VISUALISING THE ARCHITECTURE OF FEDERATION:

Digital Media and Cultural Identity in Australian Architecture

Abstract

This paper is drawn from recently completed research and a CD-Rom project entitled "Visualising the Architecture of Federation”, funded by a grant awarded by the National Council of the Centenary of Federation, History and Education Programme, whose charter is to promote research on the period surrounding the federating of Australian colonies in 1901.1 The project explores the spatial and visual history of the period using digital media. Usual histories of Federation Style2 in Australian architecture focus firstly on the domestic architecture of the time and secondly on generalised stylistic categories. I would argue that this type of representation does not take into account the subtleties of the architecture of the period which was distinctively Australian, encompassing a range of styles with international connections and unique local variants.3 This paper explores the origins and influences on Australian federation architecture, looking at the processes of collage, eclecticism and adaptation used by the architects of the day. In addition the paper will illustrate how digital media and visual manipulation were used within the CD-Rom to create a dense and image rich representation of the buildings of the time, making reference to the variety of sources that were used simultaneously in the design of single buildings. This process of architectural collage reflects, as Paul Carter has more generally discussed, the ‘normal' mode of constructing meaning and identity in the post-colonial context of Australia'.