User:Ianjevans/sandbox

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Ian Joseph Evans OAM, PhD (born Parkes, NSW, 1940) author, publisher and folk magic historian. In the latter category, Evans discovered the use of deliberately concealed objects and apotropaic marks to protect Australian houses and other buildings from evil spiritual forces in the period 1788 to circa 1935.1 The author of numerous books on the history and conservation of old Australian houses, Evans contributed to the growth of the heritage movement that burst into life throughout Australia in the 1980s.2 His first book, Restoring Old Houses, (Macmillan, 1979) is widely credited with having stimulated the movement that continues to the present day.3 Other books followed, many of them published by Evans’s family publishing house, The Flannel Flower Press Pty Ltd.4

Life and career Throughout his career Evans has encouraged the conservation of Australia’s architectural heritage in books, periodicals and newspapers, in interviews on radio and television, and in numerous lectures and seminars on the conservation of the built environment. Since 1979 he has produced a substantial body of work on this subject. In writing his books, he has worked with Government authorities such as the NSW Department of Planning, the Queensland Museum and the National Trust.

Dr. Evans’s contribution to heritage conservation has facilitated the widespread use of traditional colours on old buildings throughout Australia – a trend which followed the publication by his publishing company of Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses, a book which he wrote in association with the well-known conservation architects Clive Lucas, OBE, and Ian Stapleton. Local Government authorities throughout Australia use this book and a companion volume, More Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses, as the source of traditional colour schemes for houses and other buildings in conservation areas. These books brought traditional exterior colours back into fashion and changed the face of inner-city suburbs in cities throughout Australia.5

Evans sought to empower the owners of old houses by providing them with information hitherto available only to conservation architects and other professionals. He argued that the greater part of our built heritage is privately-owned and that making authoritative information available to the owners would result in the establishment of grassroots interest in Australia’s heritage of old buildings.

In addition, Ian Evans has conducted campaigns to save important individual buildings such as the John Verge–designed Lyndhurst at Glebe, NSW, which was for a time the headquarters of the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales.6 His campaign to stop the destruction of the traditional timber houses of Brisbane received widespread publicity in Brisbane,7 in The Australian8 newspaper and on the 7.30 Report in Brisbane and Sydney.9 Brisbane City Council subsequently enacted planning measures to impede the removal of the timber buildings which are largely responsible for the character of the City.

Between 2002 and 2005 Evans served as architectural historian to the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project and prepared a 30,000 word report on traditional buildings in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus for the Department of Archeology at the University of Glasgow.10 Other archaeological sites on which he has worked are in England, Cyprus, Greece and Syria.

Ian Evans’s experience includes some 15 years as a print and television journalist in Sydney, as a public relations consultant and as a producer of documentary programmes at Channel Seven in Sydney.

He continues to write and publish books and to act as a consultant on the conservation of old houses and buildings in many areas of Australia. He is currently researching apotropaic (evil-averting) marks and deliberately concealed objects in old houses and buildings – two ancient rituals that traveled to Australia as part of the cultural baggage of convicts and settlers. These were not known in Australia before Evans discovered them in 2004.11 In 2010 he received a PhD from the University of Newcastle for his thesis on this topic.

He was educated at Catholic and State schools in Parkes before moving to Sydney in 1959; copy boy and cadet journalist at Mirror Newspapers 1959 – 1961; journalist at ATN7 News 1961 – 1972; PR consultant 1972 – 1979; author, publisher, heritage consultant 1979 – present. Awarded Medal in the Order of Australia 2005 for services to heritage conservation; PhD (University of Newcastle) 2010.

Awards

Bibliography

The Golden Decade of Australian Architecture – The Work of John Verge, (with James Broadbent and Max Dupain), David Ell Press, 1978

Historic Places of Australia: Glebe, Australian Council of National Trusts, 1978

Restoring Old Houses, MacMillan, 1979

The Lithgow Pottery, Flannel Flower Press, 1981

The Australian Home, Flannel Flower Press, 1983

Furnishing Old Houses, MacMillan, 1983

Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses, Flannel Flower Press, 1984

The Australian Old House Catalogue, Methuen Haynes, 1984

The Federation House – A Restoration Guide, Flannel Flower Press, 1986

Caring for Old Houses, Flannel Flower Press, 1988

Getting the Details Right – Restoring Australian Houses 1890s – 1920s, Flannel Flower Press, 1989

The Complete Australian Old House Catalogue, Flannel Flower Press, 1990

More Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses, Flannel Flower Press, 1992

The Queensland House – A Roof Over Our Heads, (with various authors), Queensland Museum, 1992

The Queensland House – History and Conservation, (with the National Trust of Queensland), Flannel Flower Press, 2001

Notes

1. Swanson, Elizabeth, Foreword, The Weekend Australian, 1/12/1990

2. "Deliberately Concealed Objects in Old Australian Houses and Buildings" PhD thesis, University of Newcastle, NSW, 2010

3. Heritage in Trust, National Trust of Queensland, Brisbane, winter 2001, p 15

4. Gregson, Wayne, "Author puts new life into an old problem", Bendigo Advertiser, 30/7/1988, p 4

5. Inside Australian Hardware, February-March 1993, p 60

6. Save Lyndhurst Committee, press cuttings file, Resource Centre, Historic Houses Trust, Sydney

7. "Development Robs the City of Colonial Charm," Courier-Mail, Brisbane, 19/3/1994

8. "City’s Heritage Houses Leave Town," The Weekend Australian, 19/3/1994

9. 7.30 Report, Brisbane 22/3/1994, Sydney, 23/3/1994

10. In preparation for 2013 publication, Council for British Research in the Levant, London

11. "Touching Magic" Trust News, vol 1, No. 9, August 2009, pp 8, 9; "Ritual Marks and Magic" Trust News, May 2011, pp 20, 21

External links

7.30 Tasmania: Ritual Magic by Fiona Breen, 28/11/2011

Concealed shoes: Australian settlers and an old superstition by Duncan Kennedy, 15/3/2012

Ian Evans's World of Old Houses

[http://www.abc.net.au/tv/rewind/txt/s1218257.htm Rewind: Talismans, ABC TV, 17 October 2004. Transcript]

Interview with Rachel Kohn, The Spirit of Things, ABC Radio National, 15 July 2012