would make me a dreaded Featurist. I think there’s levels of Feauturism, but Boyd isn’t one for subtlety.
Read if architecture, urban sprawls, and landscaping in relation to culture are interests.
A scathing critique of Australian culture and architecture/design that’s still highly relevant today. Very prescient in terms of environmental and urban planning issues, as well as the shape of the national character.
I don’t quite agree with the later chapters that argue so heavy handedly for utter modernity in architecture. I’m an aesthete and I like beauty for the sake of beauty, and under Boyd’s definition, that would make me a dreaded Featurist. I think there’s levels of Feauturism, but Boyd isn’t one for subtlety.
Read if architecture, urban sprawls, and landscaping in relation to culture are interests.
May 1, 2019
“The universal visual art: the art of shaping the human environment, is an intellectual, ethical,and emotional exercise as well as a mean of expression. It involves the strange sort of possessive love with which people have always regarded their shelters. The Australian ugliness begins with fear of reality, denial of the need for the everyday environment to reflect the heart of the human problem, satisfaction with veneer and cosmetic effects. It ends in betrayal of the element of love and a chill near the root of national self respect.”p265
December 24, 2020
Really interesting perspective on Australian culture, architecture, and attitudes. Very thought provoking, but the many design terms and references made it hard for me to engage fully. It also felt like there were many great ideas being explored that may have been clearer with a stricter structure.
Glad I read it, I got a lot out of it. But it was a book I sometimes had to make myself pick up to finish.
Glad I read it, I got a lot out of it. But it was a book I sometimes had to make myself pick up to finish.
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March 29, 2020As relevant today as it was at it's publication. Boyd has managed to verbalize with great eloquence what I'm sure many aspiring Australian architects have only sensed as an intuitive distrust of the featurist environment that surrounds us.
A great book that has introduced a new layer of inquiry in my questioning of Australian architecture
A great book that has introduced a new layer of inquiry in my questioning of Australian architecture
August 27, 2021
This book was required reading for my After the Bauhaus: Design from the Interwar Period to the Age of Climate Crisis class at uni. Robin Boyd was a really influential social commentator and architect. However, I feel like his opinions on featurism are very much connected to his eurocentric modernist taste.
December 19, 2020
Why do I feel this book was written only yesterday?. So relevant and a bit sad. Unfortunately developers are still decimating trees and historic buildings for profit. There is real feeling of nostalgia for our featurist past and current architectural styles. Loved it!
January 6, 2021
So many of Robin Boyd's observations about Australia and our architecture remain relevant in 2021. Lots of comfort here for anyone who has felt lost in the Oz cultural landscape.
This book inspires me to read more of Boyd's books and other reflections on Australian architecture and life.
This book inspires me to read more of Boyd's books and other reflections on Australian architecture and life.
October 19, 2019
A good reminder on what we as architects constantly keep on forgetting.
May 12, 2022
One of Australia's most famous architects. Talks about the shortcomings of Australian architecture. Written in 1960. Not for the general reader. Most of his arguments were beyond me.
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July 9, 2023Seems sort of besides the point to give this a rating – pretty visionary & already embedded in the cultural record of the country, and for good reason.
May 11, 2025
Reread for assignment
October 8, 2020
I needed to read it, had been on my list for years, and through doing so I unpacked some of my "Australian" architectural biases. Featurism is for sure a determinant of how comfortable I can feel in a given space, and why it was so challenging for me to live in the Netherlands: no features. Boyd's prescriptive smugness at times verges on bitchy in tone and classist in substance. 3.5 stars.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews