Gundungurra People
New South Wales
Clubbe Hall is significant as an enduring architectural and cultural landmark within the Frensham School campus and the wider Southern Highlands community. Designed by Keith Cottier of AJC Architects and completed in 1965 to celebrate the school’s fiftieth anniversary, the building commemorates Phyllis Clubbe, an important figure in the school’s founding history.
Architecturally, the building represents an accomplished example of mid-twentieth-century institutional design, characterised by its clear form, carefully composed openings and honest expression of materials. The restrained palette of brick, timber and exposed concrete establishes a strong connection to the surrounding landscape while giving the hall a distinctive and memorable architectural identity.
More than sixty years after its completion, Clubbe Hall continues to fulfil its original purpose as a place for gathering, performance and celebration, demonstrating the enduring value of thoughtful architectural design in supporting education, culture and community life.
Award for Enduring Architecture
Clubbe Hall (1965) was Keith Cottier’s first built work, a bespoke theatre for Frensham School that offered the architect ‘big volumes he could sink his teeth into’, as he told the Masters Project podcast in 2025 – volumes that have been likened to the carved-out interiors of the Romanesque churches he had seen as a young architect travelling in Europe.
An imaginative interplay of solids and voids in the face brickwork inside and out creates a symphonic experience, echoed in the Musica Viva concerts for which the hall was built. Walking the building perimeter is like viewing a sculpture in the round. The vines enveloping the facade today bespeak a comfortable timelessness.
Using a limited palette of materials for the theatre – untreated radiata pine timbers, face brickwork and glazed roof tiles – Cottier was inspired by the younger generation of Finnish architects in the early 1960s: Engstöm, Landberg, Larsson, Törnemann, and the firm of Heikki and Kaija Siren. He worked with Frensham’s founding headmistress Winifred West, who respected his expertise, and both agreed on the value of using local materials well before today’s emphasis on sustainability. Known also for encouraging younger-generation practitioners, Cottier’s early instinct to work sustainably was prescient.
Award for Enduring Architecture
Clubbe Hall (1965) was Keith Cottier’s first built work, a bespoke theatre for Frensham School that offered the architect ‘big volumes he could sink his teeth into’, as he told the Masters Project podcast in 2025 – volumes that have been likened to the carved-out interiors of the Romanesque churches he had seen as a young architect travelling in Europe.
An imaginative interplay of solids and voids in the face brickwork inside and out creates a symphonic experience, echoed in the Musica Viva concerts for which the hall was built. Walking the building perimeter is like viewing a sculpture in the round. The vines enveloping the facade today bespeak a comfortable timelessness.
Using a limited palette of materials for the theatre – untreated radiata pine timbers, face brickwork and glazed roof tiles – Cottier was inspired by the younger generation of Finnish architects in the early 1960s: Engstöm, Landberg, Larsson, Törnemann, and the firm of Heikki and Kaija Siren. He worked with Frensham’s founding headmistress Winifred West, who respected his expertise, and both agreed on the value of using local materials well before today’s emphasis on sustainability. Known also for encouraging younger-generation practitioners, Cottier’s early instinct to work sustainably was prescient.