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43 Kireep Road
43 Kireep Road BALWYN, Boroondara City

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Boroondara City
Camberwell Conservation Study 1991
Camberwell Conservation Study 1991
Camberwell Conservation Study 1991
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Statement of Significance

Significance

Historically, significant occupiers, Douglas Napier Gillison and roan Gillison. Their careers straddle important changes in the literary and popular history writing of the period 1940-1980. Douglas Gillison's work on the Official History of the RAAF is an important contribution. An unusual couple in that both took up popular historical writing: of Regional importance.

Architecturally the design epitomizes Boyd and other Melbourne Modernist's approach to design, with a minimalist external cuboid expression adorned only by 'structural decoration' as implied by the triangular bracing to windows. Like the nearby Stargazer house(q.v.). it also took the form-follows-function dictum to a visual extreme, in the design of the writer's study: of State importance.

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    • Physical Description 1

      43 Kireep Road - Physical Description 1

      Contemporary accounts noted the 4"X1" timber window mullions used on the diagonal as structural framing and the remote upper-level box-like writer's 'perch' with its Ned Kelly slot to selectively view the then rural landscape. Then a two-storey block, with two window-wall modules facing north, the main house stood at the corner of the lot. Connected to it via a slim glazed link at ground level, only, were another four bays of diagonal glazing. Above it, isolated from the other upper levels was the writer's study with a horizontal window slot which allowed a view only if the occupant stood up[3]. The whole had the look of stacked building blocks, some with the modish diagonal geometry that provided functional 'structural decoration'. A similar isolationist approach for a study was designed by Boyd for the writer-historian, Manning Clark's Canberra house.

      3. N Clerehan, a friend of Boyd 's

      Integrity

      43 Kireep Road - Integrity

      Changes since that date include the uniting of the upper levels and the absorption of the famous Ned Kelly room by replication of the diagonal glazing modules.

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Boroondara - Camberwell Conservation Study

      Author: Graeme Butler
      Year: 1991
      Grading: A

Public contributions

Note: Developments may span multiple time periods
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