Walter Burley Griffin (1876–1937)
Entry 29
Chicago, USA
Griffin graduated from the University of Illinois as an architect and
land planner in 1899. He was greatly impressed by Daniel Burnham’s design
for the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition’s White City. The influence
of the City Beautiful movement is apparent in his design for Canberra.
Griffin worked in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Oak Park studio from 1901
to 1906, where he met Marion Mahony, who became his wife. He set up practice
in Steinway Hall, Chicago, designing buildings and communities, including
Rock Glen and the New Trier community in Winnetka, Illinois. After winning
the competition, Griffin came to Australia in 1913 to be federal capital
director of construction, until 1920. He drew up town plans for Leeton
and Griffith in New South Wales. He also designed several buildings in
Melbourne, including the Capitol Theatre and Newman College in the University
of Melbourne, and the community at Castlecrag on Sydney’s North Shore,
as well as several municipal incinerators. Griffin went to India in 1936
to design a new library for the University of Lucknow. Only one building
he designed – a newspaper office and plant – was ever built,
in India. He died in Lucknow in December 1937.
Marion Mahony Griffin was responsible for the exquisite watercolour
renderings that illustrated Griffin’s plan for the Australian capital. The second
woman architect to graduate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
she worked for nine years in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio. She left
Wright’s studio in 1909. Marion Mahony Griffin’s influence
on the plan for Australia’s federal capital is difficult to determine.
She created the renderings, so her work was very important in the overall
presentation of the design.
Griffin’s plan uses the natural topography of the site. Two dams
create three bodies of water (the lake), further defined by two principal
thoroughfares converging on Capital Hill and linking the two parts of the
city north and south of the central water feature. The existing hills and
mountains are used to establish the outlines of the plan, defining three
axes – a Land Axis, a Water Axis and a Municipal Axis. Within and
bordering the great triangle – formed by two avenues crossing the
lake and the Municipal Axis connecting them – are most of the major
capital city buildings, with the most important those of the Commonwealth.
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