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Ian Hannaford is best known as the original architect of Rundle Mall; a pedestrian focused retail destination which transformed the city of Adelaide in the 1970s. He was also one of the architects who co-designed the high-rise Grenfell Centre which was Adelaide’s tallest building when it was completed in 1973. Hannaford is also increasingly being recognised for his modernist private residences, as interest in this area continues to grow.
Ian Hannaford was born in Riverton on 8 March 1940 to father Claude and mother Vera (nee Hoare). He was the eldest of four children; with siblings Donald, artist Robert Hannaford, and Kay, and was raised on the family’s Riverton farm. He was educated in Riverton and later, for his final two years of schooling, at Prince Alfred College. Between 1958 and 1964, Ian Hannaford was a well-known football player for the Port Adelaide Football Club.
Ian Hannaford studied architecture at the University of Adelaide, boarding at Lincoln College during his studies. His younger brother, artist, Robert recalls Ian being a mentor to him (Robert Hannaford 2007, p.24). In 1963, he graduated with an Ordinary Degree of Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Adelaide (The University of Adelaide 1963). Once he graduated, aged 24 years, he retired from football to focus on his architectural career (AIA 2022).
Married to Belinda Holden, Ian Hannaford was the father of Nicholas and Rachel, and grandfather to Darcy, Oliver and Jesse. In the 1980s he was married to Rose. He was step father to Sam, Digby and Fiona. Hannaford died on 9 March 2022, aged 82 years.
Ian Hannaford became an Associate of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1966 and was made a Fellow in 1981. Following graduation, Hannaford worked, for a short time, for Hassell and McConnell. In c.1964, he founded his own practice Hannaford, Pellew and Hodgkison, which ‘combined the roles of project initiator, manager, architect and planner’ (Page, 1986, p.269).
Shortly after the founding of Hannaford, Pellew and Hodgkison, in collaboration with Cheesman, Doley, Neighbour and Raffen Pty. Ltd., the two practices developed a ‘new concept in Adelaide architecture and the city’s tallest building’ - the Grenfell Centre (Page 1986, p.270). The building incorporated ‘[t]wo aspects of 20th century architectural philosophy … : the building, influenced by Mies van der Rohe and North American corporate architecture, with its inherent climatic problems, and the creation of space around the tower to form a plaza and pedestrian network through the central business district’ (Page 1986, p.270). The Grenfell Centre, sometimes referred to colloquially as the ‘Black Stump’, was completed in 1973.
Hannaford’s ‘most emphatic impression upon Adelaide’ was the result of another Labor Dunstan Government initiative - the conversion of Rundle Street to Rundle Mall (Page, 1986, p.270). ‘The notion that the narrow and congested shopping centre of Rundle Street should be widened, modernised, and closed to vehicular traffic caused much headshaking among conservatives, but Dunstan and the Adelaide City Council persisted with the idea. Hannaford ‘was tasked with designing the original Rundle Mall in the 1970s, which was no minor feat amid considerable controversy’ (Fedorowytsch 2016). Hannaford said ‘[i]t was an interesting time because there was a great amount of discord amongst the stakeholders — the key retailers had one view, the government had another view, the smaller retailers had a different view, and then there was taxi ranks and everything else’ (Fedorowytsch 2016). ‘Don Dunstan said ... it would be turned into a mall, whether people like it or not’ (Fedorowytsch 2016). In 1973, Hannaford and the project team toured Europe, the UK including Scotland, Canada, and the USA to study mall development and pedestrian thoroughfares in overseas cities. ‘The Rundle Mall which he planned is undoubtedly one of the most pleasant results of the modernisation of Adelaide’ (Page, 1986, p.270). Hannaford explained that ‘[i]t was all designed so people would psychologically feel that they were being looked after, it was human-scale and they liked being there — that was the secret’ (Rundle Mall website). He recalled ‘I went to some lengths to make it very human-scale, soft underfoot with a cobbled brick character in the paving, shady trees and plantings, and very comfortable seats’ (Fedorowytsch 2016). It was officially opened on 1 September 1976.
Another of Hannaford’s projects was his contribution (city centre housing, hotel and retail) to the masterplan for the never-realised satellite city - Monarto City Centre, near Murray Bridge in South Australia. ‘The merits and demerits of this attempt to check the suburban sprawl were argued fiercely, and it was condemned by Hannaford’s old teacher Professor Rolf Jensen. Eventually it was abandoned, or at least shelved until the foreseeable future’ (Page, 1986, p.270).
Other key projects Hannaford undertook included: the Victor Richardson gates at Adelaide Oval (1967); the adaptive reuse of the Old Lion Brewery, North Adelaide (early 1970s) redevelopment which featured a hotel, entertainment complex and office; and the Clarendon Winery redevelopment with a tourist centre and restaurant. He was also responsible for the restaurant, theatre, and tourist shop complex at the Big Lobster (1979), near Kingston, which features a giant 17 metre high steel and fibreglass lobster designed and built by Paul Kelly (‘The Big Lobster’). In 1986, it was noted that ‘[t]ourism developments such as those created by Ian Hannaford’s firm have had a vital effect on the economy of many country centres, and are creating employment at a time when country folk are especially disadvantaged in the search for jobs’ (Page, 1986, p.271). Hannaford’s other 1980s tourism projects included: the Porter Bay Leisure Centre – a $1.6 million indoor swimming, leisure and health complex funded by the Port Lincoln Council, the Job Creation Unit, and the Department of Sport and Recreation, and the Porter Bay Marina – a major resort, commercial and community centre, both of these developments were located at Port Lincoln. Ian Hannaford Associates were joint architects and planners.
Hannaford was also responsible for various residential projects such as affordable housing and private residences. Projects ranged from terrace houses, town houses, medium density South Australian Housing Trust (SAHT) developments, to high-rise luxury apartments. One of Hannaford’s best known public housing developments was Manitoba. ‘Hannaford conceived of the medium-density housing complex in central Adelaide both as a public housing project and as a form of urban planning, and recalls that he approached the SAHT with the concept. In an evaluation of his own body of work as a whole, Hannaford describes Manitoba as an “innovative public housing approach”’ (Marsden [2015]). The Manitoba Housing Complex is significant as the ‘first new public rental housing built in the City of Adelaide by the South Australian Housing Trust reflecting a major change in its tradition of building in outer suburban estates. This was also the first large-scale construction of public, or ‘social’ housing, in the history of central Adelaide, and it marks the start of an important phase in council and government action to revive the city’s residential population, and to retain low-cost accommodation that was traditionally available within the city. Manitoba is also a significant example of an architectural form of medium-density housing new to South Australia, scaled-up and innovatively designed to provide for both communal and private occupation by public rental residents, and to respect existing urban form in an old inner city precinct’ (Marsden [2015]). He was also involved in initial feasibility and urban design studies for the North Haven Marina Complex, Port Adelaide (Page, 1986, p.271).
Hannaford is also known for his private residences. In the 1950s and 1960s, a ‘new breed of South Australian architects including Brian Vogt, John Chappel, Stewart Game and Ian Hannaford redefined the modern home in … [the] bushland locale’ (Symons 2023). Hannaford designed the modernist Thompson House, Springfield (1965) while at Hassell and McConnell (Reeves, 2024, pp.214-215). This inspired the later also modernist, innovative, Sims House, Beaumont (1966) reportedly influenced by Mies van der Rohe (Modernist Adelaide). Hannaford later wrote ‘My architecture, and in fact my whole life, has been and still is inspired by “nature”’ (‘Ian Hannaford Architect’).
In the 1980s, Ian Hannaford Associates joined with Hooper Kohler Birdsey Architects and Rod Roach Architects before becoming Greenway Architects in the early 1990s (AIA). Hannaford moved to Queensland to establish an office of the practice in Brisbane. He designed resorts and apartment complexes in both Queensland and the Northern Territory. He completed residential projects, tourism and hospitality projects with the most well-known being the Carlton United Brewery Headquarters. The Queensland office closed in 2004.
Susan Lustri |
Architects of South Australia, Copyright 2008, Updated regularly