Alerted by the internet, I was able to visit an icon of the Sydney School of mid-century architecture the other day. The Rickard House 2 at Wahroonga is on the market, and inviting inspections. What a beauty! Layers and wood and bricks—and more bricks, and more wood, and more layers. Pictures can’t convey what it feels like to be inside the space.
Built in 1962 and bought by the current owners in 1993—they are only the third people to own it—the house has been lovingly and carefully maintained in pristine condition. Only the kitchen and bathrooms have been updated, and those very sympathetically. Even the original flat roof, though replaced, has been replaced as-it-was—despite the fact that it must be a nightmare. Those flat roofs never really worked well. Even Le Corbusier must have conceded that, I think.
The architect
Bruce Rickard (1929 – 2010) was born in Roseville and lived in Turramurra—so definitely a local around here. After his training, he worked as a junior for Sydney Ancher, another of the famous Sydney School architects. He then studied in the UK and USA, including under such Modernist luminaries as Philip Johnson and Louis Kahn. Rickard also studied and later taught landscape design.
Bruce Rickard, 1929 - 2010 [source]
Throughout his career, Rickard designed more than 80 houses, mainly single-family residential houses on Sydney’s north shore and northern beaches. He also designed a church, several schools, project homes, a drive-in restaurant and a car-wash (is it still standing, I wonder?) Regular readers with good memories may recall me mentioning the Rickard House I, in nearby Warrawee. Rickard designed three houses for his own family over the years, in Warrawee (1959), Wahroonga (1961), and Cottage Point (1989-90).
Here’s another interesting factoid: Bruce Rickard went to school at Barker College, as did my architectural designer Evan, aka my son.
Rickard House 2, Wahroonga
I gasped
As I stepped inside the Rickard House 2, I gasped and kept gasping. The floorplan is complicated: the house is stepped down a steep block. Similar to the house I live in, the design is so well conceived that you don’t really notice how steep the terrain is. There’s a lovely swimming pool, which, sadly, is non-compliant. Ugly fences will have to be built. Car accommodation is a double carport at the end of the battle-axe driveway. Below the pool is a hidden garden of citrus trees, a child’s swing, and veggie patch.
A tour of the house
I’ll try to describe the house: The small entry foyer opens to a sitting room. Below, glimpsed from a balcony, is the main floor of the house. Off this sitting room on the entry level is a bathroom, bedroom and an office with doors which open to the entry courtyard. Some rooms are carpeted, but the flooring is mainly brick. Yes, regular earthenware bricks. Everywhere.
The internal (and external) walls are ALL brick. Not a sheet of gyprock in sight.
At the base of the brick staircase is an expansive kitchen, with floor-to-ceiling windows to the back garden and pool, and a dining nook. The space is dominated by a massive (brick) fireplace. On the other side of this huge (brick) column is another fireplace, warming a large living room. At the rear of this space is a dining area. Overhead, the whole place is lit by clerestory windows, plus the opening to the entry above.
Cleverly, the ceiling drops over the dining area, and over the exit to the garden. I’m not doing a great job of describing this—you had to be there. But the many variations in ceiling height are a big feature of the interior: open expanses give way to cosy nooks. A secondary sitting room (where there’s currently a big screen TV) has quite a low ceiling, but it also a high lightwell. Sometimes you’re in a cathedral; sometimes you’re in a Frank Lloyd Wright prairie house.
About that Frank Lloyd Wright vibe
FLW sprang to my mind as soon as I walked into the house. It took me a while to figure out why—mostly the low ceilings—but I was interested to discover from Rickard’s obituary in 2010 that he “was described by Stella de Vulder of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (RAIA) as ‘the Frank Lloyd Wright of Australian architecture.’”
It has been said of Rickard’s style:
‘Incorporating the sleek modernism of the International style, it was also influenced by the opposing '‘organic'‘ approach, of which Wright was the world’s leading exponent… Of the many architecturally designed buildings he visited in the US, Rickard was most impressed by those of Wright, which are at one with the landscape, both in their organic design and use of natural materials such as wood and stone.
He was particularly struck by Taliesin West in the Arizona desert (then the great architect's home, now the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture's main campus) and Wright's most famous design, Fallingwater, a Pennsylvania home cantilevered over a waterfall. [source]
Fun fact: I’ve visited both Taleisin West and Fallingwater, as well Kentuck Knob in Pennsylvania, and FLW’s own house in Oak Park, Chicago. All amazing!
Continuing the tour
Off the kitchen and meandering behind the stairs is a suite of low-ceilinged ‘extra’ rooms: a workshop or games room, a wine cellar, a laundry, a pantry. Then, in the long bedroom wing, two additional bedrooms, a master bed, a bathroom and ensuite. The bedrooms all look out onto the beautiful back garden and (non-compliant!) pool. And yes, the bedroom walls are all brick.
Regarding this brick: first of all, the house is heritage-listed, so with any luck no philistine will come along and stick gyprock all over the walls. (Besides, I think the job would be too big and complicated.) Secondly, I can report that the brick is lovely! Definitely not a 1970s motel vibe at all. The brick used is beautiful: a rough, multi-coloured face with the look of reclaimed bricks.
A note on the furniture: The house has been ‘staged’ for sale. According to the agent, they asked the stylists to go for a mid-century-meets-contemporary vibe. It looks good!
Things I noticed:
1. Window glass meeting at corners, beautifully executed. I have some in my current house, and it amazes me how well-made they are. This, presumably, could not be achieved with modern double-glazed windows.
Now that’s a window.
2. The nooks and crannies: not only the lowering of the ceilings here and there, but built-in shelves around the beds in the secondary bedrooms, the ‘extra’ rooms behind the stair, small shelves in unexpected places, rooms leading off rooms with a maze-like vibe. All of which contribute to a cosy, I-could-live-here feel.
Brick bedroom walls. Built-in nooks.
3. The timber! Timber ceilings. Timber eaves. Timber lining the carport. Timber trim on everything. Timber cabinetry. If it isn’t brick, it’s timber. It looked to me like the timber was stained or oiled. I couldn’t guess what kind it is.
Bricks and timber. Everywhere.
4. The low ceilings in the bedrooms and the office. These surprised me at first—who wants low ceilings? It’s a criticism of Frank Lloyd Wright, something that makes him seem old-fashioned. But the effect in this house works: you walk from an open, soaring, high-ceilinged space looking out over the tree tops, into a low-ceilinged bedroom or study nook. And remember: ALL these ceilings are lined with wood. As you change spaces, the ambiance changes, your mood alters. It’s the cleverest thing.
Sitting room with low ceiling, plus a light well.
The roof: Would you like to see the roof? Flat roofs give a nice, sleek look to the silhouette of a house but are notorious for leaking. The day I visited, rain had been bucketing down. We can only hope all is well with this roof.
Sydney School Modernism rules!
From architectureau: The heyday of the Sydney School was the mid-1950s to the early 1970s. During this time, younger Sydney architects were interpreting Wright’s followers in southern California and Scandinavia. Sydney’s 1960s “humanists” (who followed Scandinavian architects in trying to synthesise European communist and American democratic/capitalist ideologies, and who were responsive to nature) included Ken Woolley, Peter Muller, Hugh Buhrich, Philip Cox, Neville Gruzman, Bruce Rickard, John Allen, Russell Jack, Ian McKay, Bryce Mortlock, Peter Johnson, John James, Ross Thorne and Don Gazzard.
Many favoured face brick and stained timber and replaced flat roofs with canopies raked at unusual angles. Some also introduced a cross-sectional strategy of central staircases and staggered floor levels. Their houses were intended not merely to harmonise with their sites but to dramatise Sydney’s extraordinary topography and vegetation.
Much of this is exemplified in the Rickard House 2.
As you’ve no doubt guessed, I was over-awed by this house. Sydney Modernism! The modernist aesthetic meets a LOT of brick. And if you have about $4m, you could own it next month. It’s up for auction.
Rickard House 2 in the 1960s. The house is listed on docomomo Australia with photos by Max Dupain.
And if this style of thing floats your boat, take a tour through a Sydney Ancher house in Wahroonga, which was for sale recently (now sold). Enjoy,