Harry Howard (1930-2000) was an architect and landscape architect who designed the sculpture garden at the National Gallery of Australia (with Barbara Buchanan and Roger Vidler) and the landscape setting of the adjacent High Court, Canberra. He graduated in architecture from the University of Sydney in 1953, worked briefly for Sydney Ancher, then transferred to Edwards Madigan Torzillo, where he remained for many years. He also completed a diploma of town and country planning at the University of Sydney in 1960. A modernist devoted to Gropius, Le Corbusier, Mies Van der Rohe and Harry Seidler, he was also drawn to left-wing socialist politics. His first commission, an abstract composition of two elegant, flat-roofed pavilions – a House for a Young Couple and a House for a Retired Couple – was built on a double lot in East Gordon and exhibited at the arts festival of the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956. He worked on the site design and landscape development of many schools during this period, both for the Public Works Department and parents & citizens groups. During the 1960s, he taught design part-time in the School of Architecture at the University of NSW. He was one of a highly talented group which included Rickard, Bill Lucas and Neville Gruzman, who were committed to creating an inspired response to the Sydney landscape. They created a unique work environment and social milieu at 7 Ridge Street, North Sydney, a building conceived by Howard and Rickard as a series of professional studios and designed by Ian McKay. At one time, 7 Ridge Street accommodated the offices of Seidler, Mackenzie, Rickard, Howard, Peter Myers and the studios of designer Gordon Andrews and photographer David Moore. Howard served on the NSW RAIA Council 1970-84 and on the Board of Architects during the 1970s. A foundation member of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, In association with Barbara Buchanan, he designed Sawmillers Reserve at McMahons Point, the landscape of the Film & Television School, Ryde, and the courtyards at NIDA. In 1996, he received the Australian Award, the highest accolade of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.
Source
—Weirick, James. 2000. Obituary in The Sydney Morning Herald, 7 October.
James Weirick checked this information in January 2005.
- Writers:
-
Davina Jackson
- Date written:
- 2015
- Last updated:
- 2015
