Nino Sydney (1932–) was born in Zagreb, Croatia, and studied architecture at the University of Zagreb from 1950 to 1954. From 1954 to 1955, he worked for several architecture practices in Germany and Luxembourg, and helped to design award-winning projects in Lippstadt (an apartment building), Hamm (a bank building) and Luxembourg (group housing). He arrived in Sydney in 1955. From 1956 to 1958, he studied architecture at the University of Sydney, and won a Stephenson & Turner Medal for a selected fourth year student. He graduated in 1959 and returned to Germany for a year, then came back to Australia in 1960, when he joined the RAIA. From 1961-1973, he was Chief Architect of Lend Lease Homes – a division of Lend Lease which had been set up to develop project homes. In this capacity, he also served as a federal councillor of the Australian Modulara Society – a construction industry co-ordination group which helped to standardise the sizes of building materials. His first design was the Beachcomber – an elevated house inspired by Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, but also comparable to Harry Seidler’s Rose Seidler house at Wahroonga. Around 200 Beachcombers were built for private clients. Another design was the Pan-Pacific (three and four-bedroom versions). Both designs were first built on a Lend Lease property at Carlingford, which was developed in stages as one of Australia’s first project home villages. As part of promoting this development, Sydney’s office organised the Carlingford Homes Fair in May 1962 – exhibiting 19 project homes designed by seven leading architects (including Ken Woolley, Harry Seidler, Clark Gazzard, John Ley, Towell Rippon and Michael Dysart ONE NAME MISSING) alongside five standard Lend Lease Homes designs. Later in 1962, he worked on developing other project homes villages in Sydney and Melbourne and his division sold around 1000 houses of 16 different basic designs before other competitors entered the market. In 1967, Sydney won a NSW RAIA Project House design award for his Casa Blanca model (Kien Woolley also won this award the same year). By 1973, he had designed more than 50 styles of Lend Lease houses and had designed a house in Tahiti for Lend Lease founder Dick Dusseldorp, an office and retail building in Singapore and an unbuilt house for a site in San Francisco. Lend Lease Homes’ largest estate was at Campbelltown, NSW, where around 2500 LLH houses were built and around 5000 sites were sold. From 1973 to 1997, Sydney directed his own practice, specialising in custom-designed houses. Many of his designs were elevated, allowing car parking underneath. Throughout his career, he was a champion sportsman, specialising in water polo and squash. In 1996, he won ‘Sportsman of the Year’ from the North Sydney Leagues Club (covering 21 sports); in 2000 he received an Australian Medal for his water polo and squash achievements, and in 2002, he won a silver medal for squash in the World Masters’ Games. He was twice the Australian champion in water polo.
Sources
—Sydney, Nino. 2005. Interview with Davina Jackson, January, and curriculum vitae.
- Writers:
-
Davina Jackson
- Date written:
- 2015
- Last updated:
- 2015
