EDITH INGPEN HOUSE

The Edith Ingpen House, Crossover, designed and built by Edith Ingpen from around 1933 to 1937 as her own weekend retreat, as well as the mature oak trees to the west of the house.

The Edith Ingpen House is of architectural significance to the State of Victoria. It satisfies the following criterion for inclusion in the Victorian Heritage Register:

Possession of uncommon, rare or endangered aspects of Victoria’s cultural history.

Importance in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a class of cultural places and objects.

Special association with the life or works of a person, or group of persons, of importance in Victoria’s history.

 

The Edith Ingpen House is rare in Victoria for its thirteen-sided circular form, which was uncommon in interwar buildings, particularly in domestic architecture. It foreshadows the later championing of geometric forms by Modernists such as Roy Grounds from the 1950s. [Criterion B]

The Edith Ingpen House is architecturally significant as a notable example of an interwar experimental building. Unconstrained by a client’s brief and concealed in an isolated location, Ingpen drew on emerging Modernist design principles, including a flat roof, simple circular form and minimal ornamentation, and realised her modest rural retreat using vernacular construction techniques and local natural materials. It is one of only three known surviving examples of Ingpen's independent architectural work. [Criterion D] 

The Edith Ingpen House is historically significant for its association with Edith Ingpen, the first woman graduate in architecture at the University of Melbourne (1933). Ingpen started her career at a time when only 2% of registered architects in Victoria were women, and became a vocal champion of women in the profession. In the early 1930s she was a valued associate in Harold Desbrowe-Annear's firm, and then established her own practice becoming one of the best-known women architects practising solo in Melbourne. During World War II, Ingpen took up a post with the Victorian Public Works Department, the first professional woman architect to be employed there. [Criterion H]