When distance matters. Australian modern architecture seen through European journals (1945-1975)

Abstract

If we look at an Antipodes World Map, Europe and Australasia are relatively close, so much so that New Zealand and Spain share a virtual territory. Thinking about antipodes, remoteness implies coincidence and distance brings countries closer together. This paper aims to track the spread that modern Australian architecture reached in some of the main European nodes of reception and emission of news: France, Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Spain. Based on articles published in the architectural periodicals of the moment, it will establish which aspects of Australian architecture mattered in these countries. More importantly, these cases can be compared with each other and, as a whole, with the interest that other closer continents aroused in Europe. Did distance play the same role in all cases? Or had any other circumstances, such as politics or economics, more weight in the rapprochement between countries? Is the presence of Australian architecture in modern canonical historiography the direct result of these exchanges of information? In short, does historiography have a debt to distance?