I’ve changed a lot. In my youth architecture was synonymous with beautiful domes, stained glass, marble and intricacies that delighted the eye. I then grew to love line and form, in a word, simplicity. Now my heart yearns and is steeped in nostalgia. When I visit rural and remote areas I look for the language and lives of people who once lived there and called it home.
This was once a thriving settlement, east of Mullewa in the Midwest.
I loved the corrugated roof line and wondered what it sounded like when it rained.
A home on the main highway to Perth in Popanyinning. Although old, it is still vibrant with life.
Another old home down the road. What was life like indoors? I sat across from it and conjured up the laughter of children, harrassed mother shooing them out to play while she was hard at work over the wood stove, waiting for her husband to return from work. These days, it would seem, the laughter of children has been quietened by hand held devices.
This would have been a grand old home once. It still is.
One often finds architecture similar to this in rural areas, mostly post war.
Drive into any outback or rural town and the most impressive building will be the pub. This was in Cue, in the Murchison region.
Or in the Wheatbelt, this building dominates the main road in Dalwallinu.
In outback and rural towns three buildings are omnipresent. The hospital, the church and the pub. This was once the hospital in Wiluna, a thriving town of some 8000 people in the gold rush heyday, now only a few hundred people. The town sits at the edge of the Western Desert and the population is mostly indigenous. The hospital is now an art centre and museum. The art sold here is stunning.
The organised religious groups have a strong presence in these communities. This is the Catholic Church in Mt Magnet, pristine with sleek lines and somewhat cold on a hot day so I found my chapel under the night sky studded with stars.
Buildings are a vision of the architect, transformed, it is the language of the time and like any communication, has the potential to generate connection. And, in these times, isn’t that the essence of simplicity in what we seek?
Until next time
As always
a dawn bird
In response to Word of the Day Challenge – Architecture
A Shared Space 