Who designed Canberra?

Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, American architects from Chicago, designed Canberra. They won the international design competition held by the Australian Government in 1911, beating 137 other entries. Construction of the city began in 1913 to their master plan, although the Griffins resigned from the project in 1920 because of conflicts with the federal government.

Walter Burley Griffin (1876 to 1937) was born in Chicago, Illinois, and trained as an architect at the University of Illinois. He worked in the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright from 1901 to 1906 and developed a Prairie School style that combined modernist forms with integration into landscape. Marion Mahony Griffin (1871 to 1961), one of the first licensed female architects in the United States, was the first staff architect hired by Frank Lloyd Wright and produced many of the presentation drawings for which the Prairie School is famous. The Griffins married in 1911, with the Canberra competition their first major joint project.

The Griffin plan emphasised geometric symbolism and integration with the surrounding hills. A central artificial lake (later called Lake Burley Griffin, completed 1964) separated the Parliamentary Triangle from the residential districts. The Parliamentary Triangle was anchored by three hills: Capital Hill (Parliament), Russell Hill (Defence and the National Carillon), and City Hill (commerce and civic centre). Long axial vistas linked these nodes, with major buildings placed to terminate the vistas. The plan also included extensive parklands, garden suburbs based on the British Garden City movement, and a satellite-town structure that allowed growth without overcrowding.

The Griffins moved to Melbourne in 1914 to supervise construction. Their tenure was marked by conflict with Australian government officials who wanted to modify the plan, reduce its scale, and accelerate construction. Walter Burley Griffin resigned from his official role in 1920, frustrated by the changes imposed on his design. He continued to practise architecture in Australia and designed several other buildings including the Newman College buildings at Melbourne University, the Capitol Theatre in Melbourne, and the Castlecrag suburb of Sydney. Marion Mahony Griffin was the principal designer for several of these later projects. The Griffins left Australia in 1935 to work on a major library project in Lucknow, India, where Walter died unexpectedly of peritonitis in 1937. Marion returned to Chicago and died in 1961. Their reputation has grown substantially since the late twentieth century, with Canberra now widely seen as one of the most successful planned capital cities in the world and the Griffin plan credited as the foundation of its character.