Architecture and Planning Library

Grainger Architectural Scrapbooks

A total of 34 scrapbooks of architectural prints, engravings and articles compiled by John H. Grainger is held in the closed-access stack collections of the Architecture & Planning Library. These are available to researchers for consultation within the library. Individual volumes may be requested from the loans desk upon written application.

These materials were donated to the Faculty of Architecture and Building in 1978 by the Victorian Chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. The material had earlier been given to the Institute by the prominent architect Marcus R. Barlow FRAIA and had come from the office of Marcus Barlow & Kerr. Earlier in the century this practice was known as Grainger Little & Barlow and the material had remained in the office after Grainger had withdrawn from the partnership.

The materials were used as a reference source by Grainger’s architectural practice and is grouped into albums. These consist of clear subject categories so that exemplars could be readily sought for designs. This practice was not uncommon amongst architects working in the late 19th century: the Architecture & Planning Library also contains numerous leather bound scrapbooks donated by Mrs A.E. Twentyman and presumably compiled by Edward Twentyman, a partner in the Melbourne architectural practice of Twentyman & Askew.

The scrapbooks include extracts from a wide range of Australian, British, French and American architectural and building journals together with extracts from high quality art, general and women’s journals and two French monograph sources: Blondel’s 1772 Cours d’Architecture, and the Encyclopédie d’Architecture (issued in serial form from 1851-1862).

The material has been pasted into albums, some of which are recycled trade catalogues and issues of several journals such as The Bookman and Decoration. These were refaced in heavy paper and the contents annotated on the cover. Some of the albums appear to have been made up when Grainger was practising in Western Australia, as the sheets form part of official government records such as the Western Australia Public Works Department Daily Record of Authorities (1897) and various crown allotments.

¹Letter from P.A. Sorell, Director, Victorian Chapter, Royal Australian Institute of Architects, dated 14 November 1978, to G. Tibbits, Chairman, Faculty of Architecture and Building, University of Melbourne (copy held in architecture librarian’s office)