The architecture of John Smith Murdoch

by FRASER COAST MAYOR GEORGE SEYMOUR

WALKING around the Maryborough CBD is a wonderful experience for those with an interest in architecture.

We have many examples here of the work Australia’s most accomplished architects.

The council is currently undertaking restoration works on one of the most unique and interesting of these buildings: the Maryborough Customs House.

We have stripped back over 30 layers of paint to the original interior décor and are returning it to be closer to its original state.

The Customs House and adjacent residence were built in 1899 to replace the earlier buildings which had been badly damaged by the record 1893 flood.

These two similar buildings were the creation of a very gifted architect, John Smith Murdoch. At the time Murdoch was working for the Queensland Government, but a few years later he transferred to the Federal Government where he would play an instrumental role in designing the young nation’s capital.

Murdoch was a member of the reviewing board for the national capital design competition, which was won by Walter Burley Griffin in 1912. Whilst it was Walter’s name on the competition papers, his wife Marion was equally responsible.

Canberra was certainly an odd choice to start a planned city; it was a dusty landscape dotted with sheep stations; chosen principally for its equal distance from Melbourne and Sydney.

Griffin and Murdoch eventually fell out, partly over Griffin’s belief that Murdoch was one of the departmental officers who was hostile to his capital design.

Like the formal façade of our Customs House, Murdoch and his government team represented tradition, precedent, duty and pragmatism.

Meanwhile, the Griffins, who began their careers working with Frank Lloyd Wright, were more free-thinking and anti-establishment.

Murdoch disliked the artificial layout of Griffin’s design and felt the capital should follow the natural contours of the landscape.

He thought much of it was a waste of public funds. Griffin’s plans for town layout were implemented, with Murdoch to provide the designs for individual buildings.

A Royal Commission was even held into the antagonism and the men never spoke again after falling out.

Despite this, Canberra has turned out quite well. Murdoch was responsible for many of the early iconic Canberra buildings which now define its character.

Perhaps Murdoch’s best known building is the first Parliament House in Canberra.

In 1923, Murdoch was given the task of designing a provisional parliament house that could be used until a suitable design and sufficient funds could be found for a permanent building.

Murdoch’s stripped classical design for provisional Parliament House reflected his training in Glasgow, earlier work in Australia, and visits to parliamentary buildings in London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna and Washington.

While both functional and economical, the symmetrical structure was symbolic of Australia’s democratic bicameral parliament and was sympathetic to Canberra’s natural and built environments

Whilst it was envisaged that it would be a temporary parliament, this “provisional” building was in fact used until the new parliament was opened in 1988.

Murdoch was known as a workaholic and never married. He had a dry and quiet personality and was frugal in professional and private life.

Remarkably for someone so accomplished and so important to our national history, there are only two known photographs of him, and he is not looking towards the camera in either of them.

Together with the Griffins, he defined the look and feel of Canberra with his classical designs.

So too, the corner of Richmond and Wharf Streets here in Maryborough will always stand in testament to the creativity and skill of one of the great Australian architects: John Smith Murdoch.