Adriana Glackin

I love Australian architecture & I particularly love the treatment of this early architecture by Paul Louis Villani.

Everytime I view “The Albion”, I see something that I’m sure wasn’t there before. The sheer detail, flaking paintwork, slat gate, fretwork on the verandah & under the eaves, the missing awning, the new iron sheets. I can imagine the storm that blew away that awning – it knocked out a piece of fretwork on the verandah along the way & goodness knows where those iron sheets landed when they blew off the roof…

“The Albion” also tells me that life back then, the early 1900’s, wouldn’t have been as simple as those who pine for the “good old days” would have us think. Was it really that simple, pleasant? Sure, they didn’t have to worry about recharging their mobile phones, or running over the broadband limit each month, or missing their favourite show on tv, or how many friends they have on facebook, or how many people have viewed their images on RB, or more important things like what they’re going to be when they grow up, should they have a gap year, or how many different careers can they squeeze in. No, their worries were very different. Their working hours were long; children definitely seen but not heard; they had one job, from school to retirement – if they made it that far; fridges washing machines, stoves, motor vehicles weren’t available to people living in workers’ cottages. In fact, fridges in the 1950’s still cost 250pounds, the equivalent to about $8,000 today (how much was that LCD/Plasma Screen again??) Industrial accidents, if not fatal, would be the ruin of the family and children sent to live with relatives.

Wow, I could go on, I’m painting a bleak and depressing picture, something that “The Albion” is not. “The Albion” is a magestic home, it’s withstood all these years, innovations, progress – it’s still standing proud and beautiful and well-loved – is that cable for broadband?