To celebrate 75 years of the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship, we asked eminent past scholars to reflect on the legacy of the prize and their research. Here, Lawrence Nield reflects on standout moments from his career spanning 60 years.
Lawrence Nield was recipient of the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship in 1964.
Image: Anthony Browell
Founded in 1951, the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship (BHTS) is Australia’s largest and longest-running bequest of its type. For the past 75 years, it has enabled generations of architects, graduates and students to travel locally and abroad for study and research, with the aim of expanding Australian architectural knowledge.
The scholarship is named for its patron, Byera Hadley (1872–1937), a distinguished educator and NSW architect. Currently managed by the New South Wales Architects Registration Board, the scholarship has been awarded to more than 270 recipients with far ranging interests, albeit united by common themes. For registrar Kirsten Orr, “The success and longevity of the BHTS program demonstrates the continuing importance of travel to the education of most architects.”
Founding director of Bligh Voller Nield (BVN) and Australian Institute of Architects 2012 Gold Medallist Lawrence Nield is one of the BHTS’s oldest living recipients, having been awarded the prize in 1964. ArchitectureAu associate editor Lucia Amies met with Nield to discuss the background of his scholarship destination and topic, how the research shaped his career, and the renewed relevance of his research today.
Lucia Amies: Where did you go to in your BHTS travels, and what topic did you seek to study?
Lawrence Nield: I won the BHTS in 1964 after I graduated from the University of Sydney in 1963, where I received the Baillieu Research Scholarship. The good students from Sydney normally went to Harvard or Pennsylvania or American universities, but I wanted to go to Cambridge in England because it wasn’t a lecture-based program; it was a thesis-based Master of Literature.
My thesis was about building and meaning. I worked with Colin St John Wilson and Joseph Rykwert, an eminent architectural historian who died only a couple of months ago at 98 and who I kept in touch with after Cambridge.
I was interested in the “meaning” of architecture. To put it in simple words: architecture can be divided like language into subjunctive and indicative moods. When you speak in the subjunctive voice, you express a wish, and when you speak in the indicative voice, you are stating fact. I was interested in how architectural expression developed to have fictive and indicative languages.
LA: Did your interest in architectural semantics shape where your career went after that?
LN: Absolutely. When I got on the boat to go to London, I didn’t really know what architecture was, but I had time to read a lot and I began to understand what I didn’t know. By the time I got to England, after six weeks on the boat, I had a much clearer idea of what I wanted to pursue.
Lawrence Nield headed the master plan team Sydney Olympic Park 2000, which includes the Tennis Centre by BVN.
Image: Supplied
LA: Since completing your studies on the BHTS, you’ve gone onto make profound contributions to the architectural community – as Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney in the 90s (and later at the University of Newcastle), project lead on the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, AIA Gold Medallist in 2012, Chair of the NSW Heritage Council from 2012 to 2015 and Northern Territory Government Architect in 2013 – is there a single role or project that you feel has made a lasting impression on you and how you approach the design of the built environment?
LN: My professorship at the University of Newcastle was a great experience, because when I started in 2011 we had a very good school there. We had several Gold Medallists all teaching together and working – Richard Leplastrier, Peter Stutchbury, Brit Anderson, Kerry and Lindsay Clare, Andrea Nield, and myself. It was a wonderful group of – and this sounds unusual – like-minded architects.
Another role I’m particularly proud of is having led the planning team for the Homebush site of the Sydney Olympic Games. I got a lot of work out of that in both in Greece and in Beijing the following Olympics. In 2008, the French government awarded me a knighthood for my contribution to their Olympic bid for Paris.
Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Centre by BVN in collaboration with CCDI, completed 2007.
Image: John Gollings
Of the individual projects I’ve done, the building that stands out for me is the University of Sunshine Coast Library that I worked on with local architect John Mainwaring and Associates, and which won the Zelman Cowen Award the same year it was completed in 1997. I’m also very pleased at the National Science and Technology Centre (now Questacon) in the Canberra Parliamentary Triangle. That building – which was finished in 1988 and has never really been changed – has the same number of visitations as the War Memorial. Also back in 1988, there were a group of us – myself, Peter Tonkin (who was working in my office), Allen Jack and Cottier, and the NSW Government Architect Andrew Andersons, all working together on the Overseas Passenger Terminal; the wharves and waterside walkways project that completely reinvigorated Circular Quay. It’s had some makeovers since, but they were big changes at the time.
University of Sunshine Coast Library by Lawrence Nield and Partners (LNPA) in association with John Mainwaring and Associates, completed in 1997.
Image: Anthony Browell
LA: Your interest in an environmental approach to city-making holds true now as then it did sixty years ago, though the tools, processes and politics have of course changed a lot over time. What do you see as the key learnings for built environment professionals are practicing today?
LN: I’ve always been interested in urban design, and was really pleased to pursue that as NT Government Architect for six years. Not only did I work all over the Northern Territory, but I worked with Indigenous people in remote areas.
In Darwin, I began to understand the effect of urban heat. Darwin is a hot, tropical city, by both Australian and world standards. It never gets below 25 degrees Celsius at night, and people will get in their cars because they’re air conditioned just to drive just 100 meters. With UNSW, we built a computational fluid dynamic model of the whole of Darwin that allowed us to use the natural resources like trees and breezes to cool the city down by five degrees, which is quite substantial.
LA: That work is incredibly pertinent now – to come up with solutions that relieve the effects of climate change on our cities.
LN: Absolutely, because what will happen today will happen further south tomorrow.
Shade structure in Darwin designed by Lawrence Nield.
Image: Supplied
LA: Do you have a few words of advice for architects today trying to make a meaningful change in the built environment?
LN: Architecture is incredibly important to the way we live, and we need to continually express our support for architecture and communicate its significance to others. We need to talk to people about what architecture is and why it is important. Everywhere we see placelessness. We have to go beyond retention and repair of our cities’ existing fabric to create green, socially rich, street-based development. Although it looks simple on the outside, the profession is complex and that’s difficult for the public to understand. We need to keep on explaining that and saying, “we can do better,” and “you can do better.”
This article is one of five interviews commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship. Stay tuned for interviews with Helen Lochhead, Andrew Burns, Michael Zanardo and Bobbie Bayley.
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Lawrence Nield was recipient of the Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship in 1964.
Lawrence Nield headed the master plan team Sydney Olympic Park 2000, which includes the Tennis Centre by BVN.
Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Centre by BVN in collaboration with CCDI, completed 2007.
Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Centre by BVN in collaboration with CCDI, completed 2007.
University of Sunshine Coast Library by Lawrence Nield and Partners (LNPA) in association with John Mainwaring and Associates, completed in 1997.
University of Sunshine Coast Library by Lawrence Nield and Partners (LNPA) in association with John Mainwaring and Associates, completed in 1997.
National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra by LNPA, completed 1988.
National Science and Technology Centre in Canberra by LNPA, completed 1988.
Shade structure in Darwin designed by Lawrence Nield.
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