Architecture news & editorial desk
The Boroondara Council’s request to apply an interim heritage overlay to an architecturally significant modernist house designed by pre-eminent Australian architect Robin Boyd has been turned down by the Victorian government’s planning department.
The councillors were prompted to take action in August following a public outcry after the house on 12-14 Tannock Street, Balwyn North in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburbs was listed for sale. A petition started by Jacqui Alexander, a senior lecturer in architecture at Monash University, calling for the protection of the house against possible demolition, received almost 6,000 signatures.
“It is a tragedy that this important example of post-war Australian modernism looks likely to succumb to the same fate as many other significant homes in Boroondara. Architecturally significant homes from this era are being razed in eastern suburbs like Balwyn at an alarming rate, only to be replaced with mas