Neptune's Fishbowl: Australia's first post modern building

Abstract

Robin Boyd’s Neptune’s Fishbowl in South Yarra (1970) was his last building. At the time it attracted thunderous criticism, based on public and professional misunderstanding by those who thought Australia’s major critic of ‘Featurism’ in architecture, and a devout Modernist, had jumped ship to design what some dubbed the nation’s first Post-Modern building. But that was not the case, and I will argue a different view of that history by placing the building and relevant architectural literature of the period in context with Boyd’s design. This account is told from the point of view of that years of the design and construction of the building, dating from around 1969 to 1972. It reflects the..