Peter Muller (architect)

Early Years and Education

Peter Neil Muller was born in Adelaide on 3 July 1927. He was educated at St Peter's College, an independent boys' school, from 1942 to 1944. He studied at the University of Adelaide graduating with the Degree of Bachelor of Engineering together with the South Australian School of Mines and Industries graduating with a Fellowship in Architecture in 1948. He was the only student to ever completed both courses in 4 years, under the scheduled time of 5–7 years. He was founding President of the University of Adelaide's Architectural Students' Association during 1948 and was the first winner of the Board of Architectural Education and Royal Australian Institute of Architect's traveling scholarship in 1947. He was the first Australian architect to win a Fulbright Traveling Scholarship and was awarded a Graduate Tuition Scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA in 1950/1951 where he obtained a Master of Architecture degree, the first for an Australian architect. He was also awarded Honorary Membership in the Tau Sigma Delta Honour Society of Architecture and Allied Arts, USA. At the age of 21 he became a Registered Architect and an Associate of the Royal Australian and British Institutes of Architects. He began private practice in Sydney in 1952 at the age of 24.

In 1953, Muller married Rosemary Winn Patrick. They had three children named Peter, Suzy and James. In 1964 they divorced. Tragically, in September 1976, his 16-year-old son James and Rosemary were killed in a mid air collision over Zagreb on a British Airways flight from London. He married Carole Margaret Mason in 1964 whom he also divorced in 1991. He remarried, but three years after the death of his third wife Helen Hayes in 2001, he returned to Sydney and reunited with Carole. He currently resides in Sydney.

Working Life

Muller holds a significant place in Australian architecture as he takes an alternative approach of design to the style at the time, being that of the modern movement. He has travelled and lived in many places around the world including France, London, Bali, South Australia and Sydney. He had several influences including Adrian Snodgrass (1952), Albert Read (1954) and lastly, Frank Lloyd Wright (1952) whom only “influenced him on the Audette house at the beginning of his practice” (Peter Neil Muller). In Sydney 1953, Muller worked in his own architectural practice called ‘The Office of Peter Muller’. He was strongly determined to avoid synthetic finishes and instead used natural materials as he felt strongly about the Australian landscape. This is reflected in many of his Sydney contemporaries.

He later moved to Marulan in New South Wales where he practiced at home in his grazing property ‘Glenrock’. In 1962 Muller tutored at the University of New South Wales and worked as a director of the National Capital Branch of the National Capital Development Commission in Canberra from 1975 to 1977. This helped and allowed him to author ‘The Esoteric Nature of Griffin’s Design for Canberra’ in 1976.

Shortly later in 1978 he was the founding Principal of Regional Design and Research and he has acted independently from locations all around the world as a consultant for ‘Peter Muller International'.

He has dominant works in Victoria, including the Hoyts Cinema Centre in Bourke St. Melbourne and in South Australia, including ‘The Michell House’ on Robe Terrace, Adelaide (1964) and the Head Office of I.P.E.C. in Frewville, Adelaide. Conversely, his works in Bali, Indonesia, where he first visited in 1970, such as the Oberoi and Amandari hotels had a strong cultural and spiritual presence.

Richardson House

949 Barrenjoey Road, Palm Beach, Sydney, Australia, 1956

As like many of Peter Muller’s designs, this one began with extensive research of the site. Muller designed this house to sit on the edge of a cliff face, seven metres below the adjoining road and fifteen metres above the water. One design key was the use of circles as the primary motif. This motif came from the form of a large rock already on the site. Twenty-nine hollow cylinders, made of curved concrete blocks and of a natural grey and green appearance, made up the main support system. Muller was very much a designer of organic architecture and this design was no exception, with all the interior spaces being connected and freely flowing.

Hoyts Cinema Centre

134-144 Bourke Street, Melbourne, Australia

The Hoyts cinema Centre, designed in 1966 and completed in 1969 is considered unique due to the shape of the building, taking similar traits to an upside down oriental pagoda was seen to be of considerable interest in the local area. In fact the design was based on a structural idea of bracketing each floor out similar to the way in which very wide eave overhangs were created in Chinese and Japanese roofs. The interior of the cinema Centre, being decorated with natural surfaces such as timber wall and ceiling surfacing has a ‘subterranean’ feel to many of its spaces. Careful articulation of natural lighting and indoor planter boxes adds to this ambiance. Muller believed in using natural surfaces, so there is minimal use of synthetic surfaces on the complex.

This particular building is the largest built project by Peter Muller and was the first ‘cinema centre’ of its kind in Australia; housing three screens in the complex.

Publications by Peter Muller

Monograph

Books

Publications on Peter Muller

Books

Articles

Theses

Complete List of Works