The Last Laugh and Its Afterlife: Emerging Narratives in 1970s Melbourne Architecture

ABSTRACT A meeting of architects in Melbourne at a popular comedy venue in 1978, ended in disarray. It should be no surprise, after all John Pinder’s Collingwood venue, which opened in 1976, was called, “The Last Laugh Theatre Restaurant and Zoo.” There were fisticuffs, yelling, hoodlum activity, violence, and a huge amount of drunkenness. The meeting was to establish an alternative to the conservative RAIA from outside the organisation rather than within. But mayhem developed, probably in part due to there being no set agenda, and the event came to be inscribed in the mythologies of Melbourne architecture and culture as yet another failed uprising by a troublesome underbelly. Using material gained from public and private archives, as well as interviews, this paper traces the trajectories of this event. This event is important in Australian architecture as Melbourne architects processed the ideals of the Whitlam project (1972–75). Moreover, the meeting at the Last Laugh signifies the emergence in architectural discourse of a larrikinism, as Australian architects embraced post-modernism seeking to counter a patrician and cringe-worthy recent history.