WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN (1876 - 1937) Town
Planner, Architect, Designer of the Capital City of Australia - Canberra
Summary of his work and life
United States (1899-1914)
Australia (1914-1935)
India (1935-1937)
Architect, Landscape Architect,
Urban Planner
Born: Maywood, Illinois, USA 24 November 1876
Died: Lucknow, India 11 February 1937
Buried at Lucknow, India
Legacy:
A landmark in Chicago and an artificial lake in Canberra are both
named after Walter Burley Griffin.
Major works:
United States
W.H.Emery House, 1903
Adolph Mueller House, 1906
Ralph Griffin House, 1909
Joshua Melson House, 1912
Stinson Memorial Library, Anna, Illinois, 1913
Australia
Canberra plan, 1914 -1920
Leeton town plan, 1914
Griffith town plan, 1914
Eaglemont town plan, 1915
Newman College, University of Melbourne, 1916 - 1918
Café Australia, Melbourne, 1916
Introduction:
Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937),
architect, landscape architect and designer of Canberra, was born on 24
November 1876 at Maywood, near Chicago, United States of America, eldest of
four children of George Walter Griffin, insurance agent, and his wife
Estelle Melvina, née Burley. Griffin attended high school at Oak Park,
graduated B.Sc. from Nathan Ricker's renowned school of architecture at the
University of Illinois in 1899 and was admitted as an associate of the
American Institute of Architects.
He first worked as a casual employee of Dwight Heald Perkins and other
architects in Chicago's Steinway Hall, then in 1901-06 as an associate of
Frank Lloyd Wright at Oak Park. He also undertook private commissions, the
most notable of which were the Emery house (1903) and the landscape designs
for the grounds of the state normal schools of Eastern Illinois (1901) and
Northern Illinois (1906). Griffin started his own practice in Steinway Hall
in 1906 and by 1910, when his work was featured in the Architectural Record,
was becoming recognized as a practitioner of what eventually became known as
the Prairie School of architecture.
On 29 June 1911 Griffin married 40-year-old Marion Lucy Mahony (1871-1961),
daughter of an Irish-born schoolteacher. They had no children.
(Source:
Australian Dictionary of Biography)
"In the
twenty years they lived in Australia, the Griffins’ remarkable architectural
partnership produced over 250 project designs including the capital city,
several towns, suburban estates, various civic buildings, a university
college, cinemas, theatres, industrial and commercial buildings, domestic
houses, furniture and interiors (Turnbull & Navaretti, page xvii).
Walter Griffin was appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and
Construction and arrived with Marion Griffin and his relatives, the
Lippincotts, in Sydney in May 1914. The federal capital Canberra was to be
built on sheep grazing land, approximately halfway between the cities of
Sydney and Melbourne. After six years of work, the frustrating obstacles
created by bureaucrats and politicians became too great and Walter Griffin
was forced to resign from the project on 31 December 1920.
When Walter Griffin terminated his work on Canberra, he focused his efforts
on creating an urban development in Sydney that would demonstrate how
sympathetic planning, and architecture that was subordinate to the
landscape, would create an ideal suburb in harmony with its natural
landscape. The Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA) was formed in
1920 and within a few months it bought 650 acres (263 hectares) of land in
Middle Harbour that became known as the suburbs of Castlecrag, Middle Cove
and Castle Cove." (Source:
Walter Burley Griffin Society Inc)
Experiences:
"Both of the Griffins came
from the American Midwest, and their relationship began in Chicago where
they were practising architects, Marion working in the office of Frank Lloyd
Wright for 14 years and Walter joining that practice in 1902. Most of
Walter's work was residential and his role as an important "Prairie School"
architect is now recognised.
In 1912, in a collaborative effort relying heavily on Marion's
presentational drawings, Griffin won the international competition to design
the Australian Federal Capital.The following year he came to Australia as
its Director of Design and Construction. He was 36 and she 41 years old.
While immersed in a seven-year struggle with the authorities over Canberra,
the Griffins lived in Melbourne and worked on some important commissions
including Melbourne University's Newman College, the Capitol Theatre and the
Cafe Australia. Of some 72 design projects there, 48 were completed.
Walter Burley Griffin 1912, at work. (Source: Wikipedia)
In 1919 Griffin formed the Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA) and
resigned all his Canberra responsibilities. Backed by Melbourne businessmen,
politicians and personal associate, the following year he secured an option
over a large area of the Castlecrag and Castle Cove peninsulas and most of
Middle Cove ('Covecrag'). Griffin described himself as a 'landscape
architect' and these areas were not merely to be profit-making subdivisions,
but examples of how to develop and build 'model suburbs' in harmony with the
Australian bushland and local topography.
Griffin designed the Castlecrag subdivision on a contour plan and the GSDA
commenced selling blocks on the Castlecrag Estate, which previously had only
two houses. The Griffins settled here in 1925. Most of the blocks in the
Castlecrag Estate and the neighbouring Haven Estate had been sold by 1928,
but the GSDA was not successful in inducing owners to use Griffin's
architectural services, to observe his covenants or to build. By 1932, with
the Great Depression affecting the nation's economy, over 40 houses had been
designed, but only 19 had been built, 16 of which were initiated by the GSDA
and its associates.
(Source: Castlecrag Community)
Did You Know?
Canberra, Australia's capital
city, was designed by an American Walter Burley Griffin and aided by
his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin.
"Within weeks of their marriage, the Griffins embarked on the design
and presentation of their entry for the international competition
for the design of the Australia’s federal capital. There were 137
entries from around the world, and the Griffins’ Entry No 29 was
announced by the Minister for Home Affairs, King O’Malley on 23 May
1912 as the winner." (Source:
Walter Burley Griffin Society Inc.)
The houses were, to say the least, unusual. They were ahead of their time in
their orientation on the block to capitalise on views, their use of built-in
cupboards, their flat roofs, their picture windows and their use of local
sandstone in walls and monolithic fireplaces. By the late 1920s, with his
architecture practice and professional esteem waning, Griffin helped form a
company that designed and built municipal incinerators. Between 1929 and
1937, 13 incinerators were built to designs by Griffin and/or his partner
Eric Nicholls, of which only five remain. One of the most outstanding
examples is the Willoughby Council Incinerator near the Leisure Centre in
Small Street, Willoughby. This incinerator is currently undergoing a $1.3
million restoration project.
In 1935 Griffin accepted an invitation to visit India to work on a design
for the Lucknow University Library. He filled a local need for an esteemed
architect, and was given many commissions - some highly prestigious. In the
following year, Marion joined him, leaving his partner, Eric Nicholls, to
run the Australian practice. Some 100 design projects were completed in
India, but only 5 were built. None remains. Walter Burley Griffin died in
India in 1937, following surgical complications, aged 60. Marion Mahony
Griffin soon returned to Castlecrag and during the next year retired to the
Midwest of the United States. She died in Chicago in 1961, aged 90."(Source: Castlecrag Community)
"Walter
Burley Griffin was the original designer of Canberra. He won the Federal
Capital Design Competition, launched by King O’Malley, Minister for Home
Affairs, in May 1911.
Burley Griffin had developed in a professional environment of radical
European and North American architects. He was greatly influenced by the
City Beautiful and Garden City movements which dominated town planning in
the late 19th and early 20th century. Scholars have also detected a strong
classical influence permeating Burley Griffin’s design of Canberra.
Burley Griffin’s wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, also an architect,
collaborated with him on the design competition entry, and is known to have
prepared the design drawings that accompanied the Burley Griffin entry.
The design for Canberra
Burley Griffin (entrant 29) was one of 137 entrants in the Federal Capital
Design Competition. His original design drawings (on cotton cloth) as well
as those of three other entrants noted by the judges – D Alf Agache (rated
third); Griffiths Coulter and Caswell, an Australian firm (rated first in a
minority report of the chairman); and Eliel Saarinen (rated second) – are
held by the Archives in record series
A710." (Source:
National
Archives of Australia)
Other Town Plans:
"...the
town plans for Griffith and Leeton, New South Wales, and the Summit and
Glenard estates at Eaglemont, Melbourne. At Eaglemont the Griffins built the
only house designed for themselves, a modest 'one-room' dwelling constructed
in Knitlock, a precast concrete building block, which Griffin had patented
in 1917. (Source:
Australian Dictionary of Biography)
His Death
and Grave
"On
February 11, 1937, following an operation for a perforated gall bladder, he
died of peritonitis. [
Walter Burley Griffin's grave
remained unmarked until 1988. Upon learning that it had effectively been
''lost'', Canberran Graeme Westlake began a quest to find and mark it.
Remarkably, thanks to locating the cemetery's records, he succeeded on both
fronts." (Source:
Sydney Morning Herald)
His Legacy
Although at the time of his death Griffin might have been
judged a failure, later generations regard his designs and ideas with a
respect which would have astounded his contemporaries, and his surviving
buildings are valued as part of Australia's architectural history.
In 1963, the fiftieth anniversary of the naming of
Canberra, a commemorative postage stamp was issued with his portrait.
The Canberra lake, built in the form to which he was so
strongly opposed, was given his name in 1964. (Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography)
When the first registered
woman architect Marion Mahony married a fellow architect Walter Burley
Griffin, the event marked the beginning of one of the most outstanding
artistic collaborations of the 20th century.
In 1912, this visionary American couple won a controversial international
competition to design the new Australian capital in Canberra. Though the
city of their dreams was never fully realized, the Griffins chose to stay in
Australia and went on to design almost three hundred buildings around the
country in the appreciation of nature.
This documentary weaves the couple's personal and professional lives,
explores their remarkable and sometimes tempestuous relationship, their
struggle with unyielding bureaucracy, and the philosophies that underscored
their life and work.
Australian
Curriculum General Capability: Critical & Creative Thinking
Cooperative
Learning Activity
1. A competition for the design of a memorial, on Mount
Ainslie overlooking the city [of Canberra], to mark the centenary of his birth
[Walter Burley Griffin] was won by
an American entry, but following a change of government in 1975, and with
strong echoes of similar changes fifty years earlier, the project was
'deferred'. (Source:ADB)
2. Brainstorm with the class about what
you know about the subject of the memorial and what adjectives you might use
to describe the subject — you may want to write a list or create an idea map
on the board.
3. Then break the class into groups of
three to six students. Each group is to develop a sketch of their memorial
and a one-page press release describing the memorial, the inspiration behind
it, and the creative or artistic decisions that went into its design.
4. Look at the following images
of Mount Ainslie - overlooking the city of Canberra. This is the spot where
the memorial to Walter Burley Griffin is to go.
Another memorial on Mt Ainslie:
Remembering the Aboriginal People who served in the Australian Forces
4. You are to create a design of a memorial to be place
on Mount Ainslie,
Canberra.
But what sort of memorial would you erect here? Will it reflect Walter's
design of Canberra with his use of circles as the main geometric shape?
Look over the following resources and decide on a garden,
a statue, or...monument
Look at the
Monument
Australia website to see what other Monuments to People have
been produced around the country side.
5. Creating the monument
In your groups, you will need to think about the following questions:
a.What qualities do you want to emphasize in your monument? What message are
you trying to send?
b.What will your monument or memorial look like? How big will it be? What
colors, materials, textures, and shapes will you use?
c.Where will your monument be placed? How do you expect visitors to interact
with it? Will you include a visitor’s centre, picnic space, a park, or other
amenities to make the space educational or functional in some other way, or
will the monument stand alone?
6. After you have created your ideas, present your designs to the class and
take questions about the design process and your choices.
To decide on the "best" monument, form a “monument committee” and vote on
the design that the class likes best. Also, create the press release to go
with your design. (Source: Learn NC)