Glenn Murcutt: Spirit of Place

The Construction of a Mosque for an Islamic Community in Melbourne

This documentary explores the life and work of Australia's most internationally recognised Architect. The 2002 Pritzker prize winner literally put Australian architecture on the world map. The Prizker jury described him as a modernist, a naturalist, an environmentalist, an economist, a humanist and ecologist. His extraordinary reputation rests on the beauty and integrity of his work. Yet he is an enigma. By choice he has never built outside his own country. He has no staff, and prefers to use pen or pencil and paper to produce his designs rather than a computer.

Glenn Murcutt allowed filmmaker Catherine Hunter to follow him for nearly a decade as he undertook a rare public commission, a new mosque for an Islamic community in Melbourne. It is a strikingly contemporary building without minarets or domes, designed to be physically and psychologically inclusive. Hunter documents the growing acceptance of the design, weaving into the narrative the stories behind his most famous houses, interviews with those involved, as well as an intimate portrait of his life and a personal tragedy that almost brought his career to a premature end.