Esmond Dorney

James Henry Esmond Dorney (17 September 1906 – 25 December 1991) was an Australian architect, known for a series of notable Streamline Moderne apartment blocks in Melbourne in the 1930s, and a series of inventive Modernist houses in Tasmania in the 1950s and 60s, where he has been credited with bringing Modernism to the island state. He is best known for the second house he built for himself in 1966 (reconstructed after being destroyed by fire in 1978), a remarkable design on a hilltop overlooking Hobart, Tasmania. Owned by the Hobart City Council since 2006, it is regularly open to the public.

Early life He was born to Marie Louise Kiernan and James Henry Dorney in Melbourne, Victoria, and grew up from his teenage years in Elwood.

Dorney studied Architecture at the University of Melbourne in 1925–1926, until he was expelled for racing his Delage around the university campus. He later claimed to have been disenchanted in any case, dismissing the course as "a meaningless pursuit of Classical Revival."

He enrolled instead at Brighton Technical College, and commenced articles in the office of Australia's then most radical architects, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin.

The first project attributed to Dorney dates from 1929. In 1931 he established his own office, just as the full effects of the Great Depression were being felt, and there was little work. He spent some of his time in the period taking art classes, and studying engineering with Henry Allen, design engineer for the prominent firm of Johns & Waygood. In 1931 he married local girl Margaret Lambie, and the couple had two sons, John and Earl. In 1940 he designed the Garden Court flats on Marine Parade for his father-in-law, John Robert Lambie, who lived there for the next 20 years.

World War II Dorney's career as an architect was interrupted by World War 2, when he enlisted and served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve from 1940 to 1945.

At the fall of Singapore, he was redeployed to Java and worked behind Japanese lines, establishing secret radar installations. Spending some time in a POW camp, he eventually escaped and remained with Chinese guerillas until the end of the war. This period of forced design inactivity generated a revolution in his architecture.

Post World War II Dorney returned to Australia, and moved from his home in Melbourne to Hobart, Tasmania, citing health and personal reasons. He designed a series of remarkable houses, beginning with his first tiny, circular house on the Fort Nelson constructed in 1949, and became the most noted post-war modernist architect in his adopted state. He did however continue to work in Victoria, designing amongst other projects Sandringham Hospital (1956–64), Caritas Cristi Hospice (with Stephenson and Turner)(1962).

St Kiernan's Flats This striking block of flats at 51 Ormond Esplanade was constructed in 1939, and like Windermere employs a complexity of horizontals and verticals, but uses only rectilinear elements, including long horizontal windows, some wrapping around corners, reminiscent of European modernist design. The triple fronted façade is composed of a north and south wing and a projected central portion featuring a large brick chimney giving the building a strong vertical element.

In 2018 St Kiernan's was completely facaded, leaving only the main exterior walls, and new flats with different arrangements built behind.

Dalcrombie Long mis-attributed to Harry Norris, this is possibly the most extraordinary Moderne private house in Victoria. Located on a large estate in the hills outside Melbourne at 11 Warwick Farm Rd, Olinda, it was built in c1939 for optometrist Earl Coles, a partner in the then well known optometrists Coles & Garrard, and originally called Lanhydrock.

The design exploits reinforced concrete to an unusual degree, with boldly cantilevered semi-circular window bays and an extensive first floor deck supported on just a few columns, allowing wide window openings below, and a tall circular stair tower largely composed of glass blocks. The house features multiple projecting semi-circular elements, a favoured element of Dorney's Moderne designs, projecting out from a central cuboid volume, with attached vertical elements, to create an elaborate dynamic composition.

A large 1980s single storey addition to the north side features an almost matching projecting semi-circular window element, adding to the complexity.

Young House Built in 1959 in the Hobart suburb of Sandy Bay, this was Dorney's most widely celebrated residential projects before his own house became publicly accessible. It is popularly known as the 'Butterfly House' because the most striking feature is the use of a long low steel arch which forms both roof shape and structure, with a secondary half arch rising from the centre in the opposite direction. Listed by Heritage Tasmania, internal alterations were permitted in 1999, and additions in 2009, in part because the family wished to keep occupying the house they enjoyed, the alterations were sympathetic, and because they were "based on the principles found in the existing house and in Dorney's own writings...", for instance that "A house should be planned like a machine, but a home is much more than a machine, and can in many ways express its owner's personality."

Dorney House Probably Dorney's most well-known and celebrated design, "one of the great modern houses of Australia", is his own house built on the circular foundations of the former Fort Nelson gun emplacements in the foothills of Mount Nelson, south of central Hobart. First constructed in 1966, it was destroyed by bushfire and redesigned in 1978. The design centres on an exploded radial form of 12 sides, each segment with an arched roofed, creating a flower like form. Supported on a light steel frame, the north, the east and much of the south and west is fully glazed, providing the living spaces with panoramic views over the city of Hobart, the harbour, the Derwent estuary and Storm Bay and the Southern Ocean. In 2018 the City Council was exploring options for a more permanent use for the house and land. After many years of little use and ongoing maintenance costs Hobart City Council was reviewing options in 2025 regarding the future of the property. At the 2026 Tasmanian Architecture Awards the house was awarded the Tasmania Award for Enduring Architecture.

List of works Victoria Largely drawn from a list created by Dorney relatives in 2018. Devon Lodge, 1929, 8 Clowes St, South Yarra, house (Tudor Revival). Conversion of family house (Chenier) into flats, 1934, 8 Glenhuntly Road, Elwood. (Arts & Crafts style) De Mont Rose Flats, 1933, 1 Broadway, Elwood. L'Espoir Flats, 1934, 39 Shelley St, Elwood. Garden View Flats, 1934, 60 Blessington St, St Kilda, Flats. Flats, 1935, 19 Wrexham Road, Windsor (Tudor Revival) Colwyn maisonettes, 1937, 1263 High St, Malvern (Prairie style). Wahpeton Maisonettes, 1935, 25 Hampden Rd, Armadale (demolished) Windermere Flats, 1936, 49 Broadway, Elwood Maisonettes, 1936, 11 Alexandra Ave, Sth Yarra. Nimmo & Florence Court Flats, unknown, 51-53 Nimmo St, Middle Park Flats, 1936, 17 Vautier St, Elwood. Mena Court Flats, 1936, 81 Nimmo St, Middle Park. Deltham Flats, 1936, 3 Meredith St, Elwood, St Anne's Flats, 1937–8, 1 Park Street, South Yarra. Dalcrombie (Llanhydroch), 1938, Olinda, Victoria. Antigone Flats, 1939, 34 Docker Street, Elwood St Kiernan's Flats (1), 1939, 51 Ormond Esplanade, Elwood (demolished except for facade). St Kiernan's Flats (2), 1946–8 (designed by 1940), 57 Ormond Esplanade, Elwood. Caritas Christi, 1962, 104 Studley Park Rd, Kew, Hospice (in collaboration) Sandringham & District Memorial Hospital, 1956–1964, Bluff Rd, Sandringham (in collaboration) Mesley Hall, 1965, Ogilvy St, Leongatha, Hall (in collaboration).

Tasmania (not exhaustive) Nazareth House Retirement Home, 1952, St Leonards Richardson House, 1954, 48 Rosny Esplanade, Rosny Dorney Beach Shack, 1957, Park Beach, Dodges Ferry Snow's Dry Cleaning, 1957, Glenorchy Pius X Church, 1957, 98 Channel Hwy, Taroona, Hobart The Dorney Houses, 1948 (dem), 1966 (dem), 1978 Fort Nelson Young House, 1958, 538 Churchill Avenue, Lower Sandy Bay. Tate House, 1958, 104 Flinders Esplanade, Taroona Jarvis House, 1959, 11 Alexandra Esplanade, Bellerive Thomas House, 1960, 27 Casuarina Crescent, Bertiedale, Hobart Paul Dorney House, Willowdene Ave, Sandy Bay (no date) House, 37 Oakleigh Avenue, Taroona (no date)

Posthumous recognition In 2008 James Jones, then president of the Tasmanian chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects posthumously awarded Esmond Dorney the President's Prize, which was accepted by his son, Paddy Dorney, stating "Dorney returns us to the worth of the architecture, saying something about humanity, who we are through how we build and how we live in the landscape." The Tasmanian chapter subsequently named their highest residential design award the Esmond Dorney Award for Residential Architecture, Houses (New). He is now possibly the most celebrated and well known Tasmanian architectural figure, credited with bringing modernism to the island state.