John Chappel-designed Springfield home sold
A John Chappel-designed five bedroom home at Springfield was Adelaide's priciest weekend sale at $1.43 million.
There have been $1,500,000 to $1,650,000 Toop & Toop price guidance for the house which sits on a 1,197 suuare metre block at 6 Coreega Avenue.
John Chappel, who was born in Unley Park, in 1923 and died in 2013.
Chappel first became interested in architecture through his contact with Victorian architect Jack Hobbs McConnell, who boarded with the Chappel family after he moved to Adelaide to work with Philip Claridge and Associates.
For about 12 months in the mid-1950s, Chappel was the group architect for the War Service Homes Division.
He oversaw the development of some 400 houses at North Glenelg, Woodville and Brighton.
From the 1950s to the late 1960s he was a member of the board for the Small Homes Service of South Australia.
Chappel become an architectural correspondent with the Advertiser in 1956, a role extended over three decades until 1990.
He received many commissions, mainly in the residential field, including from a number of prominent South Australian families, including the Bonythons and Kidmans.
Chappel was a member of the National Trust of Australia (SA Branch) and while being an advocate for heritage listing, he also argued for financial assistance for owners of heritage listed buildings
It has been reported Chappel claimed that ‘the modern movement in architecture arising from Bauhaus is surely the most significant happening in architecture since the days of the Greeks and Romans’. He became a close friend of Sydney architect, Harry Siedler.
Chappel was greatly influenced by the Melbourne School led by Robin Boyd in the post-war years. Through him, Chappel met other Victorians including Peter McIntyre, with whom he would stay, Roy Grounds, Geoff Mewton, Neil Clerehan, Kevin Boreland.
In the late 1950s, Chappel went to Melbourne to study the latest trends in the design of blocks of flats. Upon returning to Adelaide he designed and developed ‘own your own’ apartments in Broughton Street, Lockleys. This concept was based on co-ownership, a first in South Australia, and a forerunner to strata titles.
He went onto design a block of 76 flats for Peter Hearne of Orlit Constructions, at 100 South Terrace, Adelaide, the largest of its type in the state at that time. In 1969 he accepted a commission from Highrise Pty Ltd to design a multi-storey block of flats which became a prototype for many others.
Chappel held that ‘architecture [was] his religion’ and that ‘it [was] a privilege to be an architect’, with the basic principles of good design being ‘function, truth and architectural integrity.'
