Murcutt Symposium 2025

The inaugural Murcutt Symposium was held this week in Sydney, with house tours, talks and social events spanning three days 11-13 September. On the eve of welcoming more than 790 people to the events, Sydney received a total of 122mm of rain - the heaviest daily rainfall for September since 1879. So it was pleasing that skies cleared on cue!

The events begin with the experience of Glenn Murcutt's work. Building tours provide the opportunity to understand how Murcutt has used materials to form space and relate his buildings to the landscape in which they sit. Thanks to the generosity of the owners of these sites, four houses were visited including the Nicholas house in Mount Irvine, the Simpson Lee house in Mount Wilson and the Ball Eastaway house in Glenorie - north west of Sydney.

On Friday 12 September, a packed auditorium witnessed a moving ceremony as Glenn Murcutt AO awarded the  Murcutt Pin to Francis Kéré; paying tribute to the sustained commitment shown by Kéré to work for,  and with, his community in Gando, Burkina Faso, to build schools and other infrastructure using a combination of traditional materials and methods, augmented with contemporary approaches that are handled simply - such as steel reinforcing bars that can be  used to fabricate trusses and other building elements. 

On Saturday 13 September, we heard again from Francis Kéré in conversation with Glenn Murcutt, facilitated by long term scholar of Murcutt’s work, Catherine Lassen of the University of Sydney. Covering many shared themes, a focus was on the need for design and construction to be understood as a single pursuit and not separately as is often taught, and on showing caution to the speedy decisions that are able to be made using computing power. Good decisions sometimes require 'hesitation' that only a human can discern.

Following this, we experienced  the irrepressible energy of Dr Piers Taylor - founder of the UK's Invisible Studio and alumni of the 2001 Murcutt Masterclass. Piers opened his keynote address by announcing "I am hardly an architect...I have never had a roadmap and I haven't really had a career"! In a talk titled 'Muddling On', Piers' work shares the focus on learning through making and an intense study of  local conditions as the driver for design decisions. Throughout Piers' work in teaching and practice is a endless curiosity that generates an architecture of invention and testing; aiming to reduce waste in the fabrication phase so that form is often a result of this search, and not wilful shape-making. 

A highly interactive afternoon session led by 2010 Gold Medal winning architects Lindsay and Kerry Clare, Ché Wall and former Environment Commissioner, Rod Simpson, questioned whether our current planning and building regulatory settings are really achieving gains in the race to decarbonise our buildings. Limits to natural ventilation and drive towards airtightness can lead to buildings that overheat in Australian conditions unless reliant on mechanical ventilation to avoid the unintended consequences like poorer indoor air quality and mould.

Sydney-based architect Carol Marra's work on the publication 'Design for Climate/ design for change' synthesises precedents drawn from vernacular architecture that has developed in response to specific place-based climatic, cultural and other conditions. Those precedents are explored and explained, and applied in case studies under conditions that are changing along with our climate. These include design for bushfire, heat, flood and wind - elements that are increasingly a feature of natural disaster. 

Celebrated Australian documentary film maker, Catherine Hunter, has filmed Glenn Murcutt and his work for around 30 years. Two short films by Catherine on Murcutt's life and work have been aired to acclaim worldwide: Spirit of Place and the Cobar Sound Chapel. But Catherine's footage extends beyond these films at a time when funding for arts and cultural works is dwindling.  At the close of Catherine Hunter's presentation, the Foundation announced a crowd funding campaign, to be matched by funding from the Foundation, to complete the work of 30 years and produce the definitive documentary on Glenn Murcutt: his life and works. You can  support the campaign here and be present at the premiere in 2026!

The climax of the Symposium was the unscripted moment when Glenn Murcutt chose to acknowledge the distances travelled by so many and the passing of dear friends in recent weeks. Closing drinks allowed those who had travelled from across the street, the harbour, the country or the world, to reflect on the first Murcutt Symposium.