John Denton knows a thing or two about failure – and how to survive it. The trick is to enjoy your achievements and successes for while, and then forget them, because there is a good chance someone will come along with a new strategy, a new plan, a big new idea and tear yours down.
“It was a hellish project to live with,” Denton recalls. “It came under attack constantly,” says Denton, who was appointed Victoria’s first state government architect in 2006. In an industry where power imbalances put architects at the mercy of their bill-paying clients, a 50-year career selling designs to commercial developers – and five decades of having to fight against design compromises – has made its mark on Denton.