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‘The only life worth living’WALTER ABRAHAM aa Macquarie University , SydneyPublished online: 15 Dec 2010.

To cite this article: WALTER ABRAHAM (1982) ‘The only life worth living’, Australian Planner, 20:2, 93-94, DOI:10.1080/07293682.1982.9656933

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07293682.1982.9656933

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Workshop C - Development as it pertained to different levels of Control government.

The problems of development control and also its benefits were probed by Colin Taylor, Kevin Anderson, Stuart Crawford and David Chester- man. An example of the real planning process was provided by Stuart Crawford, Blacktown City Council NSW, who compared the problems created at the local level by the Planning and Environment legisla- tion. Other issues included the most suitable form of development control, the extent to which development con- trol should be defined and included in the statutes, and development control

Workshop D - Heritage

A large number of delegates enjoyed a short walk around Battery Point and the City Centre under the watch- ful eyes of Trevor Kneebone, Frank Duffy and Lawrie Wilson. The purpose was to view the integration of more recent developments with the historic charm of this residential sub- urb, and around the waterfront. Con- flict has arisen in a number of loca- tions even though a conservation planning scheme operates; this high- lights the problems developers face in maximising the use of old buildings.

DENIS WINSTON MEMORIAL

'The only life worth livingy

WALTER ABRAHAM

IT is appropriate that Denis Winston himself should be the subject of this, the first Denis Winston Memorial Lecture.

The year 1908 was not at all a partic- ularly auspicious one. Certainly Henry Ford produced his first Model T; Picasso and Braque showed the first cubist pictures of the Paris Salon; Peter Behrens' turbine factory was built in Berlin and Frank Lloyd- Wright's Roby House in Chicago. But what interests us today is that on 27th January of that year 1908, just over 74 years ago, Arthur Denis Winston was born in Liverpool.

building air raid shelters, and pulling down unsafe blitzed buildings in Liv- erpool and elsewhere.' Then from 1942 till 1948 he acted as an official architect. First as Chief Architect to the Ministry of Health and Local Government in Northern Ireland, and then as Borough Architect and Chief Planning Officer in South Hampton County Borough.

From this period dates his first ex- perience of local government and the scope of professional practice. While the fifth period in Australia from 1948 till his death in 1980 is that which interests us most, Denis

Denis Winston's life had five clearly Winston was largely a product of a

definable periods. The first from his rich early period of family influence, formal education and extensive birth till 1926 saw him at school. The travel, The influences and experience second period of eight years from

1926 till 1934 encompassed his of his European and North American

architectural course at the University early life are, I believe, essential to

of Liverpool and two years in the an understanding of his years in Aus- tralia.

United States as a Commonwealth Fund Fellow.

The third involved his early segment as teacher and academic. He was first lecturer and then senior lecturer at the Schools of Architecture at the University of Durham and University of Liverpool.

The fourth period saw him as a prac- tising professional. During the early years of the war he records, 'I was engaged in the inglorious work of

On New Year's Eve 1948, Professor Denis Winston arrived in Australia. At the opening of Denis Winston Place at Woolloomooloo in Sydney last October, Sir Herman Black, Chancellor of the University of Syd- ney, speaking of his arrival in Syd- ney, asked: 'Who was there to know that when he entered this country as he thought himself, for a short while only, which became a lifetime, who was to know that he passed through

Customs with an invisible baggage, imparting a new perspective, a new scheme of ideas.'

Denis Winston himself said of the early 1950s that town planning was generally thought of as merely architecture on a larger scale. In the following thirty years of teaching and practice in this country, he was to play a leading role in the change, and I quote him: 'From the age of the planner as missionary, to that of the planner in action.'

In 1976 Denis Winston wrote: 'I would place the building up of the Department of Town and Country Planning from its birth to become a department with a wide reputation attracting students from throughout Australia and from overseas coun- tries, as my most significant single achievement. Second in importance were the continuing exercises in pub- lic relations and public education, expressing themselves in talks and writings, to newspapers and pro- fessional journals, and papers given at conferences throughout Australia,' well known to all of us who have attended RAP1 Congresses in the past. 'Also the process which resulted in the formation of the Royal Aus- tralian Planning Institute. I was also promoter and first director of the Planning Research Centre at the Uni- versity of Sydney. Such practical ef- forts as my contributions to the re- development of the Rocks; the work for the Snowy Mountain Hydro Elec- tric Authority, including member- ship of its three man committee on the aesthetics of major buildings; layout of the new town of Jindabyne; work over several years for the City of Adelaide; my book entitled 'Syd- ney's Great Experiment'; and finally my six year membership of the National Planning Committee for Canberra.'

Immediately following his arrival in Sydney to occupy the Chair, his energies were wholly directed to set- ting up the first School of Town and Country Planning in Australia. This was within the Faculty of Architec- ture at the University of Sydney, and under his leadership the department over the years 1948 to 1973, 291 students were awarded diplomas, and ninety Master's Degrees, and out of his total of 381, it is significant that sixty students attended from overseas countries. Today the department has a full-time academic staff of ten, and encompasses a Graduate School of

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Arthur Denis Winston (Liverpool 1908 - Sydney 1980)

The idea of the Denis Winston Me- morial Lecture, to be given now and in association with future Con- gresses, originated from the Denis Winston Memorial Committee, at the University of Sydney. The Com- mittee is dedicated to furthering the ideas and work of the late Emeritus Professor Denis Winston, and is chaired by a member of RAPI, Maurie Edwards, appointed by the Federal Council. The Committee in- cludes represenlatives from the In- stitutes of Architects, Landscape Architects, Urban S tud ies , the Society of Sculptors, the Universities of Sydney and New South Wales; and also former colleagues of Denis Winston.

In 1949 Denis Winston became the first professor of planning in Aus- tralia, and after became the mentor and foundation President of the Aus- tralian Planning Institute. Following his thirty years of tireless planning activities, the Memorial Committee has as its aims the establishment of scholarships and planning studies; the arrangement of lectures; the as- sistance to study programs at Syd- ney University and other educational bodies: and the conduct for these purposes of a national appeal.

Planning and a Planning Research Centre, under whose auspices these Memorial Lectures are held, and which was established by Denis Winston himself in 1964.

Among the many enduring legacies which Denis Winston left to the De- partment, is the library which now bears his name. The Denis Winston Library is largely the product of his personal and special interest over twenty five years. Today it holds approximately 15,000 volumes and 100 serial titles, and is arguably the finest of its kind in this country. It was something of which Denis Winston was particularly proud. But the voluminous papers which he left behind are the record not only of the quality of his teaching, but of his indefatigable efforts to spread the cause of town planning.

Even as early as the mid 1930s, when he was teaching a t the University of Durham at Newcastle, and the Uni- versity of Liverpool, he gave regular lantern slide lectures to public groups. The Winston Papers include more than 150 addressed to public and professional organisations, most of them delivered during his thirty years in Australia.

He addressed engineers on the art of building cities; professional groups on their relationship to planning; women's clubs on the quality of life; Senate Select Committees on water pollution; architects on what makes a city great; and aeronautical engi- neers on 'Are there permanent stan- dards of beauty'.

To his lectures and addresses he brought a special range of qualities: a wide historical and geographical perspective; a deep understanding of growth and change in town and countryside; inspirational optimism in the present and future condition of mankind and his environment, specif- ically in the need for everyone to be properly housed. There was a fre- quently expressed need for closer re- lationships between professions, and between them and politicians. His presentations were thoughtful, ra- tional and sensitive, and he knew well how to hold the full attention of his audiences.

In respect to our Institute, it is ap- propriate to mention again his role in bringing together in the early 1950s, the three existing Planning Institutes. Fittingly he was the first president on the Australian Planning Institute

from 1951-53, in later years he fol- lowed this up by negotiating in Lon- don, for members of our Institute to have equality of status and full re- ciprocity with the Town Planning In- stitute. During an active quarter cen- tury of professional life in Australia, Denis Winston found time to advise governments and authorities. The major beneficiaries of his advice in- cluded the New South Wales Depart- ment of Local Government; the Unit- ed Nations; the Sydney Opera House Executive Committee; the Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Authority; the Adelaide City Council to whom he acted as Consultant to the Lord Mayor's Committee for the redevelopment of Victoria Square.

His major awards include joint win- ner of the first premium prize for the design of Kingcourse new town (1937); the Queen Elizabeth Coro- nation Medal (1955); the Sidney Luker Memorial Medal of NSW Division (1956); Commander of the British Empire (1 978).

His warmth, shyness, sensitivity, modesty and approachability earned respect and affection of all his stu- dents and friends. In even such a brief survey of his life, there is ample suggestion of a grand design. So in conclusion, I've selected an extract from a letter written to him by his teacher at his Montessori school in April 19 19, when he was eleven years old: 'I often think of the wonderful work there lies before you Denis. I'm sure you've been sent into the world for profit of the people, for advantage of the nations. That you being cap- tain here is just the beginning of a great career. What a happy glorious life for you, to be of true service to others, the only life worth living. George Elliot has said, "to seek the noblest is our only good", for that higher vision poisons all meaner choice for evermore.'

We have yet to realise how much we are in Denis Winston's debt.

Walter Abraham is Universifj. Architec t , Macquarie University. Sydney.

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