Ken Woolley

Address ‘A Pitch of Magnificence’ Academy of Technological Science & Engineering, 2001

Walter Burley Griffin Memorial Lecture Canberra 1997 ‘Give Art a Chance’

A.S.Hook RAIA Gold Medal Address Sydney 1994 ‘State of the Art’

Woolley was awarded the highest architectural honour in Australia when he received the RAIA Gold Medal in 1993.

Monograph: Australian Architects: Ken Woolley – RAIA 1985

In addition, Ken Woolley worked on notable concrete buildings (Newcastle University Union building and Macquarie University Union building), multi-housing projects (The Penthouses, Darling Point 1967) and buildings of structure and technology (Town Hall House and the Guided Missile Launching System Repair Facility), with many of them picking up various esteemed awards over the following two decades. Among his many notable buildings in Sydney are the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Ultimo, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research building in Darlinghurst (featuring an iconic DNA-inspired helical staircase), Sydney University's Fisher Library, the Park Hyatt Sydney, the former State Office Block and buildings on the Olympic site. There is also the Victorian State Library and the Australian Embassy in Bangkok.

Woolley joined the existing partnership of Sydney Ancher, Bryce Mortlock and Stuart Murray in 1964, and with Murray leaving the practice in 1975, as Ancher Mortlock & Woolley, the team went on to establish a reputation in the design of special purpose buildings. Notable examples are the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Ultimo Centre, the RAS Dome and Exhibition Hall and the Olympic Hockey Stadium at Homebush.

At the completion of the Woolley House in Mosman in 1962, a work he would become most famous for, Ken Woolley emerged as a leading figure in a regional romantic movement often referred to as Sydney School. This new movement combined the influence of organic architecture, brutalism and the arts and crafts movement together with elements of the International Style, and came to embody the harmonious relationships between man and nature as intimate domestic spaces in the Australian bushland. The basis of the Woolley House design was derived from a series of garden terraces, most of which were covered by sections of timber roof sloping parallel to the land. A geometric order was applied to the plan as a series of 12-foot square units that combine to make up the main central space. Natural materials were exploited, with neutral colour schemes of dark tiles, western red cedar boarding and panelling, and painted bricks, creating a feeling of warmth in the house. The open plan living spaces were connected with volumes containing variations of ceiling height and changes in direction, enabling floor areas to be narrow but for the feeling of space to still be maximised. The house won RAIA’s Wilkinson Award the same year it was completed. The house was gifted to the University of NSW in 2016 by the Hesketh family.

Woolley took on a growing number of outside projects while still working with the Government Architect. He generated a reputation in the field of housing, winning a low cost competition for an exhibition house with Michael Dysart, in 1958. Consequently, both architects were invited to submit designs for a display village of model project houses in Carlingford, in 1961, proving to be a successful event that signalled the architect designed project house to be a welcome alternative to the individually designed and standard range houses of the time.

Kenneth Frank Charles Woolley, AM B Arch, Hon DSc Arch Sydney LFRAIA, FTSE, Architect, (29 May 1933 – 25 November 2015) was an Australian architect. In a career spanning 60 years, he is best known for his contributions to project housing with Pettit and Sevitt, the Wilkinson Award-winning Woolley House in Mosman, and his longstanding partnership with Sydney Ancher and Bryce Mortlock. He is regarded as being a prominent figure in the development of the Sydney School movement and Australian vernacular building.

Ken Woolley was born in Sydney on 29 May 1933. He attended Sydney Boys High School and studied architecture at the University of Sydney, graduating in 1955. On graduation, he worked in the Government Architects Branch of the New South Wales Public Works Department. During this time he was the design architect for the Fisher Library at the University of Sydney and the State Office Block (now demolished). He joined Ancher Mortlock Murray & Woolley in 1964, just prior to Ancher's retirement. This practice has received all the major architectural awards and created numerous outstanding buildings which include the Australian Embassy in Bangkok, Town Hall House Sydney, the Park Hyatt at Campbell's Cove, the ABC Radio and Orchestra Centre at Ultimo, the Victorian State Library, the Control Tower at Sydney Airport, the Olympics and RAS Dome Exhibition and Indoor Sports Halls, the Olympic Hockey Stadium, the Sydney Convention Centre, Darling Harbour and the refurbishment of the Queen Victoria Building. The most recent recognition was to the State Library of Victoria with the 2006 Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage Architecture.