From IB74 to US Patent 4438616: The (Re)Making of a Profession

By the 1970s, when economics, management and scientific methods had gained currency, the personal service of an individual architect had become the corporate service of an architectural firm, while the practice of architecture had become less a profession and more and more a business. Furthermore, beginning in the 1970s, to counter the ravages of developers and package-dealers, architects and architectural firms also increasingly widened the range of services that they offered. Many began working with developers, while others became developers themselves, or ventured into the building industry. In addition to expanding their professional services, some also expanded their geographic scope and became global entrepreneurs. Although this narrative is well known, little scholarship exists that examines precisely how such changes occurred on the ground — at least in the case of Australia. This paper is a first step in addressing this dearth by examining the career and work of Edwin Codd (1939–), an Australian architect, educator, businessman, and global entrepreneur who saw it as his mission to transform the way in which architecture was taught, procured, and produced. Commencing in the late 1960s and extending to the early 2000s, Codd’s career paralleled and propelled the aforementioned changes in the profession of architecture in Australia, from technologist-businessman-architect to global entrepreneur. The paper draws on interviews with Codd and his (former) collaborators, and on archival research and a literature review of contemporary periodicals. These primary sources have been complemented with a reading of secondary sources on the history of architecture in Australia following the 1960s.