Miles Lewis

AM, FAHA FRSA, BArch (Hons), BA, PhD

Architectural historian; emeritus professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Building & Planning at the University of Melbourne; editor and principal author of Architectura (London and New York 2008); author of Victorian Primitive, Don John of Balaclava, The Essential Maldon, Two Hundred Years of Concrete in Australia, Victorian Churches, Melbourne the City's History, Suburban Backlash, and numerous articles and papers on architectural and building history, urban conservation, urban renewal and housing policy; honorary life member of the Comité International d'Architecture Vernaculaire.

Curriculum Vitae

Born England 1943; arrived Australia 1947, educated Melbourne Grammar School and Melbourne University; finalist, Rome Scholarship 1966; University of Melbourne Special Award 1966-1969; full-time appointment at Melbourne University from 1970. Elected to fellowship of the Australian Academy of Humanities, 1988. Part time member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Victoria, 1988-90. Visiting Scholar in Historical Archaeology and Architecture, University of Sydney 1990-1991. Participant in the Tianjin Urban Conservation Study, China, 1991-4; Honorary Research Associate in Historic & Prehistoric Archaeology, University of Sydney, 1993-7; Auckland University Foundation Fellow for 1996.

Joint recipient of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Robin Boyd Environment Award, 1973, Walter Burley Griffin Award, 1982, and merit awards 1979 and 1983; Certificate of Town Planning Achievement of the Town and Country Planning Association 1977; Royal Australian Planning Institute [Victoria] Award for Excellence, 1994; RAPI [Victoria] Honourable Mention, 1995; Royal Australian Planning Institute [National] Occasional Special Award, 1995; Australian Institute of Architects Neville Quarry Award, 2014; Member of the Order of Australia, 2002; Centenary Medal 2003; Honorary Life Member of the Comité International d'Architecture Vernaculaire, 2005.

Citation for Member of the Order of Australia: For service to architectural history, heritage protection and urban planning, particularly through policy development and professional organisations.

Citation for Centenary Medal: For service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of architectural history.

  • The Miles Lewis Fellowship was established at the University of Melbourne in 2018, with funding provided by the Vera Moore Foundation. Its purpose is to bring distinguished scholars in the history of architecture to the University annually or biennially, to deliver an oration and to engage in other research and/or teaching activities. It is fully funded with a professorial salary, travel and living costs &c.

    Link to Fellowship

  • As a member of the Portable Buildings World Heritage Nomination Task Force, Lewis has prepared seventeen research essays on prefabrication, amounting to about a thousand pages.  They can be seen under the ‘research’ tab on the site https://www.portablebuildingsaustralia.org/

  • The Association for Preservation Technology International, based in the USA, maintains an on-line Building Heritage Technology Library which contains and makes publicly accessible nearly ten thousand digitised publications. These are so far mainly of American origin, but the APT has identified in the Miles Lewis library collection approximately 600 publications which have not been scanned elsewhere in the world, and these are now being digitised. They contain some additional US material, as well as Australian, British and French and other items. This is the first international project of the Library, and it is funded by the Vera Moore Foundation, and conducted under the aegis the APT Australasian chapter.

    Final report

  • For the Australaian Chapter of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums, Miles Lewis prepared the book Architectural Drawings as a manual for curators of architectural collections . Its purpose is twofold. Curators commonly have library or other training but no experience in dealing with architectural drawings. They need information on the purposes of drawings, how to interpret them, the materials used for them, how to select and organise them in a collection, and many other matters. The book receivef the Australian Institute of Architects Bates Smart Award for Architecture in Media for 2021.

    Link to Publisher's website

  • International Council on Monuments and Sites: founding member of the Australian National Committee, from 1976, Chairman 1982-1983; leader of the Australian Delegation at the Vth General Assembly, Moscow and Suzdal, 1978.

    Comité International d'Architecture Vernaculaire: Honorary Life Member.

    Royal Institute of Architects, Singapore: Fellow, International Advisory Council.

    Council for the Historic Environment: founding member 1976; President 1980-1984.

    Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand: Honorary Life Member; President 1991-3.

    Other memberships: Society of Architectural Historians (USA), Association for Preservation Technology (USA/Canada), Royal Victorian Historical Society, Construction History Group (UK), Newcomen Society (UK), Vernacular Architecture Forum (USA).

    Referee for Getty Grant Program, Australian Heritage Commission, Australian Research Council &c.

    Refereee for UNESCO and ICOMOS in relation to about twenty actual or proposed World Heritage sites.

    Peer reviewer for the APT Bulletin (USA).

    National Trust of Australia (Victoria): Honorary Life Member, and at different times member of Council, member of Executive, founding Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee, Maldon Committee, Chairman of the Churches Committee, and member of a number of other committees.

    Royal Australian Institute of Architects, Victorian Chapter: member of various committees and Chairman of the Public Services Board of the Chapter 1976-78.

    Commonwealth Government: consultant to the Department of Housing and Construction on a survey of accommodation of aged persons, 1974; member of the Project Co-ordinating Committee on Historical Archaeology 1975-1978; member of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Australian Heritage Commission from 1978.

    Victorian Government: member and sometime acting chairman of the Advisory Committee on the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest (Town and Country Planning Board) 1971-1980; member of the Committee on Conservation Areas (Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works) from 1975; Chairman, Matthew Flinders Measured Drawing Competition (Premier's Department), 1975-1981; member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (Planning Division), 1988-91.

    Consultancies, direct or as a sub-consultant to firms of architects and planners, have included the Municipality of Gävle, Sweden; the Tianjin Urban & Regional Design Institute; Commonwealth Department of Housing and Construction; Australian Heritage Commission; the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Tasmania; the State Planning Commission, Western Australia; the City of Adelaide; the Victorian Ministry for Planning, Historic Buildings Council, Government Buildings Advisory Council, Land Conservation Council, Docklands Authority, State Electricity Commission, and Major Projects Division; the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Municipalities of Ballarat, Chewton, Coburg, Daylesford & Glenlyon, Fitzroy, Hawthorn, Melbourne, Port Melbourne, St Kilda, Sandringham, South Melbourne, Werribee and Yackandandah.

  • The Post-War Housing Solution', keynote address at the 'Prefab and Pre-cut' Symposium, University of Melbourne, 2023.

    'Parkville - a Factitious Suburb'; keynote address at the Park Life Symposium, University of Melbourne, 2022.

    ‘Iranian Vernacular Building Traditions', keynote address at the Iranica Conference, Mirriors of Islam: a Continuum of Architectural Heritage, Sydney, Australia, 2019.

    'Earth-Timber Hybrid Constructions', keynote address at the ICOMOS, CIAV & ISCEAH International Conference, Vernacular and Earthen Architecture: Towards Local Development, Pingyao, China, 2019.

    'Seeking Closure: the Invention of the Door', keynote address and Annual Lecture, 6th Annual Conference of the Construction History Society, Cambridge, UK, 2019

    'Architecture, Ethnicity and Environment', keynote address, International Research-Educational Program of Historical Environmental Design, Kyushu University, Japan, February 2019.

    'Forgotten Aspects of the European Building Tradition', Latvijas Arhitektu Savienība [Latvian Architects’ Association], Riga. 2018.

    Architecture after Rome', public lecture at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Melbourne, 2018.

    'The Iron Bridge'. Danish Society of Engineers and Danish Society of Road History, Copenhagen 2018.

    'The Geography of Earth Building', Keynote address, Sostierra conference, Valencia, Spain, 2017.

    'The Glasgow Prefabricators', Glasgow City HeritageTrust, 2015.

    'National Identity and Traditional Building', The Australian High Commission and the Costas & Rita Severis Foundation, Nicosia, Cyprus, 2014.

    'Pisé de Terre in the British Sphere'. Francois Cointeraux (1740-1830) Pionnier de L'architecture Moderne en Terre, Colloque de LARHRA et l’INHA, Lyon, France 2012.

    'Decorative Forms and the Classical Orders', Association of Art Historians, Zagreb, Croatia, 2012

    'The Evolution of the Timber Frame/Entremado en Madera, Su Evolution'. University of Chile, Santiago, 2007.

    Keynote address, 'The Citizen versus the Planner'. Royal Australian Planning Institute Conference, Perth, November 2000.

    Langford Oration, 'Health and the City'. Royal Australian College of Medical Administrators, Melbourne 1997.

    David Saunders Memorial Keynote Address, 'The Tasman Connection'. Society of Architectural Historians Australia and New Zealand, Christchurch 1991.

    George Hondros Memorial Lecture, 'Reinforced Concrete in Australia'. Faculty of Engineering, University of Western Australia 1991.

    'The Culture of Australian Building', J M Freeland Memorial Lecture, University of Sydney 1990.