Builders To The Nation: The AV Jennings Story

Australian History Business History Corporate Biography Real Estate Construction Industry Post-War Housing Urban Development

Builders To The Nation: The AV Jennings Story is the only full-length corporate biography of the iconic Australian home-building firm that put more families into their own houses than any other company in the nation’s history. Written by historian Don Garden and first released in 1992, this scarce 1992 soft-cover edition charts AV Jennings from its Depression-era beginnings to its rise as a household name on the stock exchange and the suburban landscape. Readers discover how post-war government contracts, prefabrication innovation and savvy marketing turned a small Melbourne operation into a publicly listed powerhouse that literally shaped Australia’s suburbs.

Construction professionals, property researchers and heritage buffs prize the book for its technical detail—floor-plan archives, cost-control ledgers, project timelines and advertising campaigns—while social historians value its window onto the great Australian dream of home ownership. Garden had full access to company archives and former executives, so the text is rich with previously unpublished photographs, site sketches and sales brochures that document the evolution of estate design, materials supply chains and apprentice training schemes. Collectors of business ephemera also hunt the title because it contains original reproductions of 1950s display-home flyers and share-offer prospectuses that rarely survive in any other format.

This copy presents in very good condition for a 30-year-old trade paperback: the spine is smooth and uncreased, all colour plates are present and bright, and the only previous-owner marks are a neat personal name-stamp on the front end-paper and two incidental dog-eared pages. There is no highlighting, margin-note or underlining, so maps and statistical appendices remain perfectly legible for quick reference. Whether you need authoritative source material on Australia’s built environment, a nostalgic gift for a retired builder, or a key text for university courses in construction management, this clean, collectible printing of Builders To The Nation offers both shelf presence and enduring research value.

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