Leslie Wilkinson: Practical Idealist

Australian Architecture. First Edition. pp. 128 illusts #0118

Leslie Wilkinson was a professor of architecture at University of Sydney. He was born on 12 October 1882 at New Southgate, Middlesex, England and died on 20 September 1973 at Vaucluse. His whole life was dedicated to architecture as both an academic and practising architect.

Wilkinson was the founding dean of the faculty of architecture at University of Sydney in 1920. His ideals on architecture as a form of art had strongly influenced both the school and its students. The emphasis on the teaching of philosophy and practice of design was at the time a frontier in architecture education. Wilkinson was never a part of the modern architecture movement. His work, both as a teacher and practising architect, was consistently involved only with traditional architecture, which was inspired by Australian’s colonial heritage and Mediterranean architecture. This is contributed by his background training at the Royal Academy of Arts and his study tours in France, Italy, Spain and Great Britain. Wilkinson’s influential work is seen in residential, church and University of Sydney master plan.