Brisbane Houses with Gardens

For decades, Beth Wilson collected material for her book Brisbane Houses with Gardens... an unprecedented history of the Brisbane domestic landscape from pre-1823 to the present day.

Drawing on her extraordinary knowledge of horticulture, her fifty years’ experience as a landscape architect working on some of Brisbane’s leading projects, a lifetime’s interest in historic gardens, and the extensive 120 year old archives of Wilson Architects, Beth has brought together a fascinating and revealing history of the city through the evolution of its homes and gardens.

Winner of The Courier-Mail People’s Choice
Queensland Book of the Year Award

" This survey of Brisbane’s domestic architecture and gardens charmed the judges with its loving and detailed account of the city’s origins, anxieties and dreams as expressed through the built environment. It will provide a valuable resource for researchers while, for the casual reader, provides a rich and pleasurable journey into the past. " 

- QLA Judges Comments

Beth Wilson is one of the most revered Landscape Architects in Brisbane. Establishing the landscape architecture studio within Australia’s oldest architecture practice, Wilson Architects, in 1970, she began her career when landscape was an afterthought in building projects in Brisbane, if considered at all. She went on to work on many landmark projects including Cathedral Square, the redevelopment of the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, Queen Street Mall, Suncorp Stadium and the Eleanor Schonell Bridge. 

Beth was an inaugural member of the Australian Garden History Society and taught history of landscape architecture at the Queensland University of Technology in the 1980s. She was the first landscape architect to be awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Australian Institute of Architects, Queensland Chapter in 2015, cited for her: “her depth of understanding of history and place-making, her unrivalled knowledge of plants and vegetation, and her ability to read a site … and for pioneering landscape as part of interior architecture.”