Architect much more than creator of brutalist UTS Tower

MICHAEL DYSART April 18, 1934 – May 28, 2026 You might expect the creator of the often-reviled UTS Tower to disappear into obscurity after its completion. But that was far from reality for its architect, Michael Dysart. It was just one building, albeit controversial, in a long career of inventive, innovative and influential architecture. Dysart possessed three interwoven talents: a creative desire to explore new ideas, an architect’s eye for making forms for his ideas, and wit and charm, to overcome the forces against different ideas. With those skills, he originated new ways of designing schools, homes, churches, medium-density housing and hotels. It was the way he challenged the possibilities in each environment which saw him vaulted into the pantheon of Australia’s most significant architects. He died late last month. Born in 1934 in Brighton, UK, Dysart migrated to Australia with his family when he was 15. He attended Katoomba High School, and commenced architecture at The University of Sydney in 1953. By 1955 he had won a traineeship at the NSW Government Architect (NSWGA). He joined “the Design Room”, a hothouse of creativity set up ’s office. Other alumni included Peter Hall (who completed the Sydney Opera House), Ken Woolley and Peter Webber. Even before graduation in 1958, Dysart was entrusted with the design of Robb College at the University of New England, a striking scheme of basalt and concrete vaults. Brutalist monolith: Michael Dysart is best known for the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) tower, designed in 1968, and taking almost 10 years to build. Photo: Oscar Coleman Dysart in the foyer of the Regent Hotel in George Street in 1984. Now the Four Seasons, the building was “radical” when it was opened. John Nobley/Fairfax MediaIn 1958, while working for the NSWGA, Dysart and colleague Woolley won the Australian Women’s Weekly Family Home competition. Fortuitously, the government was supportive of their extracurricular work, where Dysart designed innovations for Pettit+Sevitt, Aspect, Habitat, and Program homes. His designs were driven : a better fit in the Sydney topography, and interiors reflecting new-found domestic freedoms. Whereas traditional homes had level floors in “boxes”, these “designer” homes had open plans, with spaces defined over split levels, and indoor-outdoor relationships for views and interactions with the bushland. External walls were highly textured in “clinker” bricks or bagged and painted in Grecian-inspired white. Skillion roofs with sloping ceilings and dark-stained exposed timber beams gave vaulted spaces, for a more natural fit in the bush settings.