You and Eva are probably both right – the space and the light. Not to mention the heat. Maybe also Australia’s sheer geographical distance from everywhere else made tradition seem farther away. (By the way I knew what you were referring to with the word tradition – Australia was traditionless only from the point of view of the white/non-aboriginal settlers who either brought their cultures with them – or didn’t.)

It occurs to me that one major difference is that Europeans settlers to Australia would have had to innovate or steal new building styles to suit the hot climate. The situation was a bit different for European settlers to Canada, though building methods and materials changed here too. But perhaps not quite so drastically.

Canada and Australia probably have the pioneer mindset phenomenon in common – I’m not sure how that plays out in each place in terms of design, art and culture. Pioneers tend to be tough, proud of their survival in hard conditions, and in some ways they feel superior to a cultural tradition. You know, that sort of chippy “we don’t need culture, look at us, we made this land without it!” attitude. In North America this produced a lot of anti-intellectualism, a common prejudice against culture as effete (these views often cut across social class), and generally a disposal of the baby with the bathwater. The well-known Canadian architect Arthur Erickson complained about this problem a lot and felt it had hampered our architecture (and N. American culture in general). He thought it was actually born out of the settlers’ feeling of cultural and educational insecurity. I don’t know how this has played out in Australian arts and culture but it doesn’t exactly seem to have hurt your design. Perhaps these things unfold differently in northern climates and in different economies, who knows. It’s probably true that people feel a lot more open and expansive when they’re not sitting in a dark log cabin freezing themselves half to death. Plus we have the complicating influence of the large, dominant neighbour sitting right at our border.

I’m sure all this generalizing about Australia must be so annoying to Australians! Such a glib selection on my part. I think someone will now have to make gross generalizations about Canadian design. Myself I don’t know what “Canadian design” would be and I can’t see the forest for the trees (/mounties/forts/cabins/bears/trading posts). But I’ll try to select some photos for you. A friend who grew up in the Philippines said the first thing that struck her most about Canada was its house decks. To her eye, every house had a big swimming raft jutting off it.

‘ the way you walk comes form the ground you walk on’.

🙂

‘a generosity of spirit that can afford to grow within that unique sense of traditionless space and potential’
quote from TRACKS by Robin Davidson

personally, it is interesting for me to think about, in terms of a ‘national cool’, me being so into japanese design and all…but that is something that i have built up over years, like an extra nationality (i think 20 years of contact with japan in some way, geez – getting old!) but that is different to growing up somewhere. i am also very proud and inspired by a lot of what happens in my own backyard here… i would also like to see a canada selection sometime! (if you haven’t already that is.)