Murcutt Symposium<\/a> from September 11 to 13 at the State Library of NSW.<\/p>\nIt includes Murcutt in conversation with his friend Francis K\u00e9r\u00e9, another Pritzker winner, visiting Australia for the first time. It will include visits with Murcutt to homes he has designed, and a panel of top architects discussing ideas such as healthy buildings and designing for climate that drove Murcutt\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n
![\"It](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/14b276525f9e2579ebc0798b6b11afbc35d51198.jpeg\")
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It is like forest bathing, Brian Preston says of his Glenn Murcutt-designed house in the Sydney suburb of St Ives, which was completed in 1992.Credit: Max Mason-Hubers<\/p>\n
One speaker, Carol Marra, an architect and Churchill Fellow, said K\u00e9r\u00e9 and Murcutt seemed very different \u2013 K\u00e9r\u00e9 has a mid-size practice, where Murcutt works solo. Yet both took time to understand what\u2019s unique about a place, including its cultural and social history, the landscape and people.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not trophy architecture but has a dignified presence of its own,\u201d Marra said.<\/p>\n
She said it was difficult to date Murcutt\u2019s work. \u201cThey could be 40 years old or could have been built yesterday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s deeply human work, you can sense \u2026 a love of people, care for place and nature. It is incredibly hard to achieve this in our market-driven commercial world, but it is a reflection of who Glenn is, a beautiful human being, brilliant and humble in equal measure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Compared with nearby McMansions, the Preston home is modest and was unusual for its time because it incorporated a range of salvaged wood.<\/p>\n
\u2018I like that idea that there\u2019s that privacy to the street, and then you bite the apple and you have all the fruit inside.\u2019<\/p>\n
Glenn Murcutt on Preston House<\/p>\n
Preston, a devoted gardener who also received the TAFE State Medal for Urban horticulture (1999), said it was a very therapeutic place.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou think about the Japanese concept of forest bathing. You have that in your own house. We get all the birds, and we open the windows.\u201d<\/p>\n
Murcutt said it was important to have a client who understood beautiful landscaping. \u201cAnd [Preston] has made a paradise. It is just paradise.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Murcutt says the Prestons have created a paradise in St Ives.Credit: Max Mason-Hubers<\/p>\n
Murcutt is not looking for new work but trying to complete projects. That includes working with architect Angelo Candalepas on the new beachfront headquarters for Royal Far West at Manly.<\/p>\n
Asked if he thought about his legacy, he said he left it to those managing the Murcutt Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am having a few difficulties, health-wise, falling over. It is knocking me about a bit. I say to myself if I get to 90 or 95 I will be very lucky,\u201d Murcutt said. \u201cI am very philosophical. I would like to be active until I have finished, and I don\u2019t like the idea of slowing down, that\u2019s been the curse of my life. I\u2019m pretending I\u2019m still 40.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want clients to be waiting, and I die in the middle of it. So I\u2019ve said basically no to every new project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size Turning 89 on Friday, the Pritzker Prize-winning Australian architect Glenn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-19555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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