Walter Burley Griffin

Walter Burley Griffin, a Chicago architect, was 35 years old when he won the international design competition for the Australian Federal Capital in 1911. His wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, also an architect, worked with him on the design and was responsible for the beautiful presentation drawings that accompanied the design entry.

Griffin worked right up to the last minute and crated his entry for transport by train from Chicago to San Francisco where it was put on a ship to Sydney and then sent by train to Melbourne.

Griffin graduated from the University of Illinois in 1899 and began work as an architect in the office of Dwight Heald Perkins before becoming associated with Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1906 he set up his own practice in Chicago.

Griffin made an extended visit to Australia in 1913, one culminating
with his appointment as the Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction. He arrived in Australia in May 1914 to effectively 'take up' the position and set to work to refine his design in his Melbourne office.

He was soon embroiled in controversy because the departmental officers were antagonistic to him and his plan. He faced obstruction but was vindicated in 1916 when a Royal Commission of Inquiry found that necessary information and assistance had been withheld from him and his powers usurped by certain departmental officers.

By this time, Australia was heavily involved in World War I and did not have the funds for construction of the capital. Griffin used what money he could obtain to revise his plan and carry out some road construction.

Little progress was made on the site and in 1921 the Government, having lost confidence in his ability, did not renew his contract as Director of Design and Construction. A new Federal Capital Advisory Committee was appointed. Griffin declined to serve because it contained several of his old antagonists.

Griffin continued to practise as an architect in Australia, designing the NSW towns of Griffith and Leeton, Newman College at the University of Melbourne, the Capitol Theatre, Melbourne and some houses. He also began the development of the new suburb of Castlecrag in Sydney. Of the fifty houses he designed, only sixteen were constructed by the time Australia began to be affected by the Great Depression. By 1935, Griffin was reduced to designing municipal incinerators and he left Australia to take up an architectural appointment in India. He died there in 1937 at the age of 60. Marion Mahony Griffin returned to Chicago where she died in 1961 at the age of 91.