Barbara Ruth van den Broek (22 August 1932 – 24 August 2001) was a New Zealand-born Australian architect and landscape architect. She designed the grounds of several Queensland buildings, including the Queensland Cultural Centre and

Art Gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

on the South Bank, Brisbane, as well as public parks in Brisbane, and also worked in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, where she designed the government and parliament buildings.

Life

Van den Broek was born in New Zealand and studied at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

, completing a diploma in architecture in 1956. She subsequently moved to Brisbane and set up a joint architecture practice with her husband. In 1963 she won a competition for the design of an area of the grounds of the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

. She continued to study while working in her practice, completing two qualifications at the

Queensland Institute of Technology Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a public research university located in the urban coastal city of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is located on two campuses in the Brisbane area viz. Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove. The univ ...

: a post graduate diploma in town planning in 1966 (her thesis topic was the relationships between open space and urban development) and a postgraduate diploma in landscape design in 1969 (her thesis was on the native plants of Brisbane). Van den Broek served on a number of professional associations. In 1965 she was a founding member of the Queensland Institute of Landscape Architects and later served as secretary and president. She was a member of council of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects from 1975 to 1979, and in 1976 she joined the National Trust of Queensland and was the first Chair of the Trust's Landscape sub-committee. In the 1970s she continued to design landmarks in Queensland and also worked in Papua New Guinea where she designed the Waigani Centre for government administration and parliament. In 1980 she completed a master's degree at Griffith University; her masters dissertation topic was her land use plan for Waigani. In the early 1980s van den Broek moved to

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

and while working there joined the landscape committee of the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

in Victoria. She then moved to

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

to become a landscape architect with Blacktown Council and continued to work for the National Trust in New South Wales. In 1997 she received a Voluntary Service Silver Medallion from the Trust in recognition of her years of service. The same year, she presented a co-authored report to the National Trust surveying children's playgrounds in Sydney.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:van den Broek, Barbara 1932 births 2001 deaths University of Auckland alumni Queensland University of Technology alumni Griffith University alumni Australian landscape architects New Zealand emigrants to Australia New Zealand women architects Australian women architects