A March 1955 special feature on Canberra. Canberra was a relatively new city, and after WWII, modern architecture sprang up everywhere alongside the original Californian bungalows and (almost Arts and Crafts) cottages. There are many excellent examples, and the best place to read about them is the Canberra House blog. One of these excellent houses is actually up for sale: an Alex Jelinek house at 10 Gawler St, Deakin. It comes with its custom made Krimper furniture! Price is ‘by negotiation’. Canberra prices are pretty outrageous even for ordinary houses, but if I was the kind of person who had a lot of money to spend on a house, I’d be up for this one. Looking at the pictures, I wonder if those are the original bathrooms. The fittings look kind of 1978 and out-of-place.

Anyway, the Home Beautiful feature has sections on public architecture, such as at ANU; private homes, including floor plans and interiors; and local craftspeople making pottery and furniture. I’ve put it all into a PDF for download, it’s 30MB: Home Beautiful Goes to Canberra – March 1955.

in an online catalogue from Shapiro Auctioneers. The description suggests it’s likely to have been designed by Clement Meadmore, a famous Australian-American sculptor, who was designing furniture in the early 1950s. You may have seen his sculpture at the National Gallery:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pvk/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

He originally studied industrial design (with a strong interest in aeronautical engineering) at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and you can see that industrial-atomic-spaceage look throughout his designs:

These chairs were made in 1950, and sold for about $5000 in 2008.

There’s no date given, but since it’s all about updating your tired old dark wood Art Deco and Victorian furniture with which you have Made Do with during the war, and there’s no modernist furniture in the pictures, I’ll take a guess at 1947-49. I found it in the National Library along with a few other interesting and similar promotional publications. Since colour photocopies cost something ridiculous like $2 a page, and taking a scanner to the library is fraught with difficulty, I used my iPhone to take photos of the pages. I’ve edited it together into a PDF which you can download: The Colorful Home (PDF 38MB).

There are plenty of before-and-after illustrations for all rooms of the house, as well as your exterior and garden. Here are the afters!

A living room: all the dark wood has been painted in "Biscuit", and the furniture modernised by cutting down the legs and removing frames.

Mission brown Victorian furniture and fittings painted in new "Llama Grey"(!) gloss, and the linoleum painted bright royal blue.

The bare concrete floor has been painted "Grotto Green" as has the window frame and door; the furniture is red-trimmed now; and the walls are an ever-popular bright cream.

A nursery scheme designed for a girl, with "Pale Orchid" walls and "Cambridge Blue" enamel paint on all the furnishings. Venetian blinds were advertised as healthful, because you could control "dangerous drafts" so the baby wouldn't catch a chill.

A very pretty little kitchen in a classic 40s colour scheme! Yet more cream paint, with "Oriental Red" trim, and "Burnt Sand" painted lino. The curtains are "snowy white muslin with red coin spots". I want a shiny red sifter like that!

The large kitchen, with walls in "Buttercream", furniture in "Lettuce Green", and floor in "Forest Green". Check out the Cornish ware crockery, and aluminium canister set.

There's that cream paint again! even on the bathtub exterior. The stool is "Marigold", the floor a grey-blue, and the shower curtains and mat have a seagull motif with black trim!

The "oppressive stained furniture becomes delightfully modern" when painted in glossy cream! The walls are "Distant Blue" (a soft turquoise).

Home sweet home - with "Mecca Green" and "Deep Cream".