Words Liz Walsh

Around the time the calendar ticked over to 2020, Dr Andrew Lavender began to notice that his much-loved, century-old North Adelaide character villa was beginning to look somewhat dated. He’d lived in his home since 2002 and almost two decades on, he knew it was time: his grand old house needed a new lease on life.

There’s something enduring about the pull of suburban life: the space, the convenience, the community. And this new, three-bedroom house, nestled into a tree-lined Adelaide street, has all the hallmarks of a suburban home: the three-car garage, enough room for a veggie garden, space for the rainwater tanks, the requisite open plan living. And yet, this suburban home is also so wholly unexpected.

In the early 1700s when German composer Johann Sebastian Bach began writing what would become enduring and much-loved orchestral music, he dipped his quill in iron gall ink to record his notes and cadences. Many of his original manuscripts still survive today, stored in cultural institutions across Europe.