The day Mosman Council rejected Australia’s most famous architect

When Australia’s most internationally recognised architect Glenn Murcutt designed a timeless family home for his friend, the famous artist Ken Done, Mosman Council initially refused to approve its exterior.

Some councillors thought the design was too modern. One called it the worst house in Mosman.

Ken Done in the Murcutt-designed home that was meant to be timeless. It has recently been restored, and the family hopes this “art” will survive into the future. Credit: Janie Barrett

“Australia’s greatest architect wasn’t good enough for Mosman Council,” Done said.

The year after the family moved into the home in 1991, Murcutt won a prestigious award, Finland’s Alvar Aalto Medal for architecture.

He has since won nearly every global architecture prize, including the Pritzker Prize in 2002.

Done’s daughter Camilla, the creative director of The Done Group, recalled one councillor wanted it noted that he hadn’t approved what he thought was the worst house in Mosman. “Can you believe it? That is what Glenn was up against,” she said.

The newly restored home of Ken and Judy Done that was designed by Glenn Murcutt in the late 1980s.Credit: Clinton Weaver

Some on the council supported the design. But others disapproved: “They didn’t understand it, they favoured Federation and conservative architecture,” she said.

They also objected to its white exterior because it was not natural. In response to the objection to the home being painted white, Done gave the council the equivalent of a giant yellow and blue middle finger; the result was “much more obnoxious” than the original white, said one critic.

He chose to paint the exterior as bright as his artworks and clothes. That changed a couple of years later: “There just came a time when, ‘F--- the Mosman Council,’ it just had to go back to being white.”

Architect Glenn Murcutt visits the home he designed for artist Ken Done. Credit: Stuart Spence

Now the home has been restored with some changes suggested by Murcutt.

There have been no objections from council this time around.

Done said: “We’ve always thought of the house as a piece of art. And like my paintings, I want Murcutt’s architecture to live on for future generations.”

The Dones are considering how to preserve the home for the future. They will rent the house, but joked the tenants may need to prove that they know their architecture.

A story about the Murcutt designed home for Ken Done in Vogue Living that shows off the yellows and blues of the furniture, and were initially painted outside too. Credit: Vogue Living

Compared to neighbouring homes, the house is modest, with three bedrooms and a combined living room and kitchen.

Camilla said the restoration had been a labour of love. “We kept the tiles, the joinery. We kept everything exactly how it was.”

That includes fittings like the Murcutt-designed handles on the kitchen cupboards and a unique pedestal for the master bathroom that mirrored the architecture in the rest of the house.

Murcutt said the update, which included replacing the original terracotta floor tiles with travertine marble, meant his vision had finally been realised.

“There it is. Wow. After 36 years,” he said.

When Done and wife Judy approached him decades ago, they had wanted a Mexican-inspired home. He said, “I don’t do Mexican.”

He aimed to design something timeless and tranquil: “I eschew the moment, I eschew the fashion. I am not at all interested in the architecture of shouting or novelty, none of that.”

He wanted a solution that fit the site and the client’s budget, which would not speak of the day it was designed: “Walking into the house today, restored beautifully, you’d think it’s a recent design.”

Had Australia been colonised by the Italians or the Greeks, instead of the British, Murcutt imagined the Done home would be the kind of house they would build.

Built in the late 1980s, the house was designed to be timeless.Credit: Clinton Weaver

“It is a house built to the boundaries, a house built so it orients towards gaining the winter sunshine, it excludes the summer heat, and has breezes cooling the house,” Murcutt said.

“It has areas of courtyard to give total privacy. You can walk around the house without any clothes and not offend anyone.

“It fits the climate and lifestyle. We are people [who shed] layers of clothes. In Europe, it’s largely putting on layers of clothes. And this house is about shedding layers ... the superfluous. It’s not a big house. It’s quiet, but boy does it have presence.”

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