No accounting for the environment: Robin Boyd, Expo 07, Australian design history and defuturing

This paper offers a critical reading of Robin Boyd's narrative of the Australian nation created for Australia's pavilion at Expo'70. The critique offered is from an environmental perspective, using this example to lead into a broader reflection on Australian design history's 'modernity problem'. We argue that although the examination of Australia as a socio-cultural context for the practice of design continues to engage scholars, the will to profess the existence of progressive Australian design has precluded significant examination of design's regressive effects.