Julie Collins, PhD

Dr Julie Collins is an architectural historian, curator and active researcher. Her interests range from the architectural history of therapeutic places to the study of architectural drawing collections and heritage.
At the Architecture Museum she is responsible for an invaluable research collection of 400,000 items of architectural design documentation, drawings, photographs, artefacts and ephemera.  As well as managing this physical collection, Dr Collins researches and writes biographies, catalogues, guides to sources and website content, while curating exhibitions and presenting public lectures and outreach events.
Dr Collins has written or co-written several books, including "The Architecture and Landscape of Health: A Historical Perspective on Therapeutic Places 1790-1940" published in 2020 by Routledge, "Not for ourselves alone: The South Australian Home Builders’ Club, 1945- 1965" (2013), and "The Architects Board of South Australia: A History 1939-2009" (2010). She has contributed many book chapters to edited volumes including 'A powerful, Creative History: the reticence of Women Architects to donate professional records to Archival Repositories' in the international compendium "Women in Architecture" (Routledge 2018), 'An Architectural Ornament', in "Adelaide’s Jubilee International Exhibition 1887-1888" (2016), and 'South Australian Architecture' in "The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture" (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Her research projects have included the history of the Adelaide Jubilee International Exhibition building of 1887, work on the influence of climate on the colonial architecture of Adelaide, the history of psychiatric asylum landscapes, and early tuberculosis sanatoria in Australia. She has also researched the South Australian Home Builders' Club 1945-1965, the Small Homes Service of South Australia and the modern postwar house, the emergence of tall buildings in Adelaide 1912-1939, and women in the architectural profession 1910-1960. Dr Collins' PhD thesis was titled ‘Ways of Living: The expression of the home/work relationship in Australian architectural design of the late twentieth century’ (2003).
Among Dr Collins’ many journal articles are "Consumption Crusade", Planning Perspectives (2021), “The houses that Jack built: Architect Jack McConnell’s modern residences 1939-1945”, Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia (2019), “Lost landscapes of healing: the decline of therapeutic mental health landscapes”, Landscape Research, (2016), “Climate discourse and the architectural style debates surrounding Adelaide’s nineteenth-century public buildings”, History Australia (2015), and “Life in the Open Air: Place as a Therapeutic and Preventative Instrument in Australia's Early Open-Air Tuberculosis Sanatoria”, Fabrications: Society of Architectural Historians, Australia and New Zealand, (2012).
Her current research builds on previous work into the cultural significance of architectural records, with work on visual literacy and born-digital architectural records in progress. Dr Collins is also an author and editor of the 'Architects of South Australia' database which documents the lives and works of a selection of the state's architects from colonial times to the present day.
 
Qualifications
Doctor of Philosophy Arts, Architecture and Design University of South Australia
Bachelor of Architecture University of South Australia
Work history
1999-current: University of South Australia, UniSA Creative, formerly School of Art, Architecure and Design