Walter Burley Griffin - Later Career

Later Career

The Griffins' office in Chicago had closed in 1917; however, they had successful practices in Melbourne and Sydney, which were a strong motivation for their continuing to live in Australia. The Griffins had received commissions for work outside Canberra since Walter first arrived in the country in 1913, designing town plans, subdivisions, and one of his highly regarded buildings, Newman College, the Catholic residential college of the University of Melbourne while employed in Canberra. While supervising activities in Canberra, Griffin spent much time in Melbourne and, in 1918, became a founder, with Royden Powell, of the Henry George Club, an organisation devoted to providing a home for the Single Tax movement. The Griffins' first major commission after leaving Canberra was the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne; it opened on November 7, 1924. In 1964 architectural writer Robin Boyd described the Capitol as "the best cinema that was ever built or is ever likely to be built".

In 1916 and 1917 Griffin developed a patented modular concrete construction system known as “Knitlock” for use in the construction of Canberra. No Knitlock buildings were ever built in Canberra, although several were built in Australia. The first were built on Griffin's property in Frankston in 1922, where he constructed two holiday houses called "Gumnuts". The best examples of Knitlock include the S.R. Salter House in Toorak and the Paling House. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a similar system and used Griffin's design to support the arguments for his design.

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 idyllic community with a consistent architectural feel and 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. The Redding House and several others in Castelcrag were also built in Knitlock. Almost all the houses Griffin designed in Castlecrag were small and had flat roofs, and he included an internal courtyard in many of them. Griffin used what was at that time the novel concept of including native bushland in these designs.

Other work the Griffins did during this time included the Melbourne subdivisions of Glenard and Mount Eagle at Eaglemont. Prior to 1920 the Griffins also designed the New South Wales towns of Leeton and Griffith. Griffin and architect J Burcham Clamp designed a large tomb built at Waverley Cemetery, Sydney, between 1914 and 1916 for James Stuart, which still stands as a good example of Griffin's sense of 'human-scale monumentality'. (SMH 21 July 1998 Tomb by Burley Griffin sheds darkness and light)

The Griffins participated in the celebrated Chicago Tribune Tower Competition in 1922. Having won one famous international competition, as architects who were both well acquainted with Chicago and recognized as practical visionaries, they offered a solution that was positive, forward-looking and elegant. Indeed their entry appears to be about a decade ahead of its time, with emphatic verticality along the lines of the Art Deco or Art Moderne. It anticipated and would have been a near neighbor of Chicago's 333 North Michigan by Holabird & Roche (1928); with stylistic echos in John and Donald Parkinson's Bullocks Wilshire, in Los Angeles (1929), as well as Adah Robinson and Bruce Goff's Boston Avenue Methodist Church, Tulsa (1929).

In the 1920s they prepared plans for the Milleara Estate (also known as City View) at Avondale Heights, and the Ranelagh Estate at Mount Eliza, in conjunction with surveyors Tuxen and Miller. During the financial hardship of the Depression in the 1930s Griffin was commissioned to design incinerators; Willoughby Incinerator in the Sydney suburb of Willoughby is a good example of this work and was only one of twelve designed between 1930 and 1938. It has been listed by the National Trust and the Royal Australian Institute of Architects as a building of significance. In 1999 it was listed in the New South Wales State Heritage Register. Another example was built in the suburb of Pyrmont, not far from the centre of Sydney. This incinerator was considered for heritage listing but was demolished in 1992 because it was in irredeemably bad condition.