BRUCE RICKARD: AN ORGANIC AUSTRALIA

August 2020

Bruce Rickard’s architectural legacy is one of Australia’s finest. In the beautiful bushland setting around Sydney his work sought to find harmony between the landscape and the built form. His series residential projects are some of the purest examples of vernacular design and provide cherished concepts for the next generation of Australian architects.

Rickard’s work was heavily influenced by a defining stint at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1950’s. During which he was exposed to the burgeoning post-war modern design scene in America – most notably a kinship with the modestly scaled residential projects of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Usonian Houses. These experiences inspired Rickard to explore the concepts of Organic Architecture and how it could be honed to perfection in the rugged sloping landscapes of the Sydney north shore.

Rickard’s career is often unheralded due to a misplaced connotation that his designs were backward looking in an era that focused on the most innovative solutions. However, the concepts guiding Rickard’s projects helped uncover a clearer picture of strategies that could couple modern functional desires with the rich landscapes of Australia.

Bruce Rickard was born in 1929 in the Sydney suburb of Roseville. His early years exploring the Turramurra-Hawkesbury region shaped his lifelong affinity to the natural beauty and character of the area. This fond connection was disrupted by a stint at boarding school, with its cramped spaces and poor natural light – common characteristics prevalent in 1930’s Australian architecture. This negative experience steeled Rickard’s affinity to landscape, which became a defining feature of his architectural style. His work and life would forever be linked to the northern Sydney region. It was the landscape where he was raised and returned to live. It was the natural setting that inspired his work. It was where his clients would seek him out to design their own pieces of architectural harmony.

In 1947, at the age of 17 Rickard enrolled in the Diploma of Architecture at Sydney Technical College during an influx of post-war students. At the same time he also began working for his uncle and architect Ruskin Rowe. He worked in Rowe’s office for three years before eventually growing disheartened by the Beaux-Arts work, departing in preference for the modern design aesthetic of Syd Ancher’s office.

Syd Ancher had not long completed a series of houses on Maytone Avenue in Killara, which are some of the earliest examples of modernism in the Australian bushland setting. The crisp International Style houses are set amongst the trees and rocks of the site and gave Rickard an early example of how to build a contemporary dwelling that integrates into a natural setting. Rickard’s talents were quickly realised at Ancher’s office and he was able to develop his expertise promptly. Ancher staunchly dismissed the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, in preference of more avant-garde modernist ideals. Rickard was quickly developing a strong kinship for Wright’s Organic Architecture, which led to his eventual exit from Ancher’s office to travel, study and work abroad. A decision that ultimately led to the discovery of a set of ideals that would redefine his mindset for what architecture should epitomise.

Newlywed Rickard and his first wife Mary travelled extensively across Europe before eventually settling in London in 1954. Rickard started working on a series of commercial projects with Douglas Wallace and Partners, as well as concurrently enrolling in the London University College postgraduate course in Landscape Design. He quickly fell out of love with the commercial work and sought other opportunities. This led to him once again looking abroad for new opportunities – this time to the US. Rickard applied for a fellowship to the landscape architecture course at the University of Philadelphia under the leadership of Ian McHarg. His fellowship application was originally unsuccessful, but he still pursued the opportunity and was eventually granted a position and made the move to Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia under the tutelage of McHarg, Rickard learnt and experienced the architectural and environmental philosophies that would define his career. In 1954 McHarg had moved from Harvard University to the University of Philadelphia to start a new course in landscape architecture, founding the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. Rickard was able to absorb a condensed version of McHarg’s Harvard years of study with a distinct focus on architecture. The new course sought to synthesise design, planning and ecology – which he preached as ‘ecological planning and design’.

McHarg also exposed his students directly to the defining figures of US architecture of the period, including Philip Johnson, Mies van der Rohe, Eero Saarinen, Marcel Breuer and most notably Frank Lloyd Wright. These connections opened up unprecedented architectural work and travel opportunities for Rickard and his classmates. This included road trips to Pittsburgh and Chicago past Fallingwater, and also a trip to New Canaan to experience the work of Breuer and Johnson. These experiences highlighted to Rickard the underlying ‘coldness’ of the International Style. He was instead innately drawn to the ‘emotional warmth’ of Wrights designs. To cultivate this he continued to seek out a broad range of Wright’s work across the US, including Taliesin West on a road trip across to San Francisco on his way home to Australia.

Brimming with enthusiasm and fresh ideas to underpin his career Rickard arrived back in Australia in 1958. He hosted several evenings where he screened his collection of slides on Wright’s architecture across the US. Australia at this point was still quite isolated from the world. In these evenings and many other events of the subsequent years Rickard was able to provide a unique injection of new ideas that helped to shape the careers of his peers in Sydney.

Thankfully for Rickard, the soil of Sydney architecture had already been ruffled by Harry Seidler, whose International Style homes of the early 1950’s were redefining what the Australian contemporary home might entail. Seidler’s inherently minimal Harvard modernist style was in contrast to the roaming style that Rickard’s career would evolve into. Nonetheless, they were both asking similar questions and were endeavouring to create a better architectural paradigm for housing, even sharing the same office building for many years.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s work stands on an island of its own in the canons of architecture – with his work being ‘modern’, but dismissed by modernists. Wright preached his concepts under the banner of the term ‘Organic Architecture’. In contrast to the more popularised International Style of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. The origin of Wright’s work pre-dates the International Style Modernism, with a clear link to the detailing of the earlier Arts and Crafts movement. His work is inspired by the mid-west prairie lands, with the horizontality of the landscape clear in his early ‘Prairie Style’ houses. Wrights work is characterised by his intrinsic understanding of the varying US landscapes. His work is always distinctly ‘Wrightian’, but continually unique and dynamic depending on the site.

Wright’s Usonian houses especially impressed Rickard - notably a visit to the Melvyn Maxwell Smith (1946) in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. This particular house features an L-shaped plan, crafted brick vertical elements and horizontally banded cypress boards. These features are all typical of Wright’s work, however what Rickard was so fond of was the efficiency of the plan to create a modest dwelling without sacrificing the joy of Wright’s designs.

Elementally Rickard was able to develop an understanding of the way Wright used a toolbox of items to create an unprecedented quantity of unique, but recognisable projects. This kit included overlapping roof places, clerestory glazing and a constant focus on creating diagonal sightlines both in plan and section. These tactics prompted the traditional ‘house of rooms’ to be dissolved into a series interconnecting and adjacent spaces all working together to create the home.

No one architect has ever been able to consistently recreate Wright’s unique style. His ability to manipulate light, space, scale and materials to match the site is unparalleled. Rickard was inspired to see how the principles of Organic Architecture could be tailored to unlock the architectural promise of his own heartland in the north shores of Sydney - an area with a harsh climate, steep sites, dry sandstone and splitting hardwoods

These concepts were initially realised in Rickard’s first family home not long after his arrival back in Australia – known as Rickard House I. This house had strong links to Wright, but with a distinct Australian flair that would continue to evolve as Rickard’s design aesthetic matured. Rickard House I featured expansive eave overhangs and clerestory glazing in combination with a palette of locally sourced timber and stone. Spatially the house breaks down the dwelling into a sequence of spaces that reveals new views and connections to nature and adjacent rooms as you move through each area. The design rigorously abides by Wright’s belief of integrity – a notion that aims to ensure that aspects are working towards a wholeness of character across every piece of the project. The culmination of all this is something much more than the sum of its parts.

Rickard House I is positioned in active dialogue with the existing site, endeavouring to not simply imitate the site, but abstract the essence of the nature that exists. The house features two distinct zones. The first being the main living area, which follows the contours of the site projecting the occupants from the entry northwards towards the natural light, bushland views and a prominent existing tree. The living zone is anchored by a large fireplace that works in tandem with a higher pitched ceiling section to create the heart of the home. The space is overlaid with numerous programs, views and circulation paths creating a dynamic feeling of connectedness as you move through the space. The living spaces open directly out onto the flatter sections of the site enriching the connection to the immediate landscape.

The other distinct section of the house is the bedrooms zone that projects eastward from the centre of the plan. The bedrooms are set a step lower and are located where the contours of the site fall away. This raised position on the site creates longer views out across the bushland site, especially from the expansive terrace situated on the north side of the bedrooms. This longer focus from these spaces helps to enhance the shelter of the interior volumes, creating a distinct cosiness and warmth to the overall design.

This house was Rickard’s first attempt at translating the lessons of Frank Lloyd Wright and Ian McHarg onto the Australian landscape. The house was featured as part of the ’15 Sydney Houses’ an exhibition curated by John James and Syd Ancher, which became a significant moment in featuring an evolving era of Sydney design.

As Rickard and many of his peers in Sydney architecture were grappling with an expanding world view both architecturally and socially, a new label began to be applied to the architecture that began to appear – the ‘Sydney School’. This label is a contentious with many architects bundled under its umbrella, including Rickard, who openly absolved themselves of the connection. The notion of a Sydney School looked to collate a stream of work that was evolving in connection to the landscape of Sydney. An area of steep slopes, established trees and picturesque views; which when coupled with contemporary construction techniques resulted in a new style that seemed to ramble through the native bushland sites. The resulting houses utilised rough brickwork, heavy timber frames, locally sourced stone hearths and undulating roof planes.

Rickard was against the notion that a singularly classified Sydney School existed as he felt the styles were too divergent and was only labelled so for the convenience of critics. Rickard felt that their main linking element was a simple aversion to European Modernism, in preference of a more vernacular form. Other contemporaries portrayed as being part of the Sydney School includes Ian McKay, Peter Muller and Neville Gruzman to name just a few.

Much like the negative perception of Wright’s work in the International Style infatuated discourse of the US, the Sydney School also came under fire from critics such as David Saunders who described the movement as “backward looking avant-garde”. The style was criticised for its anti-international approach, although it was still undoubtedly impassioned by the ideals of modernism. While the negativity impacted on the ability of the movement to garner widespread adoption, it undoubtedly laid the groundwork for Australia’s next generation of design leaders including Glenn Murcutt, Richard Leplastrier and Peter Stutchbury.

Rickard’s career prioritised highly crafted residential projects for clients looking to sympathetically maximise the natural features of their sites. This was best characterised by the series of houses he produced for himself and his family over the years.

Rickard II was completed in 1962 on Kokoda Avenue in Wahroonga. The house continues the strong legacy of Rickard I as a modest, but intricate piece of rustic modernist design. The house steps down the site, opening up and outwards to the view. The interior spaces are able to couple the duality of cosiness and expansive views – creating what many describe as the best living room in Australia. The concepts of this space are founded in Rickard’s love of the outdoors and are achieved in a similar manner to what he experienced in Wright’s Usonian houses. These projects were able to use exterior connections to maximise modestly sized dwellings.

The transcendent aspects of the Rickard House II living room lie in its ability to create the indoor/outdoor connection without sacrificing the intimacy of the Arts & Crafts era of design. Rickard is able to achieve this combination through the blurring of spaces and views. A Rickard living space never has a singular focus, there is always numerous sightlines and sources of natural light to enliven the area. Spaces are always active in three dimensions as Rickard looks to intertwine the topography into the interior spaces. 

As Rickard’s worked matured he developed a unique design sensibility that acknowledged the principles Organic Architecture in tandem with Australian vernacular and other international influences to create his distinctive style. These evolving characteristics were best represented by two projects later in his career: Rickard House III at Cottage Point and Curry House II in Bayview.

Both projects dealt with rugged, steeply sloping sites, in rich contrast to the prairies of the American mid-west. Curry House II demonstrates Rickard’s exploration of Australian Organic Architecture. The house uses concrete to both propel the house upward into the tree canopies, via thin circular concrete columns, and also outwards towards the views via sculpted concrete floor plates. The columns are an interesting feature that have a Japanese-like sensibility that moves a large portion of the house away from landscape, a divergence to his landscape hugging Rickard II. In its simplest form both Curry House II and Rickard House II are elevated pavilions placed in the tree canopies. This allows the trees and long views to enter as borrowed space into the interior spaces – creating an unparalleled immediacy to the water and trees, which makes these spaces some of Rickard’s best work.

In these projects Rickard is unlocking what it means to understand the concepts learnt from McHarg and Wright, with an imprinted understanding of both the Australian social and physical landscape. Rickard is clearly showing in these projects a distinct move out from behind Wright’s shadow into a distinct Australian form of residential architecture.

Later in Rickard’s career he came across a project that had an uncanny link to the trajectory of his origins. This came in the form of a detached addition to a heritage listed Griffin designed house in Castlecrag. Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin both worked for Wright in his Chicago office, with Mahony’s watercolour renderings becoming synonymous with Wrights work. The Griffins moved to Australia in 1914 after winning the competition for Canberra and were consequently some of the first to bring the philosophies of Wright across the Pacific.

The Historic Houses Trust commissioned Rickard to design a new dwelling next to the existing Griffin designed demonstration home for the Castlecrag Estate. The Trust bought the Griffin house in 1993 and planned to construct the Rickard Dual Occupancy house adjacent to the existing dwelling. The profit planned to be created by the new dwelling was intended to fund the restoration and educational programs of the existing Griffin house. The Rickard section of the project entailed a new two-bedroom dwelling of modest budget. The project sat in close proximity to the Griffin Heritage House, prompting the trust to insist on a design that was both recessive in scale and not a replica of the Griffin home.

Rickard’s Dual Occupancy project is set back from the Griffin House and its established garden. The new dwelling creates a gentle axial connection to the Griffin House through an integration with an existing site wall that the leads visitors through to the living areas of the new project. The new low-pitched lantern roof shelters the entry sequence as it hovers over the landscape walls - creating a clear distinction between the old and new. The new dwelling is humble in scale and finishes, with a clear focal point on the human scale. Rickard focused the slight budget on creating warm interiors that opened up to the views at the rear. The house is his realisation of how a family home should function – a curated space for living.

The dwelling spatially is a modest version of Rickard’s earlier work. The aesthetic of the Griffin Dual Occupancy dwelling demonstrates Rickard’s development beyond Wright’s work. This dwelling is able to formalise what a human-scaled project, which prioritises connections to the exterior, should entail. Rickard has created an Australian version of Wright’s Usonian dwellings. An Australian translation of what Wright and McHarg had envisaged. With this project Rickard’s portfolio began to create a legacy of ideas that go beyond luxury residential houses and looks to inform the greater Australian architectural discourse.

Bruce arrived back from his world travels with bold ambitions for the potential of Australian residential architecture. His career, like most others, had rocky patches during the inevitable economic lows of the architecture industry. His tireless passion for the Australian landscape and the search for a worthy design aesthetic led to some of the finest examples for the potential of the Australian home. Rickard’s upbringing in the jagged bushland of the Sydney north shore allowed him to unearth a reverence for complex dwellings that complement the dynamic sites.

Bruce Rickard worked hard to inform and improve the Australian architectural landscape. Unfortunately this change was not realised to the level he had desired. This is not due to Rickard’s own lack of effort or insight, but rather an industry failing that we are still living with today. The Sydney School of architects and their peers in the 1960’s were exploring cost effective residential design solutions – most notably the work of Ancher and Woolley for Pettit and Sevitt. Even with all the hearty speculation and promise of this era it eventually lost momentum and failed to garner mass appeal. Sadly into this void landed the McMansion typology that goes against all that Rickard looked to achieve.

Rickard acknowledged the industries inability to change the world, he was however able to profoundly influence the lives of those around him. Rickard’s clients and projects were his best professional assets, with the simple act of visiting a Rickard home usually all that a potential client needed to convince them that he was the right architect for their project. Rickard was the master of understanding the architecture of lifestyle and family dynamics. These sculpted living areas were also commonly known as some of Sydney’s best social and party spaces – which was especially the case in Rickard’s own houses. This suited Rickard’s lifestyle of being a regular entertainer both in his own home and office.

Bruce Rickard has left Australia a refined portfolio of work that maintains a timeless set of houses with a deep connection to the Australian landscape. He was a true patron of Sydney who remained passionately at his desk until a few weeks before his passing in 2010. His designs were deeply rooted in the concepts of Frank Lloyd Wright. This at times led to his work being dismissed as either mimicking Wright or not modern enough, which made his architecture difficult to categorise. It was this unique mix and immense love for the Australian natural environment that allowed his design style to mature to something undeniably Australian, free from any shadow of Wright’s influence. The concepts that Bruce Rickard looked to decipher in his work are morals that all architects should look to continue to pursue for the greater good of Australian design. Hopefully this post inspires more to do so.