The architecture of East Australia : an architectural history in 432 individual presentations
In 1840 Sir Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor General of the British Crown, chose a rocky promontory on Sydney harbour for his home. He built a cottage in the style of the Gothic Revival, popularized in England by Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin & documented in popular copy books shipped with his baggage from his home country. The house perfectly expresses the imaginative dislocation of European culture into the romantic wilderness. Whether they came out of duty, like Mitchell, or in the hope of opportunity, the European immigrants viewed Australia as a terra nullius, as an empty land, a vacant space waiting to receive a model of Christian civilization. It took a century to realize that the dream did not comfortably fit the continent
Print Book, English, ©2001
Edition A. Menges, Stuttgart, ©2001