No House Style assembles leading and emerging Melbourne-based furniture designers and architects whose contrasting styles are emblematic of the city’s creative spirit. Refuting mainstream design trends, these designers and architects are helping to establish a picture of contemporary Melbourne design that is independent, original, plural and expressive of contemporary issues and values.
A ‘House Style’ is a document that guides the overall identity of a brand, company or organisation. It delivers a singular style of language and aesthetics and directs disparate voices to a common objective through a set of rules.
If you think of Melbourne as a brand, there is no one standard that dominates the output of its creative practitioners. This is exemplary in contemporary furniture design and residential architecture, where no house style dominates. Designers can produce a work that stems from a personal expression to evoke emotion, continues a cultural tradition or experiments with materials to explore possible futures.
Melbourne design now is a juxtaposition of creative possibilities, philosophies and aesthetic approaches to materials, forms and making. This growth in creative pluralism has been matched by the exponential growth in Melbourne residential property prices over the past decade. House prices in Victoria have increased by an annual percentage change of nearly six per cent since 2011. This has seen the accumulation of wealth for many existing homeowners and in tandem a growing appreciation for contemporary design. This has also seen many designers and architects in Melbourne rise to the challenge of providing quality affordable housing and furniture design.
No House Style comes together in an installation referencing a domestic interior – a tableaux of small rooms, or simply one – accompanied by images of residential architecture in Victoria. Under cultural examination, the work of these architects and designers, and the tastes of their clients, tell unique stories about designing and making in Melbourne now.
Timothy Moore, Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture / Melbourne Design Week, NGV
Simone LeAmon, The Hugh Williamson Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture, NGV
