Margaret Lord Archive Collection

Brief description

The archive of the Sydney based interior designer, Margaret Lord. It includes photographs, diaries, books and publications relating to Lords design work and life dating from 1930 to 1975.

Notes

Parts of this collection are digitised and available on the Powerhouse Museum website

Significance

Margaret Florence Lord was born at Warnambool, Victoria on 12 December 1908. She studied art for three years at the Swinbourne Technical College and then taught art in Melbourne secondary schools, continuing to study at night at the National Gallery School. In 1936 she travelled to London where she remained until 1940, working for Reens-Arta, interior designers of Mayfair, and later for the Arnold School of Interior Decoration as Director of Studies. On her return to Australia in 1940, Margaret Lord moved to Sydney and was soon securing commissions for interior designs of private homes, institutional and commercial buildings. As well, she was in demand as a lecturer and a radio broadcaster. She published three books on interior design and wrote numerous articles for magazines such as Australian Home Beautiful and The Home. In 1951 Lord became a foundation member of the Society of Interior Designers of Australia and participated in their first exhibition in 1953. Interiors designed by Margaret Lord include Sydney University Union, the Shell Company's Carrington Street building, Johnston and Johnston's factory at Botany, Australian Glass Manufacturers' factory at Waterloo, Wrigley's Ltd building at Rosebery, the Sydney Club, the Memorial Hall at Shore, Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital, Women's Hospital, Melbourne, and the ships Monowai, Manoora and Kanimbla. This archive includes diaries, scrapbooks, newscuttings, transcripts of speeches, broadcasts, letters, magazines and other publications. It also includes photographs of Lord and her work, including a number of photographs taken by Max Dupain of her work in the late 1940s.