# Harvard Graduate School of Design ## expand\_more ![veritas_gsd](/sites/g/files/omnuum10876/files/styles/hwp_1_1__100x100_scale/public/harvaus/files/veritas_gsd.png?itok=V13zPAhO) A graduate School of Architecture was established in 1914. In the 1935–36 catalogue there were Schools of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning, all taught by the Faculty of Architecture. A Faculty of Design was instituted in 1936 with charge of the Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Regional Planning. The Graduate School of Design was established in 1936. [Harry Seidler](http://www.architecture.com.au/i-cms?page=6364) (M.Arch. 1946) is a notable alumnus who lived and practiced in Australia after attending the GSD. George Gund Hall, the current home of the GSD opened in 1972, and was designed by an Australian GSD graduate [John Hamilton Andrews](http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/john-hamilton-andrews) (M.Arch 1958). ### Class of 1931 expand\_more #### Keith Bishop Hudson Keith Bishop Cleave Hudson (1901–1947) was born in Newcastle, New South Wales. He obtained architectural training at the Sydney Technical College and went to work for the Architectural Branch of the Federal Capital Commission in Canberra. He moved to the United States in 1925 and attended the Harvard School of Architecture 1926–1929, obtained a Bachelor of Science from M.I.T. in 1930, then returned to Harvard to obtain his Master of Architecture in 1931. After attending Harvard, he practised in Bermuda, Alabama, and Mississippi. ### Class of 1932 expand\_more #### Edwin Alfred Butt Edwin Alfred Butt (1906– ) was born in Queensland where he trained to be an architect at the Central Technical College. He attended the Harvard School of Architecture as a special student 1929–1932. He practised in Victoria, New South Wales, and Queensland. In 1978 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia for “service in the field of environmental protection”. ### Class of 1935 expand\_more #### Noel Bourchier O’Connor Noel Bourchier O’Connor (1911– ) was born at Claremont, Western Australia. He came to the United States in 1930 when his father, Arthur Henry O’Connor, was appointed representative of the Australian National Travel Association in the United States and Canada. He won a Special Student Scholarship to the Harvard School of Architecture for the year 1934–1935. In 1938, he returned to Australia and practised as an architect in Melbourne. He was part of the winning team in a competition for development of the Western Market Site in Melbourne (1949) and an executive member of the City Development Association founded by Norman Myer (1953). ### Class of 1948 expand\_more #### Elizabeth Mary Pilcher Elizabeth Mary Pilcher (1920– ) was educated at Sydney Church of England Girls’ Grammar School and Frensham, Mittagong. She obtained an architectural degree from the University of Sydney in 1945. She studied with Walter Gropius at the Graduate School of Design 1947–48 and then obtained a diploma in town planning from the Edinburgh College of Art (1952). On her return to Australia she worked briefly with the firm of Stephenson and Turner but was laid off in the recession. She left Australia in 1957, disillusioned with discrimination against women in employment. She was Acting Director, Planning Department Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (1958). In 1964, she married a Jamaican, Joseph Basil Causwell, at Chicago, and moved to Jamaica where she worked for the Jamaican government (1964–1980) in the Town Planning Department, the Ministry of Development and Welfare, and the Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources. She returned to Australia in 1989. ### Class of 1952 expand\_more #### Arthur Peter Stephenson Peter "Arthur" Stephenson (1921–2006) survived the perils of World War II as a pilot, then led Australia's biggest architectural firm, before turning with great success to farming. Affectionately called the Prince of Wales behind his back, he was the son and heir of Sir Arthur Stephenson, co-founder of Australia's first truly national and international architectural firm. Stephenson, who has died at 85 of heart failure in hospital in Benalla, Victoria, grew up in one of architect John Beswicke's eccentric mansions in Hawthorn, Melbourne, moving to South Yarra when his parents separated in 1938. He had two older sisters and the family had a housekeeper, two maids and a gardener-chauffeur. He was educated at Carey Baptist Grammar and Melbourne Grammar; he excelled at many sports despite, or perhaps because of, a slightly deformed left foot that was corrected medically. Stephenson enrolled at Melbourne Technical College and completed two years of his architectural course before enlisting in the RAAF. In 1940, he went to Canada and Britain as part of the Empire Air Training Scheme, was promoted to flight lieutenant and excelled as an instructor. He saw action over the Western Desert and Italy, where he was wounded. His enduring memory of the war was flying back to base, as the sole survivor of his group, with his dead navigator-gunner in the seat behind him. After the war, Stephenson completed his architecture course at Sydney University and in 1946 he married Veronica, the daughter of the noted baritone Harold Williams. They had four daughters. As a member of the family firm Stephenson and Turner, he played a part in its dramatic growth. In 1952 he obtained a master's at Harvard under Walter Gropius, and on returning to Australia his first big job was to oversee the design and construction of the munitions facility at St Marys on Sydney's outskirts. In 1966, after being divorced for some years, he married Ethel Hyland, a fellow student in his course at Sydney University. Stephenson and Turner had operated since the early 1920s, when the founders returned from the Great War—the now-demolished members' stand at the MCG was from those years. But its glory days were the 1930s, the beginning of a major program of hospital construction. The firm's meticulously planned buildings sprang up in every capital city, generally in cream brick; many are still in use. In Sydney, the Dental Hospital next to Central Station was one of its projects. It won Sulman medals for the King George V and Concord hospitals. It designed Gloucester House at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the Royal North Shore Hospital, hospitals in Wagga Wagga, Canberra, Darwin, Hong Kong, Taiwan and one in Basra, which was destroyed in the Iran-Iraq war. Other projects included ICI House at Circular Quay, the first glass curtain-wall building in Australia, that gave way to the Toaster; the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor building and the Spirit of Progress train. Stephenson and Turner had offices in all mainland states and New Zealand, expanded to Hong Kong and Taiwan, and obtained commissions for large hospitals throughout the Middle East, all administered from Melbourne. By the 1970s the firm had 24 partners, all male with the exception of the inestimable Ellison Harvie, a mentor to two generations of architects. The country's biggest architectural office had a unique persona. The adjective "blokey" was not then in use, but it could well have applied to Stephenson and Turner. With the founders dead or retired, tensions arose between the Melbourne and Sydney offices. In 1975, Stephenson, a senior partner, quit, ending a career that had been mapped out for him from birth. He then turned to farming; he bought land at Flinders, Victoria, built a comfortable house and developed the property Ostlers Hill. He built up a noted Murray Grey cattle stud, while his wife's interest was long-haired sheep. His only previous contact with the land had been as a jackaroo back in his student days. His talents as a farmer soon became apparent. After a few years at Flinders, the couple ran into trouble when their plans were frustrated by the planning bureaucrats at the local shire council. They sold up and moved to a property at Broken Creek, near Benalla. In 1992, after Stephenson had suffered a stroke, they moved to a smaller property at nearby Broken River. During their years in the Benalla region they helped to form the Strong Wool Breeders Association and Friends of the Benalla Botanic Gardens. Stephenson joined the board of the Benalla and District Memorial Hospital, serving a term as president. Stephenson also became involved with Benalla's Anglican Church of the Most Holy Trinity, a beautiful arts and crafts building designed by Walter Butler and registered by the Historic Buildings Council. He decided a gallery was necessary for the growing congregation but he encountered heritage controls and views implacably opposed to his own. The last decade of his life was marred by ill-health, a galling experience for a man who had led a physical, challenging life for 30 years in the career of his choosing. Stephenson is survived by Ethel, his four daughters and seven grandchildren. #### Neil Clerehan, Tony Stephens \[*Sydney Morning Herald:* September 7, 2006\] ### GSD Graduates by Year expand\_more (See Individual Bio Statements at Left) ##### Class of 1931 Keith Bishop Hudson, M.Arch. Class of 1932 Edwin Alfred Butt Class of 1935 Noel Bourchier O’Connor Class of 1948 Elizabeth Mary Pilcher Class of 1952 Arthur Peter Stephenson, M.Arch.