Human scale in architecture: George Molnar’s Sydney. Jo Holder, Robert Freestone & Joan Kerr. 2003.

George Molnar (1910 - 1998) is fondly remembered as one of Australia’s greatest cartoonists. For almost 30 years his elegant editorial cartoons amused and provoked readers of the Sydney Morning Herald. But his influence exceeds that of the satirist protesting against the humbug of censors and politicians, snobs and hypocrites. Molnar set out to influence public opinion on architectural and planning issues.

This publication reveals the extent of Molnar’s intervention into Sydney’s architectural and artistic controversies, in particular his crucial support of Opera House architect Jorn Utzon’s. In articles and reviews spiced with pithy cartoons Molnar ( with his European and architectural background) brought a humanist and Bauhaus influenced dialectical analysis to questions about Sydney’s future.

Joan Kerr and Robert Freestone have identified Molnar’s key cartoons and arguments in the areas of art and culture, architecture and urban planning, placing his work in its contemporary context.nJo Holder discusses his life and times with comments on his role as teacher, critic and history painter. A selection of Molnar’s own writings augments these lively but scholarly appraisals.