Vale Colin Stewart
1947–2019
A prize-winning graduation project was the beginning of a passionate and influential career in design. Ken Maher pays tribute to his “brilliantly incisive” colleague.
After winning a prize in the Pompidou Centre competition for a graduation project and spending time on a scholarship at Harvard, Colin Stewart returned to Australia. Since then, his work has won numerous awards and gained a loyal following. The shape of Sydney and Canberra today owe much to Colin’s forward thinking, his passion for high-quality design and his focus on the collective public interest.
Colin Stewart was a remarkably gifted architect and urban designer. As an idealist, a dreamer and a brilliantly incisive design thinker, his contribution to Sydney and Canberra over the past five decades has been significant.
Colin was a champion of the public realm and was renowned for his clear and strategic city thinking. He had a unique intellect and was a deeply passionate designer. He believed that good design can change people’s lives for the better.
Architecture was Colin’s passion as well as a vocation that fitted him perfectly and permeated his life. He had an incisive way of developing design thinking through the process of drawing, with essential, elegant and cryptic lines suggesting so much. His legacy exists in numerous built projects, but also propositions and strategies that have influenced the future of cities in which he has lived and worked.
Born in Sydney on 4 April 1947, Colin was the second son of Les and Dorothy Stewart. His childhood was spent in Beverly Hills with his brother Bernard, before the family moved to Penshurst so that he could attend Sydney Technical High School. An early interest in architecture led him to enrol in the program at the University of New South Wales in 1965; he continued to live at home during his studies. On graduating from UNSW in 1970 with first-class honours, he joined a small and talented practice in Woolloomooloo led by Leif Kristensen.
Colin had collaborated with colleagues Craig Burton and myself on a graduation project. The design thinking developed during this process informed an entry in the Pompidou Centre competition in Paris the following year that, remarkably, won a key prize and afforded us the opportunity to travel together to Europe to receive the award. The talent and tenacity that Colin contributed to this project inspired him to further his design interests through graduate study.
Colin won a Fulbright scholarship to Harvard University as well as a Byera Hadley Travelling Scholarship, completing a Master of City Planning in Urban Design in 1973. He followed this with a period of living and working in Manhattan, collaborating with Jaquelin T. Robertson on developing incisive proposals for downtown New York in the Office of Midtown Planning. He returned home in 1974, impressing all with his Art Garfunkel hair and cool New York demeanour.
He then joined Sydney City Council as Chief Urban Designer, working with
Joan Masterman and Carlene Devine for two years, and later with Jackson
Teece Chesterman Willis. During this time, Colin prepared numerous urban design strategies for the city that have informed many subsequent projects, including George Street and Circular Quay, demonstrating thinking that was well ahead of its time.
Colin spent this period in Sydney in a small community in McMahons Point, in adjacent terrace houses with architecture and landscape architecture friends and colleagues who shared their lives and creative endeavours.
Following his marriage to Margaret in March 1979, Colin relocated to Mosman for a short time and the couple welcomed their first daughter, Nicole. In May 1981, the family moved to Canberra for Colin to take up a position at the National Capital
Development Commission, where he worked with the then Chief Architect Paul Reid to prepare many influential strategies and projects for the capital. Some of these were perhaps too far ahead of the local political will to gain as much traction as they deserved.
With his relentless focus on influencing the future through design, Colin commenced independent practice as Colin Stewart Urban Design in the family garage in Forrest during 1988.
From this modest start, the practice has grown successfully into a leading and influential practice in Canberra, sustaining a consistently high-quality body of work and a loyal following of clients, and receiving recognition through numerous awards.
Major competition-winning projects include the ACT Magistrates Court in collaboration with Graham Humphries and Rodney Moss (then practising as MCC), and the Kingston Foreshore Master Plan and subsequent apartment buildings.
The success of the practice allowed Colin to continue to develop strategic, and at times speculative, propositions for Canberra’s future, including re-imagining City Hill and more recent proposals to reintroduce Griffin’s “gateways” to the city.
Colin’s extensive support of the profession included several terms as
ACT Chapter Councillor and two terms as the ACT Chapter President. He also served as a member of the ACT Heritage Council and as chairman of the Gorman House Arts Centre. In 2010, he was awarded a Life Fellowship of the Institute.
In addition to his planning and design achievements, Colin was actively involved in academia through the University of Canberra, including as adjunct professor of urban design.
He was also generous in his support for UNSW Sydney Built Environment.
Colin was blessed by a wonderful family, with Margaret his great love and pillar of strength by his side in life and practice, and three beautiful daughters Nicole, Felicity and Charlotte. More recently, Colin discovered life on the land, and an infectious enthusiasm for regeneration planting, in the Southern Highlands at the much-loved “Tanglewood” in Kangaloon.
In September 2018, Colin was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. While dealing with the knowledge of his terminal illness and finally deciding not to continue treatment, Colin was, as always, remarkably optimistic and incredibly brave – reflecting on good times with family and friends, while continuing to think about, draw and conjure future design projects. He passed away on 26 June 2019.
Those who were lucky enough to know Colin, and to experience his modesty and selfless concern for others and the collective public interest, were invigorated by his energy and enthusiasm for making a better future through design. Beyond his considerable achievements, he will be remembered for his generosity of spirit in seeing the best in everyone, and his open, engaging yet slightly mischievous smile.
— Ken Maher AO is an architect and landscape architect, a Hassell Fellow and an honorary professor in the Built Environment Faculty at UNSW Sydney. He is a past national president of the Australian Institute of Architects and the recipient of its 2009 Gold Medal.