When drawings were drawn, and Architects were artists. A family mystery.

Thes images are from a roll of plans left in the “Tank Room” carefully labelled by Dad as Roll “X”. There are a few more which I plan to scan sometime.

Dad would never have missed an index.

I can’t add much to them except that there is a bit of a family mystery. One of the plans is for a Residence Elgin St for Gordon (Sydney) for Mr and Mrs W. A Durack dated 1949. The odd thing is that I don’t recall any mention of what must have been a major project in Mum and Dad’s life. Not a sketch plan but council approved working drawing for a very substantial house. It must have been just before they decided that Sydney life was not for them, and they took off to live in Julia Creek. The contrast could not be more extreme. Perhaps the money wasn’t there but I think it was more to escape the city.

Apologies for the not great scans but they are mostly quite large and all different sizes. Best I can do. You will need to look at on a real computer. Phone screen will be a challenge.

Dad was always very proud of his colour wash used on many of his drawings. Interestingly a thick tome on the topic amongst his textbooks recently handed over to his grandson.

Wonder what this could have been

Blueprints weren’t much of a medium - still hard to read. It is the Hotel Darwin which I think was built but now pulled down.

Moore Park. Drove past this for many years. I think now pulled down.

Qantas Singapore. I have sent a copy of this to the Qantas Museum Longreach to see if they are interested.

The mysterious house for Mother and Dad in Gordon. The curled-up bit is the council approval. A very ambitious building. In todays $ many millions I would think.

Dad was articled to Cavanagh & Cavanagh. (Very strange font is it a v or a b?)

Who knows whose dreams were tied up in this sketch. Somewhere in the north I would guess from the palms.