Garden lovers across Armidale were privileged to have leading architect, historian, author and garden conservationist Richard Aitken present a lecture at the TAS Hoskins Centre last Friday.
Brought to Armidale by the Northern NSW sub branch of the Australian Garden History Society, Richard discussed his latest book, The Garden of Idea, which explores the beginnings of Australian garden design through to twenty-first century gardens.
Richard trained initially in the 1970s as an architect and in his final project, instead of designing a building, he became curator of an exhibition at the Geelong Art Gallery focused on leisure and pleasure buildings. It was during this exhibition that he became interested in the intersection between architecture and gardens.
“This happened at precisely the time the Australian Garden History Society was being formed in 1980,” said Richard.
“A few people took me under their wing and I was fast tracked into the profession and eventually got a job working for some heritage architects.”
Richard is very interested in looking at the history of gardens through the material and culture of the time, through books, documents and ephemeral sources and marrying them with the physical remains of the garden. Richard believes that the history of gardens in Australia is not well told through only examining remnants of gardens, as they lack the subtle nuances of the gardens as they may have been created. He draws strongly on paintings, prints, drawings, surveyors’ sketch books, plans and architects’ drawings and photographs.
Richard’s lecture provided a wealth of knowledge of garden design trends and was the pre-cursor to the Northern NSW sub branch of the Australian Garden History Society being given the honour of hosting the 2013 Australian Garden History Society National Conference.
“For a young organisation like ours this was a huge coup,” said Chairman Bill Oates.
“All of the garden history people from all over Australia will be coming up here and spending a week in the Armidale district looking at gardens and conducting lectures.”
The Northern NSW sub branch is looking to increase its membership in the region as it plays an important role in documenting and preserving the garden history of the area.
“We also have an advocacy role where we try to remind the public and public institutions, that if they have a significant garden, they should be looking after it,” said Bill Oates.
“A private garden is something each individual will want to look after; it’s a question of choice as to whether they want to preserve the heritage nature of what they have got or do something new.
“It’s part of our role as garden historians, that if they want to create a heritage garden we can provide assistance for that.”
Armidale has a rich history with many historical buildings of significance and with those building come gardens of great worth and history.
“Gardens change over time, so it is quite often that they have had former days of glory,” said Bill Oates.
“We also have very good public gardens here in Armidale with the grounds of the Armidale Teachers College on the State Heritage Register as gardens.
“The grounds there have only ever had three head gardeners; one taking over from the other during the last 75 years.”
To read more about the Australian Garden History Society visit www. gardenhistorysociety.org.au or if you would like to become a member of the Northern NSW sub branch of the Australian Garden History Society, email the Sub Branch Chairman, Bill Oates, at woates@une.edu.au or Helen Nancarrow on helennancarrow@bigpond.com.
