#buhrich

[fallonmpfeiffer]

Various staircases:

Guillaume Gillet, 1969

Joseland & Gilling, 1975

Harry Seidler, 1952

Hugh & Eva Buhrich, 1958

[renbian]

The Buhrich House II, Hugh Buhrich 1968-1972 Australia

The Buhrich House II is an architect’s own house, considered to be one of the finest modern houses in Australia. It was designed and built 1968-1972 by architect Hugh Buhrich (1911-2004) for himself and his wife Eva Buhrich on a site that included the remnants of a dwelling designed by Walter Burley Griffin in the 1920s. The house is set high above the water’s edge on a steep rocky escarpment at the northern end of Sugarloaf Point. It is built using a mix of materials ─ precast concrete, metal -framed glazed walls, sheet copper roof cladding, steamed cedar sinusoidal ceiling, slate flooring, threaded timber panels and hand-cut local sandstone. The fixed and free-standing furniture was designed to complement the space as sculptures within a sculpture.

The house is considered to demonstrate a particular evolution of the influence of Modernism in Australia, an influence which Buhrich brought to Australia as a migrant from Germany in 1938. The Buhrich House II is listed as an item of state significance on the NSW State Heritage Inventory. It was photographed for the Historic Houses Trust shortly after Hugh Buhrich’s death in June 2004.