Ski Club Lodge Pioneers

Description

Nine decades after recreational skiing began in Australia in 1861 private ski clubs were able to proudly boast of a ‘lodge of their own’.  The architectural design, quality, facilities and comfort of private ski club lodges enjoyed by their members today are a far cry from those early beginnings in 1944 when the administrative initiatives of the Kosciusko State Park Trust offered a pathway for ski clubs’ futures in the then Kosciusko State Park.

This publication examines the early history of the pioneering ski club lodges of Perisher Valley, Guthega, Charlotte Pass and Thredbo Village in Australia during a 10 year period that predated ski resort commercialisation.  Such rapid growth of those early lodges occurred in a specific window in time beginning with the emergence of the post war alpine recreation boom and ended in the late 1960s.

Highlighting the historic contributions made by a range of 20^th century pioneering advocates, administrators, architects, ski club members and ski fields entrepreneurs, the narrative explores how ski club members’ passions soon overcame funding shortfalls, construction challenges and post occupancy privations.

The influences of early architectural alpine lodge design guidelines  created by the Kosciusko State Park Trust were adopted by many of those pioneering ski club lodge architects and designers. Their individual original design creations and architectural legacies can still be traced across  the visual quality of today’s built alpine environment.