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The House that Jack McConnell built
It was still plausible in the sixties - the idea that modernism represented a definitive change in human attitudes towards the built object. It was sold as the only way forward for a new liberal future. Once freed of the classical language no oracles may force an architect to design inside suffocating antiquated rules and yet an Adelaide architect, the late Jack McConnell believed that clean lines, proportional relationships and simplicity of expression mattered. It can be seen retrospectively that it was the zeitgeist prevailing much more than he would have admitted. Yet, one of those mystical architectonic moments occurred when one saw this view for the first time. Relationships of material surfaces, deliberately managed, sparse elegant columns lining the side of a pool of water, coordinated interiors. To an aspiring young modernist, quietly, the power of an assured intelligence working the spaces over... sort of magically appeared...
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