Lady Jean Brodie-Hall AM FAILA is a founding member of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and had a long and distinguished career as a landscape architect in Western Australia before her retirement in 1981. She is acknowledged as a leader in West Australian landscape architecture and received a national award for landscape architecture in 1990.
Early life
Jean was born in Rockhampton in 1925, married Ivan Barnes Verschuer in the 1951 and remarried Laurence Brodie-Hall in 1980. She has four siblings. She studied nursing at the Children’s Hospital, working in London and Melbourne, before settling back in Perth with her family in the late 1940s. After marrying dentist Ivan Barnes Verschuer in 1951, she enrolled in a horticultural course at Perth Technical College, balancing caring for her three young children.
Professional career
Jean was a founding member of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects and served on the Institute’s federal council for 10 years, during which time she was also the Australian delegate to the International Federation of Landscape Architects. For the last two years of her term, she was President of the AILA. During the 1960s, Jean’s early projects were through the architecture firms of Forbes & Fitzhardinge and Summerhayes & Associates, where she was a consultant to large public companies, private firms, government agencies and local councils on a range of projects. These included standard-gauge railway stations, the Salvation Army village in Hollywood, Western Australia, and the design of major mining towns and their surrounds. Following the incorporation of the AILA and her admission as a founding member, Jean opened a private practice in Kalamunda, Western Australia. She worked extensively for the Western Mining Corporation on their Kambalda project, at the Kwinana Nickel Refinery, the Kalgoorlie Nickel Smelter and the Agricola College for the School of Mines. In 1970, Jean was engaged by the University of Western Australia, initially to report on the changes to pedestrian and vehicle movement caused by the recently completed underpass from the north of the campus. On the retirement of the curator, she was appointed the inaugural University Landscape Architect in 1974, responsible for planning, design and maintenance of the campus, in the office of the University Architect until her retirement in 1981. She was responsible for the improvement of Whitfeld Court, the Sunken Garden, Somerville Auditorium, the Great Court, the Tropical Grove, the Oak Lawn, Jackson Court, Prescott Court and Whelan Court.
Awards and recognition
In 1979, Jean became a Fellow of the AILWA and was awarded the AILA Award in Landscape Architecture in 1990. She was made a Member of the Order of Australia for conservation and the environmentin 2001 and received the Centenary Medal in the same year. Jean Brodie-Hall has maintained strong connections with UWA, helping to establish the UWA Friends of the Grounds, becoming Patron of the UWA Centenary Trust for Women, The Kwongan Foundation for the conservation of Australia's biodiversity, as well as serving on numerous committees.
1980 Fellow of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects 1981 Fellow of Curtin University 1990 Awarded the Medal of the Institute of Landscape Architects 2001 Member of the Order of Australia 2004 Chancellors Medal UWA
