Robin Gerard Penleigh Boyd (3 January 1919 – 16 October 1971) was an Australian architect, writer, teacher and social commentator. He, along with Harry Seidler, stands as one of the foremost proponents for the International Modern Movement in Australian architecture. Boyd is the author of the influential book The Australian Ugliness (1960), a critique on Australian architecture, particularly the state of Australian suburbia and its lack of a uniform architectural goal.
Like his American contemporary John Lautner, Boyd had relatively few opportunities to design major buildings and his best known and most influential works as an architect are his numerous and innovative small house designs.
Background and early life
Robin Boyd was a scion of the Boyd artistic dynasty in Australia, and his extended family included painters, sculptors, architects, writers and others in the arts. Robin was the younger son of the painter Penleigh Boyd, and his own son, named after his grandfather Penleigh, is an architect. He was a nephew of author Martin Boyd and a first cousin of Australian painter Arthur Boyd and his brothers David and Guy. In 1938 his grandfather Arthur Merric Boyd offered him his first commission, a studio for Arthur Boyd on the Boyd property, Open Country, at Murrumbeena. A further cousin was Joan à Beckett Weigall, Lady Lindsay (author of Picnic at Hanging Rock). She married Sir Daryl Lindsay, director of the National Gallery of Victoria, brother to artists Norman Lindsay and Sir Lionel Lindsay.
Robin Boyd's Queensland-born mother, Edith, was herself a skilled painter who also came from a prominent family. Her father, John Gerard Anderson, had been director of the Queensland Department of Public Instruction, her brother Arthur was a well-known physician, and her eldest sister Maud was of one of the first women to graduate with an Arts degree from the University of Sydney and is thought to have been Queensland's first female university graduate.
Robin Boyd and his elder brother Pat spent their early childhood at 'The Robins', the family home and studio that his father had built on land he purchased at Warrandyte, near Melbourne but in 1922 Penleigh sold 'The Robins' and moved his family to Sydney. Soon after arriving, he was enlisted by Sydney Ure Smith as one of the organisers of a major exhibition of contemporary European art. Penleigh took his family with him to England late in the year to pick paintings; he returned to Sydney without them in June 1923 to set up the exhibition, which was staged in Sydney and Melbourne during July–August. During his wife's absence Penleigh had a brief affair with another woman but shortly before his family returned from England he bought back 'The Robins' and purchased a new car.
Edith, Pat and Robin returned to Australia on 23 November 1923, but Penleigh and Edith had a heated argument soon after the homecoming. A few days later, for reasons unknown, Penleigh left Melbourne to drive to Sydney in the company of another person, but he lost control of the vehicle on a sharp bend near Warragul and it overturned. The passenger survived but Penleigh suffered terrible injuries and died at the scene within minutes. The proceeds of Penleigh's estate—including the sale of 'The Robins', the repaired car and about 40 paintings, plus an annual allowance from Penleigh's father, and a small inheritance from her own father—enabled Edith Boyd to support her sons without needing to work, even during the depths of the Depression.
After Penleigh's death Edith and the boys lived for a time in rented premises in upperclass Toorak and Robin's first two years of schooling were at Glamorgan Preparatory School. Edith bought a modest house in East Malvern in 1927, when Robin was enrolled at the nearby Lloyd Street State School. As a schoolboy he read widely and became a fan of films and jazz music. In 1930 he moved on to the Malvern Church of England Grammar School, where he completed his schooling. He sat for his Leaving Certificate in 1934 and although he failed one subject (Commercial Principles) at the first attempt, he passed that the following year. He had evidently decided quite early on architecture as his chosen career so his mother arranged for him to be articled to leading Melbourne architect Kingsley Henderson. He served in Papua New Guinea during World War II and resumed his architectural career in 1945.