Ailsa Merle Trundle, architect (9 August 1916 – 26 April 2002)
In her retirement Ailsa cut a striking figure locally. She was a tall, slim woman with something of a no-nonsense, practical air about her but a gentle face. I met her a number of times through her involvement in the early days of Neighbourhood Watch. I knew where she lived and admired her home at 194 Union Road. It sat well on the block and there seemed to be a natural flow between the house and the garden with a pergola facing north. It was only after she died that I learned that she had been an architect – and a ground-breaking one at that.
After Ailsa died in 2002 an obituary was published in The Age. The opening paragraph read: “Pioneering architect Ailsa Trundle was one of the first Australian women to be offered a partnership in an architectural firm at a time when females were a minority in the profession.”
Ailsa was born in Murwillumbah, NSW on 9 August 1916, the daughter of Joseph Robert Trundle, a bank manager with the Bank of Australasia, and his wife Charlotte Violet Bearup, known as Vi. She had one younger brother, Keith Joseph Trundle, an engineer. Her early years were spent in Queensland but sometime after 1930 the family moved to Bendigo where Alisa completed her secondary education. She graduated from Matriculation at Bendigo High School in 1934. The headmaster advised her father that she might consider accountancy or architecture as possible career paths.
Family expectations were that Ailsa would remain at home rather than go away for further education so from high school, Ailsa trained at the Bendigo School of Mines. As she said in a 1990 interview for the National Trust – “It was not an architecturally orientated school – they taught art, they taught science, and you picked up as much as you needed of each of these to satisfy the syllabus.”
From Bendigo Ailsa went on to the Gordon Institute of Technology in Geelong where she joined others who had been studying there for 4 years. She completed a year of concentrated technical study. Her graduation with a diploma in architecture coincided with a recession in the building industry, but she was determined to get a job in order to attend Melbourne University’s Architectural Atelier. This educational organisation operated from 1919 to 1947 and provided training to many prominent architects.
Ailsa came to Melbourne and went from one architectural office to another until she was accepted by the firm L. Hume Garrard. Training at the Atelier was a rigorous undertaking – students worked during the day, studied 4 nights a week and had submissions to complete over the weekends. During this time Ailsa rented a room at the Princess Mary Club, also known as the Wesley Central Mission Girls’ Hostel. She started at the Atelier with 2 other women, Elizabeth Hope and Muriel Marchant. This was not the norm – as she said of this coincidence later: “There were none before and there were none after – it was just that I struck the year when there were three.” At the time architecture was not seen as a career for women. In the years 1930-1960 women made up a mere 1-4% of the architectural profession. Famous architect Robin Boyd was also a student at the Atelier at this time.
By the time Ailsa finished her training at the Atelier, Australia had entered WW2. Ailsa acknowledged that this timing was fortuitous for her – women were being accepted into positions simply because they wouldn’t be called into military service. She moved to the prestigious firm Bate Smart & McCutchen BSM). Not only was it a large firm, which offered her secure employment but it took on a lot of hospital work which appealed greatly to Ailsa.
At this time Bob Demaine was working with BSM. She had met him though the Atelier and she followed him when he left BSM to go back into his own firm. Ailsa worked with him on the design of the Traralgon Hospital. She said it was one of her most memorable jobs. To quote her: “We were handed a vacant 10 acre lot, and the Government said, ‘Put a 200 bed hospital plus nurses home plus boiler house on that site’, and you just had to do the best you could.” The project began in 1945 and the foundation stone was laid in September 1950. Designing hospitals and other related welfare design became Ailsa’s love and specialty. She designed centres for the Autistic Children’s Association at Black Rock, Mansfield and Bayswater, the Nurses Memorial Centre in St Kilda Road, libraries and nursing homes including the Greenvale Geriatric Centre, the Carnsworth Garoopna Nursing Home and the Dalkeith Home for the Aged. Her career spanned 40 years.
Alisa’s expertise was recognised early. She was only 30 when she was made a junior partner in RS Demaine in 1943 and 34 when offered a full partnership. The firm later became known as Demaine, Russell, Trundle, Armstrong, Orton Pty Ltd – with each partner bringing their own area of expertise. Ailsa was always the only female.
Ailsa’s father died suddenly in 1946 in Launceston on the eve of his retirement from the bank. Her mother returned to Victoria and Ailsa, her mother and her brother, who was still studying, lived in Glen Iris for a few years until they moved to Surrey Hills.
Ailsa designed the home at 194 Union Road in 1948 to suit the needs of her mother, herself and her brother Keith. Post-war restrictions limited the number of rooms and many materials were simply not available. Nevertheless, the kitchen design featured in a series by columnist Rachel Irvine about the kitchens architects design for themselves. Ailsa explained that she had sought to minimise the amount of movement required to work efficiently in it and that the view from it was to the street and a tall silver birch in the garden. [Coincidentally another architect Clive Lord lived next door on the corner of Union and Mont Albert Roads for many years.]
Outside of her work Ailsa enjoyed gardening, walking and travelling and membership of the Lyceum Club. Her architectural legacies are sadly transient. A few years after her death her home at 194 Union Road was updated. It is now encased in an early 21st century cloak and is home to Ailsa’s nephew and his family. And as it the way with many institutional and public buildings lauded at the time of construction, many of those that Ailsa designed have also gone.
Thanks to Ailsa’s family and the National Trust for information for this article.
Photo: Laying the foundation stone for Traralgon Hospital – September 1950 Ailsa is pictured with Sir Dallas Brooks, Lady Brooks and architect, Robert Demaine. Photo originally published in The Journal (Traralgon) 25/9/50; courtesy Pru and Rob Trundle.
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Ailsa Trundle
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