Suspended at a junction in time: Australia, Silent Running, The Drowned World and the University of Queensland
Walking around the University of Queensland campus about a year ago, I was struck by the beauty of James Birrell’s architecture, but also the slightly disrespectful way in which the rampant sub-tropical foliage was engulfing it. The overall sensation was a delightfully heady fecundity, enveloping the gorgeous concrete structures in a deadly embrace of vines and roots. Yet also a vague sense that I’d seen this before somewhere. I hadn’t, but I realised the overall campus reminded me of 1970s sci-fi movie Silent Running — somewhat bizarrely, given the acres of clear blue sky above.
It wasn’t just the specific forms of the campus architecture. As with most educational establishments, it’s a mish-mash of styles reflecting different funding models and regimes, but it does feature in particular some fine brutalist plastic and concrete cubes of the nineteen-sixties and seventies, courtesy of Birrell.
