Manning Clark House: Reflections

AUSTRALIANA ARCHITECTURE

The Clark house was a radical design for 1950s Canberra. Clark asked the architect – who would go on to write The Australian Ugliness – to design a house for him after meeting at a gathering, then declaring, “We understood each other.” What resulted was a sense of serene harmony in a dwelling that was not only a hub of creativity but also home to a family with six children. It’s filled with writerly touches. Bookshelves in every room – the dream – and an eyrie of a study that tips its hat to a writer’s craving for solitude. This high room is accessed via a perilously steep set of steps – very difficult for any young child to navigate. Clever. On the desk are Clark’s writing accoutrements, still. It feels like he’s just left the room.

“[Poet] Alec Hope stood with me in the study in the week it was finished but not finished, looked out of the window at Mt Ainslie and Black Mountain,” Clark wrote, “and prophesied, ‘I see books being written here’.” Indeed they were. Many, over decades. And the house aided not just Manning’s work but that of his wife, Dymphna, a renowned translator. Yet like so many women combining motherhood with writing she had to cram work into the corners of domestic life. Her workspace for a time was a small fold-out table in the kitchen, whose old fuel stove was backed with tiles painted with flowers by Arthur and Yvonne Boyd. In this tiny space Dymphna would type up her translations on a portable Olivetti.

The house is a time capsule of gracious, book-crammed, intellectual living, complete with a very Australian chook shed and vegie patch out the back. Leading figures from our nation’s cultural life visited from the early ’50s to the late ’90s – Patrick White, Judith Wright, Sid Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Helen Garner and Barry Humphries to name a few. “He flooded whole areas with light in ways that nobody had ever done before. He was an oracle, not a conventional historian,” Clark’s peer, Geoffrey Serle, wrote of him. Light, flooded, unconventional – all words that could be associated with Robin Boyd’s creation as well, and what a fortuitous meeting of minds this house on Tasmania Circle is.

Anyone can visit, because of the generosity of Clark’s children. And anyone can visit Bundanon because of the generosity of Arthur Boyd, Robin’s cousin. The chef at its cafe, Douglas Innes-Will, describes his wonder at being a part of the artistic enclave now. “When I was a kid, Bundanon was this magical place up the river you occasionally got the opportunity to visit. Fifteen years later, it’s incredible… What I really relate to with Arthur Boyd’s vision for Bundanon is that he left this to the people of Australia to showcase its beauty… That’s what I’ve tried to do throughout my career, contribute to something greater.”

Contributing to something greater. As are David Walsh in Hobart with Mona, the Besens at Victoria’s TarraWarra Museum of Art and arts maven Judith Neilson in Sydney. With all I just think, go you good things. They could have done something selfish and frivolous with their wealth. Instead they’ve given back to the nation by creating beauty, bestowing beauty, for the people. Balm for the soul, and this column is nothing more than a paean of gratitude for the visionary, outward-looking generosity from them all.”

NIKKI GEMMELL

45 p. : col. ill., port. ; 21 cm. Architecture

Clark, Manning, 1915-1991 — Homes and haunts — Australian Capital Territory — Forrest.  |  Manning Clarke House (Forrest, A.C.T.)  |  Forrest (A.C.T.) — Buildings, structures, etc.

Freeman, Peter, 1942 Aug. 25 –  |  Russell, Roslyn, 1948-  |  Manning Clark House Inc