
We stopped by Firestone Walker's taproom restaurant in Buellton on our way home from vacation a few weeks ago. (Bob is a pale ale fan.)
It looks like the architect was going for a stylized, cleaned-up take on the classic Australian outback pub. Or even a sheep station or shearing shed. I like this! I've noticed that my architectural preferences now really favor my childhood in Australia. I was there at the age when I first really started paying attention to details and design.


When you walk in, there is a foyer with this bar, and then restaurant seating through doors on either side.


But back to the exterior! Corrugated tin roofs (officially, "corrugated galvanised iron", or "CGI") are part of the Australian vernacular! It is the most common roofing material in Australia. Even The Koala Brothers have a corrugated iron roof. :)

{image: www.koalabrothers.com}
Here's an old manual corrugated iron roller. (This is in the Kapunda Museum in South Australia.)

{image: Wikimedia Commons}
Here's some information about the roofing from an article here:
The use of metal roofing in Australia increased when British
manufacturers realized that iron rolled into a series of regular
corrugations was stronger, weight for weight, than flat iron sheets.
This offered considerable savings in the quantity of metal required,
and in the framing of the roofs.
Solving the problem of corrosion was the arrival of galvanized
corrugated iron. It made its way to Australia around 1850 and rapidly
became the most widely used roofing material. It was easily and swiftly
applied (even by unskilled labor), light, compact, inexpensive,
fireproof and immune from insect attack. Enough iron to cover the roof
of a cottage fitted easily onto a dray or cart, making a load that was
light enough to be dragged over bumpy roads to almost any bush building
site.
Roofing iron used in Australia during the 19th century carried the
names of British firms that became familiar to generations of
Australians who saw the brand names on the undersides of their verandah
roofs: Gospel Oak, Phoenix, Lysaght and others. Australian
manufacturing of corrugated galvanized steel roofing began at the John
Lysaght Works at Newcastle, New South Wales, on April 4, 1921.
The terms “corrugated iron” and “galvanized iron” became misnomers
after about 1915 when steel began to replace iron in the manufacturing
process. The change went unnoticed by the general public, which
continued to refer to “corrugated iron” and “galvanized iron.” Today,
however, the increasing use of Zincalume, an alloy of zinc and
aluminum, to coat the corrugated steel roofing means the old terms are
fading.
I thought this was interesting. But I'm weird like that. :) In 1848 and 1849, during the California goldrush, prefab "kit" housing made entirely of corrugated iron went up fast, fast, fast in California. (You can still see a lot of corrugated iron in San Francisco.) Right as that market for this quick housing was drying up, gold was found in New South Wales and Victoria in Australia, so corrugated iron homes went up there, too. This one is in South Melbourne:

You can find this in a neat book called Corrugated Iron: Building on the Frontier. (You can go here to see an extensive preview of this book, and look at more photos.)
Here's a farmhouse roof in Tolga, Queensland:

{image: RaeA at flickr.com, used with permission under terms of Creative Commons license}
Here's a building in Tingha, New South Wales, with a couple different styles of corrugated iron going on. And look at that lovely clapboard with the chippy paint. I love that!

{image: Powerhouse Museum at flickr.com, used with permission under terms of Creative Commons license}
Here's a cottage in Sydney. See the wooden fretwork? That's also iconic in Australia.

{image: image: Dawson-Foremans at flickr.com, used with permission under terms of Creative Commons license)
The basic shapes of the colonial Australian housing evolved into a style known as "Queenslander" houses. The Queensland Museum features an entire section on the Queensland house. According to their website, here are the elements that best define a Queensland house:
- construction of timber with a corrugated-iron roof;
- highset on timber stumps;
- single-skin cladding for partitions and sometimes external walls;
- verandahs front and back, and perhaps at the sides;
- decorative features which screen the sun or ventilate the interior; and
- a garden setting with a picket fence, palm trees and tropical fruit trees.
They explain why iron roofs were popular with this style of house:
Iron roofs are also a signature of Queensland housing. Iron could
be transported long distances throughout the colonies, and only minimal
framing was needed for building. Furthermore it was durable enough to
withstand tropical storms better than tiles.
Here are some neat drawings of different styles of Queenslanders. I think this is what many of us envisage when we think about Australian architecture . . . I think "corrugated iron roof, wood siding, verandas." I would like a house like this one day. :)
Finally, I leave you who with Corrugated Irony, a website that shudders to "imagine an Australia without corrugated iron," and quotes Tom Winton: "One of the greatest visual treasures we have is corrugated iron."
I'm excited to see if our Jodi or our Mel have anything to say about this. :)
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