Kevin McCloud has grand designs on Canberra: 'The great 20th century city of Australia'

But one of the few things where Canberra receives international acclaim is in the architectural world, where our deep and rich history is celebrated. So when Kevin McCloud casually drops Enrico Taglietti into a conversation, although it comes as a surprise, perhaps it shouldn't.

The charismatic host of Grand Designs is coming to Canberra in February and although he has never been to the city, he seems to be infatuated with its design.

"It's the great 20th century city of Australia," he says.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing Canberra because it's an architectural petri dish."

McCloud's love for design runs deep; he studied the history of art and architecture at university and has presented the British architectural home building show Grand Designs since the program's inception in 1999.

When he comes to Canberra, McCloud plans to do an "architectural study tour". Buildings by the Italian-Canberra transplant Taglietti are at the top of his list; in particular, he has heard great things about the architect's War Memorial Annex in Mitchell.

"I'm looking forward to quite an intense architecture and design trip to Canberra, it's short but it's going to be very focused with help from the Australian Institute of Architects," he says.

"There are so many great buildings I want to see and just soak up the wider energy of the place, because it has been explained to me as a park with buildings in it."

In preparation for the tour, McCloud has been reading about Canberra, or "the Palm Springs of Australia", and the prevalence of mid-century modern architecture throughout the city.

"I hadn't really appreciated until I read how fast it grew... it was an amazing explosion," he said.

"Of course within that, coming into this city of intelligentsia and academics you get people moving who want to commission you and it's cognisant of good architecture and great ideas.

"I think there's lots of examples of that in Canberra, and that makes it quite rich."

McCloud says the beauty of Canberra lies in the fact it was planned from the outset and was not constrained by prevailing structures, but despite its planned nature it allowed for creative expressions from architects.

"The lovely thing about Canberra is it's not an overly layered city and in the West we are absolutely burdened by the fact that cities are thousands of years old and you can't even move or plan anything," he says.

"I remember reading when Taglietti came to Australia that he loved it because it was like a blank canvas, he didn't have the weight of history burdening his work.

"These guys were able to very transparently ... work together to be able to produce this place, to create these objects and to experiment and to push and try stuff."

Although Walter Burley Griffin provided the foundations for Canberra, he didn't set everything in stone. Other talented architects were drawn to the city and left their strokes on the nation's capital, which McCloud quitee likes.

There are often comparisons between Canberra and the Brazilian capital Brasilia - both planned 20^th century cities, but for McCloud it's clear one approach comes out on top.

"What I see in the history of Canberra, and it's a glorious, transparent thing really, is this coming together of a dozen, maybe two dozen individuals who themselves are influenced by exciting things happening in the world," he says.

"What I love about that idea is when Oscar Niemeyer planned Brasilia, it was, terrifyingly, the vision of one man. I'm sorry, but you know it dangerously verges on the control freak.

"But [in Canberra] these guys collaborated ... I suspect the atmosphere was sometimes charged but it was generally highly creative and it was collaborative. What a wonderful place to be working in."

Canberra's design is at a juncture at the moment with a transition to higher-density and urban infill.

McCloud's advice "is not to mess with it" or rather, don't demolish.

In design, he laments the destruction of buildings to make way for another. McCloud refers and draws a comparison with bowdlerism - the practice of removing or restating any material in a text that might be considered offensive.

"I know many buildings have gone and many more will go," he says.

"If it were down to me, I'm a conservationist and I don't like to see buildings go because there is a huge danger in bowdlerism.

"It doesn't matter if you are talking about the 18^th century or the remains of the Roman forum or whether you are talking about central Canberra ... they all have an equal value and they are all cultural artefacts and they represent ideas. You cannot put a value on that.

"You can remove what you consider to be pretty bland buildings, buildings you consider to be background buildings, only to realise that building was the only one of that type of its era in that place and it was unique in that way.

"If you rip out pages and chapters from its history and its identity then it ceases to be a place, it starts to become another super high-dense, meaningless non-city."

McCloud will also present the Australian Institute of Architects' Griffin Lecture at the National Press Club. He was apprehensive at first but received advice from "great mate" Tim Ross who presented it last year.

"I won't feel at all qualified to talk about Canberra architecture but I'll talk about some other ideas, I had been encouraged to do it, I was a bit nervous about doing," he says.

Beyond his "study tour", McCloud is bringing his show The World According to Kevin McCloud to Canberra.

So what is the world according to Kevin McCloud?

"It is wide ranging, I'm very aware that what I could do is stand on the soapbox on the stage and bang on for two or three hours, but that's what I'm trying not to do," he says.

"What I'm trying to do is to join together so many threads because I have been in this game for 40 years and what I am trying to do is pull together my love of the past and of history.

"The powerful resonance of history provides the background of our lives, and can almost change where we are going because of where we've come from.

"Also I'll be tying that in with my love of all things green, technological as well, and the great love of contemporary architecture and design.

"There should be some laughs along the way as well."

McCloud is a jack of many trades - writer, television presenter, designer, environmentalist and, more recently, an amateur balloonist - but he wants to reiterate he doesn't make balloon animals.

"On the publicity for the tour, I put amateurist balloonist and I was just desperate to make myself seem interesting ... I have ballooned a little bit and I particularly like looking at buildings from the air," McCloud says.

"A journalist a couple of weeks ago asked, 'So how long have you been making balloon animals?' and I said 'What do you mean?' and he said 'Well you're an amateur balloonist.

"I can't bear the sound balloons make when you even touch them, the horrible squeaking ... making balloon animals is very possibly the last thing I would ever want to learn, I would have to wear ear plugs to do that, it's horrible."

Upon hearing about Canberra's thriving ballooning culture, McCloud immediately called for a balloonist to take him on a ride.

"I think it would be great to do that in Canberra, because Canberra is so well laid out," he says, "if you have any keen balloonists with a spare ride, I'll be up for that."

In his show, he'll will touch on a range of topics, one of which is the proliferation of McMansions, and he doesn't hide his disdain for them.

"They are generally too big, they go right to the plot with no regard for the public realm, they are insular, they don't promote the community very well, he says.

"All of us can naturally recognise something greedy and I think that is a bad thing in buildings.

"When buildings take up too much space, too much light, block out the sun, deny you access, consume vast quantities of planet resources both in the construction and in their running, I don't like that."

McCloud will also reminiscence on his childhood, through a survey of 1960s wallpaper inspired by the vivid colours that adorned his bedroom.

"I grew up in that magical postwar period when everything was bright and it was orange and it was new," he says.

"There were colours and textures and shapes we hadn't seen before and you grew up with this stuff and you took it for granted, but looking back I realise how energised that period was, particularly when it came to architecture and design.

"I was very blessed, as a kid, growing up in a world, in a village that was expanding and all these new house types were going up.

"It was exciting to see bungalows and 50s model social housing programs and chalet houses."

For McCloud, it's about making the show as entertaining as possible. There will be audience participation and he will even host a Grand Designs drinking game.

"On stage, I am not there to hector and to lecture," he says.

"I'm writing the show at the moment and I go back and I think how can I make this funny, how can I make his entertaining, how can I make them smile. Otherwise if you are not careful you are going to get a three-hour lecture talk and that's not what people want."

But there is one topic where the laughs may stop.

"The whole sustainability issue is a hard thing to joke about because it's so serious," he says.