Buildings by flamboyant Di Castri jarred with their neighbours on fusty late-Victorian streetscapes. An exhibition of his work is at Wentworth Villa until Sept. 10.
Even among the group of young architects who were transforming Victoria’s post-war urban landscape with their ambitious designs, John Di Castri was an outlier.
He was Victoria’s most creative architect of the day, noted for his flamboyant, even what some might call “idiosyncratic,” designs.
Avoiding the clinical spare forms of local post-war architecture, his work was a powerful celebration of his West Coast environment: stunning topography and a rich palette of as-found building materials.
He joined an international movement that attempted to break decisively with the past, in a style known as Modernist. This meant simplifying forms, revealing the bones of a building’s construction, and stripping away the elaborate ornamentation of the historic styles — letting the function and materials…
Martin Segger www.timescolonist.com
READ MORE
2023-08-20 12:15:00 , "Burnside Arizona" – Vivrr Local
