The city of Canberra in Australia is what it is today because of the vision of one man, Walter Burley Griffin. He was thinker before an architect, and a planner before a designer. Together with his wife, Marion Mahony, he built structures that stood the test of time and were sadly only appreciated to their best when we lost these two visionaries to the heavens. Most of their works were under-appreciated, until today. This book pays homage to one of the world’s best-known architect couple.




Beyond Architecture, focuses on the landmarks designed and built by the couple stretching across the three continents, America, Australia and India. But what seemed to be the highlight, for those that are already familiar with the Griffins’ lives, were their extend over other platforms than just architecture. This includes their catalogue of interior schemes, furniture, floor coverings, tableware, lighting and gives much credit to the innovations and methods that they initiated, like the Knitlock precast concrete block building system, the development of the L-shaped floor plan, and the first designing of the carport in housing.

What would make Griffin admirers feel good is the reference made in this book by Paul Sprague, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, who noted that Walter Burley Griffin was a ‘leader’ along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, rather than a follower of the midwest architectural movement.



In short, if we can manage to sum up the book into a single note, then it would be described as a collection of essays by some of the greatest disseminators of architectural knowledge of our times. Each of these authors, have in their own way and through their extensive research on the lives of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney, brought to life the passion and spirit that the couple shared and passed on to future generations by their vision, their designs and their structures. Below is an outline of the authors featured in the book:



Dr Paul Kruty is associate professor at the School of Architecture in the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has written extensively on the architects of the Prairie school and also on Chicago’s art and architecture.



Dr Paul Sprague is professor emeritus in the Department of Art History at the University of Wisconsin. His studies in architectural history have included extensive research on the careers of Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, Walter Burley Griffin, and Marion Mahony Griffin.

Dr Anna Rubbo is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney, Australia. She holds a BArch from Melbourne University and a DArch from the University of Michigan.



Professor James Weirick taught at the Boston Architectural Center, the University of Massachusetts/Boston, the University of Canberra and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, prior to his appointment at the University of New South Wales in 1991. His research interests include the history of architecture, landscape architecture and urbanism, with an emphasis on the ‘politics of design’, particularly the work of Walter Burley Griffin, the history of Canberra, and the urban landscape of Sydney.

Christopher Vernon is Design Advisor to the National Capital Authority and Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the University of Western Australia. He has studied the Griffins' work extensively, and recently contributed to the National Archives of Australia's exhibition, 'A Vision Splendid: How the Griffins Imagined Australia's Capital'.



Jeffrey John Turnbull studied architecture and town planning at the University of Melbourne. Since 1964 he has been teaching architectural design and history in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Melbourne. During 1988 Jeff was a Visiting Professorial Fellow for the Griffin Exchange Program between the architecture schools at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Melbourne.

Peter Y Navaretti is an architectural historian presently in the position of Heritage Strategy Planner at RMIT.



Dr David Dolan is the director of the Research Institute for Cultural Heritage at Curtin University in Western Australia.

And lastly, Anne Watson who edited this book is the curator of decorative arts and design at the Powerhouse Museum and has an MA in Fine Arts from the University of Sydney. She has curated and co-curated a number of exhibitions including the one that this book accompanies, Beyond Architecture: Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin in America, Australia and India.

What would make Griffin admirers feel good is the reference made in this book by Paul Sprague, a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, who noted that Walter Burley Griffin was a ‘leader’ along with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, rather than a follower of the midwest architectural movement.


© 2003 - 2007 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.