Adrian Snodgrass (1931–), enrolled in the Sydney Technical College architecture course in the late 1940s but left after first year to travel to India and later Sri Lanka, Tibet, Hong Kong, China, Bhutan, Southeast Asia, the Philippines and Japan. From 1957 to 1967, he spent time in Sri Lanka and India, studying Sanskrit and Indian culture and history. On intermittent returns to Sydney, he often worked in the architectural office of his friend and intellectual protege, Peter Muller. In 1967-68, he was an associate with the interior design firm Pacific House (Asia) P/L, Hong Kong. From 1968-1973 he lived in Kyoto Japan, studying Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit and Buddhist Chinese and translated Japanese Buddhist texts for his book The Matrix and Diamond: World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism. In Hong Kong during 1974, he was executive associate with commercial interior designer Dale Keller & Associates, and worked in the architectural firm, Palmer and Turner. In 1975, he worked with photographer Brian Brake to make documentary films in Indonesia, then returned to Sydney to become a principal with architects and interior designers Alan Gilbert and Peter Muller in Regional Design and Research. In 1981, he gained a Master of Science (Architecture) degree from the University of Sydney (thesis on symbolism of the stupa) and joined the staff of Sydney University, as Japan Foundation lecturer across the architecture and religious studies departments. Since then he has taught on aspects of Asian religion and thought, particularly on Mahâyâna Buddhism, Buddhism in Japan, Confucianism, Taoism and the symbolism of Asian religious art. He also taught design in the BSc (Arch) degree and lectured on various aspects of Asian architecture, art and culture, and on design theory, with special attention to the thought of continental philosophers and to hermeneutical philosophy. In 1985, he gained a PhD (on stellar and temporal symbolism in traditional architecture) from the University of Sydney. He has given keynote lectures to conferences in Hanoi, Colombo, Sydney and Adelaide, given more than 100 lectures to the Art Gallery of NSW, and has organised several conferences. His books, which have been translated into various Asian languages, include The Symbolism of the Stupa (1985, 1988, Ithaca NY: Cornell); The Matrix and Diamond: World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism (1988, 1997, New Delhi: International Academy of Indian Culture and Aditya Prakashan); Architecture, Time and Eternity (1988, New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan) (An Italian translation was published in 2004); and The Taima Mandala: A Descriptive Guide (1995, Sydney: Art Gallery of NSW). He has also written numerous journal articles, book reviews and entries in exhibition catalogues, and has supervised numerous masters and PhD students. In 1996, he became a founding editor (with Anna Rubbo) of the University of Sydney’s Architectural Theory Review. In 1997, he retired from the University of Sydney and in 2003 became an adjunct professor with the University of Western Sydney’s Centre for Cultural Research. In 2001 he co-curated (with Jackie Menzies) the exhibition, Buddha; Radiant Awakening, at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
Sources
—Snodgrass, Adrian. 2004. Interview recorded by Davina Jackson, 4 October.
—Correspondence with Judith Snodgrass, 2004.
—Urford, Jacqueline. 1993. The Architecture of Peter Muller, PhD thesis. Sydney: University of Sydney.
The above information was checked by Adrian and Judith Snodgrass, January 2005.
