Friedrich (Frederic) Charles

27/6/1861

Please note, this website will be retired from 2026. From then on, the same content will be found on https://architectsofsa.omeka.net

One of the most important 'back room boys' of the SA state government's Works and Buildings Department following its succession in 1886 to the regime of E J Woods, F.C. Krichauff surrendered anonymity after his retirement to take personal credit for a number of private commissions.

Frederic Krichauff may be counted among the numerous settlers of North European extraction to contribute significantly to the cultural life of South Australia during the second 50 years of the colony's existence. His father, Friedrich Eduard Heinrich Wulf Krichauff, was born in 1824 in Schleswig, southern Jutland. His mother, Dorothea Fischer, twelve years younger, hailed from the sea port of Kiel - also ruled by the Danish court at the time - 50 kms away. Both arrived on the Alfred in 1848 and a shipboard romance led to their wedding in 1853. The senior Krichauffs farmed a small property in the Bugle Ranges between Mt Barker and Strathalbyn. They had four sons, Alfred, Edward, Friedrich (Frederic) and Sophus. (Indices: passim.)
F.E.H.W. Krichauff represented the Mt Barker electorate from 1857 onwards in the first parliament 'under responsible government'. He assisted Sir Robert Torrens to draw up the Real Property Act and later presided over the Agricultural Bureau for 14 years. Said (by those who discounted J. Ednie 'Forestry' Brown) to be 'the father of forestry in SA', he was the practical originator of the state's Department of Forests. Mr Krichauff served a number of terms in the House of Assembly and a final three years in the Legislative Council before retiring in 1893. Remarkably, Mr Krichauff often walked from his home in the Bugle Ranges to Parliament House and back again. (Adv 1916: 7) Leaving the Hills in 1866, he and Dorothea moved to the city and then to Norwood in 1881 for a further 23 years.

Young Frederic evidently had a proclivity to draw. Perhaps with an introduction from his father (who was, briefly, Commissioner of Public Works in 1870), he joined the Government Architect's Department, run by its Chief, E.J. Woods, within the Commission of Public Works, at the age of 17 on 18 February 1878 (Adv 1920: 6). When Woods's reign ended in 1886, Frederick remained in the Works and Buildings Department under the superintendence of C.E. Owen Smyth. By 1890, Frederic Krichauff had risen to the position of Chief Draughtsman, a title he retained for the ensuing 30 years. Since Owen Smyth was less an architect than (exceptionally able) administrator, Frederic Krichauff, his right-hand man, can be attributed the detailed design, drawing and specification of the bulk of South Australia's countless public buildings over this long, productive period. Two of the men below Krichauff in the draughting office were Thomas Alston Macadam (c.1911-19) and William Lindsay (c.1920-30) (SAIA: passim.). The latter replaced A.E. Simpson in the role of Architect-in-Chief in 1938.

Aged 27 in 1898, Frederic married Elizabeth Alice Gemmell at her home in the district - close to the Bugle Ranges - named after her family. They built a house in Hewitt Avenue, Rose Park, remaining there for 16 years. (Of the four Krichauff brothers, only Edward produced any children.) (Indices; S&McD) In the same year, 1898, Frederic worked up Owen Smyth's concept of the Art Gallery on North Terrace where a design for ground-glass skylights devised in collaboration with E.F. Troy (1858-1910), the stained glass artist and decorator, was implemented (Adv 1934: 9). The endless development and redevelopment of the state's hospitals was a major preoccupation. Owen Smyth sent him to accompany the chairman of the RAH on a trip to Melbourne in order to inspect the latest advances in pathology laboratories. Adelaide's new mortuary of 1912 was the result of his findings. It could be shown that this was far from an isolated occurrence: Krichauff, alone, was similarly entrusted to take notes on a visit to the Jamestown hospital conducted by the Speaker of the House as well as (Sir) J.G. Bice MLC, the Chief Secretary of the day Adv 4., 3.1912: 6, 13).

Two of Frederic's hobbies were philately and photography. He was a founder-member of the Philatelic Society of SA (est. 1888) and several times its president. By 1890, he was elected secretary of the SA Photographic Society (est. 1885) (SLSA: SRG 55). His knowledge and equipment proved valuable when he joined government surveying parties sent to the remoter reaches of the Murray River in the 1890s. A photograph of the second house which he had built for himself, his wife and an unmarried sister-in-law in Toorak Gardens features in a series of albums in the State Library's South Australiana holdings while extremely valuable collections of his stamps were bequeathed to the Art Gallery shortly before his death.

A summary of Krichauff's career was published upon his retirement from the Works and Buildings Department in 1920: '… [Mr Krichauff's] service extends nearly to 43 years. During that term most of the large city Government buildings have been erected, with many schools, hospitals, residences, post-offices, court-houses, police-stations, and extensive works have also been carried out for the Commonwealth.' (Adv 1920: 6) Mr Krichauff will have had an important executive hand in all of them. Although doubtlessly overworked, Frederic had not yet turned 60 in 1920. He declared himself an architect and entered private practice, his first job an honorary one to build a pavilion in Hazelwood Park as a First World War memorial. Identified works of his are few, but he answered a call from the German community, especially that in the Barossa Valley. Adapting a sketch design prepared by Eric Dancker in 1925 for legal chambers in Tanunda, Frederick converted the outline with considerable refinements into comprehensive documents in the manner of a true Chief Draughtsman. In the same town for the same client's son, Reginald Leo Heuzenroeder, he later designed a fine house which, again, displayed all the skills of a professional practitioner. Both buildings were constructed by the local master builder, Bernhard Freytag (1863-1962). (Gifts: AM) Almost reaching the age of 93, Frederic Krichauff died in 1954.

Surviving sheets of drawings are admirably neat, showing complete three-dimensional understanding of the designs and all the information a builder could require. Traditional construction was represented by load-bearing, double-leaf brick walls together with pitched roofs. Pebble-dashing and tooled render would offer contrast when stonework had to be reserved for only the most prestigious (public) institutions, although the (private) legal chambers in Tanunda are given a rusticated base of white Angaston marble. Krichauff's own axially-planned house of 1913 departed from the norm by the addition of flanking piazzas surmounted by sleepouts. Like the neighbouring Toms house of the same date by F. Kenneth Milne, the roof is covered in unusual terra cotta tiles manufactured by the Somerset firm of Major. The well-appointed house at Tanunda, sensibly plain, gains a pleasing breadth by virtue of a projecting, more-glass-than-wall study under the roof at one end.

Giles Walkley

Citation details
Walkley, Giles, 'Krichauff, Friedrich Charles', Architecture Museum, University of South Australia, 2013, Architects of South Australia: [http://www.architectsdatabase.unisa.edu.au/arch_full.asp?Arch_ID=129]