I am not an architect. But I have been consumed by the architectural stories of Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin, and the Sydney Opera House for over two decades. The first began when, as Curator of Architecture and Design at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, I developed the exhibition 'Beyond Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin in America, Australian and India' in 1998. Accompanied by a catalogue of essays of the same title, the project sealed my abiding interest in the complex Griffin story and most recently led to my participation as editor and contributing author in the 2015 book, 'Visionaries in Suburbia: Griffin Houses in the Sydney Landscape' (WBG Society).
Six years after the Griffin show I began work on an exhibition and book to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Opera House competition in 2006. The exhibition did not eventuate but the book was published as 'Building a Masterpiece: the Sydney Opera House' in 2006, with a second edition in 2013. It was this project that led to my doctoral thesis, ‘Peter Hall and the Sydney Opera House: the “lost” years 1966-70’ (Sydney University, 2014) and to the forthcoming book 'The Poisoned Chalice: Peter Hall and the Sydney Opera House' (opusSOH, 2017). Research, writing and exhibition development are my strengths, but I am also interested in contemporary housing and urban planning issues and, in the spirit of the Griffins, their intersection with environmental and social concerns.