martinhouseclr

179 4 // ANALYSIS & EVALUATION ‘inland sea’ of prairie grasses and forbs was comparatively long vanished; replaced either by urban development or by agricultural crops.” 40 The response borne of these impacts – the creation of the first National Park (Yellowstone, 1872), the founding of the Sierra Club (1892), the establishment of the Forest Service (1900) and the first national wildlife refuge (Pelican Island, 1903), among others – was not only the rise of the conservation movement, but also a desire to reconnect with and humanize a more permanent and cultivated domestic nature. 41 Driven by this desire were Frederick Law Olmsted Sr.’s public park and rural suburb designs, a general shift away from the extravagant Victorian garden styles, and even Frank Lloyd Wright’s transcendentalist-fueled makeover of American architecture. It is under these circumstances that Walter Burley Griffin began his professional career with an aspiration to conserve, study and draw inspiration from, and ultimately control and aesthetically define nature on many scales for the benefit of people. As both an architect and landscape architect, Griffin is best known as being credited for the design of Australia’s national capital city, Canberra, having won (in partnership with his wife Marion Mahony) an international competition in 1912. Prior to this 40 Christopher Vernon, ‘A legitimate art distinctive of Australia and Australia alone’: The Griffins’ contribution to the formation of an Australian landscape design ethos, Landscape Review, Lincoln University School of Landscape Architecture, 1997:3, 23. 41 Ibid., 4 distinction, Griffin practiced professionally on smaller private commissions before being hired by Wright in 1901, bringing with him “a degree of landscape professionalism not found in other architecture offices of the day.” 42 Griffin has been described as the “closest thing to a valued and respected partner that Wright would ever have,” and between 1901 and 1906 (the period during which Wright achieved international recognition for his early Prairie works), he was central in providing horticultural expertise and helping Wright compose landscapes that shared harmony with architecture. 43 Additionally, Griffin often played the role of business manager in Wright’s studio during these years, particularly when Wright was away in Japan in 1905, engaging clients in extensive correspondence and coordination on matters of construction and details both architectural and landscape architectural. A contemporary both in time and spirit of the renowned Aldo Leopold, Griffin was both a naturalist and a conservationist. Originally preferring to study landscape gardening, he was persuaded by O.C. Simonds (a founding member of the American Society of Landscape Architects) to pursue a more lucrative career in architecture. Griffin was a founding member of what was known in Chicago as the Prairie Club, which “aimed to provide guided public walks throughout the Chicago region, to identify and 42 Aguar, Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs, 16. 43 Jerome Klinkowitz, Frank Lloyd Wright and His Manner of Thought, 32. Fig. 176 Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony, Victoria, Australia, 1918.