Douglas Snelling: Pan-Pacific Modern Design and Architecture

Douglas Burrage Snelling was one of England’s most significant emigré architects and designers, a leading mid twentieth century interpreter of New York design and southern California lifestyle innovations across the Pacific region. This is the first comprehensive study of the life, work and trans-disciplinary significance of Snelling, an English-born, New Zealand-educated, Australian architect and interior and furniture designer who led antipodean interpretations of southern California innovations in modern design, architecture and Polynesian-influenced American ‘tiki’ cultural themes. The book provides a critical examination of this controversial and previously neglected proponent of pan-Pacific modernism, revealing him to be a colourful and talented character who made important contributions to post-WWII culture, architecture and design in Sydney. It illustrates the diversity of his design work and innovations. He became a key Australasian exponent of 1930-40s Hollywood graphic and set design trends and, inspired by California architect Gordon Drake, he intelligently interpreted in mid-century Sydney the organic architecture and landscape concepts originated by Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago. Snelling’s architecture included the largest luxury residences in Sydney in both the 1950s and 1960s, as well as prestigious commercial buildings and interiors; he assembled an oeuvre of around 70 projects. These sometimes included integrated landscapes inspired generally by the works of Garrett Eckbo in Los Angeles. He built the world’s second (and Asia-Pacific’s first) ‘infinity’ (spill-edge) swimming pool, technically advised by the California modernist progenitor of these pools, John Lautner. With his pseudo-thatched tribal roof styles for built residences and resort concepts from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, Snelling was a pioneer of the Asia-Pacific architectural movement known as ’Indigenous Modernism’. Despite this wealth of other creative work, he remains most famous for his 1945-48 ‘Snelling line’ of furniture: chairs, tables and storage units which sold widely across Australia until the mid-1950s. Extensive primary research on Snelling’s multinational life, including visits to all his surviving South Pacific buildings, interiors, furniture and landscapes, with interviews with more than 100 of his associates and family, have clarified his international significance and unique achievements.