Nancy Allen (architect)
Australian architect (1908–1993)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nancy Lorne Allen (5 December 1908 – 18 October 1993) was an Australian architect and only the second woman registered to practise in Western Australia.
5 December 1908
Nancy Allen | |
|---|---|
Allen in 1932 | |
| Born | Nancy Lorne Allen 5 December 1908 Glen Innes, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 18 October 1993 (aged 84) Nedlands, Western Australia |
| Occupation | Architect |
| Years active | 1927–1981 |
Early life and education
Allen was born in Glen Innes, New South Wales on 5 December 1908. She was the second child and only daughter of Ethel Maud (née Young) and George Norman Allen, a grazier.[1] The family moved to Perth in 1917, where Allen was educated at Nedlands Primary School and then Perth Modern School.[2]
Career
Allen began her articles with Eales and Cohen in 1927, the same partnership where Margaret Pitt Morison had earlier been articled.[3] In October 1932 she was successful in the Architects' Board Examination and qualified as a registered architect.[4] The firm had become Eales, Cohen and Bennett and she worked for them designing homes, saying that she "doesn't want to build skyscrapers".[5] In May 1933 she gave a detailed description of her principles for all aspects of home design.[6] Following the dissolution of the partnership in July 1935, she joined William G. Bennett in his business the following year, where she headed the "domestic architecture and interior decoration".[7]
During World War II, following Bennett's enlistment, Allen worked from 1942 to 1945 for the Western Australian Works and Services Branch. There she worked with Pitt Morrison and Zoie Bennett-Fryer.[1]
In September 1944 she represented the Modern Architectural Research Society and gave a talk at the Labour Women's Conference. She believed that every home should have "constant hot water, refrigeration, fly proofing, insulation against head, [and] electric or gas cooking" and gave details of an ideal neighbourhood of 6,000 people which should include a kindergarten and other infant services, library, shops and parks as a minimum.[8]
In January 1946 she re-joined Bennett's architecture practice.[9] Later that year she served in an honorary capacity, advising the Fresh Air League of Kalgoorlie on the design for a children's holiday home at Esperance. It was noted that she had "wide experience in designing infant health clinics and children's homes".[10]
1949 saw Bennett's practice merge and become Bennett, Blatchford, Allen and Johnson, with Allen and her younger brother Douglas becoming partners alongside Bennett, Robert V. Blatchford and James W. Johnson.[11]
Allen attended the Australian Architectural Convention in Melbourne in 1951.[12] Meanwhile, she continued to design homes and oversee their building.[13]
In 1970 Allen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. At the time of her retirement in 1981, she was considered "one of Perth's most prominent and successful female architects".[1]
Allen died on 18 October 1993 in a nursing home in Nedlands.[1]
