Moving forward in a time of crisis

I sit down to write my first President’s foreword at a strange time. Australia is confronting an existential crisis. Businesses, livelihoods and lives have been lost. Our normal way of life has ground to a halt.

As devastating as the COVID-19 pandemic is, humans have weathered far worse, from the Plague of Justinian (541–42 AD) to the Spanish flu (1918–19). Between 1788 and 1962, Australia experienced outbreaks of fearsome diseases, including cholera, typhoid, smallpox, poliomyelitis and even bubonic plague. Yet some features of the present situation are unquestionably new.

Global travel has accelerated infection: COVID-19 crossed the planet in three months, whereas the Black Death raged across southern Asia and Europe for 20 years before reaching Russia in

1351. But modern medicine has hastened diagnosis and treatment; modern media has increased our understanding; and modern systems of governance have mandated widespread prophylactic measures and provided economic support. Unprecedented cooperation has unified governments across the political spectrum – even across the Tasman!

Weeks of isolation have changed the way we work. Collaboration has been amplified. We work within our practices but outside our offices. The Institute has enhanced connectivity with our “Lean-In” series. Younger members, in EmAGN and SONA, have demonstrated their exceptional digital capabilities through social media platforms. Even our National Prizes ceremony was conducted virtually.

One lesson from history’s more nocuous pandemics remains: building and construction projects are often the first, and hardest-hit, commercial casualty.

Yet legacy building has long been borne of disaster. Architecture bounces back, often with remarkable resilience, alacrity and grandeur. Italy’s Siena Cathedral, under construction when the Black Death arrived, was scaled back for a smaller congregation; England’s Winchester Cathedral was simplified for a reduced workforce. London’s Great Fire led to Christopher Wren rebuilding St Paul’s Cathedral and other landmarks. The Great Depression produced the Historic American Buildings Survey – providing work for unemployed architects – and massive American engineering projects like the Hoover Dam and Lincoln Tunnel.

Australian governments of the 1930s mostly followed received wisdom: no country can spend its way out of economic crisis. New South Wales suspended public works, except the Sydney Harbour Bridge (commenced 1923). Tasmania’s major relief project, the road to the summit of Mount Wellington, was known as “Ogilvie’s Scar,” dubiously honouring the state’s premier, Albert George Ogilvie. Only Queensland followed the US example, embarking on major relief projects such as the Great Court at Queensland University, Story Bridge, Somerset Dam, and a program of extraordinarily well built public schools.

Projects beyond the capacity of either government or private industry were undertaken by public–private partnerships (PPPs), producing the Hornibrook Highway (then the Southern Hemisphere’s longest over-water viaduct) and the Walter Taylor Bridge (then Australia’s longest suspension bridge span). Ninety years later, this infrastructure is still working. This same visionary path is now being actively advocated by the Institute.

Australian building and construction has continued despite COVID-19. The Institute has worked with governments across the nation to ensure safe working conditions to maintain livelihoods and essential supply chains. When this is over, buildings will still need to be built, and architects will still be needed to design them. We remain at the pencil-point of the supply chain, well before the shovel-ready.

I want to acknowledge outgoing president Helen Lochhead for thoughtfully navigating the challenges of the tragic bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic, all the while continuing to advocate for the profession. Under her leadership, the Institute has been doing everything in its power to assist members through these trying times, and to be ready when the good times return. As they surely will.

Looking forward to my term as National President, I hope to work with members to make a creative, positive and lasting impact. I guarantee that I will do my best to support a profession that I love, and to which I have devoted my entire adult life.

As I write, we are beginning to see the pandemic abate. Once a great disaster ends, people don’t merely want to get on with their lives; they want to improve them. As architects, we are uniquely qualified to fulfil this quest.

Let us move forward with the same resolution and self-confidence as the architects and artisans before us, who have produced works of genius in the shadows of history’s greatest disasters. And let us emulate their inspiration in proving that, despite all obstacles, the human spirit is truly indomitable.