Talk:Walter Burley Griffin

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[edit] new Walter Burley Griffin website

Hi Walter Burley Griffin fans,

I'm building a new Plone website dedicated to all things Walter Burley Griffin at http://wbgriffin.org, and would like to invite all Walter Burley Griffin fans to participate and contribute. The new website can be a great place for things outside of the scope of Wikipedia. So, before perhaps someday listing the site on the external links section of the Walter Burley Griffin page, I would like to first build it into a first-rate repository of Walter Burley Griffin info. Note that ZWiki software is installed, and any member can create their own wiki in their member area, or contribute to site-wide wikis (coming soon).

-- User:Sydhart 2004-10-06 Correction to URL

[edit] Extant buildings

The article says"During his time there, Griffin designed a series of 60 university buildings." but when discussing extant buildings, only talks of those few in Australia. Does anybody know if some of these Indian university buildings remain? I would think that there is an excellent chance that if they were built, then quite a few would be still standing, given the nature of universities. Pete 07:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Images

I've asked Wikiprojects Chicago and Melbourne for help with images.--nixie 12:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

I have asked the Sydney Wikiproject also for help with images of Castlecrag and Willoughby specifically--A Y Arktos 19:19, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sulman and Griffin

For information on relations between Sulman and Griffin see letter to Architecture Australia:

Percy Owen, Federal Director-General of Public Works, was Griffin’s harshest critic. Griffin was never considered to chair the Federal Capital Advisory Committee (FCAC). When Sulman was appointed chair of the FCAC (and not the “Federal Advisory Council” as Birrell stated) he invited Griffin to work with him but Griffin refused because Owen was a member and he could not possibly work with “this man”.

...

Griffin’s euphoria in winning the premier award was doused even before he arrived in Sydney by news that his Canberra design had been superseded by a hybrid plan proposed by a board made up of senior officers of the Public Works Committee. Sulman was not a member of this board but Owen was and so was W. L. Vernon. On 16 October 1913, Griffin was appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction with the principal role of supervising all work to be done on Canberra. His authority disappeared when Parliament accepted the board’s plan, and not his, and approved work to commence on site at once. In 1914 Sulman, in his capacity as President of the Town Planning Association and as the self-appointed spokesman for the architectural and engineering professions within the Commonwealth, gave evidence at the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. He strongly urged the powers that be to allow Griffin, as author of the premiated design, to work without any interference and urged “that no alteration be made in the present arrangement by which Mr Griffin is authorised to carry out his own plan, subject to such modifications as he has already made or thinks it desirable to suggest, approve of, or recommend …” (W. B. Griffin, Letter to Prime Minister Hughes, 8 January 1921, Melbourne. MLQ980.2.G, Mitchell Library.)

The letter was in response to this interview with James Birrell where birrell said:

Griffin had been denigrated terribly from 1922 on. His contract had run out and it wasn’t renewed. Sulman was appointed in his place as chairman of the new Federal Advisory Council and Griffin was asked to work with him. Sulman had started to undermine him before Griffin’s ship arrived in Sydney, and Griffin said, “I can’t work with this man”. It was Sulman who made the statement that did the most damage to Canberra, and that was: “Griffin’s idea of people living on boulevards and walking up and down footpaths was a Continental idea; we would stick with the British where people will have their own backyards and they won’t be walking down the street.” So he converted the whole plan to English garden city rather than a city in its own right.

There was a response from Birrell.--A Y Arktos 20:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canberra Plan Images

I have uploaded high quality images of Griffin's Canberra plan at Image:Canberra plan view-WBG.jpg Image:Canberra plan-WBG.jpg Image:Canberra plan shaded-WBG.jpg. --Martyman-(talk) 22:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions / References

I have been doing some online research into Griffins work after Canberra. It would be worth mentioning the Griffins' Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA) and their patented Knitlock prefabricated construction method invented by Griffin in 1917. Also I found a good refernce for the Capitol theatre.--Martyman-(talk) 08:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC) Refs:

[edit] Exanded Last Section

I have rewritten/expanded the last section of the article, but I will post here here to be picked over before going in to the article because I thikn some of my prose is a little lack lustre. --Martyman-(talk) 02:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

In 1919 the Griffins founded the Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA), and in 1921 purchased 259 ha of land in North Sydney. The GSDA's goal was the development of an idylic community with a consistent architectural feel and [[[The Bush (Australian)||bushland]] setting. Walter Burley Griffin as managing director of the GSDA designed all the buildings built in the area until 1935.

Castlecrag was the first suburb to be developed by the GSDA. Under Griffins control houses in the area where built from locally sourced sandstone and "knitlock" prefabricated concrete. Almost all the houses Griffin designed where small and had flat roofs, and he included an internal coutyard in many of them. Griffin used what was at that time the novel concept of including native bushland in these designs.

Other work Griffin did during this time included the very original Melbourne suburb of Eaglemont. Griffin also helped to design the New South Wales towns Leeton, Griffith and Culburra Beach.

During their time at the GSDA the Griffins became more involved in anthroposophy and in 1935 through contacts in the movement Griffin won a commission to design the library at Lucknow University in India. Griffin left for India in 1935 with his wife following the next year. During his time in India, Griffin designed a series of 60 university buildings. He was still engaged in this when in 1937 he died from peritonitis, following an unsuccessful operation.

Extant major buildings that are characteristic of Burley Griffin's style include the Willoughby Incinerator in the Sydney suburb of Willoughby, the old Capitol Theatre in Swanston St, Melbourne, and Newman College at the University of Melbourne. The latter group of buildings, which comprise a refectory, chapel and dormitory, are considered by many to be Burley Griffin's finest.

References Used

It reads well, I'm sure it'll get built on once it's in the article. I normally worry about getting the facts straight before I worry about brilliant prose ;) --nixie 03:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Knitlock

I found a nice image of Griffin and Mahoney in the garden of their house at Heidelberg. Behind them is their house which was apparently the first to be built of Knitlock. The photo doesn't really illustrate what Knitlock was all about so I am loathe to upload - not least after all the Canberra photo fuss. Here is a reference to the house being the first Knitlock house.--A Y Arktos 10:52, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

  • I found an article with diagrams of Knitlock- I can email the pdf to anyone interested.--nixie 10:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
If you could email it to me at my work email addres that would be great. Standard ANU firstname.lastname@blah.blah
Also the photo mentioned by AYArktos is the first one I have seen that actually shows a building built with knitlock. Even if it isn't used in the article initially it can't hurt to upload it to commons and link to it from here. --Martyman-(talk) 11:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I failed to put it on the USB, so I'll send it in the morning.--nixie 11:03, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Cool, where did you find it? --Martyman-(talk) 11:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
JSTOR, in an 1970s article from an obscure historical architecture journal. Sadly most of the papers that come up on a search for Griffin are actually about Frank Lloyd Wright.--nixie 11:10, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, that's impressive most of the Physics journals I deal with at work only have full text for fairly recent editions. I take it the ANU has a subscription. Which means you should be able to access it from home through the library's reverse proxy. Unless it is one of those poxy password based subscriptions. --Martyman-(talk) 11:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Cool, that worked. I just found "Notes on W.B. Griffin's "Knitlock" and His architectural Projects for Canberra" which seems to have quite a bit of information. Shame about the image quality though. --Martyman-(talk) 11:21, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Thats the one, you should be able to download a fairly high res pdf- which may have better resolved images.--nixie 11:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
You are right the images are resonable in the high res pdf. Not really wikipedia quality though even if we did know the copyright status. I guess WBG's plans will be coming into the public domain in two years, if I remember correctly (life+70). --Martyman-(talk) 11:33, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Patents (I'm assuming that includes the images within them) are in the PD, see {{PD-US-patent}}. If you were keen you could probably make a coloured image showing how the different pieces fit together which would probably be easier for the reader to understand.--nixie 11:36, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
That would be assuming I can get my head around it myself. ;-) I might give it a try if I am not too busy at work tomorrow. --Martyman-(talk) 11:39, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Griffin's Knitlock construction method
Enlarge
Griffin's Knitlock construction method

OK, I have managed to decipher what WBG's diagrams are showing. I still have to add the direction change parts, the roofing system and dimensions. I don't know if I will bother incorporating the 3D isographic view. My diagram looks like this so far. --Martyman-(talk) 03:32, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, now it shows the direction changing pieces. I wish I had a drawing of a corner piece I am not sure how they worked. --Martyman-(talk) 05:38, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
3D stuff added and expanded demostration of construction added. --Martyman-(talk) 05:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The diagram looks great- I'll try and write some text to go with it tonight if noone beats me to it.--nixie 05:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Photos from Wikiproject Melbourne

User:Pfctdayelise was kind enough to take these for the article

--nixie 20:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canberra Plan Illustration

I wonder if we should switch the Canberra map image to the one drawn by Griffin on the Scriviner map. As the one I put on there is Walter's design but the specific representation is his wifes work. --Martyman-(talk)

  • Got a link?--nixie 10:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
The three uploaded as linked to up the top are Image:Canberra plan view-WBG.jpg, Image:Canberra plan-WBG.jpg and Image:Canberra plan shaded-WBG.jpg. Canberra plan-WBG.jpg is the Official map sen tout to all entrants that they where told they had to submit their deisgn on. The other two I believe are Marion's watercolours. --Martyman-(talk) 10:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I really like

Enlarge

, but it is hard to see in the thumb (it might just be the laptop), is there an easy way to modifiy the image to make the lines darker?--nixie 10:50, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

It is possible to just up the contrast in photoshop, but it may reduce the actual amountof detail a little. I will have a look if it helps later today. --Martyman-(talk) 20:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
I have uploaded a new version of the plan with increased contrast. I think it will look slightly better as a htumbnail. What do you think? If it is not an improvement we can always delete the new version. --Martyman-(talk) 23:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Looks much better in the thumb, thanks.--nixie 02:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Political battles

http://www.pbs.org/wbgriffin/camber.htm suggests that Griffin's tangles with politicians were in part due to "his public outcry of Australia's involvement in the war [that] caused him to be removed from the Canberra project."?? We haven't really reflected his politics well here - but that he was political, even if somewhat ineptly, might fit with being involved with the society concerned with the single tax system. City planning is of course a very political statement in itself and I recall that Griffin's plan had some sort of People's hall sitting on Capitol Hill, higher than Parliament House.--A Y Arktos 20:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

There's a lot more that could be said about the Griffins political views and his plan and the civic/democracy ideas behind it, Griffins struggle to make his plan happen, the political fights, the Royal Commision, Anti-Americanism in the Australian government, the appalling way the Australian's spoke of him and the plan in the press at the time (and how noone likes to remember than now). I'm going to chase some hardcopy sources for this section of the article soon, since they might provide a more balanced/reliable account than information online.--nixie 20:42, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Major

Someone asked what I meant by mahor works for the lists - mostly I thought the lists should include buildings/developments that are easy to find information on, that are mentioned in the text, or other major texts as an notable piece of his work.--nixie 23:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disputed

Can somebody please verify - This article lists Walter Burley Griffin as the inventor of the carport, yet the carport article iteslf lists somebody else.

I just went through the photos included in Maldre's book on WBG, including the Catalog of Griffin's American buildings (in photographs) and saw nothing that looked like a carport. This article also makes a claim about WBG and reinforced concrete that I find diffucult (really, impossible) to believe. I say that both claims GO. Carptrash 23:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

It now seems to me that these claims were added by User:Petaholmes, so i left a message for him on his user page. Carptrash 00:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

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