The River House: The passion and daring behind a Melbourne landmark

On a horseshoe bend of the Birrarung (Yarra River) in Melbourne, one kilometre downstream from Dights Falls, an architectural icon perches among the trees. The River House, built in 1955, is an A-shaped building resting in a dense canopy, peacefully among the gums, elms and oaks.

For Dr Luke James, a Principal Heritage Advisor at Extent Heritage, it’s been a landmark throughout his life. ‘I think I would have been 11 or 12 when I first saw it,’ James says. ‘My dad pointed it out on one of our walks.’ James remembers crossing the Victoria Bridge in winter, looking down at the bank and seeing this strange A-frame construction. ‘That can’t be a house,’ he remembers thinking.

Later, as his interest in architecture took shape, his understanding of the house unfolded. He studied Architectural History at the University of Melbourne, and developed a particular interest in Australian modernist architecture. He came to understand that the River House, an early passion project of legendary architect Peter McIntyre, is a Melbourne icon.

‘I connected that this place from my childhood, and this seminal example of mid-century modernist housing, were the same thing,’ says James.

In 2021, it came up again. The River House is included in the Heritage Overlay for the City of Boroondara, and Extent Heritage was engaged to update the citation. It fell to James to return to this formative building in his architectural life.

‘It was one of those lucky opportunities. The perfect project,’ says James.

A heritage citation is essentially a document that explains why a building is important, and underpins the management of the place. The original had been prepared at least 30 years earlier. It was a very different era of heritage, and in accordance with good practice, it needed to be brought up-to-date.

‘It’s important that a citation indicates clearly what’s important about a building and what’s not, to guide any changes,’ says James.

‘The main thing we asked was, does its significance hold up? And it absolutely does.’

To understand the building’s significance, James delved into its history.

Emerging from the post-war period of design austerity, the River House was a bold proposition. It defied design convention, and conventional wisdom.

‘It appears to have been created as an architect’s dream rather than by surveyor’s prescription,’ writes Melbourne architect Norman Day. ‘Very few souls could have imagined what could become of a rocky outcrop placed at a river’s elbow, which appeared to be unliveable, unbuildable and therefore uninhabitable.’

Peter McIntyre had grown up along the Yarra. He was 19 years old and working at his father’s architectural practice when he stumbled on the River House site. ‘I was fascinated,’ he says. ‘I slid down the hillside. There was no other way of getting to it. Well, I was a goner.’ It was peaceful, enchanting, and completely inaccessible. He was advised strongly against building on it. He bought it anyway.

McIntyre’s plans were ambitious. The structure would perch on a small concrete base, supporting a lightweight steel triangle frame that would hold the house aloft, hovering above the water— 'like a craft in the sea,’ writes Norman Day, whose descriptions of the River House were harnessed in James’ citation. The frame only touches the small concrete pad in four places, and the trusses support the building on the principal of counter-balancing forces.

Before he was able to complete the River House, McIntyre worked on the Melbourne’s Olympic Swimming Stadium, commissioned for the 1956 Olympic Games.

‘That’s far and away his best-known work,’ says James. ‘It’s a public building with an incredibly impressive mix of architectural and structural engineering genius.’

The Olympic Swimming Stadium won its tender due to its innovative use of post-tensioned steel, which was budget-conscious but untested—McIntyre has said that the building only got approval after the CSIRO got involved to ensure the engineers’ calculations were correct and feasible.

Remarkably, the structural principles of the Stadium were initially devised for the River House.

‘Most people have assumed that this young architect worked in a team to develop this pool, and then he drew on this knowledge to create his home,’ says James. ‘But through talking to him, I realised we needed to flip that—he actually came up with the River House concept first, and brought those structural ideas to the swimming pool design. So, the River House has a greater importance to his oeuvre than people have assumed.’

James’ most significant addition was bringing the landscape to the fore in the building’s story. ‘As a local I know the landscape and how it shifts over the seasons,’ he says. ‘It’s this mix of introduced species and indigenous species which have created a forest around the property, forming a line of trees in front of the house when viewed from across the river.’

As the seasons change the trees form a curtain across the bank, revealing and hiding the house in turn. ‘In January if I took you to that bridge you’d see nothing,’ says James. ‘In August, you’d have an extremely clear view of it.’

In determining the boundary of the heritage place, James ensured it was wide enough to capture this dramatic interaction with nature. It is, as Norman Day put it, like a theatrical curtain drawing back to reveal the stage. And the viewing angle changes depending on your position around this bend on the Yarra. ‘A little bit like how you need to consider the view of the stage from wherever someone is seated in a theatre,’ says James.

As the River House approaches its seventieth birthday, it has become a part of the landscape, as well as a landmark for Kew locals. But for all the River House’s architectural significance, it is first and foremost a home. McIntyre and his family lived in the house for decades. He raised four children in the house, and it’s still in the family today. In writing the new citation, James was able to interview McIntyre and his wife and fellow architect Dionne, whose knowledge of the landscape and its species also proved important. ‘That way we could add more texture, more of the architect’s voice,’ says James. ‘That’s very rare, to be able to do that.’

‘You can’t point to many other buildings that are as heroic and free from convention,’ says James.  Every other person apart from him thought this land had no value. But his unique insight was, “Well, if I do this, I can build a house in the most incredible location in inner Melbourne.” And he did it.’