| History | Gordon Young was a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at the South Australian Institute of Technology (SAIT, later University of South Australia (UniSA) where he founded and organised the South Australian Centre for Settlement Studies.
Young began his career in architecture in the United Kingdom. From 1944 to 1947 he was articled to Mr Dobson Chapman and Associates, regional planners, architects and surveyors, while studying architecture at the University of Manchester. After graduating in 1949 he became an architectural associate with A.R. Johnson and Associates in Manchester where he designed government housing and small industrial buildings. He worked as an architectural assistant at RA Risley between 1950 and 1956 and then moved to Adelaide where he worked in the Architect-in-Chief's Department designing high schools and teachers? colleges. From 1959 to 1960 he undertook postgraduate research at the French Ministry of Construction and was awarded a French Government Diploma in Architecture. In 1960 he was appointed Lecturer in Architecture and Building at the School of Architecture, SAIT, Senior Lecturer in 1970. He continued his architectural work, designing an alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre at Port Adelaide (1970–75), a medical centre at the University of Adelaide (1983) and an orthopaedic clinic at the Wakefield Medical Centre, Adelaide (1991).
In 1976 Young and Ian Harmstorf, Senior Lecturer in History at the Adelaide College of Advanced Education, were awarded a National Estate grant to study patterns of German settlement in the Barossa Valley. This unique association between the two educational institutions developed into the South Australian Centre for Settlement Studies (SACSS) in 1982 with Young as the inaugural director of research. Further grants from the Australian Heritage Commission supported studies of the Adelaide Hills settlements of Hahndorf, Lobethal and Birdwood and their surrounding areas. Young and members of the Centre published numerous heritage survey reports, monographs and research papers as well as gave papers at local and international conferences.
Young was elected Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1950, and is a member of Australian ICOMOS and of the Vernacular Architecture Group of the United Kingdom. He has served on the Council of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects (SA Chapter) and Chairman of its Historic Matters Committee; he was elected Fellow in 1970. He was Chairman of the Civic Trust of South Australia.
After his retirement from SAIT in 1987 Young continued to direct the SACSS until its closure in 1989. He was a Visiting Fellow at Flinders University from 1987 to 1991 giving lectures in nineteenth-century architecture to visual arts and archaeology students. |