The Roy Grounds: The Modernist Movement

The Modernist movement was more than just an architectural style, it represents wider social changes which influenced the designers of the time and remains an ephemeral historical snapshot of what is modern.
Roy Grounds was a pioneer within Australian Modern architecture, and worked with the changes of the world to urban environments and construction to create progressive designs and does this while still maintaining the same geometric language across a wide scale of work. Often using residential projects to push new ideas before implementing them in powerful institutional structures.

“The notion of modern then acquired the connotation of what is momentary, of the transient, with its opposite notion no longer being a clearly defined past but
rather an indeterminate eternity.”
Modern as it is today is something that can only be experienced if we continue to move and grow with it. Modernism the movement, while now can be defined as a specific period in time of technological advancements and rapid world wide philosophical changes, begins this idea of continuing evolution of style and progression, not just specifically within architecture but the communities views and ways of living.

One could argue that like the process of creating a product for mass-production, Grounds is constantly looking to refine his building language as he strives for the perfect timeless structure.
Similar elements are used across his body of work, experimenting with application on his smaller projects before they’re ready to be used on large buildings.
Two very different buildings in their typology, The Roy Grounds House (1953) and The National Gallery of Victoria (1968), with one a small residential building and the other a large internationally recognised institution, clearly show how he is constantly practicing values of symmetry and simple geometries(fig#) and some of the specific elements that are continually reproduced and perfected, large eves with and rising undersides (fig#&#), panoramic highlight windows (fig#&#) and centre courtyards (fig#&#). “Modernity frees people from the limitations imposed on them by their family or clan or by their village community”
The key stylistic elements mentioned previously are very particular as they make reference to some components of the standard Australian weatherboard, extended eaves, garden area, while gently pushing the residents, and Melbourne architectural practice, towards the new modernist lifestyles that were becoming so
popular.
The construction of Grounds’ buildings utilises the technological advancements of the time with steel framing used to create the open courtyards so unique to his style. There was however no loss in craftsmanship, the previously mentioned buildings using hand laid brick and stone, something that was traded for mass production during Modernism.

Roy Grounds work was entirely modern. It was new and current, taking advantage of the changes in how families lived, the new materials and speed of construction. He managed to translate this knowledge into his designs, both residential and institutional, while maintaining the same unique language of elements and aesthetics.