“One lives a life, and then one reflects upon it”     Newell Platten

Just released by the wonderful Wakefield Press this is an amazing autobiography interweaving both the author’s and his parents incredible lives. Architecture is linked with a sense of place and an artist’s eye.

This is a very exciting medium sized book, at times rather breathlessly written. It is divided into three parts, includes a handy table of contents at the front, and a well coordinated index at the end with plenty of photos both black and white and colour- family photos , extraordinary shots of the native First Peoples in Papua New Guinea and glorious shots of particular architecture.

A rather eccentric missionary in pre-war New Ireland, now part of Papua New Guinea, Gil, Newell’s father, spread the Methodist word in remote islands, organising the building of houses and roads, attending a wedding overtaken by volcanic eruption, and, in very dramatic fashion, just managing to escape, via a small boat, the Japanese invasion.

We learn how increasingly Gil saw how the so-called superstitious beliefs and customs of pre- Christian cultures had given practical assistance in everyday matters that Christianity didn’t, leaving his charges bereft in the advance of Western modern life.

Gil ‘s photos and records of events and customs such as shark snaring, initiation ceremonies were in fact crucial anthropological studies. His letters, treatises and other reports show his great struggle to do his job on low pay and the somewhat shabby treatment he was given by the Church, especially in comparison to the treatment received by the Catholics.

His post-war return, dealing with the horrors of the aftermath and the massive devastation, practically having to start from scratch, left him having to start from scratch again, and he eventually resigned from sheer despair.

Gil ended up returning Australia and retiring in Adelaide. We also learn of the trials and tribulations of Platten’s mother, as she struggled to look after him  and his siblings.

Newell Platten, Gil’s architect son,  frames this story with an account of his own travels, to Europe, to Japan and to America, and his career.

He was born in Rabaul in 1928, the then administrative capital of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. A missionary’s son, Platten believes his Methodist upbringing influenced his character, particularly a ‘tendency to self-denial’ and ‘a sort of obligation to improve the lot of common man’ (Hurst 2004: 238 ).

Newell attended boarding school in Australia. Readers learn of his work in cities such as London, Spain and Greece, and his work for the renowned architect Doxiadis. Newell Platten was at the forefront of architectural change in both South Australia and nationally from the 1950s in both the private and public sectors.

The firm Dickson and Platten which he formed with Bob Dickson became known as the instigator of a style dubbed ‘South Australian Regional,’ a warm and rustic way of building that played a major part in the development of the style now defined as ‘SA Modernism ‘.

Along with active roles in the planning of Adelaide in the 1960s and ’70s, Newell Platten also became Chief Design Architect of the SA Housing Trust and a Commissioner on the proposed city of Monarto.

He was also involved in the design of the Noarlunga complex and the design of the Kathleen Lumley College.The era, especially of the 1960’s -1980’s, is also placed in context socially, politically andarchitecturally from Platten’s point of view.

Of great importance was Platten’s large involvement in the exhibition of contemporary architecture accompanying the Royal Australian Institute of Architecture’s (RAIA) 6th Australian Architectural Convention in 1956 which was held in Botanic Park in the Adelaide Parklands.

The exhibition was designed to show architecture by means of models and actual buildings and hence stimulate interest in the latest developments in the field. Platten was involved in the formation of the Civic Trust of South Australia as a direct result of chairing the RAIA Public Relations Committee. That committee organised the 1967 symposium ‘Outrage’ which focused on the state of the built environment in Australian cities and led towards the establishment of a local branch of the Civic Trust. He developed a fascination with Japanese architecture and gardens . He documented this work in another book entitled The Lure Of The Japanese Garden, co-authored with his wife Alison, which has also been published by  Wakefield Press.

In his personal life, we learn that Platten’s interests outside of his family, architecture and writing include travel, gardens, the visual arts. With his first wife Margaret, whom he married in 1954, he had three daughters. Tessa, born 1968, is a nurse; Anna, born 1957 and Bronwyn, born 1959, are both professional visual artists.  Anna assisted her husband Rod Taylor in pioneering the Adelaide Central School of Art.

An epilogue reunites father and son with Newell pondering his father’s sad decline at the end of his life. There are also links to both Gil and Newell’s grandfather with the love of gardens. The power of the Methodist church is integral to both Gil and Newell’s lives. They have rejected the faith but it has been a major part of their formative background.

‘One lives a life, then reflects upon it’ – but rather than just write about himself as a successful architect in Adelaide, Newell Platten uses his own life story as preface to the adventures of his father Gil, finding compelling links in the guiding principles of their apparently very different lives.

Category Biography/Autobiography/True Stories
Format Paperback
Size 230 x 170 mm
ISBN 9781743053898
Extent 304 pages

Price: AU$39.95 including GST