Architecture. – Since 2010 the Australia is engaged in an architectural development operation that affects all sectors of the country, with great attention to infrastructures destined for education and sport. Alongside the larger interventions, architectural research continues in the area of single-family residential construction linked to the territory and more avant-garde formal experiments. The contemporary reality presents architecture studios of excellent level flanked, on the occasion of major competitions, by the most famous international firms. Most of the creations reveal the attention to the themes of technology and eco-sustainability.
In 2006, Fender Katsalidis Architects completed the Eureka tower in Melbourne, the tallest office and residential tower in the southern hemisphere. Lyons has designed four important university complexes: in Hobart, the two buildings for the University of Tasmania school of medicine (2009), which recall the surrounding mountain landscapes, while in Melbourne, the headquarters of the Swanston academic building (2012) and the Institute for molecular science (2013). Characterized by a pop aspect, they are a concentrate of choices devoted to energy saving and the optimization of the use of materials. The headquarters of the Sydney law school (2009) designed by FJMT (Francis-Jones Morehen Thorp), is formed by a complex of glazed blocks intersected by a curvilinear volume covered with aluminum that houses the service areas of the university.
According to topmbadirectory, Sean Godsell is the author of the project for the Design hub (2012) created in Melbourne in the Carlton district. Located between two important arteries of the city center, it is composed of a parallelepiped whose external surface is an advanced sunscreen system formed by glass discs that can be opened for the exchange of air and the production of energy. Worth mentioning is the Soheil Abedian school of architecture (2013) built along the Gold Coast by Sir Peter Cook’s CRAB (Cook Robotham Architectural Bureau) studio.
Sports infrastructure includes the Perth arena (2012). Designed by ARM Architecture and CCN (Cameron Chisholm & Nicol), it has a facade devoid of any symmetry with deconstructivist references. The Melbourne Rectangular stadium (2010), designed by Cox Architecture, stands out for its roof made up of a theory of sections of geodesic domes with a triangular paneling in whose joints there is a complex LED system.
The theme of single-family residences finds expression in the villas located along the oceanic shoreline. Jeremy Wolveridge’s Torquay house (2012) consists of a large surface obtained through elementary volumes and the use of wood for external cladding. The Klein bottle house (2008) by Mcbride Charles Ryan, located in Mornington Peninsula, differs from the classic type of villa. This vacation home transforms one of the most famous topological objects into a residence: the Klein bottle. The levels of the house revolve around a central courtyard and develop forming a spiral that breaks the orthogonal pattern typical of this architectural typology.
Sean Godsell’s MPavillon, inaugurated in 2014 in the Victoria Garden (Melbourne), is the first of four pavilions that will be created in continuity and comparison with the famous Serpentine gallery pavillion in London.
In 2014 the Herzog & De Meuron studio won the competition for the redevelopment of Flinder station, the largest railway station in Melbourne, while the studios Zaha Hadid, KTA (Koichi Takada Architect), Hassell and Cox presented their projects for Brisbane, Sydney and Perth regarding the redevelopment of entire parts of the cities and the construction of business centers and sports complexes.
Literature. – The Australian literature of the last ten years is characterized, even more than in previous decades, by the tendency to reflect critically on the complexity and ambiguity of an identity whose eminently multiethnic dimension has only recently been recognized by the dominant culture – after a long oblivion denounced by the title, Amnesia (2014), in the latest novel by Peter Carey (n.1943). Examples of this are novels on the relationships between natives and Anglo-Australians such as The secret river (2005; trans. It. The secret river, 2008) and The lieutenant (2008) by Kate Grenville (b. 1950), Carpentaria (2006; trans. It. The star hunters, 2008) by the aboriginal Alexis Wright (b. 1950) and Sorry (2007) by Gail Jones (b. 1955), but also works on new ‘multiple’ identities, especially those Asian-Australian, well represented in the anthology of texts of various kinds Growing up Asian in Australia (2008) edited by Alice Pung (n. 1981), or in the novel The Lost dogs (2007; trans. it. The dog disappeared between leaves, 2009) by the writer of Sinhalese origins Michelle de Kretser (b. 1957) – but there are many multi-ethnic and multilingual voices that are populating the Australian literary scene. More extensive global character tensions triggered by the climate paranoid post September 11, are the focus of The unknown terrorist (2006; trans. It. The wrong woman, 2010) by Richard Flanagan (b. 1961) who, in The narrow road to the deep North (2013), analyzes the post-World War II events of Japanese jailers and Australian prisoners, while Thomas Keneally (b.1935) observes the same scenario from the perspective of Japanese prisoners in Australia in Shame and the captives(2014). One of the greatest Australian authors of the twentieth century, Christopher John Koch (1932-2013), closed his career with the historical fresco Lost Voices (2012). Since 2006 he became part of this literature the South African naturalized Australian and Nobel laureate John Maxwell Coetzee (n. 1940), who made his debut in his new capacity in 2007 with the semi-autobiographical Diary of a bad year (trad. It. Diary of a difficult year, 2008).
Poetry, often confined to the independent publishing market, met with less luck with the public and critics, even if among the new generation (or almost) there is no shortage of prominent names such as those of Adam Aitken (b.1960), Mark Tredinnick (b. 1962), John Kinsella (b.1963), Tracy Ryan (b.1964), David Musgrave (b.1965) and David Mc Cooey (b.1967). In the field of dramaturgy David Williamson (b.1942), Stephen Sewell (b.1953), Justin Fleming (b.1953) and Scott Rankin (b.1959) deserve mention.
