Anchoring identity: the architecture of Chancellor and Patrick 1950-1970

This thesis, Anchoring identity: The architecture of Chancellor and Patrick 1950-1970, provides a detailed study of the Chancellor and Patrick oeuvre over the nominated twenty year time frame. This includes David Chancellor's formative student years and solo practice, before his formation of the firm in 1954 in partnership with Rex Patrick. A summation of the 1970s decade to the close of the partnership is presented in the concluding chapter. Three interrelated areas comprise the study. The central body of the text engages with a detailed study of the architecture, the nature of the firm and those who worked there. At the same time the Chancellor and Patrick architectural journey is viewed from a critical position on the cutting edge of theory and practice. The theoretical discourse of the period from 1950 to 1970, in Australia and overseas, is discussed as a historical background to the architecture, ideas, and responses of the firm. Retrospective critical views of the period are also considered. However, within the notion of difference, the main poststructuralist theme that underpins the thesis is based on French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s theory of desire: desire in my interpretation seen as the fulcrum in a shifting pattern of perceptions of region, universality and otherness, tied to the goal of anchoring identity. A Working Catalog covering the thousand Chancellor and Patrick commissions in the twenty-year time frame from 1950 to 1970 provides the first accurate and detailed framework for the work of Chancellor and Patrick. Given the general lack of accessibility to much of the material discussed in the text, a comprehensive volume of illustrations complements these first two areas.