The Wizard of Castlecrag II: Keeping Faith with the Landscape

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Biographical, Built Environment, Environmental, Social History, Town planning

The type of dwelling Burley Griffin envisaged as the model house for the new bush suburb of Castlecrag was based on a new technological innovation in building called Knitlock Construction, or as Griffin more grandly termed it, Segmental Architecture. The American had pioneered and co-patented (with D C Jenkins) the Knitlock system in 1917 whilst working on the Canberra Capital Project. The Knitlock technique was to become the archetype for all of WBG’s subsequent domestic architecture.

Griffin’s Segmental Architecture was a quantum step forward from previous building technologies used in Australia (eg, Mack Slab) [M Lewis, ‘Knitlock’, www.mileslewis.net]. Intended by Walter for use on workmen’s cottages in Canberra (before the disintegration of his Capital City dream), the technique heralded a variety of radical advances in construction. With a simplicity and economy of design, the Segmental Architecture method constructed walls from ‘segments’ of precast reinforced concrete which were easier and quicker to construct than other methods (Griffin was one of the early developers of prefabrication). The Knitlock bricks, machine-manufactured on the southern side of the ‘Crag estate in a shed set up on the corner of The Redoubt and The Rampart, were light yet compact and sturdy. The bricks were reinforced with a dual ‘vertebrae’ structure which forms a concrete skeleton. The sections were easy to transport, easy to assemble as walls and cheap to make [W B Griffin, Australian Home Builder, No 1 (August 1922)].

Added to this, another major advantage of Knitlock was the convenience. The bricks did not require cutting, bedding or plastering, working instead on an interlocking join to connect them together (the prefab concept). A further advance was that Knitlock technology allowed for greater diversity in shapes for features of the house [‘Landmarks: Urban Life’ (National Museum of Australia) www.nma.gov.au/.].The beauty of Burley Griffin’s domestic construction using this system was that it could produce buildings that were simply designed and quickly constructed – non-standard workers’ cottages which were affordably priced. Affordability was an important requirement for the Griffins, the capacity of workers to afford their own home squared with their own espoused egalitarian and democratic principles.

The prototype for all of the Knitlock houses built in the Castlecrag and Haven Estates by WBG was ‘Pholiota’, the Griffin’s own small, ultra-modest home set among red gums and bush in Heidelberg, Victoria, before they moved to Castlecrag. This most basic, pared to the bone, single-roomed, utilitarian house, provided an example that any layman self-builder could follow. As proof of this, ‘Pholiota’ was erected in double-quick time apparently by Walter and Marion themselves with the assistance of a local chicken farmer! [P Y Navaretti, ‘Melbourne’, www.griffinsociety.com; Jenny Brown, “Humble ‘humpy’ masters miniature”, (19 May 2012), www.news.domain.com.au/].

Fishwick Fishwick

Burley Griffin’s finest architectural achievement in Castlecrag is probably Fishwick House (№ 15 The Citadel). Because of his client’s requirements (large budget, expansive house), Walter deviated from his usual prescription of a small-scale “no frills”, minimalist, unembellished cottage. Fishwick House is a more grand house, emphasising horizontal eaves and porticos. At the sides and rear of the house judicious placement of large picture windows and glass doors permits cascades of filtered sunlight to enter the living room from varying angles [www.griffinsociety.org/]. This aspect of Fishwick House echoes the interior courtyard of Stanley Salter House in Toorak, Melbourne, which some architectural specialists rate as WBG’s best residential building [eg, James Birrell, cited in ‘Stanley Salter House’, De de ce, www.dedece.com]. Griffin’s use of open-plan interiors demonstrates the architect’s belief that the house shouldn’t be a haven for withdrawal from the outside world, but rather “a place for reflection and engagement with the surrounding environment” [ibid.]. WGB defied the conventions of the day for home design, putting “living rooms at the rear and opening to the landscape and views, and had utility rooms such as kitchens and bathrooms fronting the street” [M Petrykowski, ‘Architecture’, www.griffinsociety.org/].

Duncan Duncan

The attitudes of pioneering residents of the Castlecrag Estate to the Griffin signature home were mixed. Some like Frank and Anice Duncan were delighted with the nature-centredness and functionality of Walter’s dwellings. The Duncans lived in no less than four of the houses over the years. The fourth one, the Duncan House at 8 The Barbette, specially commission by them, was the last Griffin-built home in Castlecrag.

However other residents were less sanguine about the houses – some with very good reason. The flat roofs on the early Knitlock constructed homes had a tendency to leak. Ellen Mower, first occupant of № 12 The Rampart (Mower House), was plagued by leaking roofs and eventually Griffin had to buy back the house from the owner [www.griffinsociety.org]. Mower House, incidentally, was the last home Marion lived in after her return from India after Walter’s death in 1937. Similarly, Mrs A E Creswick, who commissioned the small house built at 4 The Barbette (Creswick House), was similarly dissatisfied with the standard of her home and the Griffins had to re-purchase this dwelling as well [Castlecrag Progress Association, www.castlecrag.com.au/].

WBG fountain memorial

imageDr Edward Rivett, who converted the King O’Malley House in Sortie Porte into Castlecrag’s first hospital, also commissioned the Griffin-designed 148 Edinburgh Road, however he altered the original plans to add a pitched tile roof and interior walls which were brick rendered. Griffin through GSDA, his company, sued Rivett for breach of Covenant and a lengthy legal battled ensued which was eventually won by Dr Rivett. Other potential buyers also had problems with the Covenants imposed by WBG and many turned away from Castlecrag, opting instead for the railway-serviced suburbs on the Upper North Shore which didn’t have restrictions on the size or type of house or on how or whether you landscape your property [‘Castlecrag’,www.sydneyforeveryone.com.au/].Because of the restrictions and other contentious issues surrounding the construction of GSDA dwellings in the estate, banks became less willing to approve loans on Griffin houses. The onset of the Depression strangled the economy which affected development everywhere in Sydney, but subdivisions that were less popular like Castlecrag suffered its effects hardest [ibid.]. Castlecrag had to await the postwar building boom to achieve significant inroads in development.

Another factor holding back Castlecrag’s development at this time was getting to and from the Middle Harbour promontory! In the 1920s the Middle Harbour promontory was severely hamstrung relative to transportation options. Before the Sydney Harbour Bridge was constructed it was a very long haul by road to Castlecrag (cars in the 1920s were in any case still fairly scarce), and the eastern part of the Northern suburbs lacked a main arterial road (Eastern Valley Way was a post-war development). In addition, trams on the north side of the harbour did not go as far as Castlecrag in the interwar period [G Wotherspoon, ‘Ferries’ (2008), www.dictionaryofsydney.org/]. A story told by the son of Edward Haughton, Burley Griffin’s Melbourne estate agent and valuer, is instructive. The father and 10-year-old son came to Sydney to assist WBG in promoting the Castlecrag Estate. Haughton’s son later recalled how difficult it was and how long it took to reach Castlecrag (from the city: walk/ferry/elevator/tram/walk) [recollected for M Walker, et al, ‘forming the Greater Sydney Development Association’, www.teachingheritage.nsw.edu.au/].

imageBurley Griffin’s attitude towards building materials was every bit as rigidly purist as his attitude was to how the finished product should look. He championed the use of concrete and stone (particularly local Castlecrag sandstone which blended in with the natural setting). Conversely, he railed against the popularity of the standard building materials of the day, brick and tile, which he rejected.

Marion was equally purist in her aesthetic preferences. Bernard Hesling, a Castlecrag resident in the Thirties recalled Mahoney “scrambling the hills like a billy goat” and pointing southwards to the predominance of red roofs and lack of trees in Northbridge, exclaiming loudly in her thick Midwest American accent “It’s hoorabul, hoorabul! Walter and I wanna keep the Crag voigin bush!” [‘Willoughby Walking Tours’ (Willoughby City Council), www.walks.willoughby.nsw.gov.au/].

imageThe proportion of Burley Griffin designs converted into houses by GSDA over a 14 year period was quite low. Only 15 built in the Castlecrag and Haven Estates (none built north of Edinburgh Road, the area known as the Wireless or Sunnyside Estate) with about four or five other houses designed by one of WBG’s acolytes but approved by him. In what is somewhat of a trademark feature of Griffin’s oeuvre, many houses proceeded no further than the drawing board. WBG designed in the vicinity of 35 or so others for the ‘Crag that were not carried through to completion [‘The Idealists: creating Castlecrag’, ABC RN, Hindsight, 8 July 2012]. There was a host of reasons for this as outlined above, but sometimes sheer bad luck played its part in Griffin’s fortunes. Global developments had a tendency to intervene to stymie his noble intentions. Just as his vision for a physical landscape in Canberra worthy of the capital city of “a nation of ‘bold democrats” ran smack into the war effort of WWI which redirected valuable Australian resources away from WBG’s project, the development of Griffin’s estate in Castlecrag had its momentum undercut by the crippling effects of the Great Depression [‘Creating a new nation’s capital: The Griffins’ vision for Canberra’, (National Archives) www.naa.gov.au/].

When Walter’s private and GSDA commissions started to dry up, he increasingly took on industrial building design work. By the mid-1930s, frustrated by the lack of work in Castlecrag, Burley Griffin took up an invitation to design buildings for the University of Lucknow. The move to India, only intended to be a temporary one, served to re-energise Griffin’s architectural ambitions, allowing him to explore the fusion of ancient Eastern architecture with Western modernism. WBG engrossed himself in many new Indian projects but unfortunately, in a familiar story, the local colonial bureaucracy obstructed the realisation of most of the projects [G Sherington, ‘India’, W B Griffin Society, www.griffinsociety.org/].

'Camelot' ‘Camelot’

EM Nicholls: Keeper of the Griffin flame
After the Griffins left Australia, his protege-cum-associate Eric Milton Nicholls took over the running of GSDA in Sydney and became the “keeper of the flame” for Griffin’s architectural vision. Nicholls soon started to design houses in Castlecrag in his own right. The pick of Nicholls’ work are probably Camelot (formerly called Pangloss) at № 3 The Bastion, and the all-white Moriaty House at № 215 Edinburgh Road. Camelot, with castle features including a Martello tower, is distinctively Nicholls’, but its circular stone design shows the clear influence of WGB’s earlier design for the Symington Parapet project [‘Castlecrag’, (Willoughby Dist. Hist. Soc.), www.willoughbydhs.org.au/].

Nicholls was a prominent architect in the Willoughby area, designing many domestic and public buildings in Sydney and Melbourne. An Anthroposophist like the Griffins, he was involved in the establishment of Steiner Glenaeon Schools in Middle Cove and Pymble [‘Eric Nicholls’, (Willoughby City Council), www.willoughby.nsw.gov.au]. Burley Griffin’s influence lives on in Castlecrag and elsewhere … The Griffin (8 Rockley Street), designed by Alex Popov in 1990, won the Robin Boyd Award (Australia’s leading residential architecture prize) – the building was described by the judges as “a reverent tribute to Griffin” [WDHS, op.cit (‘Castlecrag’).].

8 The Barbette

FN: The WBG sales pitchThe sales brochure of the Greater Sydney company (the Griffin’s firm) reads: “Castlecrag architecture has struck a distinct bold note in Australia. In place of the high peaked tile roofs … the handsome landscape style, with the stone walls and flat roofs, has been introduced in harmony with the great amphi-theatre of stone and forest”.

The Magic of Marion: A Pioneer Woman Architect in the Shadow of the Prairie School

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Biographical, Built Environment, Social History

The seeds of Marion Mahony Griffin and Walter Burley Griffin’s prolific partnership as designers and planners contain an ironic provenance. The individual who inadvertently brought them together was Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW), destined to become the Griffins’ lifelong bête noire. The future couple met as a result of Walter Burley Griffin (WBG) joining Wright’s architectural firm at Oak Park, Illinois, in 1901, where Marion Mahony (MMG) was already employed. WBG was a recent graduate of Illinois University and MMG was, in a de facto sense if not actually given the title by Wright, head draughtsman. Both were qualified architects, Marion had been the second US female graduate in architecture (from MIT in Boston), and if not the first, one of the very first licensed female architects in the world)[“Marion Mahony Griffin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s First Employee,” Jackie Craven, (Thought Co), (2014, updated 13-Dec-2016), www.thoughtco.com]

MMG, soon after graduating from MIT University
It can be said that MMG’s role in the architectural and town planning projects that she was involved in, indeed her whole career up until WBG died, revolved around her personal relationships with male architects in which her place was always the subservient one (willingly so as far as she was concerned) – perhaps hardly surprising given the period. As Lynn Becker put it, Marion Mahony was “one of a series of pioneering women architects and designers who have disappeared into the deep shadow of their male associates” [L Becker, “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Right-Hand Woman”, www.lynnbecker.com]. In her case, the men venerated by Mahony were in sequence her cousin Dwight Perkins, Wright and Griffin. Her first job in the field after graduating was working for Perkins, which was short-lived as Dwight, still trying to build up his business, didn’t have enough work for Marion and had to let her go in 1895. From that year many of the progressive young architects practicing in that period (including Wright, Griffin, Mahony, Spencer, Perkins, the Pond brothers, Myron Hunt, etc) coalesced in Steinway Hall (a building itself which MMG had contributed to its design). The loft in Steinway Hall became a kind of incubator for new ideas for these young forward-looking architects seeking to extend the boundaries of the profession. Becker described it aptly … “it could be said that this (Steinway Hall) was an aviary where the Prairie School of Architecture was hatched” [Becker, ibid.].

FLW
Marion’s relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright was a complicated one which, due to circumstance, underwent change over time. She was with Wright many years, apparently she enjoyed working for him and being in his company, and perhaps there was an element of hero-worship involved in the early period. For his part, Wright clearly found her indispensable as a highly valued draughtswoman and as an administrator [Becker, ibid.], in FLW’s words, she was his “most capable assistant” (high praise indeed from one not usually given to positive affirmations of others!). That Mahony was even closer to FLW’s wife, Catherine, strengthened the bond with the Wrights. Many of the male staff in FLW’s office publicly pronounced on the sublime quality of Mahony’s drawing board work and its preeminence to that of anyone else in the studio, even Wright wasn’t prepared to dispute this consensus of views. One of the studio’s architects, Barry Byrne (later for a time Walter’s partner in the US before an acrimonious split) in his reminiscences wrote that the informal design competitions held between the employees in FLW’s studio were mostly won by Mahony, and that Wright filed away her drawings for future use and rebuked anyone who described them as “Miss Mahony’s designs” [F A Bernstein, “Rediscovering a Heroine of Chicago Architecture”, New York Times, 1 January 2008].

The Mahony/Wright relationship proved very advantageous to FLW in the advancement of his professional business – to put it mildly. In his immensely influential two volume folio of lithographs, the Wasmuth Portfolio published in Germany during the period of his European elopement (with a client’s wife!), Wright liberally used Marion’s drawings, over half of which comprised the Wasmuth folio, without acknowledgement. Consequently, FLW’s fame in the architecture world, at the expense of Mahony’s anonymity, spread exponentially after the Wasmuth publication. Architectural historian Vincent Scully described Wasmuth as “one of the three most influential treatises of the twentieth century” [Janice Pregliasco, “Life and Work of Marion Mahony Griffin”, Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol 21, No 2 (1995)].

K C DeRhodes House (Sth Bend, Ill.) designed by Marion, credited to Wright
MMG’s contribution to Wright’s architecture is spectacularly seen in the planning of two of the Wisconsinite’s most celebrated early Midwest buildings, K C DeRhodes House and Unity Temple. In the design for both works, Mahony’s drawing technique, heavily inspired by Japanese woodblock prints, led her to create a new style of architectural rendering, one that emphasised depth, light and landscape in her drawings, and characterised by richly detailed foliage giving a frame and focus for the house itself, a technique that according to Paul Kruty became the gold standard for later Prairie School designs [Kruty cited in Becker, op.cit. (“FLW … Woman”).]. Marion’s exceptional renderings were an important part of the promotion of Wright’s early work through various publications and exhibitions [Pregliasco, op.cit.].

Light fitting, Capitol Theatre Melbourne (MMG)
The excellence of Marion’s design work extended to home and furnishing designs. She had a real flair for interior design, creating designs for panels, coloured and leaded glass windows, mosaics, murals, light fittings, furnishings, drawings and illustrations, that not only added value to the projects and commissions of FLW (and WBG), but contributed in their distinctiveness to the development of Prairie School interior features [Craven, op.cit. ; [Anna Rubbo, “Marion Mahony Griffin: A larger than life presence in early 20th century architecture”, in A. Watson (Ed), Beyond Architecture].

David Amberg House (1910). MMG.
David Amberg House (1910). MMG.

The lofty regard Marion held for Wright eroded to some extent as she became more comfortable with Walter, resulting in a transference to WBG of her habitual adulation of a strong male figure. But what really offended and disenchanted Marion in respect of FLW was his scandalous behaviour in 1909 in abruptly eloping to Europe with the wife of a client, in so doing deserting his wife and children (MMG was best friends with Wright’s wife). FLW offered Marion charge of his office, which she declined, however in her characteristically conscientious manner she picked up the pieces of Wright’s unfinished commissions which he had abandoned (along with his family!) in such a startlingly unprofessionally way, and worked with another architect to finalise FLW’s outstanding projects. One of these completed homes, Amberg House in Michigan, designed by Mahony, was so widely admired that later both Wright and the collaborating architect von Holst claimed it as their own [Pregliasco, op.cit.].

After Mahony and Griffin severed all links with Wright and started to be noticed in architectural circles for the work they were doing on their own, the scurrilous Wright hardened his views on the Chicago couple. Whenever anyone would mention Marion and Walter and their latest projects, FLW would decry their achievements and write them off as hack designers (“Griffin was merely a draughtsman”) [“Walter Burley Griffin”, (Sydneyarchitecture), http://sydneyarchitecture.com/ARCH/ARCH-Griffin%20.htm]. In her memoirs MMG railed against the poisonous words of Wright but never once mentioning him by name, referring to him simply as the “cancer sore”. image

◄ { MMG’s interior, Capitol Theatre, Melbourne
Marion’s critical role in Walter’s success in winning the Canberra Capital City project has been well canvassed (see my previous blog, “WB & MLM Griffin and the Canberra Federal Capital Project: A Democratic City Lost?”). Once the Griffins settled in Australia, despite voluntarily taking a supporting, secondary role in her husband’s career (see PostScript), Marion’s artistic output did not altogether abate…her work as a designer of buildings, it is true, was subordinated, but she sought out and found other artistic endeavours for her flourishing and creative impulses. A lot of MMG’s finest artistic achievements occurred in Australia, whether it was collaborating with WBG on his Capitol Theatre in Swanston Street, Melbourne, enhancing it by her magnificent crystalline lighting ceiling (above), or the superb tree paintings and drawings she independently did of the Tasmanian forest (below).

Tasmanian Forest portrait
In their building and design work Walter and Marion brought very different but complementary strengths and qualities to their professional partnership – Griffin the architect, the landscaper, the town planner, Mahony the artist/illustrator, the delineator of perspective and design, the bush garden planner. Alasdair McGregor said of the Griffin partnership: “Walter had wonderful three-dimensional imaginings … yet as a draftsman he was stillborn … by contrast Marion was probably the most gifted draftsperson–renderer of her times” [quoted in “Unearthed Griffin treasure returned to the Archives”, NAA, Issue 3, July 2011, www.yourmomento.naa.gov.au]. Where he was deficient or lacking in some part of the process, Mahony was there to fill the void and raise the finished product up a notch or two, giving it that special, added lustre. No more was this more apparent than in the Griffins’ winning submission for the Federal Capital Project in Canberra.

MMG was a complex personality, despite her exceptional talents, she did not push herself forward at all (the antithesis of the egotistical Wright). Whether this was due to an innate insecurity she felt as a woman in a staunchly male profession or something else, her inclination was to avoid the limelight, to stay busy, beavering away behind the scene. Interestingly, MMG maintained a keen side-interest in acting, whilst at MIT and later again in Castlecrag. The theatre was perhaps a vehicle for her to express herself individually whilst under the cover of it being only play-acting. As Alice Friedman described Marion, she was an architect but a particular sort of architect, “a collaborator in a field of individualists, a builder of communities and connections in an increasingly fragmented and competitive professional world” [A T Friedman, “Girl Talk: Marion Mahony Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright and the Oak Park Studio”, (Design Observer Group), www.places.designobserver.com ].

MMG rendering of a FLW house
Walter Burley Griffin’s star was on the rise when he and Marion married, he was becoming famous and starting to get more prestigious commissions in the US. Mahony was very content from that point on to devote herself wholly to the betterment of his career, to derive some measure of vicarious satisfaction from contributing to his achievements in architecture and planning. MMG, in her unpublished 1940s memoir, “The Magic of America”, described herself as having been “a very useful slave” to Griffin (the 1400-plus page manuscript in itself was Marion’s attempt to elevate and preserve the reputation and status of WBG as a first-rank American architect and town planner). So often, when WBG had to shift projects, MMG was there to fill the void, when Griffin went to Canberra the first time, Mahony was left to mind the shop in Chicago. When Griffin journeyed to India in search of more lucrative commissions, she was there, again, to keep the Castlecrag business going.

MMG rendering of Library & Museum plan, Lucknow.
MMG rendering of Library & Museum plan, Lucknow (India).

Marion’s anthroposophical contacts helped Walter gain new sources of work in India. in 1936 MMG joined her husband in Lucknow with her creative energies renewed, prompting Griffin to remark that Marion was “back at the drawing board” for the first time in 14 years [L Becker, “Marion Mahony Griffin – in Australia and beyond”, www.lynn.becker.com]. MMG collaborated with Griffin on the design of over 100 Prairie School-influenced buildings which were a departure from the prevailing British Raj style in India. The standout example of Mahony’s rendering of Griffin’s designs in the Sub-continent was the library and museum for the Raja of Mahmudabad [ibid.].

After Walter’s sudden death in 1937, Marion finalised Griffin’s outstanding Indian commissions before returning to Australia. Eventually after leaving the Australian business in the hands of WBG’s partner, Eric Nicholls, she left Sydney to return to her native Chicago. In the 1940s Mahony turned her hand to community planning, securing commissions from a prominent US peace activist, Lola Maverick Lloyd, to plan townships in New Hampshire and Texas. Lloyd, Unfortunately, died at this time and the plans were never carried through. A further town plan Mahony did for South Chicago also did not eventuate. Notwithstanding that the projects in Texas and New Hampshire did not materialise, they reinforce MMG’s role as a pioneering woman in architectural planning, representing as they do, “the first communities in the world designed entirely by a woman”[Pregliasco, op.cit.].

Whatever disappointments there were for the Griffins and for WBG especially (the setbacks of the Federal Capital project in particular), the relevant statistics, as calculated by Anna Rubbo, point to an output that was very productive and overall quite impressive. In 26 years together, in the US, Australia and India, Walter and Marion, together as “Team Griffin”, collaborated in around 280 architectural, town planning and landscape projects, of which nearly 180 were completed [A Rubbo, in Watson, op.cit.]. Whilst history has in recent times addressed an oversight in relation to Griffin and finally afforded him something akin to his rightful place amongst the 20th century practitioners of architecture, Marion’s contribution to modern architecture has tended to be overlooked or as least obscured under the focus on her husband. During the last decade several architectural writers have drawn attention to the neglect of Mahony, eg, D Van Zanten (Ed), Marion Mahony Reconsidered; D Wood (Ed), Marion Mahoney Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature; “Marion Mahoney Griffin”, Mass. Institute of Technology, http://web.mit.edu/museum/chicago/griffin.html ].

The MMG monogram
PostScript: Marion’s self-determined role as a “support player”
The number of houses MMG designed in her own right was small, in Australia for instance only one (in suburban Melbourne), and a handful in America (some wrongly attributed to Wright – see Amberg House above) [P Kruty, “Marion Lucy Mahoney Griffin”, (Walter Burley Griffin Society of America), www.wbgriffinsociety.org]. Lack of opportunities afforded to a woman in the profession in that era, goes a good way to explaining this, but so does her willingness to ever be the collaborating “assistant”. It was in her work as a artist and draughtsman that Marion really came into her own. Influential architectural critic Reyner Banham described her as “the greatest architectural delineator of her generation” – male or female [Architectural Review (1973)].