February 9, 2025 • 50 mins
In PX127 our guest is architect, former academic and author Dr Derham Groves.
He studied architecture at Deakin University and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and art history at the University of Minnesota. He taught architecture at RMIT from 1985 to 1997 and the University of Melbourne from 1999 to 2019 and was a Senior Fellow in the Faculty of Architecture, Building, and Planning at the University of Melbourne from 2020 to 2024. Derham is the author of many articles and books about popular culture, architecture, and design, including, Feng-Shui and Western Building Ceremonies (1991), You Bastard Moriarty (1996), Mail Art: The D-I-Y Letterbox from Workshop to Gatepost (1998), TV Houses: Television’s Influence On the Australian Home (2004), Mask: Pro Hart’s Frankenstein Monsters (2006), There’s No Place Like Holmes: Exploring Sense of Place Through Crime Fiction (2008), Victims and Villains: Barbie and Ken Meet Sherlock Holmes (2009), Anna May Wong’s Lucky Shoes: 1939 Australia Through the Eyes of an Art Deco Diva (2011), Out of the Ordinary: Popular Art, Architecture and Design (2012), Hopalong Cassidy: A Horse Opera (2017), Monkeemania in Australia: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Monkees’ Australian Tour in 1968 (2019), Arthur Purnell’s “Forgotten” Architecture: Canton and Cars (2020), Sherlock in the Seventies: A Wild Decade of Sherlock Holmes Films (2021), Australian Westerns in the Fifties: Kangaroo, Hopalong Cassidy on Tour, and Whiplash (2022), and Homicide on Hydra: George Johnston’s Crime Novels (2023). His latest book, Walt Disney’s Forgotten Australia: From Mickey’s Kangaroo to Outback At Ya! has been released in February 2025. Derham agrees with the Austrian architect Hans Hollein that ‘Everything is architecture,’ and the American designer Charles Eames who said, ‘Eventually everything connects—people, ideas, objects.’
Episode released 10 February 2025.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This podcast is supported by VPLA.
Victorian PlanningEnvironmental Law Association.
Welcome to the Planning Exchangewhere we interview built environment
professionals who are doinginteresting work beyond the ordinary.
I'm Jess Noonan and I'm joinedby my colleague Peter Jewell.
Today we're speakingwith Dr. Derham Groves.
Durham studied architecture at DeakinUniversity and the Royal Melbourne
(00:22):
Institute of Technology and ArtHistory at the University of Minnesota.
He taught architecture at RMIT from1985 to 1997 and the University
of Melbourne from 1999 to 2019.
And was also a senior fellow in theFaculty of Architecture, Building
and Planning at the Universityof Melbourne from 2020 to 2024.
(00:42):
Derham is the author of manyarticles and books about popular
culture, architecture and design.
Derham has been a fan of SherlockHolmes, and by extension crime
fiction, generally since high school,and has published extensively on
this topic amongst many others.
His most recent book, Walt Disney'sForgotten Australia from Mickey's
Kangaroo to Outbook at Yale willbe published in Feb, 2025, Derham.
(01:07):
Can you give our listeners a briefbackground as to how you got to
where you are and how you becameso interested in Sherlock Holmes?
Well, thanks for invitingme Jess and Peter.
Yes.
I was born in 1956, which is an importantyear in Australia because amongst other
things, television came to Australia.
(01:27):
So in essence, I grew up withtelevision working class family grew
up in Belmont, Geelong, which was aworking class suburb and went to Oberon
primary school and Oberon high school.
All through those years, rightup until the death, I was, I
(01:51):
thought I'd be do medicine andbecome a general practitioner.
But suddenly I thought,Oh, don't think so.
And that caused a bit of a dilemma becausehonestly, I, up until that point, I
hadn't thought of anything else to do.
And two things.
influenced me to do architecture.
(02:12):
One was the television sitcom,Mr. Ed The Talking Horse.
In that particular showWilbur Post, who owned Mr.
Ed, The Talking Horse, was an architect.
And I mean, my parentsdidn't know any architects.
I didn't know any architects, but Wilburseemed incredibly interesting to me.
(02:35):
He, lived in a nice house, worked in hisbarn in the backyard, talked to Mr. Ed,
who didn't talk to anyone else but Wilbur.
Wilbur also had interesting neighbours anda pretty blonde wife, and I thought, Yep.
This looks pretty goodto me, I must admit.
(02:57):
So that was one influenceto study architecture.
The other was again in the sameyear, which was about 1974.
I saw the Ascent of Man.
The Ascent of Man was one of the first.
Big documentaries and televisiondocumentaries hosted by Jacob
(03:19):
Bronowski and one of the episodeswas on architecture and it just
blew my socks off, I must admit.
The thing that impressed me most,and I still remember, is that in this
summary of world architecture from youknow, cavemen till the, to the 20th
century, Brunowski finished his studyof architecture at Watts Towers in Los
(03:46):
Angeles which were built by an itinerantItalian tile cutter Simon Rodia.
And, and I just thought, wow.
So even from the beginning, I wasaware that architects didn't always.
make great architecture thatordinary people could, could do this.
(04:06):
So, so that's, that's what I did.
And that's how I came tostudy architecture, basically.
So it's not, not your traditional kindof route into the, into the discipline.
And your interest in SherlockHolmes, where did that stem from?
Well, my interest in Sherlock Holmesstarted in Form 1 at Oberon High School
(04:29):
when Mrs. Vines, our English teacherread The Speckled Band out loud in class.
And I was pretty muchhooked from that point on.
And so all through high school Igrew more and more interested and all
through university, but it, it tooka little while to make the connection
(04:52):
between architecture and detectivefiction, but it, it was, it was
certainly there university and theway it manifested, if you want me to
go on there, I did my undergraduateat Deakin University in Geelong.
So still live with mom and dad.
(05:14):
And what I designed for that finalproject, which was my choice,
was a Sherlock Holmes Centre.
And it consisted of a theatre, acinema, a museum, and a library.
And I
did this building, so this was in about1980 and my tutors , absolutely hated it.
(05:43):
I think I got 55 which probably wouldhave crushed most people, but I thought,
no, they just didn't understand it.
They really didn't.
This is, this is actually a lot worth alot more than 55 in all sorts of ways.
So I, Persisted with it.
And I, I sent a copy of it toRichard Mundy, who was the editor
(06:06):
of Transition in those days.
And he liked it.
He thought it was fantastic.
And so he actually published a longarticle that eventually came out in
Transition on the Sherlock Holmes Center.
And from there, the Universityof Minnesota picked up on it.
(06:29):
And in 1984, I went to theuniversity of Minnesota.
And the reason for that was that theuniversity of Minnesota has the largest
Sherlock Holmes collection in the world.
So I went over there, worked in specialcollections, et cetera did some of
my masters there instead of RMIT.
(06:49):
And it, you know, it was afabulous opportunity that I had.
And, and so, you know, Not badfor a thesis worth 55 out of
a hundred, actually, I think.
And, Durham, we've probably gotsome listeners thinking, what
on earth has architecture gotto do with Sherlock Holmes?
(07:09):
Can you talk to that connection?
Yes.
I mean, architecture, I think, andSherlock Holmes, and by wider association,
detective fiction generally, the thingabout, well, I think, I think architecture
essentially is about storytelling.
And of course, when you come todetective fiction and, and architecture,
(07:34):
you get the scene of the crime.
And so it's places very important,I think, in architecture and in, in,
architecture and detective fiction.
And certainly when you've got a writerlike Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the
Sherlock Holmes stories, it becomes veryimportant in terms of where things are
(07:57):
in space and where people are in space.
And, and this sort of notionof storytelling through objects
and space, I think one thingis, is tied up with the other.
You know, quite closely, actually.
So that's why that that's the sort ofinitial link, I guess, between the two,
(08:18):
because, you know, the scene of thecrime in crime fiction is an essential
part of that genre of writing, really.
Durham, I understand you've writtenseveral books about Sherlock Holmes.
Now, before we talk about that, somelisteners, believe it or not, I'm a
bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan, but theywon't know who we're talking about.
(08:41):
Can you just, can you give like oneminute description of Sherlock Holmes?
Okay.
But if they don't know who SherlockHolmes is, I'm not quite sure
why they're listening to it apodcast like this, surely everyone
knows who Sherlock Holmes is.
Well, we live in 2025.
(09:02):
True, I guess.
But, but I mean, this is theincredible thing about Sherlock Holmes.
There's been so many iterations.
The last one was Sherlock,you know, benedict.
Cumberbatch, et cetera.
I mean, it's it every, every 10 years,Sherlock Holmes has reinvented for that
generation, but Sherlock Holmes the firststory written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(09:25):
was a study in Scarlet in 1887 and Doylewrote four novels and 56 short stories.
And really up until that point Detectivefiction was not was different in the sense
that the authors often didn't lay out thesort of clues, so that the reader could
(09:52):
perhaps follow the, the, the thinkingprocess and come to some conclusion.
Up until then it was, it was, you know,it was just, it was impossible to do.
So that was.
Doyle's great innovation, I guess, toactually lay it all before the reading
public and let them try and solvethe, solve the, the, the, the crime.
(10:16):
And it was, it was based on SherlockHolmes power of observation and
about place and using logic.
Yes.
Scientific principles was the way heactually Describe that, that sort of
process and, and really, I mean, 18,87, I mean, you, you know, it was
quite a a, a, a revolutionary thingat that, at that particular time.
(10:42):
So you've written several booksabout Sherlock Holmes and Place.
And that's why we've got you herefor the interview is all about place.
Can you describe the connectionbetween Sherlock Holmes and place
and how you write about that.
Well, I mean, it's interesting.
And I think it's, it's probably importantthat Doyle's father was an architect.
(11:06):
I suspect even though, youknow, he was tragically a drunk.
I'm sure his son, Arthur Conan Doyle.
You know, picked up many things fromhis father and architecture generally.
Certainly the thing that, that initiallystood out for me was that you know, you've
(11:27):
got Sherlock Holmes, who's the detective.
You've got Dr. Watson, who is hisoff sider and friend and biographer.
They're the two main characters, butthe third main character, when you
actually look at those 60 stories,is 221B Baker Street, which is where
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived.
(11:50):
And in what, what amazed me when I firstread those stories, even in high school,
was this notion that personality canbe expressed through place and time.
And furniture and the positioningof these particular things.
(12:10):
Is there also a historicalconnection between the scene
of the crime and architecture?
Well, I mean, this is when things tookon extra meaning for me, I guess, because
my masters which was published As a bookin 1991, which was my first book what I
(12:30):
wrote about really came out of this, youknow, remember I did my undergraduate
on Sherlock Holmes, came out of that.
And what I wrote about, thebook was called Feng Shui and
Western Building Ceremonies.
And what I, my wife is Chinese.
So I, I was interested in, in Chinese,thought processes and and theory in
(12:55):
terms of Feng Shui, partly becausemy, one of my teachers at, at Deakin,
a guy named Philip Gibbs had justcome from Malaysia to teach us.
And he had done a lot ofwork on the Malay house.
And what interested me was the sort ofYou know, the, BOMOS which was sort
of like the masters of ceremony, witchdoctors who, who actually said, look,
(13:20):
you know, this is where you put thehouse and you have to start digging the
foundations at this particular time.
It was all, all about put, you know,trying to find the right spot, trying
to find the most auspicious place.
And so okay.
Philip had done all of that work.
(13:40):
This is, we're talking now, you know,early eighties Feng Shui was not a,
everyone now knows about Feng Shui,but back then not nothing much in
English had been written about it.
And so I wrote about that, butI didn't think that was enough.
I thought, okay, let's write about FengShui, but let's compare the Chinese
(14:01):
practice to the Western practice.
And So I also went into things likefoundation stone ceremonies, topping out
ceremonies, all of those sorts of things.
And it occurred to me when doing thatsort of research, that traditionally,
the actual site of architecture andtowns, etc, were actually crime scenes.
(14:25):
Because in the day architects wouldoften arrange sacrifices to be made.
Regarding their buildings, et cetera,to try and give these buildings a
spirit and a sort of sense of place.
So when you actually look atthe history of architecture, I
mean, the site of buildings onceupon a time were crime scenes.
(14:49):
Basically and so that to me startedto sort of make me think about the
importance of this genre in terms ofarchitecture and and the way it fitted
into You know, deep history basically.
Gives a whole new meaning to theterm, you know, contextual, responsive
(15:10):
design and those sorts of things.
Yeah.
Like how you're actually designing whenyou consider the historical components of
a particular site, which is probably notsomething that's done all that recently.
I know.
And, and later on that sort ofdeveloped into the sort of notion
of, you know, so many houses havethese sort of secret history.
So you know, where people work.
Died or killed and, and we never,we never really hear about that sort
(15:35):
of part of the history of the house.
So these things you know, stuck in my headand I started to write about those things.
Also I was teaching, of course,I, enjoyed teaching second year.
And one of my favorite design studioswas actually getting the students to
(15:57):
read one of the short stories, thebecause there's 56 short stories.
So it's not a, Not a long read.
And what I would get them to do, I'd,I'd actually select a site somewhere
and they would have to design thehouse for either the victim or the
villain in that particular story.
(16:17):
And some of the results Igot were incredible really.
And.
It seemed to me that the power of thatmethodology, I guess, was not only the
fact that, you know, that they werelooking at doing what Doyle did with
221B Baker Street, for example, butwhen you're actually learning to design
(16:42):
architectural design, the importanceof actually having a narrative, a
story that underpins these things.
Became very important because when,when students would get stuck, they
always had the story to go back to.
And, and I think that's, that'sa real key in terms of you
(17:03):
know, learning stuff, basically.
Do you think the art of storytellingin architecture is still there, or is
it something that's not that it's nolonger taught at something that's really
just, you know, learned on the job.
I mean, you see, again, you know,timing is everything I guess.
(17:25):
But of course, I, you know, I was.
And still am a postmodernistin terms of architecture.
And of course, postmodern architecture, Ithink is all about symbol and, and story.
And that to me is what things like the,the Feng Shui is about symbol, you know,
(17:47):
and story actually putting importanceon symbols and and weight of symbols.
And so all through postmodernism,I think people, you know,
the story was very important.
Now, of course, postmodernism perhapsis a fallen out of fashion or whatever
you however you want to call it.
And so perhaps Perhaps the storyisn't as important as it was.
(18:12):
But, I mean, if you look in terms ofthe importance of story and place, I
mean, you know, we live in Australia,so you just have to really look at
the, at how You know, First Nationspeople actually tell stories in terms
of the, the landscape, et cetera.
(18:34):
So it's, I think it's always been there.
It may be latent at the moment in termsof but, but it's, it's a fundamental, I
think, to the understanding of place now.
Okay.
You can say, well, look,creation myths are one thing.
Sherlock Holmes is the other, but Butthere is this tendency, I think, for
(18:57):
people to actually poohoo popular culture.
And I think popular culture is such avaluable resource where, you know, you've
got, that, that people like designersjust don't draw upon anywhere near enough.
And I think it's a powerful thingthat people have really, through
(19:18):
a kind of snobbishness, I thinkturn their, backs on, really.
We thank Victorian PlanningReports, our very first supporter.
If you want the A to Z of planningdecisions in Victoria and excellent
editorials, please get yourselfa subscription to the VPRs.
Details on our website.
I understand you've curatedseveral exhibitions about
(19:43):
detective fiction and plays.
Can you tell our listenersa little bit about those?
Not the standard fare.
Yeah, well, I mean, many of theseexhibitions I think have been really
quite important, I think certainly,certainly in terms of the way I
(20:03):
started to think about things.
One of the early ones was a thing calledCrime Scenes that was held at the Monash
Gallery of Art in 2001, I think it was.
And it was a pretty amazingconcept where, and, the gallery
gave me tremendous support.
And what we did was we actuallycommissioned six, I think it was
(20:27):
six Australian crime writers.
And they had to write a descriptionof the scene of the crime
that was about 500 words long.
Then I, I took one of the, one ofthe, these stories or each story I
(20:48):
paired with a artist or an architectand the artist and the architect
had to read the story and actuallyrecreate the scene of the crime.
in the gallery.
And then finally, we brought in a teamof homicide detectives who wrote up a
(21:09):
kind of charge sheet describing the sceneof the crime from their point of view.
So here in this exhibition, youhad the scene of the crime from the
point of view of the author, scene ofthe that being then represented by.
Artists and then by police.
(21:30):
So it was the sense of place fromthree different points of view.
And, and to me, that was you know, avery interesting exercise in, in looking
at, at what I've been talking about.
So on that, just on a more internationalperspective, what in terms of cultural
tourism when you've got historicalcrime fiction that, that people get
(21:58):
interested in a place because of that.
Do you think there's much scope forthat or is there a market for that?
Absolutely.
I, and I mean, I think ifyou look at George Simenon's.
The body of his workwith his May Gray books.
I mean, all, you know, in Paris, etcetera it, it's, it's capturing a
(22:19):
place from a different point of view.
And I think that's, the whole, that's,that's the whole attraction of it.
It, it's, it's looking at some placefrom not a kind of tourist point of view,
but almost an insiders point of view.
In terms of, you know,the story that is told.
(22:40):
So I think it's, I thinkit's very important.
And again, I don't think it's probablythought about, or exploited is not the
right word, but you know what I mean?
I don't think it's, it's, it'sacknowledged enough, really
the, the importance of thesewriting about these places.
So, so all there's lots ofopportunities, I think, to reflect on
(23:04):
these things, especially when you're,when you're in another discipline,
like, Like architecture, I think.
We're all into exploitation onthis program, aren't we, Jess?
Jess, you like crime fiction.
Do you like, do youassociate it with place?
No, I've never thought about it like that.
(23:25):
But, but you do like crime fiction.
Yeah.
Look, I haven't read a lot of it, butyes, in theory, but I've never made this
connection in my mind about the, you know,the connection to place and the connection
with the architecture and planning.
So it's a really, really interesting one.
I'll definitely be reading.
Landscape architecture as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
(23:47):
Tell us how your interest in detectivefiction has led to an interest in
everyday architecture and design,you've sort of covered that, but
can you tease that out a bit more?
Yeah.
Look, look, I think when you actually boilit down, Most crime fiction is, actually
(24:07):
based on a kind of mundane everydayexistence, basically, and it's the,
sometimes it's, it's those objects thathave no intrinsic interest or value that
become incredibly interesting and valuablein terms of the, the investigation.
(24:30):
To this extent, I guess there'salmost a kind of surreal element to
it where you actually are looking forthe extraordinary in the ordinary.
And that's something that,that came out of that.
And I used to teach a subjectat Melbourne uni called popular
architecture and design.
(24:50):
And it was incrediblypopular with students.
It got, it, it became too popularfor its own good, basically.
It nearly had, I think it had300 students in, in, at the end.
But because of that, well,you could do amazing things.
So We one year we, for example,I'd, I'd pay students off
(25:13):
and, and I'd always publish.
I used their, I used, I had ahuge budget for this because of
the numbers that enrolled, but Icould, I didn't like tutorials.
So normally you would use this moneyto employ tutors, but I didn't do that.
I only employed one or two.
So I had this.
big pot of money.
(25:34):
And they let me pretty much, well,perhaps I didn't even know that I was
doing it, but I spent it how I wanted to.
And so I would always tryand publish student research.
And so we would do thesehuge books, 400 pages.
Every student would, would get a copy andI'd send them to libraries and things.
(25:59):
So one year we did kebabshops in Melbourne.
We did laundrettes in Melbourne.
We did op shops in Melbourne.
We did tattoo parlours in Melbourne.
We did h cara, car, carher texture in Melbourne.
All of the, all of thesesorts of ordinary places.
(26:19):
And the, the interesting and importantthing about that sort of work is that you
can, you know, so the kids would documentthe, the, the shop or the building, do
drawings, photograph, interview, thepeople get their stories, et cetera.
But in five years, manyof these places are gone.
So these documents were theonly documentation of these
(26:45):
places in and around Melbourne.
So all of this sort of stuff reallycame out of my interest in, in
crime fiction, which then sort ofspilled over into popular culture.
So the reason I didn't do aPhD In architecture is I did
it in in popular culture inMinnesota with Caroline Marling.
(27:09):
My thesis, PhD thesis was on do ityourself Australian letterboxes and
the post war do it yourself movement.
So I've always been interestedin, in this sort of everyday
notion of design and place.
And, and this really did come outof my interest in crime fiction.
(27:32):
So it sort of sounds like this idea of,you know, picking up on the details that
perhaps other people don't notice becomesobviously very important in architecture.
Would you say the sameabout town planning.
Yes.
And I mean, it gets back to crimefiction, of course, because you're
(27:53):
actually, you, it really emphasized theimportance of observation, basically.
And so whether it, whether your,your discipline is architecture or
landscaping or town planning, it reallyis this notion, I think, of observing
things and actually deliberately,deliberately looking at the ugly,
(28:18):
let's, let's say, which, you know,as a kind of venturious, Robert
Venturian kind of view of the world.
But, but it's important, I think,in disciplines like planning to, to
let serendipity happen, to actuallyfind these sorts of coincidences and
(28:40):
actually start to follow them through.
And I don't think that's, that'sdone enough or encouraged enough.
I guess in town planning that the extentof it is really probably around heritage
considerations and what is heritagelisted and what isn't heritage listed.
And obviously there's alwaysdisagreements about what should
(29:02):
be and what shouldn't be.
Yeah, look, I mean, heritage, I think,is, from my point of view, I really, I
mean, where, where, where I live in, inthis particular suburb, and which is,
I think, typical, this is in Brunswick,I mean, often, what annoys me is the
(29:23):
way that town planners, Often hidebehind heritage considerations, or, and,
you know, town planners in councils.
So they often, they often don't lookat things on, on, you know, the merits
of a project in terms of context andscale and all of these things, as
(29:48):
though, you know, it, it, they'refrightened to approve that sort of stuff.
So they actually send it, you know,that they hide behind heritage.
regulations, I guess, oftenin lieu of actually making a
brave and considered decision.
(30:09):
That's, that's my view at any time.
You're going to get us cancelled.
We've just lost all our localgovernment planners throughout the
world who are going to think thisis some far right sort of podcast.
So, Look, we'll just go back to,we'll just go back to the detective
(30:31):
fiction and in detective fiction, urbanenvironments are often characters.
In their own right, and we talked a littlebit about this talking about cities, how
can planners and urbanists ensure thattheir designs have a story or identity
that contributes to the city, to thelife of the city and one thing before
(30:54):
you answer, I mean, a lot of placesnow, you know, post war suburban don't
have that intrinsic natural character.
Some might say that the traditionalurban centers or inner cities had.
So it's that telling a story.
(31:18):
So it's not anywhere place.
Yeah.
Is that a very complicated question?
I'm sorry.
Well, you said about the sort ofmy, Perhaps right, right wing,
I don't think it is, but anyway,right wing view of, of heritage.
And that's, that's, I should, I should,I should point out that after doing my
(31:40):
after finishing my undergraduate thesis,the Sherlock Holmes thesis I sent a copy
to Gough Whitlam and with a note saying,you know, here is my, here is my thesis.
And I thanked him very much for.
What he did, and which of coursemade it much easier for me and my
(32:01):
generation to actually go to university.
And
with, with context, we'vegot many, many international
visitors.
Gough Whitlam was
a socialist prime minister inthe mid seventies in Australia.
I'll call him a socialist.
Yes.
And he
made Higher education free, correct.
(32:23):
And and he was, he's widely acclaimedby some and others think that
he was not so great, but anyway,I'll, I'll just give you that.
Correct.
And, and I mean, I, I think he's thegreatest prime minister Australia has
ever had, certainly in what he did.
Anyway,
(32:46):
Were marked on that assignment.
No, I didn't.
I didn't.
I should have, I guess.
I got a lovely letter backfrom him thanking, thanking
me for sending him my thesis.
I sort of got the impression.
I wasn't the only one ofmy generation who did.
like that.
But what he did do, which mightamuse you, he complimented me on
(33:07):
my ingenuity of writing a thesison architecture on Sherlock Holmes.
He thought that was that was rathera cunning, cunning thing to do.
So if I do sound If I do sound rightwing now, which I don't think I do, more,
more perhaps libertarian, but anyway,
I certainly started out.
(33:29):
What do they say?
You know, if you're not a socialistat 20, you haven't got a heart.
And if you're not conservativeby 30, you don't have a head.
However,
to answer your question, and I, andI think, and I think this actually
does come back to my comment onheritage in councils, etc. I think the
(33:50):
important thing there is to, for thoseheritage consultants, the planners,
etc to actually, do the research onthe story of that, of that suburb.
And I mean, there are so manystories out there all worth
telling that just get lost.
So, so instead of worrying about, youknow, some kind of architectural detail
(34:15):
on a veranda or something, it would be amuch, much bigger contribution for them
to actually say, well, look, here is,here is the history from, you know, it
might be the, the, the popular historyor the official history, but here is
some of the history of this place.
(34:35):
And offer that up as a kind of valuableresource for planners to make some
of these decisions about, yes, thisparticular design is appropriate or this
particular design isn't appropriate.
It seems to me that would be amuch more positive kind of response
to heritage planning then someof the decisions that are made.
(35:01):
I think the difficulty now though, as wellis that heritage means a lot of different
things to a lot of different people.
It does.
You know, we're not, it's no longerjust the physical built form.
It's the history behind buildings.
It's the, you know.
Yeah.
It's, it's a very broad topic these days.
It's but I think, butI think that should be.
More to the front, let's, let's saythat that sort of notion of and, and I'm
(35:25):
not talking about perhaps the officialhistories, even some of the, even some
of the personal histories of, of a place.
I mean, you know, where, where I livein Brunswick, it's, it's It's amazing.
It's almost as though the brick industry,which was in Brunswick has been forgotten.
The reason, the only reason that Brunswickhas the parks that it has, ironically,
(35:49):
is because those parks used to be claypits and then filled in with garbage.
And then eventually, you know,they, they couldn't build on them
because the soil was unstable.
So we've got these, these bigparks in Brunswick due to the
Due to the brick industry.
Now, now, I don't think anybody enteringthis particular suburb and looking
(36:14):
around would get any notion, or notvery much notion, that that was the
history of this particular suburb.
For context listeners, Brunswickis an inner city suburb in the
north of Melbourne, it was verymuch a working class suburb very
(36:36):
hard scrabble sort of suburb.
And now it's just beentaken over by hipsters.
Correct.
It's the hipster capital of the world.
I know.
It is.
Aaron fits right in there.
That's right,
that's right.
He's riding around on his bicycle.
Especially, he needs a jumper.
Now, now, sorry, weshouldn't bag out our guests.
(36:57):
This is terrible.
Very unprofessional, Jess, of you.
Now, detectives often navigateurban spaces in unique ways.
Using alleyways, hiddenpathways, or overlooked details.
What can town planners and urbanistslearn from these depictions of cities
as dynamic and layered environmentssort of you covered that a little
(37:21):
bit, but you want to add to that.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it would bewould be fantastic to sort of for some
designer, say, looking at Melbourne'slaneways or or doing some work on
that to look at something like.
the mystery of a handsome cab, which wasa very early Australian detective story.
(37:43):
I mean, I think that there's a lot thatpeople can broaden their sort of approach.
And the, the other thing, which Ithink is forgotten or perhaps ignored
is, is the role of generalists.
I mean, I know now that, you know,everybody has to be a specialist to
have any credibility at all, but thesort of poly, polymath and the sort
(38:08):
of generalist seems to me to be sadlyneglected because often they're in the
best position to actually make the sortof these sort of connections really.
And so.
I think, while we all sort of thought,okay, well, of course, it's, it's very
important to become specialists at things.
(38:30):
Often that, that creates akind of blinkered view of a
discipline, a place, et cetera.
And I think it's the, therole of the generalist.
In architecture and probablyother disciplines has been
discounted over the years.
And I think that's not a, nota good thing on the surface.
You think, well, it's, it isa good thing, but it's not.
(38:54):
I mean, Sherlock Holmes in a scandalof Bohemia, he said, it is a capital
mistake to theorize before onehas data, insensibly one begins
to twist facts to suit theoriesinstead of theories to suit facts.
Do you think this kind ofquote is applicable to the
world of planning and design.
(39:14):
Well, it is, it is to a certainextent, although I don't mind, you
know I think we have to take thereshould be some artistic license, but
I think it is important to actuallyto get at the heart of the thing.
And, and I guess that's what I'm, whatI'm arguing for is that people should
actually get at the heart of the thing.
(39:35):
And, and often, I think the heart ofthe thing is actually the story and,
and the story is the important thing.
And that really should be elevated interms of what people do or, or, or.
Don't do.
So I think all of, you know, all ofthese things are important and can
(39:59):
be applied to the, the disciplinethat, that we all belong to basically.
You have introduced a whole differentway of approaching planning and
probably architecture through the lensof detective novels and other fiction.
What other non traditional fieldsmight also offer insight to the city
(40:25):
management, design, planning world?
What, you know, what othernon traditional fields?
My view is that there are many if onceyou actually start, I mean, I don't,
when I go into a bookshop, I never, Inever look at the architecture section.
(40:46):
I always go to the art section.
I don't think you, you really learn thatmuch from, you don't learn that much new
from reading about your own discipline.
I think you have to cross, jumpsomewhere else to get something.
Now, for example and, and this isprobably a smaller example than you
(41:06):
that I might give, but for example, Imean, for years One of the things that
I've been pursuing, I mean, since, sinceundergraduate school, is the correlation
between knitting and bricklaying.
I mean, I'm a great, I've been agreat fan of bricklaying for years
and years and years, and, anddid a lot of work with architects
(41:30):
and and the brick industry here.
When you actually start to look atbrick walls, not as brick walls, but
as knitting , it alters the whole viewbecause they're, the two things are
very similar in terms of the analogous.
And so you can actually knit a brickpattern and you can build And, and
(41:58):
I got my mother when she was aliveand I was a student, she, I, I would
get some 19th century brickwork andturn it into a knitting pattern and
she would actually knit it up for me.
I always had this fantasy whereI would design a house for a
family dad, mom, and the kids.
(42:20):
And while the house was being built,
You know the, the mother presumablywould knit jumpers for the entire
family based on the same brickpattern that was on the house.
And as an opening ceremony, they, theyMom, dad, and the kids would stand
(42:42):
wearing their jumpers in front of withthe brick pattern on their jumpers
in front of the house with the brickpattern on that somebody would take
a photo and then they would move in.
My point is that I thinkit's it's when people make.
Big leaps, big jumps that, that things canmove and things can get exciting, really.
(43:07):
And, and suddenly you think, wow,I'm, I'm onto something here.
You, you know, that's the key.
I think it's, it's, it's a sort of.
You have to open yourself up tothis sort of notion of serendipity.
You, you have to be willing toactually, you know, catch these ideas
as they go past and run with them.
(43:29):
Some will work out, some won't.
But, but for goodness sake, that'sthe, I mean, that's, that, that's
what makes life interesting.
It's not just, you know, banging awayat the same kind of failed methodology
that is going to do it for you.
I don't think, you know.
Well, you don't know what your podcastextra is going to be next time.
(43:52):
Well, I hope it's
taking up knitting.
I, it should be.
It's it's amazing.
Well, we need new approachesand new approaches lead to,
can lead to massive failures.
Burnouts, whatever, but that's the,
but that's, that's human, you know,that's the human condition, isn't it?
(44:14):
And, and we should, and, and that's theother thing at university when I, you
know, it's just like, it gets to the pointwhere students aren't allowed to fail.
And, and I used to say, well, if youcan't fail at university, where can
you, where can you make your mistakes?
You know, so.
(44:35):
It's important, I think, to forstudents to actually feel that they
have a kind of you know, a safety netand that if you actually try to do
something different and it doesn'twork out, you know, you don't totally
crash and burn in that environment.
It's very important, I think.
But these days, you know, it'slike some sort of corporate.
(44:57):
Bit of bullshit, basically the wayyou've, everything has to be, everything
has to be done well, you know, the
generation of the perfectionists.
It is,
it is.
And that comes back to thisnotion of the generalist.
You see,
we just lost all theuniversity administrators.
So now we've done, wejust moved on to podcast.
(45:18):
This could be our last podcast.
Yeah, this is under podcast,extra culture corner.
Something you've read, seen, watched.
Listen to, experience lately, thatmight be of interest to our listeners,
and it doesn't have to be on topic.
Well, it's, it's interesting you ask thatquestion, because at the end of last year
(45:39):
Pursuit which is a online Melbourne Unimagazine, which I've written a bit of,
bit for, they asked me the same thing.
They said, well, What have you reador watched or seen or whatever?
And the answer that I came up with waslast year, the highlight of my, almost the
highlight of my year, I think was well, Ihave three grand grandchildren 10, seven.
(46:03):
And three and the middle one, Max,who's seven is a keen footballer.
This, I have to takeresponsibility for this.
He is also supports Geelong thecats football team, and he actually
played his first Oz kick game atMarvel stadium, and it was just such
(46:27):
a thrill for him to actually kickthe ball on the big oval, but it was.
It was a bigger thrill forme to actually watch him.
It, it was, it was justsuch a great thrill.
And, and for Christmas, one ofthe things he wanted was football
socks, Geelong football socks, anda mouth guard, which, you know, I
(46:49):
bought for him in his Christmas box.
And his father, our son said, you knowhe slept with that mouth guard one night.
He actually, had it in hismouth and fell asleep with it.
And just last weekend, we were havinga kick to kick and there he was fully
dressed, Geelong jumper, Geelongshorts, Geelong socks and his mouth
(47:14):
guard having a kick to kick withthe grandpa, which was fantastic.
So Derham, you know, I'm amassive Cats fan as well.
So I understand the passion andthe madness and the madness.
This is, I'm sure you've all gotyour teams that you're crazy about.
Now, Jess, what's your podcast extrafor this special, possibly last.
(47:41):
Well, Pete, I've been doing alot more Pilates at the moment.
Reformer Pilates to help my.
I think it's my back, my lowerback, my shoulders from carrying
one child on one side for too long.
So that's really been helping mewith my posture and sitting and
not being in a lot of back pain.
So that's been great.
How about you, Pete?
Well, we'll just, I've justharvested this last weekend, 19.
(48:05):
2 kilograms of honeyfrom one of the hives.
That seems like a lot of honey.
It is.
Yeah.
It was the, the very hard working bees.
Have
you got a license for your bees?
You have to be registered and I'vegot two hives, but the beautiful,
beautiful bees, they make great honey.
But the other thing, just I'm trying tolearn a poem a month to fend off dementia.
(48:30):
So I just noticed that tryingto, like we all know, sort of.
stanzas of poems or something like that.
But when you try and learn apoem, and you know, the best way
of learning is to write it down.
And you keep coming back tothat poem that you're learning.
And once you get it, it's fantastic.
(48:53):
So I would urge our listenersto try something like that,
that they enjoy in their life.
Just try and forget about all the whitenoise going on, but just try and grab
hold of something and learn something.
So anyway, you've been a great
and of course Sherlock Holmesretired to Sussex and kept bees.
(49:17):
So you have something in commonwith the great detective himself.
Well,
I wish I had his opium habit,but you can't buy it anymore.
Jess used to be cocaine.
It gets cocaine.
It was used to be a massive cut.
Anyway, we've been
definitely canceled.
We're going to get our doors kicked in.
Jess.
This has been great having youas listeners for the podcast.
(49:39):
This could be our last one.
Thanks, Derham.
You've been.
A really wonderful guest andnow we're going to be canceled.
So Jess, all the best to you.
It's been great doing podcasts with you.
I don't, I don't thinkI was that bad, surely.
What do
you
think,
Jess?
Anyway, we'll know soon.
(50:00):
Thank you, listeners, as always.
Thanks for listening.
If you would like to hear more of ourpodcasts, hit the follow button on Spotify
or the like button on SoundCloud orthe subscribe button in Apple podcasts.
Please also visit our Instagrampage, LinkedIn or website for behind
the scenes footage of our podcastsand to get the latest on upcoming
(50:21):
or recently released episodes.
If you have any suggestions orfeedback, please get in touch via
our social media channels or byemailing planningxchangeatgmail.
com.
This podcast is supported by VPLA.
Victorian PlanningEnvironmental Law Association.
Welcome to the Planning Exchangewhere we interview built environment
professionals who are doinginteresting work beyond the ordinary.
I'm Jess Noonan and I'm joinedby my colleague Peter Jewell.
Today we're speakingwith Dr. Derham Groves.
Durham studied architecture at DeakinUniversity and the Royal Melbourne
(00:22):
Institute of Technology and ArtHistory at the University of Minnesota.
He taught architecture at RMIT from1985 to 1997 and the University
of Melbourne from 1999 to 2019.
And was also a senior fellow in theFaculty of Architecture, Building
and Planning at the Universityof Melbourne from 2020 to 2024.
(00:42):
Derham is the author of manyarticles and books about popular
culture, architecture and design.
Derham has been a fan of SherlockHolmes, and by extension crime
fiction, generally since high school,and has published extensively on
this topic amongst many others.
His most recent book, Walt Disney'sForgotten Australia from Mickey's
Kangaroo to Outbook at Yale willbe published in Feb, 2025, Derham.
(01:07):
Can you give our listeners a briefbackground as to how you got to
where you are and how you becameso interested in Sherlock Holmes?
Well, thanks for invitingme Jess and Peter.
Yes.
I was born in 1956, which is an importantyear in Australia because amongst other
things, television came to Australia.
(01:27):
So in essence, I grew up withtelevision working class family grew
up in Belmont, Geelong, which was aworking class suburb and went to Oberon
primary school and Oberon high school.
All through those years, rightup until the death, I was, I
(01:51):
thought I'd be do medicine andbecome a general practitioner.
But suddenly I thought,Oh, don't think so.
And that caused a bit of a dilemma becausehonestly, I, up until that point, I
hadn't thought of anything else to do.
And two things.
influenced me to do architecture.
(02:12):
One was the television sitcom,Mr. Ed The Talking Horse.
In that particular showWilbur Post, who owned Mr.
Ed, The Talking Horse, was an architect.
And I mean, my parentsdidn't know any architects.
I didn't know any architects, but Wilburseemed incredibly interesting to me.
(02:35):
He, lived in a nice house, worked in hisbarn in the backyard, talked to Mr. Ed,
who didn't talk to anyone else but Wilbur.
Wilbur also had interesting neighbours anda pretty blonde wife, and I thought, Yep.
This looks pretty goodto me, I must admit.
(02:57):
So that was one influenceto study architecture.
The other was again in the sameyear, which was about 1974.
I saw the Ascent of Man.
The Ascent of Man was one of the first.
Big documentaries and televisiondocumentaries hosted by Jacob
(03:19):
Bronowski and one of the episodeswas on architecture and it just
blew my socks off, I must admit.
The thing that impressed me most,and I still remember, is that in this
summary of world architecture from youknow, cavemen till the, to the 20th
century, Brunowski finished his studyof architecture at Watts Towers in Los
(03:46):
Angeles which were built by an itinerantItalian tile cutter Simon Rodia.
And, and I just thought, wow.
So even from the beginning, I wasaware that architects didn't always.
make great architecture thatordinary people could, could do this.
(04:06):
So, so that's, that's what I did.
And that's how I came tostudy architecture, basically.
So it's not, not your traditional kindof route into the, into the discipline.
And your interest in SherlockHolmes, where did that stem from?
Well, my interest in Sherlock Holmesstarted in Form 1 at Oberon High School
(04:29):
when Mrs. Vines, our English teacherread The Speckled Band out loud in class.
And I was pretty muchhooked from that point on.
And so all through high school Igrew more and more interested and all
through university, but it, it tooka little while to make the connection
(04:52):
between architecture and detectivefiction, but it, it was, it was
certainly there university and theway it manifested, if you want me to
go on there, I did my undergraduateat Deakin University in Geelong.
So still live with mom and dad.
(05:14):
And what I designed for that finalproject, which was my choice,
was a Sherlock Holmes Centre.
And it consisted of a theatre, acinema, a museum, and a library.
And I
did this building, so this was in about1980 and my tutors , absolutely hated it.
(05:43):
I think I got 55 which probably wouldhave crushed most people, but I thought,
no, they just didn't understand it.
They really didn't.
This is, this is actually a lot worth alot more than 55 in all sorts of ways.
So I, Persisted with it.
And I, I sent a copy of it toRichard Mundy, who was the editor
(06:06):
of Transition in those days.
And he liked it.
He thought it was fantastic.
And so he actually published a longarticle that eventually came out in
Transition on the Sherlock Holmes Center.
And from there, the Universityof Minnesota picked up on it.
(06:29):
And in 1984, I went to theuniversity of Minnesota.
And the reason for that was that theuniversity of Minnesota has the largest
Sherlock Holmes collection in the world.
So I went over there, worked in specialcollections, et cetera did some of
my masters there instead of RMIT.
(06:49):
And it, you know, it was afabulous opportunity that I had.
And, and so, you know, Not badfor a thesis worth 55 out of
a hundred, actually, I think.
And, Durham, we've probably gotsome listeners thinking, what
on earth has architecture gotto do with Sherlock Holmes?
(07:09):
Can you talk to that connection?
Yes.
I mean, architecture, I think, andSherlock Holmes, and by wider association,
detective fiction generally, the thingabout, well, I think, I think architecture
essentially is about storytelling.
And of course, when you come todetective fiction and, and architecture,
(07:34):
you get the scene of the crime.
And so it's places very important,I think, in architecture and in, in,
architecture and detective fiction.
And certainly when you've got a writerlike Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote the
Sherlock Holmes stories, it becomes veryimportant in terms of where things are
(07:57):
in space and where people are in space.
And, and this sort of notionof storytelling through objects
and space, I think one thingis, is tied up with the other.
You know, quite closely, actually.
So that's why that that's the sort ofinitial link, I guess, between the two,
(08:18):
because, you know, the scene of thecrime in crime fiction is an essential
part of that genre of writing, really.
Durham, I understand you've writtenseveral books about Sherlock Holmes.
Now, before we talk about that, somelisteners, believe it or not, I'm a
bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan, but theywon't know who we're talking about.
(08:41):
Can you just, can you give like oneminute description of Sherlock Holmes?
Okay.
But if they don't know who SherlockHolmes is, I'm not quite sure
why they're listening to it apodcast like this, surely everyone
knows who Sherlock Holmes is.
Well, we live in 2025.
(09:02):
True, I guess.
But, but I mean, this is theincredible thing about Sherlock Holmes.
There's been so many iterations.
The last one was Sherlock,you know, benedict.
Cumberbatch, et cetera.
I mean, it's it every, every 10 years,Sherlock Holmes has reinvented for that
generation, but Sherlock Holmes the firststory written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
(09:25):
was a study in Scarlet in 1887 and Doylewrote four novels and 56 short stories.
And really up until that point Detectivefiction was not was different in the sense
that the authors often didn't lay out thesort of clues, so that the reader could
(09:52):
perhaps follow the, the, the thinkingprocess and come to some conclusion.
Up until then it was, it was, you know,it was just, it was impossible to do.
So that was.
Doyle's great innovation, I guess, toactually lay it all before the reading
public and let them try and solvethe, solve the, the, the, the crime.
(10:16):
And it was, it was based on SherlockHolmes power of observation and
about place and using logic.
Yes.
Scientific principles was the way heactually Describe that, that sort of
process and, and really, I mean, 18,87, I mean, you, you know, it was
quite a a, a, a revolutionary thingat that, at that particular time.
(10:42):
So you've written several booksabout Sherlock Holmes and Place.
And that's why we've got you herefor the interview is all about place.
Can you describe the connectionbetween Sherlock Holmes and place
and how you write about that.
Well, I mean, it's interesting.
And I think it's, it's probably importantthat Doyle's father was an architect.
(11:06):
I suspect even though, youknow, he was tragically a drunk.
I'm sure his son, Arthur Conan Doyle.
You know, picked up many things fromhis father and architecture generally.
Certainly the thing that, that initiallystood out for me was that you know, you've
(11:27):
got Sherlock Holmes, who's the detective.
You've got Dr. Watson, who is hisoff sider and friend and biographer.
They're the two main characters, butthe third main character, when you
actually look at those 60 stories,is 221B Baker Street, which is where
Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson lived.
(11:50):
And in what, what amazed me when I firstread those stories, even in high school,
was this notion that personality canbe expressed through place and time.
And furniture and the positioningof these particular things.
(12:10):
Is there also a historicalconnection between the scene
of the crime and architecture?
Well, I mean, this is when things tookon extra meaning for me, I guess, because
my masters which was published As a bookin 1991, which was my first book what I
(12:30):
wrote about really came out of this, youknow, remember I did my undergraduate
on Sherlock Holmes, came out of that.
And what I wrote about, thebook was called Feng Shui and
Western Building Ceremonies.
And what I, my wife is Chinese.
So I, I was interested in, in Chinese,thought processes and and theory in
(12:55):
terms of Feng Shui, partly becausemy, one of my teachers at, at Deakin,
a guy named Philip Gibbs had justcome from Malaysia to teach us.
And he had done a lot ofwork on the Malay house.
And what interested me was the sort ofYou know, the, BOMOS which was sort
of like the masters of ceremony, witchdoctors who, who actually said, look,
(13:20):
you know, this is where you put thehouse and you have to start digging the
foundations at this particular time.
It was all, all about put, you know,trying to find the right spot, trying
to find the most auspicious place.
And so okay.
Philip had done all of that work.
(13:40):
This is, we're talking now, you know,early eighties Feng Shui was not a,
everyone now knows about Feng Shui,but back then not nothing much in
English had been written about it.
And so I wrote about that, butI didn't think that was enough.
I thought, okay, let's write about FengShui, but let's compare the Chinese
(14:01):
practice to the Western practice.
And So I also went into things likefoundation stone ceremonies, topping out
ceremonies, all of those sorts of things.
And it occurred to me when doing thatsort of research, that traditionally,
the actual site of architecture andtowns, etc, were actually crime scenes.
(14:25):
Because in the day architects wouldoften arrange sacrifices to be made.
Regarding their buildings, et cetera,to try and give these buildings a
spirit and a sort of sense of place.
So when you actually look atthe history of architecture, I
mean, the site of buildings onceupon a time were crime scenes.
(14:49):
Basically and so that to me startedto sort of make me think about the
importance of this genre in terms ofarchitecture and and the way it fitted
into You know, deep history basically.
Gives a whole new meaning to theterm, you know, contextual, responsive
(15:10):
design and those sorts of things.
Yeah.
Like how you're actually designing whenyou consider the historical components of
a particular site, which is probably notsomething that's done all that recently.
I know.
And, and later on that sort ofdeveloped into the sort of notion
of, you know, so many houses havethese sort of secret history.
So you know, where people work.
Died or killed and, and we never,we never really hear about that sort
(15:35):
of part of the history of the house.
So these things you know, stuck in my headand I started to write about those things.
Also I was teaching, of course,I, enjoyed teaching second year.
And one of my favorite design studioswas actually getting the students to
(15:57):
read one of the short stories, thebecause there's 56 short stories.
So it's not a, Not a long read.
And what I would get them to do, I'd,I'd actually select a site somewhere
and they would have to design thehouse for either the victim or the
villain in that particular story.
(16:17):
And some of the results Igot were incredible really.
And.
It seemed to me that the power of thatmethodology, I guess, was not only the
fact that, you know, that they werelooking at doing what Doyle did with
221B Baker Street, for example, butwhen you're actually learning to design
(16:42):
architectural design, the importanceof actually having a narrative, a
story that underpins these things.
Became very important because when,when students would get stuck, they
always had the story to go back to.
And, and I think that's, that'sa real key in terms of you
(17:03):
know, learning stuff, basically.
Do you think the art of storytellingin architecture is still there, or is
it something that's not that it's nolonger taught at something that's really
just, you know, learned on the job.
I mean, you see, again, you know,timing is everything I guess.
(17:25):
But of course, I, you know, I was.
And still am a postmodernistin terms of architecture.
And of course, postmodern architecture, Ithink is all about symbol and, and story.
And that to me is what things like the,the Feng Shui is about symbol, you know,
(17:47):
and story actually putting importanceon symbols and and weight of symbols.
And so all through postmodernism,I think people, you know,
the story was very important.
Now, of course, postmodernism perhapsis a fallen out of fashion or whatever
you however you want to call it.
And so perhaps Perhaps the storyisn't as important as it was.
(18:12):
But, I mean, if you look in terms ofthe importance of story and place, I
mean, you know, we live in Australia,so you just have to really look at
the, at how You know, First Nationspeople actually tell stories in terms
of the, the landscape, et cetera.
(18:34):
So it's, I think it's always been there.
It may be latent at the moment in termsof but, but it's, it's a fundamental, I
think, to the understanding of place now.
Okay.
You can say, well, look,creation myths are one thing.
Sherlock Holmes is the other, but Butthere is this tendency, I think, for
(18:57):
people to actually poohoo popular culture.
And I think popular culture is such avaluable resource where, you know, you've
got, that, that people like designersjust don't draw upon anywhere near enough.
And I think it's a powerful thingthat people have really, through
(19:18):
a kind of snobbishness, I thinkturn their, backs on, really.
We thank Victorian PlanningReports, our very first supporter.
If you want the A to Z of planningdecisions in Victoria and excellent
editorials, please get yourselfa subscription to the VPRs.
Details on our website.
I understand you've curatedseveral exhibitions about
(19:43):
detective fiction and plays.
Can you tell our listenersa little bit about those?
Not the standard fare.
Yeah, well, I mean, many of theseexhibitions I think have been really
quite important, I think certainly,certainly in terms of the way I
(20:03):
started to think about things.
One of the early ones was a thing calledCrime Scenes that was held at the Monash
Gallery of Art in 2001, I think it was.
And it was a pretty amazingconcept where, and, the gallery
gave me tremendous support.
And what we did was we actuallycommissioned six, I think it was
(20:27):
six Australian crime writers.
And they had to write a descriptionof the scene of the crime
that was about 500 words long.
Then I, I took one of the, one ofthe, these stories or each story I
(20:48):
paired with a artist or an architectand the artist and the architect
had to read the story and actuallyrecreate the scene of the crime.
in the gallery.
And then finally, we brought in a teamof homicide detectives who wrote up a
(21:09):
kind of charge sheet describing the sceneof the crime from their point of view.
So here in this exhibition, youhad the scene of the crime from the
point of view of the author, scene ofthe that being then represented by.
Artists and then by police.
(21:30):
So it was the sense of place fromthree different points of view.
And, and to me, that was you know, avery interesting exercise in, in looking
at, at what I've been talking about.
So on that, just on a more internationalperspective, what in terms of cultural
tourism when you've got historicalcrime fiction that, that people get
(21:58):
interested in a place because of that.
Do you think there's much scope forthat or is there a market for that?
Absolutely.
I, and I mean, I think ifyou look at George Simenon's.
The body of his workwith his May Gray books.
I mean, all, you know, in Paris, etcetera it, it's, it's capturing a
(22:19):
place from a different point of view.
And I think that's, the whole, that's,that's the whole attraction of it.
It, it's, it's looking at some placefrom not a kind of tourist point of view,
but almost an insiders point of view.
In terms of, you know,the story that is told.
(22:40):
So I think it's, I thinkit's very important.
And again, I don't think it's probablythought about, or exploited is not the
right word, but you know what I mean?
I don't think it's, it's, it'sacknowledged enough, really
the, the importance of thesewriting about these places.
So, so all there's lots ofopportunities, I think, to reflect on
(23:04):
these things, especially when you're,when you're in another discipline,
like, Like architecture, I think.
We're all into exploitation onthis program, aren't we, Jess?
Jess, you like crime fiction.
Do you like, do youassociate it with place?
No, I've never thought about it like that.
(23:25):
But, but you do like crime fiction.
Yeah.
Look, I haven't read a lot of it, butyes, in theory, but I've never made this
connection in my mind about the, you know,the connection to place and the connection
with the architecture and planning.
So it's a really, really interesting one.
I'll definitely be reading.
Landscape architecture as well.
Yeah, absolutely.
(23:47):
Tell us how your interest in detectivefiction has led to an interest in
everyday architecture and design,you've sort of covered that, but
can you tease that out a bit more?
Yeah.
Look, look, I think when you actually boilit down, Most crime fiction is, actually
(24:07):
based on a kind of mundane everydayexistence, basically, and it's the,
sometimes it's, it's those objects thathave no intrinsic interest or value that
become incredibly interesting and valuablein terms of the, the investigation.
(24:30):
To this extent, I guess there'salmost a kind of surreal element to
it where you actually are looking forthe extraordinary in the ordinary.
And that's something that,that came out of that.
And I used to teach a subjectat Melbourne uni called popular
architecture and design.
(24:50):
And it was incrediblypopular with students.
It got, it, it became too popularfor its own good, basically.
It nearly had, I think it had300 students in, in, at the end.
But because of that, well,you could do amazing things.
So We one year we, for example,I'd, I'd pay students off
(25:13):
and, and I'd always publish.
I used their, I used, I had ahuge budget for this because of
the numbers that enrolled, but Icould, I didn't like tutorials.
So normally you would use this moneyto employ tutors, but I didn't do that.
I only employed one or two.
So I had this.
big pot of money.
(25:34):
And they let me pretty much, well,perhaps I didn't even know that I was
doing it, but I spent it how I wanted to.
And so I would always tryand publish student research.
And so we would do thesehuge books, 400 pages.
Every student would, would get a copy andI'd send them to libraries and things.
(25:59):
So one year we did kebabshops in Melbourne.
We did laundrettes in Melbourne.
We did op shops in Melbourne.
We did tattoo parlours in Melbourne.
We did h cara, car, carher texture in Melbourne.
All of the, all of thesesorts of ordinary places.
(26:19):
And the, the interesting and importantthing about that sort of work is that you
can, you know, so the kids would documentthe, the, the shop or the building, do
drawings, photograph, interview, thepeople get their stories, et cetera.
But in five years, manyof these places are gone.
So these documents were theonly documentation of these
(26:45):
places in and around Melbourne.
So all of this sort of stuff reallycame out of my interest in, in
crime fiction, which then sort ofspilled over into popular culture.
So the reason I didn't do aPhD In architecture is I did
it in in popular culture inMinnesota with Caroline Marling.
(27:09):
My thesis, PhD thesis was on do ityourself Australian letterboxes and
the post war do it yourself movement.
So I've always been interestedin, in this sort of everyday
notion of design and place.
And, and this really did come outof my interest in crime fiction.
(27:32):
So it sort of sounds like this idea of,you know, picking up on the details that
perhaps other people don't notice becomesobviously very important in architecture.
Would you say the sameabout town planning.
Yes.
And I mean, it gets back to crimefiction, of course, because you're
(27:53):
actually, you, it really emphasized theimportance of observation, basically.
And so whether it, whether your,your discipline is architecture or
landscaping or town planning, it reallyis this notion, I think, of observing
things and actually deliberately,deliberately looking at the ugly,
(28:18):
let's, let's say, which, you know,as a kind of venturious, Robert
Venturian kind of view of the world.
But, but it's important, I think,in disciplines like planning to, to
let serendipity happen, to actuallyfind these sorts of coincidences and
(28:40):
actually start to follow them through.
And I don't think that's, that'sdone enough or encouraged enough.
I guess in town planning that the extentof it is really probably around heritage
considerations and what is heritagelisted and what isn't heritage listed.
And obviously there's alwaysdisagreements about what should
(29:02):
be and what shouldn't be.
Yeah, look, I mean, heritage, I think,is, from my point of view, I really, I
mean, where, where, where I live in, inthis particular suburb, and which is,
I think, typical, this is in Brunswick,I mean, often, what annoys me is the
(29:23):
way that town planners, Often hidebehind heritage considerations, or, and,
you know, town planners in councils.
So they often, they often don't lookat things on, on, you know, the merits
of a project in terms of context andscale and all of these things, as
(29:48):
though, you know, it, it, they'refrightened to approve that sort of stuff.
So they actually send it, you know,that they hide behind heritage.
regulations, I guess, oftenin lieu of actually making a
brave and considered decision.
(30:09):
That's, that's my view at any time.
You're going to get us cancelled.
We've just lost all our localgovernment planners throughout the
world who are going to think thisis some far right sort of podcast.
So, Look, we'll just go back to,we'll just go back to the detective
(30:31):
fiction and in detective fiction, urbanenvironments are often characters.
In their own right, and we talked a littlebit about this talking about cities, how
can planners and urbanists ensure thattheir designs have a story or identity
that contributes to the city, to thelife of the city and one thing before
(30:54):
you answer, I mean, a lot of placesnow, you know, post war suburban don't
have that intrinsic natural character.
Some might say that the traditionalurban centers or inner cities had.
So it's that telling a story.
(31:18):
So it's not anywhere place.
Yeah.
Is that a very complicated question?
I'm sorry.
Well, you said about the sort ofmy, Perhaps right, right wing,
I don't think it is, but anyway,right wing view of, of heritage.
And that's, that's, I should, I should,I should point out that after doing my
(31:40):
after finishing my undergraduate thesis,the Sherlock Holmes thesis I sent a copy
to Gough Whitlam and with a note saying,you know, here is my, here is my thesis.
And I thanked him very much for.
What he did, and which of coursemade it much easier for me and my
(32:01):
generation to actually go to university.
And
with, with context, we'vegot many, many international
visitors.
Gough Whitlam was
a socialist prime minister inthe mid seventies in Australia.
I'll call him a socialist.
Yes.
And he
made Higher education free, correct.
(32:23):
And and he was, he's widely acclaimedby some and others think that
he was not so great, but anyway,I'll, I'll just give you that.
Correct.
And, and I mean, I, I think he's thegreatest prime minister Australia has
ever had, certainly in what he did.
Anyway,
(32:46):
Were marked on that assignment.
No, I didn't.
I didn't.
I should have, I guess.
I got a lovely letter backfrom him thanking, thanking
me for sending him my thesis.
I sort of got the impression.
I wasn't the only one ofmy generation who did.
like that.
But what he did do, which mightamuse you, he complimented me on
(33:07):
my ingenuity of writing a thesison architecture on Sherlock Holmes.
He thought that was that was rathera cunning, cunning thing to do.
So if I do sound If I do sound rightwing now, which I don't think I do, more,
more perhaps libertarian, but anyway,
I certainly started out.
(33:29):
What do they say?
You know, if you're not a socialistat 20, you haven't got a heart.
And if you're not conservativeby 30, you don't have a head.
However,
to answer your question, and I, andI think, and I think this actually
does come back to my comment onheritage in councils, etc. I think the
(33:50):
important thing there is to, for thoseheritage consultants, the planners,
etc to actually, do the research onthe story of that, of that suburb.
And I mean, there are so manystories out there all worth
telling that just get lost.
So, so instead of worrying about, youknow, some kind of architectural detail
(34:15):
on a veranda or something, it would be amuch, much bigger contribution for them
to actually say, well, look, here is,here is the history from, you know, it
might be the, the, the popular historyor the official history, but here is
some of the history of this place.
(34:35):
And offer that up as a kind of valuableresource for planners to make some
of these decisions about, yes, thisparticular design is appropriate or this
particular design isn't appropriate.
It seems to me that would be amuch more positive kind of response
to heritage planning then someof the decisions that are made.
(35:01):
I think the difficulty now though, as wellis that heritage means a lot of different
things to a lot of different people.
It does.
You know, we're not, it's no longerjust the physical built form.
It's the history behind buildings.
It's the, you know.
Yeah.
It's, it's a very broad topic these days.
It's but I think, butI think that should be.
More to the front, let's, let's saythat that sort of notion of and, and I'm
(35:25):
not talking about perhaps the officialhistories, even some of the, even some
of the personal histories of, of a place.
I mean, you know, where, where I livein Brunswick, it's, it's It's amazing.
It's almost as though the brick industry,which was in Brunswick has been forgotten.
The reason, the only reason that Brunswickhas the parks that it has, ironically,
(35:49):
is because those parks used to be claypits and then filled in with garbage.
And then eventually, you know,they, they couldn't build on them
because the soil was unstable.
So we've got these, these bigparks in Brunswick due to the
Due to the brick industry.
Now, now, I don't think anybody enteringthis particular suburb and looking
(36:14):
around would get any notion, or notvery much notion, that that was the
history of this particular suburb.
For context listeners, Brunswickis an inner city suburb in the
north of Melbourne, it was verymuch a working class suburb very
(36:36):
hard scrabble sort of suburb.
And now it's just beentaken over by hipsters.
Correct.
It's the hipster capital of the world.
I know.
It is.
Aaron fits right in there.
That's right,
that's right.
He's riding around on his bicycle.
Especially, he needs a jumper.
Now, now, sorry, weshouldn't bag out our guests.
(36:57):
This is terrible.
Very unprofessional, Jess, of you.
Now, detectives often navigateurban spaces in unique ways.
Using alleyways, hiddenpathways, or overlooked details.
What can town planners and urbanistslearn from these depictions of cities
as dynamic and layered environmentssort of you covered that a little
(37:21):
bit, but you want to add to that.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it would bewould be fantastic to sort of for some
designer, say, looking at Melbourne'slaneways or or doing some work on
that to look at something like.
the mystery of a handsome cab, which wasa very early Australian detective story.
(37:43):
I mean, I think that there's a lot thatpeople can broaden their sort of approach.
And the, the other thing, which Ithink is forgotten or perhaps ignored
is, is the role of generalists.
I mean, I know now that, you know,everybody has to be a specialist to
have any credibility at all, but thesort of poly, polymath and the sort
(38:08):
of generalist seems to me to be sadlyneglected because often they're in the
best position to actually make the sortof these sort of connections really.
And so.
I think, while we all sort of thought,okay, well, of course, it's, it's very
important to become specialists at things.
(38:30):
Often that, that creates akind of blinkered view of a
discipline, a place, et cetera.
And I think it's the, therole of the generalist.
In architecture and probablyother disciplines has been
discounted over the years.
And I think that's not a, nota good thing on the surface.
You think, well, it's, it isa good thing, but it's not.
(38:54):
I mean, Sherlock Holmes in a scandalof Bohemia, he said, it is a capital
mistake to theorize before onehas data, insensibly one begins
to twist facts to suit theoriesinstead of theories to suit facts.
Do you think this kind ofquote is applicable to the
world of planning and design.
(39:14):
Well, it is, it is to a certainextent, although I don't mind, you
know I think we have to take thereshould be some artistic license, but
I think it is important to actuallyto get at the heart of the thing.
And, and I guess that's what I'm, whatI'm arguing for is that people should
actually get at the heart of the thing.
(39:35):
And, and often, I think the heart ofthe thing is actually the story and,
and the story is the important thing.
And that really should be elevated interms of what people do or, or, or.
Don't do.
So I think all of, you know, all ofthese things are important and can
(39:59):
be applied to the, the disciplinethat, that we all belong to basically.
You have introduced a whole differentway of approaching planning and
probably architecture through the lensof detective novels and other fiction.
What other non traditional fieldsmight also offer insight to the city
(40:25):
management, design, planning world?
What, you know, what othernon traditional fields?
My view is that there are many if onceyou actually start, I mean, I don't,
when I go into a bookshop, I never, Inever look at the architecture section.
(40:46):
I always go to the art section.
I don't think you, you really learn thatmuch from, you don't learn that much new
from reading about your own discipline.
I think you have to cross, jumpsomewhere else to get something.
Now, for example and, and this isprobably a smaller example than you
(41:06):
that I might give, but for example, Imean, for years One of the things that
I've been pursuing, I mean, since, sinceundergraduate school, is the correlation
between knitting and bricklaying.
I mean, I'm a great, I've been agreat fan of bricklaying for years
and years and years, and, anddid a lot of work with architects
(41:30):
and and the brick industry here.
When you actually start to look atbrick walls, not as brick walls, but
as knitting , it alters the whole viewbecause they're, the two things are
very similar in terms of the analogous.
And so you can actually knit a brickpattern and you can build And, and
(41:58):
I got my mother when she was aliveand I was a student, she, I, I would
get some 19th century brickwork andturn it into a knitting pattern and
she would actually knit it up for me.
I always had this fantasy whereI would design a house for a
family dad, mom, and the kids.
(42:20):
And while the house was being built,
You know the, the mother presumablywould knit jumpers for the entire
family based on the same brickpattern that was on the house.
And as an opening ceremony, they, theyMom, dad, and the kids would stand
(42:42):
wearing their jumpers in front of withthe brick pattern on their jumpers
in front of the house with the brickpattern on that somebody would take
a photo and then they would move in.
My point is that I thinkit's it's when people make.
Big leaps, big jumps that, that things canmove and things can get exciting, really.
(43:07):
And, and suddenly you think, wow,I'm, I'm onto something here.
You, you know, that's the key.
I think it's, it's, it's a sort of.
You have to open yourself up tothis sort of notion of serendipity.
You, you have to be willing toactually, you know, catch these ideas
as they go past and run with them.
(43:29):
Some will work out, some won't.
But, but for goodness sake, that'sthe, I mean, that's, that, that's
what makes life interesting.
It's not just, you know, banging awayat the same kind of failed methodology
that is going to do it for you.
I don't think, you know.
Well, you don't know what your podcastextra is going to be next time.
(43:52):
Well, I hope it's
taking up knitting.
I, it should be.
It's it's amazing.
Well, we need new approachesand new approaches lead to,
can lead to massive failures.
Burnouts, whatever, but that's the,
but that's, that's human, you know,that's the human condition, isn't it?
(44:14):
And, and we should, and, and that's theother thing at university when I, you
know, it's just like, it gets to the pointwhere students aren't allowed to fail.
And, and I used to say, well, if youcan't fail at university, where can
you, where can you make your mistakes?
You know, so.
(44:35):
It's important, I think, to forstudents to actually feel that they
have a kind of you know, a safety netand that if you actually try to do
something different and it doesn'twork out, you know, you don't totally
crash and burn in that environment.
It's very important, I think.
But these days, you know, it'slike some sort of corporate.
(44:57):
Bit of bullshit, basically the wayyou've, everything has to be, everything
has to be done well, you know, the
generation of the perfectionists.
It is,
it is.
And that comes back to thisnotion of the generalist.
You see,
we just lost all theuniversity administrators.
So now we've done, wejust moved on to podcast.
(45:18):
This could be our last podcast.
Yeah, this is under podcast,extra culture corner.
Something you've read, seen, watched.
Listen to, experience lately, thatmight be of interest to our listeners,
and it doesn't have to be on topic.
Well, it's, it's interesting you ask thatquestion, because at the end of last year
(45:39):
Pursuit which is a online Melbourne Unimagazine, which I've written a bit of,
bit for, they asked me the same thing.
They said, well, What have you reador watched or seen or whatever?
And the answer that I came up with waslast year, the highlight of my, almost the
highlight of my year, I think was well, Ihave three grand grandchildren 10, seven.
(46:03):
And three and the middle one, Max,who's seven is a keen footballer.
This, I have to takeresponsibility for this.
He is also supports Geelong thecats football team, and he actually
played his first Oz kick game atMarvel stadium, and it was just such
(46:27):
a thrill for him to actually kickthe ball on the big oval, but it was.
It was a bigger thrill forme to actually watch him.
It, it was, it was justsuch a great thrill.
And, and for Christmas, one ofthe things he wanted was football
socks, Geelong football socks, anda mouth guard, which, you know, I
(46:49):
bought for him in his Christmas box.
And his father, our son said, you knowhe slept with that mouth guard one night.
He actually, had it in hismouth and fell asleep with it.
And just last weekend, we were havinga kick to kick and there he was fully
dressed, Geelong jumper, Geelongshorts, Geelong socks and his mouth
(47:14):
guard having a kick to kick withthe grandpa, which was fantastic.
So Derham, you know, I'm amassive Cats fan as well.
So I understand the passion andthe madness and the madness.
This is, I'm sure you've all gotyour teams that you're crazy about.
Now, Jess, what's your podcast extrafor this special, possibly last.
(47:41):
Well, Pete, I've been doing alot more Pilates at the moment.
Reformer Pilates to help my.
I think it's my back, my lowerback, my shoulders from carrying
one child on one side for too long.
So that's really been helping mewith my posture and sitting and
not being in a lot of back pain.
So that's been great.
How about you, Pete?
Well, we'll just, I've justharvested this last weekend, 19.
(48:05):
2 kilograms of honeyfrom one of the hives.
That seems like a lot of honey.
It is.
Yeah.
It was the, the very hard working bees.
Have
you got a license for your bees?
You have to be registered and I'vegot two hives, but the beautiful,
beautiful bees, they make great honey.
But the other thing, just I'm trying tolearn a poem a month to fend off dementia.
(48:30):
So I just noticed that tryingto, like we all know, sort of.
stanzas of poems or something like that.
But when you try and learn apoem, and you know, the best way
of learning is to write it down.
And you keep coming back tothat poem that you're learning.
And once you get it, it's fantastic.
(48:53):
So I would urge our listenersto try something like that,
that they enjoy in their life.
Just try and forget about all the whitenoise going on, but just try and grab
hold of something and learn something.
So anyway, you've been a great
and of course Sherlock Holmesretired to Sussex and kept bees.
(49:17):
So you have something in commonwith the great detective himself.
Well,
I wish I had his opium habit,but you can't buy it anymore.
Jess used to be cocaine.
It gets cocaine.
It was used to be a massive cut.
Anyway, we've been
definitely canceled.
We're going to get our doors kicked in.
Jess.
This has been great having youas listeners for the podcast.
(49:39):
This could be our last one.
Thanks, Derham.
You've been.
A really wonderful guest andnow we're going to be canceled.
So Jess, all the best to you.
It's been great doing podcasts with you.
I don't, I don't thinkI was that bad, surely.
What do
you
think,
Jess?
Anyway, we'll know soon.
(50:00):
Thank you, listeners, as always.
Thanks for listening.
If you would like to hear more of ourpodcasts, hit the follow button on Spotify
or the like button on SoundCloud orthe subscribe button in Apple podcasts.
Please also visit our Instagrampage, LinkedIn or website for behind
the scenes footage of our podcastsand to get the latest on upcoming
(50:21):
or recently released episodes.
If you have any suggestions orfeedback, please get in touch via
our social media channels or byemailing planningxchangeatgmail.
com.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.