OCRd book entry or other narrative
Not listed on the Roll of Active Service. Dip Arch. Joined the Australian Imperial Force in November 1916 and embarked with reinforcements for the 1st Field Artillery Brigade. He was promoted lieutenant in August 1917. At the war's end, from January to July 1919 he attended the Architectural Association's school in London.
Visible notes
In 1922 Irwin had formed a partnership with Roy Kenneth Stevenson. Their varied commissions included war memorials and ecclesiastical and domestic work. However their success in the Melbourne Public Library competition of 1925 meant most to their immediate future and eventually established them as the library trustees' official architects.
In 1930 the firm undertook its first medical commissions. Mildura Base Hospital was an application of the northern European approach to hospital design, with its streamlined form, multi-storeyed construction, and continuous, north-facing sun balconies: a theme which was frequently repeated in hospital design. Before they dissolved their partnership in September 1934, Irwin and Stevenson designed the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons building and a factory complex for British Xylonite. Irwin designed hospitals and hospital extensions in Melbourne, Sydney, Hobart and Launceston, as well as in country towns in New South Wales and Victoria. Perhaps his greatest triumph was Prince Henry's Hospital and Nurses Home in St Kilda Road completed in 1940. Among the largest of his commissions was the Heidelberg Military (Repatriation) Hospital. His later hospitals included those at Box Hill, Caulfield, Portland and, in New South Wales, Marrickville and Blacktown, all designed in the mid-1950s.From ADB entry