Launch of ‘Glenn Murcutt: Unbuilt Works’

After more than 5 years in the making, ‘Glenn Murcutt: Unbuilt Works’ brings to life 10 projects designed by Glenn Murcutt AO that remain unbuilt. This remarkable book, authored by architect Nick Sissons and published by Thames and Hudson, was launched on 25 July 2024, at the State Library of NSW.

In researching the book, Nick Sissons visited the Murcutt Collection held by the State Library on more than 80 occasions; working through early sketches, drawings and correspondence to identify the projects, interviewing - and working closely with - Murcutt to faithfully render those works on their original sites.

Large format photo-realistic renders bring to life all of the projects in the book, with text, sketches and working drawings prepared by Murcutt at the time.

The projects included a house designed in 1969 for Murcutt's mother on a site in Seaforth (pictured). 

But the book doesn't treat Murcutt's unbuilt projects in isolation. Instead, references are made to built projects that were being designed at the same time. For example, the house on the central coast explores themes similar to those being explored by Glenn Murcutt, Wendy Lewin and Reg Lark at the Boyd Centre on the NSW south coast. 

The book also includes essays from Glenn Murcutt and Laura Harding, a Sydney-based architectural designer, writer, critic and educator who taught in the design studio led by Murcutt at  UNSW.

Speaking at the event Sissons described the layers of record that are held in the Murcutt Collection; ranging from early sketch ideas that are often discarded, to the ‘diamonds’ that reveal themselves in the final layer of working drawings. Murcutt  spoke of important early mentors, like the great Spanish architect Jose Coderch, who first described how the start of every project brings a certain anxiety that drives design exploration and that ultimately proves Murcutt's dictum that architects do not 'create', but 'discover'. 

But such discovery does not come without commitment to doing the ordinary extraordinarily well, as Murcutt is often heard to say. In fact, as Murcutt puts it:

“With every compromise you knowingly make in your work…when that compromise is built, that represents your next client” - Glenn Murcutt AO

'Glenn Murcutt: unbuilt works' demonstrates that Murcutt is one who has consistently refused to make compromises over the 55 years of architectural practice. Copies can be purchased through Thames and Hudson here.