Griffin, Walter Burley (1876-1937), was an American architect and landscape designer. Griffin first gained recognition as an important member of the staff of the famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright from about 1901 to 1906. Later, he won international attention for his design for Canberra, the new capital city of Australia.
Griffin supervised several of Wright’s most important projects and supplied landscape plans for Wright’s buildings. In 1906, Griffin established his own architectural design practice. Over the next seven years, he designed more than 100 projects, including suburban estates and low-cost housing units as well as landscape plans. Two of Griffin’s most important commissions during this time were the Joshua Melson house in Mason City, Iowa, and the Stinson Memorial Library in Anna, Illinois (both 1912).
Throughout his career, much of Griffin’s success was the result of artistically magnificent drawings of his designs made by his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin. The two had met in 1901 while both were working for Wright. They married in 1911, and Marion became her husband’s unofficial business partner.
In 1910, the Australian government advertised an international competition for a city plan for Canberra, the country’s new capital. Griffin’s plan was selected from 137 entries. He settled in Australia in 1913 and became director of the board controlling Canberra’s development. His wife joined him in 1914. Griffin resigned from the board in 1921 after many disputes, but not before completing his plan. While in Australia, Griffin also received commissions for town designs and subdivisions. One of his finest works was Newman College (1915), the Roman Catholic residential college of the University of Melbourne.
The Griffins lived in Australia until 1935, aside from brief returns to the United States in 1925 and 1932. In 1935, Walter Griffin designed the library for the University of Lucknow in India. He established an office in India and was awarded many commissions there. However, he died suddenly on Feb. 11, 1937, of peritonitis, an inflammatory condition caused by bacteria.
Griffin was born on Nov. 24, 1876, in Maywood, Illinois. He received a degree in architecture from the University of Illinois in 1899.
