Tropical modernism in Australia’s Top End: climate, generic models and Harry Seidler’s Paspaley House, Darwin

Abstract

The Paspaley House (1959) in Darwin designed by Harry Seidler, Australia’s best-known modernist architect, illustrates the global exchange of information that links Europe, North America, and Brazil to what was then one of the least developed but most strategically significant cities in Australia. Darwin’s remoteness from major population centres in Australia has meant that very little is known about the Paspaley House. Whilst the Commonwealth Environmental Building Station (CEBS) established solar principles, these efforts suppressed local climate difference and failed to account for tropical cyclones, leading to omissions and generalisations in the reception and recording of Australia’s tr..