Robin Boyd

Robin Gerard Penleigh Boyd (3 January 1919 – 16 October 1971) was an Australian architect, writer, teacher and social commentator. He, along with Harry Seidler, stands as one of the foremost proponents for the International Modern Movement in Australian architecture. Boyd is the author of the influential book The Australian Ugliness (1960), a critique on Australian architecture, particularly the state of Australian suburbia and its lack of a uniform architectural goal. Like his American contemporary John Lautner, Boyd had relatively few opportunities to design major buildings and his best known and most influential works as an architect are his numerous and innovative small house designs. Background and early life Robin Boyd was a scion of the Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, and his extended family included painters, sculptors, architects, writers and others in the arts. Robin was the younger son of the painter Penleigh Boyd, and his own son, named after his grandfather Penleigh, is an architect. He was a nephew of author Martin Boyd and a first cousin of Australian painter Arthur Boyd and his brothers David and Guy. In 1938 his grandfather Arthur Merric Boyd offered him his first commission, a studio for Arthur Boyd on the Boyd property, Open Country, at Murrumbeena. A further cousin was Joan à Beckett Weigall, Lady Lindsay (author of Picnic at Hanging Rock). She married Sir Daryl Lindsay, director of the National Gallery of Victoria, brother to artists Norman Lindsay and Sir Lionel Lindsay.