Canberra
In April 1911 the Australian Government held an international competition to produce a design for its new capital city. Griffin produced a design with impressive renderings of the plan produced by his wife. They had only heard about the competition in July, while on honeymoon, and worked feverishly to prepare the plans. On May 23, 1912 Griffin's design was selected as the winner from among 137 entries. The win created significant press coverage at the time and brought him professional and public recognition. Of his plan, he famously remarked:
"I have planned a city that is not like any other in the world. I have planned it not in a way that I expected any government authorities in the world would accept. I have planned an ideal city - a city that meets my ideal of the city of the future."
In 1913 he was invited to Australia to inspect the site. He initially left Marion in charge of the practice and travelled to Australia in July. (His Chicago practice was soon taken over by Barry Byrne.) His letters home reveal his appreciation for the Australian landscape. Griffin and his wife Marion joined the Naturalists’ Society of New South Wales in 1914, where they enjoyed the opportunity to join organised bush walks and field studies. The Society also facilitated their contact with the Australian scientific community, especially botanists. This appreciation for Australia flora was reflected in Griffin’s 1914 town plan for Leeton in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, and later in a design for Melbourne’s Newman College. He also utilised Australian flora botanical names as places names for suburbs and streets in Canberra, such as Grevillea Park, Telopea Park, Cliathus Circle and Blandfordia.
While in Australia Griffin was offered the position of head of the department of architecture at the University of Illinois. At the same time he was negotiating a three-year contract with the Australian Government to remain in Australia and oversee the implementation of his plan, which to his dismay he felt had already been compromised. He was appointed the Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction. In this role, Griffin oversaw the design of North and South Canberra, though he struggled with political and bureaucratic obstacles. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Griffin was under pressure to reduce the scope and scale of his plans due to the Government diverting funds towards the war effort. Several parts of his basic design underwent change. For instance, plans to create Westbourne, Southbourne and Eastbourne Avenues to complement Canberra's Northbourne Avenue came to nothing, as did a proposed railway that would have gone from South Canberra to North Canberra, and then in a northwesterly direction to Yass. A market area that would have been at Russell Hill in North Canberra was moved southwards to what is now Fyshwick, next to South Canberra.
The pace of building was slower than expected, partly because of a lack of funds and partly because of a dispute between Griffin and Federal government bureaucrats. During this time, many of Griffin's design ideas were attacked by both the architectural profession and the press. In 1917 a Royal Commission determined that they had undermined Griffin's authority by supplying him with false data which he had used to carry out his work. Ultimately, Griffin resigned from the Canberra design project in December 1920 when he discovered that several of these bureaucrats had been appointed to an agency that would oversee Canberra's construction. The Commonwealth Government under the leadership of Prime Minister Hughes had removed Griffin as director of construction at Canberra after disagreements over his supervisory role, and in 1921 created the Federal Capital Advisory Committee, with John Sulman as chair. Griffin was offered membership, but declined and withdrew from further activity in Canberra.
Griffin designed several buildings for Canberra, none of which were ever built. The grave of General Bridges on Mount Pleasant was the only permanent structure designed by Griffin to be built in Canberra.
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