A Portrait of Love

BACKGROUND: A Portrait of Love was an essay included in an edition of Caliper Journal with an editorial focus on Love. The topic of love was framed by the essay as a consideration of the relationships underpinning the local creative cultures, specifically those between the author and the renowned Melbourne architect Peter Corrigan, for whom the author had a long standing engagement with. The essay considers the friendship to be a site for inquiry and reflects the contemporary consideration of the situatedness of architectural criticism, history and theory. CONTRIBUTION: A Portrait of Love sought a critical juncture between the author's grandfather and the architect Peter Corrigan drawing them together in a moving lament of lost friendships. The writing was impelled by photographs held by the RMIT Design Archive of a lost mural of triumphant heart holding angels completed by Robert Pearce for Corrigan and Maggie Edmond. The writing positions the critical role of narrative and elucidates minor histories as modes of expression that reflect the distribution of relations important to the local architectural culture. SIGNIFIGANCE: Caliper Journal is an independent architectural publication instigated by recently graduated students of the Masters of Architecture at RMIT. Every edition of the journal is given over to a guest editor who petitions written and creative responses from students, academics, and the profession within the curated framework. As such, the journal continues a local history of independent publication in architecture that includes Transition Journal and Sabaud Magazine, and that engage, invests and documents the material, political and conceptual interactions of emerging contemporary architectural thought.