Catalogue 63 New Century Antiquarian Books Late Spring 2012

[34] JENKINS, Norman J.
The Australian House. Sydney, W.J. Nesbit, n.d. but 1946. Large
quarto, pp. [2] (blank), 120 (last blank), with floor plans and
realisations throughout, own ends; internally fine in original pale
blue thin boards (little rubbed and lightly bumped at extremities),
title and author reversed out on front board and spine. $110
Scarce: first edition. A collection of fifty ‘contemporary’ house designs,
with floor plans and realisations, and with a good basic introductory text
(Town Planning in relation to the Home, Domestic Architecture, Truth in
Expression, Health, Sunlight and Air, Climate and Comfort, Influence of
Costs, Aspect, Living Rooms, Bedrooms, Storage Space, Windows, The
Country House, The Architect and his Work, etc.). The piece, by a
respected Sydney architect, is directed to prospective home owners
rather than to professional architects or other tradesmen. It is not
descriptive but prescriptive. The largely modernist houses here are not so
much ‘typical’ houses of the period as they are houses that might appeal
to the ‘typical’ aspirational middle-class home buyer or builder.