Dymphna Clark discusses the Manning Clark house by Robin Boyd with the ABC in 1994. A fine interview in which we learn that Dympha first heard of Boyd reading The Age in isolated Croydon…
I did get The Age every morning, and on a Wednesday there was a thing called the small homes service, and, although if you look at those early designs now you wonder what on earth I saw in them I was very excited by them and when Manning came home on his bike about 8 o’clock in the evening I would say to him “Oh, have you seen the latest small homes design”, and this this this and this and how wonderful it all was and he’d say “Yes dear where’s my dinner.”
Then she talks us through the colour selection for the house and does a fair impersonation of Mrs Slocombe. We learn that the garage was not very useful for putting a car into, and that the site architect was, “not at all sympathetic with this kind of house, however he did supervise it, mm.” Dymphna died in 2000.
Pictures and plans were at the Manning Clark House website (archive link) but now everything to do with Robin Boyd’s design has been removed from the site in an unfortunate rebuild. Never fear, we can still rely on the ever present Canberra House . There’s also a 2017 article in the Canberra Times with a few choice anecdotes.
[ Links updated and extended January 2019 ]
11 Tasmania Circle
Forrest,
Canberra
Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
2603
Tags:
manning clark,
robin boyd
See also:
Courtyard Houses