martinhouseclr

183 4 // ANALYSIS & EVALUATION Darwin Martin’s brother William E. Martin, whose Oak Park, Illinois house (1903) had also been designed by Wright/Griffin one year prior shared some minor characteristics as a deigned landscape, including a similar – though comparatively limited – plant pallet. 58 However, the W.E. Martin garden was never envisioned or realized to the extent that Darwin D. Martin’s landscape was. Wright’s own genius for defining landscape with architectural arrangement was not as clear, and it was altered shortly after construction. 59 Despite this, it was a garden addition performed a few years later (1910) by Griffin at the W. E. Martin House that likely encouraged Wilhelm Miller to describe it with an early draft of his Prairie Spirit as “a chief American work in landscape architecture.” 60 Ultimately, Walter Burley Griffin moved to Australia shortly after winning the Canberra competition. Initially believed to be a temporary relocation, he kept an office in Chicago. Eventually, both he and his wife Marion Mahony settled in Australia permanently and opened a practice in Melbourne. Interestingly, it was only 58 Plant species names were briefly shared between Darwin Martin and his brother (William) in fall of 1903 as Martin practically begged Wright to deliver a planting plan for the Barton House and William advised Darwin on the nursery source. 59 Aguar, Wrightscapes: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Landscape Designs, McGraw-Hill, 74. 60 Christopher Vernon, Walter Burley Griffin, Landscape Architect, The Midwest in American Architecture, John S. Garner editor, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1991, 218. Christopher Vernon notes that Griffin perhaps objected to this description and inclusion on Prairie Spirit as the house was associated with Wright. after practicing for several years in the antipodes that Griffin began extensively promoting the use of native vegetation in landscape and ecological design. 61 Griffin made a visit to the Darwin Martin House – his largest and most elaborate American garden, the ‘one’ he would cerebrally carry with him throughout his career – in 1932, during a trip to New York. But he never returned to the United States to practice his trade and has been somewhat overshadowed in his contributions by both his immigration and his association with the more dominant and renowned work of his former employer: Wright. Nevertheless, as the product of a time and place among important Chicago and Steinway Hall contemporaries, and his witness and response to the loss of the American natural landscape, Walter Burley Griffin’s influence on both landscape design and an American conservation ethos is noteworthy in the context of landscape architectural history. 61 Christopher Vernon, e-mail message to author, 17 May 2014. Fig. 180 Willits House (1902), ‘hemi- cycle’ style plantings sketch, excerpt, Griffin / Wright.