Paul Harbour grew up in Melbourne and has studied Architecture at Melbourne University. After graduating, he practiced architecture and building in a partnership before moving to Queensland in 1980 and setting up his own practise both as an architecture and builder.
As a diversion, Paul also ran a small screen-printing business where the local coastal scenes, vegetation, and bird life often formed the subject matter for limited runs of T-Shirts. Hand painting was employed to produce one-off shirts and originality. This proved a good outlet for Paul’s artistic endeavours during the more technocratic production of working drawings.
Sketching is an important architectural tool used to convey ideas to a client. How a building will look, and the feel of the intended final product is often expressed in one drawing. It was not until retirement that Paul started painting, contributing to another dimension to interpretation and representation of an idea or subject. Producing art that depicted the settings for the coastal lifestyle, local café and patrons, landscapes, and the building form was contextual and well received, and at the same time allowed Paul to develop a distinct style.
Paul’s latest collection of works depict an era where houses were represented by modernist architecture. They sprung up along the coast of Australia – particularly between Northern NSW and Noosa – and construction was cheap and invariably sheet materials used, giving the houses a recognizable form. Holidaymakers migrating from the cities in summer and surf enthusiast in search of that ultimate wave took us residence, some permanently as the lure of the beach become overwhelming.
More common in the fifties and sixties were the extended annual holiday, where the whole family would have a break and retreat to the holiday destination, returning to the same house year after year. The experience became indelibly etched in the minds of the young who grew up with those memories, generally leading to the resurgence of nostalgia we see today. Simplicity of design, mono pitches, lack of fences so one could walk through properties in a straight line to the beach, banana plants because that’s what grew, lack of car accommodation because that was cheaper; all of these aspects make the ‘shack’ identifiable.