Imported Urbanisms: A [Not-So-] Model Town in the Tropics
Paper presented at the Symposium of Urban Design History and Theory
Delft, Netherlands,
November 1-3, 2023.
Delft, Netherlands,
November 1-3, 2023.
“Set on broad, high, gently sloping ridges, eleven miles south of the Brisbane General Post Office and just out of sight of the main Ipswich Road, lies the Commission's greatest venture in housing, the Satellite town of Inala”—communicated a report on the 1950s suburb in Brisbane, Australia. At the cost of 20$ million, it was initially planned according to the garden-city principles by Hennessy, Hennessy & Co for returning WWII veterans. The 17.000-inhabitants town was envisioned as a contained model city, with factories, theatres, schools, playgrounds, shops, parks, swimming baths, child care centres and libraries. The grand entrance framed the intricate landscaping with preserved bushland and green parks. In this cooperative development, each shareholder would choose their house design. The reality, however, was less rosy. When the Queensland Housing Commission took over the project, the scale increased dramatically, adversely affecting “beauty and convenience.” To speed up the construction, the commission planners went on a “shopping” trip to Europe, where they purchased prefabricated type house designs in Sweden, France and Italy. The houses were shipped with construction workers and their families, turning Inala into a vibrant multicultural cluster far from the envisioned tranquil sanctuary. Respectively, house designs resembled an international fair of how French, Italian and Swedish architects envisioned Australian building morphologies. Model amenities were sourced out to a local-Italian contractor that improvised much of the construction on the go.
Through the case study of Inala, the paper proposes to investigate the international osmosis of ideas, the way imported urban models and building types were rethought and adapted to the conditions of the Australian climate and post-war urbanism. The history of this model suburb offers a cross-disciplinary reading of urban design, bridging studies of materials, technology and labour, social and landscape histories beyond the conventional architectural framework.