The couple didn’t see me sitting on the bench on Exhibition Street, drawing the jittery geological strata and cascade of concrete fins of 41X, the new Australian Institute of Architects’ headquarters across the street. But I heard her verdict, as they too studied the building: “It does look like The Flintstones, though, doesn’t it?” Though at the time bemused by the comment, I later realized this was a prescient observation. Perhaps I should have chased her down the street and asked her to write this review, for in some ways it is an unenviable task: to critique a building which every architect in Australia should have an investment in, and opinion of, as the embodiment of their profession. How much more challenging then for Lyons (and Hassell too, who handled…
