With advancing age, one is prone to reminiscing about the past, often through rose coloured glasses. In such a mood, I came across this forgotten epistle hidden deep within my hard drive. It was penned by Senior Building Science Lecturer Derrick Kendrick and delivered on the occasion of his most skilled and admiring students’ 50th-anniversary graduation. It’s worth noting that the first year architecture class comprised 45 students, none of whom were female—such deprivation! At the end of the five years of study, only 18 of the original 45 students graduated. This was due in part to Professor Rolf (ex-British Army) Jensen’s belief, referred to by Derrick, that “it was not impossible to teach everything”.
It’s also possible that the attrition may have been due to students fleeing to an arts course where there were many women!
Cartoon by graduate Ross Bateup
Grand “Yourinal” 50 Year Reunion Dinner, held at Ayres House, Friday 3 November 2017.
TALK TO 1963 ARCHITECTURAL STUDENTS INTAKE COMPLETING FINAL YEAR IN 1967 AND LATER. By Professor Derrik Kendrick.
Good evening, students! Have you all signed the attendance register? I actually had time to prepare this ten-minute talk when, quite often, 50–odd years ago, I was never really given adequate time to prepare anything for most of my lectures in Building Science. Everything was always last-minute and ever so busy in those early days.
Recently, I calculated that you, ex-students, are probably all around 71 or 72 years of age, and I can tell you I had my 90th birthday in May this year. Quite a different scene, therefore, today, compared with yesteryear. Today, we meet as a group of oldies and now reflect on where we were then and where we are today.
I am especially honoured to be here with you as the last living full-time lecturer that you had all those fifty-odd years ago! This occasion is therefore quite special for me and just a little bit emotional as it would also have been, I am sure, for my late colleagues Albert Gillissen and Professor Gilbert Herbert.
This Mr Kendrick, whom you knew fifty-odd years ago and who is now known as Derrick, was that polite young Englishman with the always-green tie, but is now a naturalised dual Australian citizen who uses far too many swear words he learned while living here. He became an Australian some 30 years ago because he liked the international respect he received as an Australian, and what overseas people saw in me and most Australians that they did not have in their own cultures. That quality was, indeed, an essential Australian trait of “always calling a spade a bloody shovel.” Indeed, I now have the unusual reputation that was given to me recently by a civil servant who had unfortunately crossed my path and who said of me that I was the oldest and rudest ninety-year-old that she had ever known and that I had used the most swear words in any conversation that she had ever heard! But I still believe I am basically the same person that you all knew all those years ago. I just came out of my shell a little bit after the strict constraints of the regime of life in the old School at the university, and I no longer put up with crap.
The other day, I was throwing out some old architectural magazines and came across a reprinted article from June 1964 in “Architecture Australia” by George Molnar, a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Sydney University and well-known cartoonist for a Sydney newspaper, that reminded me of the way things were fifty-odd years ago. He had written: “It is generally accepted that the function of a School of Architecture is to provide some sort of architectural education. This education is being judged by how usefully the young graduates can perform as draughtsmen in large offices. This is wrong.”
He then went on to write: “The function of the School of Architecture is to produce architects. This seems self-evident, but it is not. Given the different interpretations of what an architect is, the teaching of the different architectural schools varies greatly.”
He then writes: “To my mind, the answer has been the same since the architect first appeared in history. His role is to create buildings, the characteristics of which are Firmness, Commodity and Delight.”
He then goes on to mention the contributions of Walter Gropius and Pier Luigi Nervi, and then adds: “Delight reigns supreme” … “The architect is foremost an artist. Scientific, practical, but (always) an artist.” … “Architecture is a vocation (and) in his work he makes use of all the findings of science, industry, engineering, economics, and art, and with the advancement of science this field is getting wider all the time. In other academic disciplines, it is easy to deal with the tremendous increase in knowledge. Other Faculties can specialise in several branches and create new departments. Architecture cannot do that. An architect is a coordinator. The ideal would (therefore) be to teach the student all the knowledge he will need, but this is impossible,” says Molnar.
But our dear Adelaide Professor of Architecture and Dean of the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Rolf Arthur Jensen, didn’t think like that. According to Rolf, it was not impossible to teach everything. He insisted on giving his students everything that was then available and more besides, anticipating the future, and you ex-students suffered accordingly, and you also benefited from the consequences of his policy. Looking back, you were probably associated with the most busy architectural teaching staff ever, and the most over-worked student lives ever, not just in Australia, but in the whole world. That would be my observation.
Now I do understand, from what I have picked up over the years in reading the architectural press, that many of you have done very well for yourselves in your architectural and extended work areas. Some of you have indeed made a name for yourselves nationally and internationally. So, may I first congratulate you on surviving the course, and then suggest that you tell yourselves you have become very successful graduates, and that your work has had a considerable impact and made a real difference. The University of Adelaide, the old School and that most demanding of architectural Professors, Rolf Jensen, along with Albert Gillissen, Prof Gilbert Herbert, Neville Hoskings, Wally van Zyl and others, including Professor Frank Bull, would be really proud of what you have achieved, as I am so pleased to be able to say this to you tonight.
Now, let me change direction a little. I do believe I owe you all some apologies, but I would also like to share a little about my personal learnings from our shared lives.
I should first of all apologise to all of you for smoking in class and putting you all at risk. I gave up smoking my 70 Senior Service a day when I was under great stress due to a broken home about 45 years ago, by stopping suddenly, cold turkey, when in hospital for a knee operation. The story also reminds me of my three children showing me a Wayville Showgrounds display in a large room, where there were black and white photographs of people’s lungs following the killing of an estimated 3000 people by smog pollution in London in the winter of 1954. I have also shown these same slides to later-year students in the final year as a warning, just as I warned you about discotheque ear damage caused by the new rock-and-roll amplified loud music that reached very high noise levels, exceeding 104 decibels. I hope you still have your hearing. That is the end of my serious stuff for this evening.
Now, a further change of direction for the last few minutes of my talk. I wanted to change the tone to tell you something more about myself. About ten years after you all had graduated, I sensed that I had lost my sense of connection with students. So I got in touch with ACUE (the Adelaide Centre for University Education) and made an appointment with Bob Cannon, the Director, to seek his help.
After two hours of discussion (and remember that I was now changing from being a polite POM to becoming an Aussie), I said to Bob Cannon, as one disrespectful professional does to another, “ You know you’ve given me no bloody advice whatsoever to solve my problem, you’re just a complete bloody waste of time.” Bob then looked at me and said, I guess so, but if you go away and concentrate on your navel, you may be able to come up with your own solution to the problem. And that was it.
So afterwards, I sat down and cogitated and thought about things. Across from my office was the replacement staff member for Gilbert Herbert, one Harry Parsons from SAIT. He had this wonderful relationship with fourth-year students, mainly because he could always tell jokes. They just rolled off his lips at any instant, time of day or evening and seemingly just at the drop of a hat, as they say. For example, he would say: “As Cardinal Richlieu said to the actress …” and then would follow this marvellous punch line that I would immediately forget. Or at some other time, he would respond with: “Ah, Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 3, Scene 5: … “ and then would follow this amusing and apt quotation. One day I decided to remember his quotation: “Shakespeare, Richard 111, Act 2, Scene 3; …” and I deliberately remembered this reference, and when I got home, I got out my copy of Shakespeare and looked it up. The words printed there were nothing like what he had just said! Harry’s jokes were all made-up nonsense to suit the occasion. He was just a special kind of con artist in joke-telling. And so it came to pass, as they say, that I concluded I had no ability whatsoever to tell jokes, and that was the cause of my downfall with current students. I don’t recall ever telling you students a joke, and old man Jensen, he never laughed and never had any sense of fun, either that I can recall.
My navel gazing had produced this result of my inability, and so what was I going to do about it? As a lecturer, I was always aware of the need to teach students lateral thinking, so I applied this rule to myself and came to the conclusion that I had no ability to tell jokes, and that was the cause of my downfall.
Thank you.
END.