“Ruthless in their integrity” according to Elizabeth Farrelly, Godsell’s designs are rooted in the lessons of history while searching for solutions in an uncertain future - making him “absolutely an architect for the present.”
Sean Godsell is an architect of the old school. He draws by hand, details via sketch and supervises on site, in person. An avid reader and skilled writer, he feeds the lessons of history into his buildings and deplores contemporary design as uniform and unintelligent. “My strongest asset,” says Godsell, “is my training in the history of architecture.” Unsurprisingly, developers do not figure highly in his client list.
This unrepentant non-conformism, although celebrated by the international intelligentsia, has tended to cast Godsell as a cult figure. Especially within the diehard postmodernism and try-hard eccentricity of Melbourne, Godsell’s ultra-principled stance has long seemed eccentric to the point of anachronism. Until now. Now, at last, that very staunchness is gaining recognition as a promising key to an increasingly uncertain future.
A stroll through Godsell’s oeuvre reveals several enduring themes and motifs – the box-on-legs, the lift-up flap,
