Beyond the claptrap and cliche: Tim Ross' top architectural treasures

Sydney Morning Herald

12-06-2025

There's plenty of claptrap in the cliche about the Australian dream, says self-described architecture nerd and comedian Tim Ross.
The idealised version is a three-bedroom home on a quarter-acre block in the suburbs with a Hills Hoist, a Holden in the driveway and a lawnmower defining a kingdom of neat grass.
But that cliche has never been the whole story, Ross said. A new exhibition opening at the State Library of NSW on Saturday, curated by Ross and specialist librarian Anna Dearnley, debunks the myth with stories of people and buildings that have shaped our homes.
For many Australians, the sound and smells of suburbia relates to freshly mown lawns.
But the inventor of the Victa motorised petrol mower, Mervyn Victor Richardson, escaped suburbia for Palm Beach once he made his fortune.
Ross said Richardson commissioned and built a mid-century modern home by architect Peter Muller on a rocky bushy block at Palm Beach that didn't look like any of the project homes going up across Sydney. 'He built this house that was virtually 'lawn-less',' Ross said.
Richardson's story showed how rapidly Australians took to the suburbs, and how deeply entrenched the backyard was in the Australian dream. As project homes went up across Australia, Victa sales rocketed from 1070 petrol-powered mowers in 1950 to 230,721 a decade later. It is estimated that the now overseas-owned company sold nearly 7 million mowers by 2002.
Ross said the photographs by famous photographer Max Dupain of Richardson give Muller and his home a 'part Bond villain, part Thunderbird look'. The pool had a swim-up bar which opened on to the living room and Richardson would commute via seaplane.
'It's a strange success story. If anything, the role [of the photo of the house] in the exhibition is to be that sort of knockout moment of architecture porn,' he said.