Robin Gerard Penleigh Boyd (1919-1971), was born and educated in Melbourne, and a member of the famous Australian family of artists and writers. He was a distinguished architect, writer and social commentator. Boyd held a lifelong interest in modern architecture and in partnership with Roy Grounds and Frederick Romberg, Robin Boyd became noted for his innovative domestic buildings. He was the leading Australian propagandist for the International Modern Movement, and pressed his cause as a columnist and author. He became a household name in the 1950s throughout Victoria as a result of this exposure a writer on suburban architecture in The Age newspaper. In 1952 he published Australia's Homes, an influential study of modernist architecture in Australia. In 1956 he accepted an offer of a teaching position at MIT in Boston from Walter Gropius. In 1960 Boyd published The Australian Ugliness, his most famous and influential book on the built environment and Australian suburbs. He was made a Life Fellow of the RAIA and was awarded the RAIA Gold Medal in 1969. The RAIA named its annual national domestic architecture award after him, the Robin Boyd Award. Boyd died in 1971 at the age of 52.
