Australian Dictionary of Biography

Richard John Ratcliffe (1932–1999), landscape architect, heritage consultant, and author, was born on 7 August 1932 at Newcastle, New South Wales, eldest of three children of John Ratcliffe, tramway conductor and soldier, and his wife Rose (Rosie) Nellie, née Creek, both New South Wales born. In 1945 Dick’s father, who was serving in New Guinea with the Citizen Military Forces, was medically evacuated to Australia, where he died the following year of tuberculosis. Educated at Newcastle Technical High School, Ratcliffe studied architecture at Newcastle Technical College (DipArch, 1955). Between 1955 and 1960 he worked for Pitt and Pitt Architects before becoming a founding partner of Cuninghame, Armstrong and Ratcliffe (1960–66). On 23 June 1956 he married Barbara Maree Lamb, a clerk, at Hamilton Baptist Church, Newcastle. They had four children: Jonathan, Simon, Elizabeth, and Christopher.

In December 1967 Ratcliffe and his family moved to Canberra, where he commenced work with the Commonwealth Department of Works (later the Department of Housing and Construction). Soon after, in recognition of his talent and interest in both architecture and landscape design, he was awarded an Australian Public Service postgraduate scholarship (1970) to study at the University of Sheffield, England (MLArch, 1972), under Arnold Weddle, who had established the first independent department of landscape architecture in Britain only a few years earlier. The emphasis on regional scale that Ratcliffe encountered at Sheffield was something he embraced, and he would later describe himself as a ‘regional landscape architect’ (Ratcliffe 1984, 2).

Soon after returning to Canberra, Ratcliffe registered with the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects (1974) and worked for the Department of Construction’s architectural section, which increasingly deployed his newly acquired skills. He was later principal heritage architect for Australian Construction Services, a branch of the Commonwealth Department of Administrative Services, responsible for managing property and public works. This latter position suited him well, reflecting his long-term interest in heritage and conservation. Under his management, the wide range of projects undertaken including school grounds, college campuses, public parks, defence facility precincts, reservoirs, and major dams. He also oversaw significant garden restorations, notably those of the Prime Minister’s Lodge and Government House in Canberra and Admiralty House in Sydney. From the early 1980s he was particularly zealous in raising awareness of the principles and practices of Paul Sorensen, a Danish-born landscape designer and gardener whom he met in 1982 shortly before Sorensen’s death.

Retiring from the public service in May 1989, Ratcliffe moved into private heritage consultancy, providing advice on landscape conservation with a focus on historic gardens, including Lanyon Homestead and Calthorpes’ House in Canberra. As a member of John Armes and Associates, he took part in larger-scale heritage studies, among them the Australian National University’s campus in Acton (1993–95), as well as advising the National Trust (ACT) Classification Committee. In 1990 Ratcliffe was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellowship to spend twelve weeks studying conservation practices in historic parks and gardens in Britain, Switzerland, and North America. Among his goals was to return with an understanding of how to enhance Australians’ appreciation of the heritage value and beauty of gardens.

In his later years, Ratcliffe became determined that Sorensen be recognised as an integral figure in Australian modernist design. This reflected Ratcliffe’s belief that landscape architecture created a curated setting in which natural and crafted materials shaped and enriched human experience. He published a biography of Sorensen (1990) and later a history of his best-known work, Everglades Gardens (1995), a heritage-listed interwar design in the Blue Mountains. In 1980 Ratcliffe was a foundation member of the Australian Garden History Society and the first president of its ACT, Riverina and Monaro Branch (1982–92). He was also active in the Port Macquarie Historical Society.

Contributing to courses in landscape architecture at the University of Canberra, Ratcliffe was a wry and enthusiastic lecturer. Here, too, he was a keen advocate of Sorensen’s message, taking any opportunity to promote his ‘profound awareness of the ecological impossibility of fixing the character of landscape permanently in every detail’ (Ratcliffe 1995, 4). Building on this ethos, Ratcliffe offered such pithy advice to design students as that ‘when you make one change in a design, make two’ (Personal knowledge). In practice, his priority was landscape functionality: a change in the direction or colour of paving materials, for example, could also signify a change in ground levels. He was attentive to how people perceived and negotiated space and saw the role of the physical designer as a spatial communicator. Brought to life in a garden, his precepts fed the delight of changes in colours, shapes, and surfaces as the days and seasons turned.

Ratcliffe was remembered as ‘a hands-on investigator and perfectionist meticulously searching for the edges of earlier, now overgrown, garden beds’ (Lawson, pers. comm.). He was also eclectic in his use of exotic and native vegetation, making selections on the basis of design and horticultural appropriateness. Not being an ecological purist, he advocated consistently for ‘visual effect and enhancement of the microclimate’ (Ratcliffe 1984, 2). These principles were sharpened by his own experiences establishing a home in Canberra—a city that was seen as an exemplar of modernist landscape design and architecture—during the 1960s. In his later years he was elected a fellow of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects and led a fulfilled retirement of gardens, photography, and grandchildren. Survived by his wife and children, he died in the ACT Hospice, Canberra, on 20 May 1999. His remains were interred in Woden cemetery.