A recurring theme in the writings of Knox is the promotion of the Eltham way of life as an alternative to suburbia. The following table comprises quotes taken from the books that refer to this juxtaposition - the alternative society of Eltham vs. the embalmed society of suburbia.
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PAGE | ELTHAM SOCIETY | SUBURBIA | PAGE |
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We are what we stand on |
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5 | hand & heart | housebound sherry-drinking loneliness | 5 |
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5 | intimacy & separate valley | immaculately lighted, curbed & paved identity | 5 |
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5 | nuances & variations of climate | buildings new, large & expensive | 5 |
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5 | bushland surroundinos | perpetual bitumen surfaces | 5 |
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5 | fluctuating & half-visible scenes | vast suburban wilderness | 5 |
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5 | human alternative | social desert | 5 |
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5 | glimpsed constantly changing & merging | rich & affluent eastern suburbanites casting sheep's eyes at the unkempt landscape | 7 |
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6 | hilly terrain (noble swelling hillside) generated a united introspective community | welI-ordered English lawn, blue spruce, silver birch & Japanese maple gardens | 7 |
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6 | colour & light landscape | affluent communities | 8 |
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6 | atmospheric subtlety | diversion | 8 |
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7 | indefinable sense of magic | sameness | 8 |
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7 | unkempt landscape | anonymity | 8 |
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7 | those who understand & believe in Eltham | continuing assaults from the manipulators & blind do-gooders | 8 |
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8 | creative communities create creative lifestyles | affluent communities create dreary lifestyles | 8 |
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8 | danger, risk | self-indulgence | 8 |
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8 | ongoing enthusiasm | totalitarianism | 8 |
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8 | eccentricity | confused world | 8 |
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8 | head, heart & hand | technological systems of construction | 8 |
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8 | eccentric people | totalitarianism | 8 |
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10 | 'Montsalvat' and the new life | dreary inhibitions & limitations of depressed middle class society | 10 |
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11 | new & exciting prospects | stifled society we endured rather than lived in | 11 |
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10 | Every new day was a day of new delights and practical freedom. | incarcerated in pre-war bank job | 11 |
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13 | difference | conformity | 12 |
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20 | spontaneity of mud brick buildings | unequivocal steadiness | 14 |
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20 | flexibility of mud bricks - a modern building material | middle-class, amorphous mass | 14 |
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24 | not completely finished but then few mud brick, home-built houses ever really are | unimaginative & dull population | 14 |
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32 | Eltham had a wonderful embracing capacity. We were all one people - rich and poor alike. We all knew each other. There was a clear appreciation of everyone's place in our geographically isolated community.' | endlessly repeating, well-curbed bitumened roads, and footpaths that criss-cross precisely at right-angles for apparently limitless distances | |
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35 | intimate spirit | you know exactly what you will see at every corner | 14 |
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35 | self-supporting community | polite Melbourne | 14 |
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44 | changeability of Melb climate - encourages creativity | nothing can get out of place or become unkempt and wild | 14 |
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45 | Eltham's dry resilient bush - crisp, sparse & survival conscious | immaculately cut nature strips ...lovingly trimmed at the edges with spring shears | 14 |
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47 | unique place in Australia - to be cherished & defended at all costs | tamed nature | 14 |
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47 | inspired by special bushland, low hilly terrain, unparalleled colour & light, no. of trees | exotic trees set at meticulous intervals | 14 |
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47 | free native tree-plantings on nature strips | cautious inhabitants | 14 |
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65 | without pretence | alternating prunus & flowering peach trees | 15 |
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71 | embryonic house | neat & clean | 15 |
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76 | socio-aesthetic centre of Melbourne | very pretty | 15 |
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83 | veil of foliage & environmental continuity | rhododendron & gladioli flanked by pampus grass & flowering fruit trees in the desirable eastern suburbs | 47 |
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83 | privacy & village intimacy | Suburban jingoism | 65 |
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84 | mysterious landscape of hill, valley & secret place | curb & channel syndrome | 86 |
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86 | linear parks of mystery & adventure for the young & relaxation & poetry for the old, & shortcut to schools, & a means of communication between members of the community - a form of Radburn development | gardening-type do-gooders types | 86 |
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86 | mystery of the bush | lawns | 91 |
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86 | environmental attitude to the land | herbaceous borders | 91 |
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91 | tree planting consisted of the concealment of planting, the creation of instinctive masses and voids merging back into the wilderness | non-indigenous growth | 91 |
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94 | sculptural buildings | suburban formalitv | 91 |
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101 | mysterious & powerful landscape | suburban Melbourne matrons winced slightly when they had to mention the word 'Eltham" | 113 |
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101 | an immediate, natural feeling | a threat to their sickly-sweet security | 113 |
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112 | secret, carefree days | Doncaster & Templestowe - Toorak of tomorrow | 113 |
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112 | wonderfully free from bureaucratic controls | seduced by the money & suburban comfort of Dame Edna Everage & Sandy Stone | 118 |
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113 | individualists | setting off the a fixed job in the city every day | 123 |
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113 | non-conformist character | pressurised city-suburban life | 117 |
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113 | unique quality | a general sense of quiet exchangeability | 137 |
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117 | non-city lifestyle - a retreat from suburbia | neatly cut lawns, bounded by privet and lambertiana hedges, and European trees dominating the verges | 137 |
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117 | liberty it offers | insularitv | 137 |
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113 | artistic dreamtime | low visual standards | 139 |
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141 | a wonderful flowering of talent and ability | mindless materialism | 141
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Living in the environment
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vii | wonder & mystery | confusion that the perpetual flow of high technology products | vii |
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vii | stimulates a point of view & relationship with nature | planned obsolescence | |
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vii | counteract confusion | pander to ... hysteria generated by the advertising media | |
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vii | most universal & enduring of all building materials | ticky-tacky | viii |
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ix | natural environment | pressed out plastic products that have neither sensuous appeal nor spiritual value ... soon clog & clutter | viii |
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3 | the greater the experience the greater the ability to decide the proper course & action for each individual job | man-manipulated environment | ix |
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4 | earth building ... as the most flexible & interesting medium ... for any time or place | generality of habit that causes normal residential building to become repetitive ad nauseum | 3 |
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17 | mysterious bushscape ... half obscured with mists in the morning | residential building - repetitive ad nauseum | 3 |
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54 | free from man-imposed details | _suburban respectability | 19 |
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54 | honest materials & true proportions | independence through possessions | 19 |
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54 | fundamental (universal)appeal | privacy behind paling fences (paling fence psychology) | 19 |
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SB | readiness to embrace simple living | status type isolation | 19 |
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58 | environmental inspiration | eastern suburbs - a vast garden competition with wide green lawns & herbaceous borders & exotic shrubs | 20 |
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59 | integrated series of simple plantings & land shapes | hand lawnmowers move over the tracts of smooth English grass to reduce it to putting-green quality. | 20 |
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60 | indivisibility of house and land | self-imposed discipline of the garden | 20 |
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60 | subtle variety | society more mobile & more separated | |
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60 | observation of the surrounding natural countryside modified to accept the intrusion of the house | well-clipped lawns | 30 |
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60 | never using two things where one will do | ceremonial rakings of leaves into heaps | 30 |
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64 | structure identification with the land to give the sense of indivisibility | smugly regimented rows well-kept suburban plot | 54 |
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| | endless flow of new innovations | 54 |
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| | technological demagogery | 54 |
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| | over-organised systems | 63 |
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| | noise pollution of city & suburb ... filled with surging swish of automobiles & 24 hour flow on inane gabble from radio & tv | 63 |
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75 | express surprise, wonder, originality & personality in the landscape & the community | correctly place the street lamps & perpetuate external bitumen roads & concrete gutters | 75 |
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76 | nuance & magic | vertical & horizontal planes that cannot be inhabited by people at all, but are >exclusively for traffic & commerce | 76 |
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76 | mystery & nostalgia | seas of paling fences | 79 |
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134 | there was a vibrance about the building warts and all | standardisation of the ticky-tacky house design is soul-destroying ... conforming standards | 79 |
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96 | sensible | sameness of a city planned by minds who see people as ciphers to be designed into an environment at the rate of_so many to the acre | 88 |
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96 | objective | clutter of suburbia | 96 |
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97 | simple confidence and modest content | gargantuan brick piles | 97 |
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98 | fitted into the existing tree growth | Mrs. Everige[sic] society | 109 |
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101 | simple bush landscape building | much less interested in what goes on underneath as long as it looks expensive on to | 109 |
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| | a cautious district, full of prim business men | 109 |
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112 | alternative society | mundane middle class | 109 |
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112 | a new group of pioneers ... are identified with the total landscape in a total living way | fierce competitive lifestyle that exploits the natural creation for the profit of the few to the detriment of the many | 112 |
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112 | more liberties of choice and of time | the corporate state is always in a rush and therefore it has no poetry. | 112 |
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112 | close relationship with nature | hunger for mystery and the beauty of life ... lack the cultural training to attain it | 112 |
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112 | watching the earth dry and the varying characteristics of its physical structure, immerse us in poetic deliberations that unites our hearts, heads and hands. | excluded the physical | 112 |
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112 | identified with certain building materials that are subject to spiritual dimensions | merely materialistic society | |
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| | dreary repetitive suburbs | 113 |
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| | Interminable terracotta tile | 114 |
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121 | it is always stimulating to drive past that bend in the road where that feather of smoke is ascending out of the bush screen. | brought up on a diet of red terracotta tiled roofs, brick veneers and paling fences | 119 |
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121 | here you belong to a time and a place indefinitely. In fact you yourself are making both that time and that place. | they dream of wall to wall carpets. They eat white bread, drink imitation fruit cordial drinks | 120 |
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121 | 'do it yourself' university | ramifications of the corporate state and the blindness of so-called advanced society | 120 |
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123 | adventurous and liberty seekers | embalmed community | 123 |
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123 | fearless urchins of the alternative society have sung and danced | pale faced students and sons of the rich have languished in university ghettos | 123 |
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| | preoccupation with the means of financial manipulations that keep the moneyed class uppermost | 123 |
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124 | sense of mystery and power and wonder and nostalgia and magic that the natural landscape gives | the perpetual smog of their well controlled activities pours its blanket of sulphur dioxide carbon monoxide, carbonblack and all the other by-products of the present GNP scene over city and suburb indiscriminately | 124 |
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124 | natural society is designed to do precisely the opposite | greedy self-centred living habits where one stays inside all day and outside all night | 124 |
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126 | ancient bushland | suburban habitats that have become overcrowded and polluted | 126 |
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128 | environmental living is not opting out of, but re-embracing real life. | | |
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129 | environmental building primarily sculptured building that utters a poetic concept for life | | |
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129 | natural foods, home made breads, vegetables and the whole gamut of the return to a sane life style | | |
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| bread made from stone ground wholemeal flour makes a meal that doesn't distend our stomachs yet satisfies our hunger | sliced wrapped white breed from the huge bakeries leaves our appetite unsatisfied, our stomachs distended and our livers angry. | 129 |
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130 | conflict between a progressive and a primitive life style that is a refreshing contrast | most of the Australian suburbanism and the embalmed society | 130 |
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130 | genuine seeking after a worthwhile life style | unfortunate physical planning to make life unimaginative and repetitive in the city | 130 |
| the tragedy of the embalmed society | 133 |
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133 | welcome to the community school | goodbye to the elitist school system | 133 |
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136 | Ivan Illich 's voluntary poverty philosophy | that group known as physical planners ... their freeways and corporate state psychologies | 136 |
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136 | humble mud brick ... catalyst to stimulate co-operative living | competitive destruction | 136
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Alternative housing
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9 | the most creative local community in Aust | large, uninteresting suburban deserts | 26 |
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18 | natural building | a form of quiet, uneventful Journeying from the cradle to the grave | 28 |
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29 | those who took the risk and got out | those who funked out and stayed in their jobs | 29 |
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33 | felt to be hillbilly and second-rate | natural qualities were regarded by the suburban psyche as a hindrance | 33 |
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32 | mysterious bushscapes | hipped tile roof, set twenty-five foot from the frontage ... repeated through whole suburbs with religious fervour | 33 |
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33 | open hillsides have been turned back into dense bushscapes ... scarcely a hilltop dominated by a building | easy-growing lawns and beds of snapdragons and petunias | 33 |
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34 | those who have become hooked on the Australian flora and find themselves getting deeper into its wonders and mysteries every year | imported flavours | 34 |
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38 | pick-up society | throw-away society | 38 |
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49 | radiates a human quality | what a city building cannot do | 49 |
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52 | simple lifestyle | fruitless money game | 52 |
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| | Melbourne, one of the largest and most banal middle-class areas in the world | 64 |
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73 | alternative lifestyle | South Burnley ... freeway ghetto | 65 |
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81 | natural | the false civilisation which so many Australians have been 'duped' into | 73 |
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81 | pleasant landscape | building bigger and more blatant houses which, from a distance, seemed to coagulate and blend into a great open sore exposed on the dying body of the countryside | 81 |
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81 | mild pink colour and light of the Yarra Valley bushland, with the backdrop of the dark blue Dandenongs beyond | ugly square form of red bricks | 81 |
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83 | sound construction and an economical use of materials under the control of ordinary people | the materialistic empire of the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, who cling to their possessions as if they believe they can save them from death itself. | 95 |
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104 | It depends on the development of the existing native growth ... There would be no place for the herbaceous border and the hardy annuals - not to mention the blue spruce and the Japanese maple. | enclosing front fence and high side and back fences that attempt to isolate each family from the next door neighbours | 99 |
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106 | the proposed dam was placed so that the water could be seen through the native grevilleas from the house ... We then ... located several shallow water-holding pools around the house site and the pergolas. | the private pool is ... closer to the refrigerator and the alcoholic drinks that can be elegantly dispensed from the cabana. This fashionable institution also doubles as a repository for the exercising bicycle, the dumb-bells and the spring-loaded muscle developers | 100 |
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106 | the building could extend out in any and every direction once it went beyond the outer walls of the original square shape ... such a structure would require pergola posts and overhead connecting members, which would pass through and around tree clumps and over the water garden. Such a structure however would unite the house and the land into an indestructible whole. | the mandatory postage stamp allotment is divided into the front garden, the house and the rear garden. The resultant areas are fitted out by immaculately cut lawns not more than one inch high, neatly trimmed at the concrete edges with a special circular cutter. | 101 |
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140 | the whole mud-brick building process is a grand adventure that leads into a fuller and more interesting life. | fetid glass-house atmosphere of suburbia, with all of its excessive protectiveness and self-centred affluence | 122 |
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148 | the finished character of walls treated in this manner will vary from building to building and reflect the character of those who have built it. It becomes a concrete expression of how they think and feel. | heavily-featured manufacturing bricks and expensive, dressed timbers of minimum dimensions that prevail in the suburban scene | 148 |
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148-149 | Mud-brick buildings have strong community elements in them. They respond to people, and embrace widely varying personalities with ease and grace when they remain unaffected and natural | feature bricks. walls, timbers, plastics ... appeal to the unthinking individual who wants to be one step ahead of the Jones'. It all makes for an ego trip that divides us from each other and develops excruciating bad taste in architecture. | 148 |