Brian

1934

Brian Snowden is the exemplar of the second generation of post war architects in South Australia, the product of a mixture of full-time and part-time study combined with office experience, a stint travelling in Europe with a year working for a distinguished architect, returning to work for one of Adelaide’s progressive firms before commencing his own practice.

He was born in 1934, the son of Master Builder Frederick Lester Snowden and Alice Snowden (nee Newton), at Lower Mitcham. He attended Unley High School and the University of Adelaide, commencing the Bachelor of Engineering (Architecture) Degree as a full time student for three years, changing to part time whilst gaining practical experience in the office of Hassell and McConnell. When the new architecture course started, under the direction of Professor Rolf Jensen, he transferred and completed his final year full time in 1960, with top distinction for his thesis. This was a tourist complex for Marino and was admired by students in the lower years as setting an impossibly high standard but one to be aimed for. He graduated in 1961 and almost simultaneously was registered with the Architects Board and elected an associate of the RAIA.

He married Janice (Jan) Amanda Bates at St Peter’s Church Glenelg on 22 December 1956 and they had two children, Amanda and Mark, both of whom studied architecture as did their granddaughter, Sophie Wilksch. Jan had studied at the South Australian School of Art, and they were to later start a joint venture – Atrium Design Studio where her art was exhibited and works commissioned. Much of her work was displayed in the series of three houses Brian designed for the family.

Upon graduating he worked for Hassell and McConnell on the documentation for the new campus of Adelaide University at Bedford Park (now Flinders) before heading off to Europe with his family. In England he was employed in the office of Sir Basil Spence and Partners, again working on a new University – Sussex, the first of the new wave of “Utopian” universities to be built in Britain after the Second World War.

Returning to Adelaide and Hassell McConnell and Partners, he was again working on Flinders University, now as project architect for stage 1 until its completion in 1966. In the time honoured custom, he had completed a number of private commissions (moonlighting it was called) and the time was right for him to leave Hassells. He commenced his own practice in a rented room at 82 Greenhill Rd. Unley, and with good connections through Snowden Bros. Builders and sailing club interests, he had enough work to keep him busy day and night. This was mostly one-off houses. Two shopping centres for builder and developer, Alan Hickinbotham, expanded his portfolio and more commercial work followed.

A number of innovative houses did not proceed as often happened in conservative Adelaide, but one project at Stonyfell so impressed the builders that they commissioned a series of project houses. The time was exactly right for this concept. A new, first generation tertiary educated set of home builders, anxious to avoid the suburban prototype parodied by architect and critic, Robin Boyd and comedian, Barry Humphries, were buying blocks of land on sloping sites with natural vegetation and needed an affordable architectural design. The “Martens and Marshall” split level houses with their natural materials and controlled proportions by Snowden & Pikusa Architects, responded exactly to these conditions and they provided a steady income stream for the next decade. They were marketed very successfully, with television personality and fashion model Maggie Tabberer retained to oversee the interior décor of the “Hillside 3” split level design at Bens Place in Blackwood. This followed the 1970 “Telethon” house and led to more display homes at West Lakes and Wattle Park. Overall, 600 houses were documented with nearly 500 completed.

During the same period, project houses in Sydney and Melbourne were proceeding and, as happens in the Eastern States, were receiving a good deal of professional acclaim. Surprisingly, there was not an agreed fee structure for these designs and repeats, until Brian Snowden, while on the housing committee prepared “a scale of fees for repetitive housing” which was adopted by the RAIA Federal Council in 1966.

By the mid 1970’s the practice was well established and became increasingly involved in commercial and retail projects. Their work exemplified the modernist ideal of straightforward rational planning, well ordered modules of fenestration and structural clarity, all documented with careful precision. A case in point is the offices on the N/E corner of Greenhill Rd and Goodwood Rd. A number of successful shopping centres and notably, the sensitively integrated North Adelaide Village, followed the West Lakes Mall, executed in association with Sydney Architects Dick-Smith, Leffler and Giles. During these years the practice undertook more work in country areas. Their last project for those two decades was the Orlando Warehouse at Rowland Flat, which received the BHP Metal Building Award of Merit in 1990-91.

These expansive times were not to last, for in the early 1990s Australia was in the depths of the building recession and the industry suffered badly. A new model project home was built at Aberfoyle Park, “the Hillside Outlook Display House” but although it won an MBA award, no repeats were commissioned. As with most practices, time was spent on “flyers” including high rise apartments, wineries and tourism projects, but with high interest rates, very few could stack up economically. Towards the end of the decade, sketch plans of a group of four ‘over the water’ town houses at the newly developing North Haven was re-designed with five units, one being Brian and Jan’s third house, another two occupied by the developer and “yachty” friends. These were built on existing piles, having been abandoned by the previous developer.

Throughout his career Brian took an interest in planning matters. He organised the 1968 RAIA National Housing Symposium “Tomorrows Housing” where keynote speaker Harry Seidler warned of the “perils of ignoring positive planning over preventative measures”. Council regulations at the time continued to thwart innovations in housing layouts and mixed use, and this led to the Joint Industry Committee on Planning (JICOP), with Brian Snowden and John Chappel representing the RAIA. The committee met for three years and although it had little success at the time, did ultimately herald the changes embodied in the Integrated Design Commission and Government Architect.

He was a member of the Glenelg Rotary Club for 35 years and was recognised as a Paul Harris Fellow in 1997. He began sailing at the age of 12 and was a prominent member of the Royal South Australian Yacht Squadron, his experiences and adventures being among a series of articles published by their quarterly journal.

In 2017 he was made a Life Fellow of the Australian Institute of Architects having “practised as an architect for over 50 years (including 40 years as a Practice Director) and in that time (having) rendered notable contribution to the advancement of the profession” (AIA citation 2017 ).

For a photo of Brian Snowden see Finding Aid at [http://aad.unisa.edu.au/siteassets/documents/architecture-museum/snowden-2018.pdf]

John Schenk LFRAIA

Citation details
Schenk, John, 'Snowden, Brian', Architecture Museum, University of South Australia, 2018, Architects of South Australia: [http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=153]