Talk:Walter Burley Griffin

message: So, there is not one word about any children of the Griffins, or the lack of any children?
98.67.160.211 (talk) 18:29, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Children 

message: The article says"During his time there, Griffin designed a series of 60 university buildings." but when discussing extant buildings, only talks of those few in Australia. Does anybody know if some of these Indian university buildings remain? I would think that there is an excellent chance that if they were built, then quite a few would be still standing, given the nature of universities. Pete 07:30, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Extant buildings

message: I've asked Wikiprojects Chicago and Melbourne for help with images.--nixie 12:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Images

message: For information on relations between Sulman and Griffin see letter to Architecture Australia:
Percy Owen, Federal Director-General of Public Works, was Griffin’s harshest critic. Griffin was never considered to chair the Federal Capital Advisory Committee (FCAC). When Sulman was appointed chair of the FCAC (and not the “Federal Advisory Council” as Birrell stated) he invited Griffin to work with him but Griffin refused because Owen was a member and he could not possibly work with “this man”. ...
Griffin’s euphoria in winning the premier award was doused even before he arrived in Sydney by news that his Canberra design had been superseded by a hybrid plan proposed by a board made up of senior officers of the Public Works Committee. Sulman was not a member of this board but Owen was and so was W. L. Vernon. On 16 October 1913, Griffin was appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction with the principal role of supervising all work to be done on Canberra. His authority disappeared when Parliament accepted the board’s plan, and not his, and approved work to commence on site at once.
In 1914 Sulman, in his capacity as President of the Town Planning Association and as the self-appointed spokesman for the architectural and engineering professions within the Commonwealth, gave evidence at the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Works. He strongly urged the powers that be to allow Griffin, as author of the premiated design, to work without any interference and urged “that no alteration be made in the present arrangement by which Mr Griffin is authorised to carry out his own plan, subject to such modifications as he has already made or thinks it desirable to suggest, approve of, or recommend …” (W. B. Griffin, Letter to Prime Minister Hughes, 8 January 1921, Melbourne. MLQ980.2.G, Mitchell Library.)
The letter was in response to this interview with James Birrell where birrell said: Griffin had been denigrated terribly from 1922 on. His contract had run out and it wasn’t renewed. Sulman was appointed in his place as chairman of the new Federal Advisory Council and Griffin was asked to work with him. Sulman had started to undermine him before Griffin’s ship arrived in Sydney, and Griffin said, “I can’t work with this man”. It was Sulman who made the statement that did the most damage to Canberra, and that was: “Griffin’s idea of people living on boulevards and walking up and down footpaths was a Continental idea; we would stick with the British where people will have their own backyards and they won’t be walking down the street.” So he converted the whole plan to English garden city rather than a city in its own right.
There was a response from Birrell.--A Y Arktos 20:55, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sulman and Griffin 

message: I have uploaded high quality images of Griffin's Canberra plan at :Image:Canberra plan view-WBG.jpg :Image:Canberra plan-WBG.jpg :Image:Canberra plan shaded-WBG.jpg. --Martyman-(talk) 22:10, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canberra Plan Images 

message: I have been doing some online research into Griffins work after Canberra. It would be worth mentioning the Griffins' Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA) and their patented Knitlock prefabricated construction method invented by Griffin in 1917. Also I found a good refernce for the Capitol theatre.--Martyman-(talk) 08:52, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestions / References 

message: I have rewritten/expanded the last section of the article, but I will post here to be picked over before going in to the article because I think some of my prose is a little lack lustre. --Martyman-(talk) 02:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Expanded Last Section 

message: User:Pfctdayelise was kind enough to take these for the article
* :Image:Capitol Theatre foyer ceiling feature.JPG
* :Image:Capitol Theatre, Swanston Street, Melbourne.JPG
* commons:Newman College, University of Melbourne
--nixie 20:00, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Photos from Wikiproject Melbourne

message: I wonder if we should switch the Canberra map image to the one drawn by Griffin on the Scriviner map. As the one I put on there is Walter's design but the specific representation is his wifes work. --Martyman-(talk)
* Got a link?--nixie 10:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The three uploaded as linked to up the top are :Image:Canberra plan view-WBG.jpg, :Image:Canberra plan-WBG.jpg and :Image:Canberra plan shaded-WBG.jpg. Canberra plan-WBG.jpg is the Official map sen tout to all entrants that they where told they had to submit their deisgn on. The other two I believe are Marion's watercolours. --Martyman-(talk) 10:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: It is possible to just up the contrast in photoshop, but it may reduce the actual amountof detail a little. I will have a look if it helps later today. --Martyman-(talk) 20:21, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have uploaded a new version of the plan with increased contrast. I think it will look slightly better as a htumbnail. What do you think? If it is not an improvement we can always delete the new version. --Martyman-(talk) 23:54, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks much better in the thumb, thanks.--nixie 02:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canberra Plan Illustration 

message: http://www.pbs.org/wbgriffin/camber.htm suggests that Griffin's tangles with politicians were in part due to "his public outcry of Australia's involvement in the war [that] caused him to be removed from the Canberra project."?? We haven't really reflected his politics well here - but that he was political, even if somewhat ineptly, might fit with being involved with the society concerned with the single tax system. City planning is of course a very political statement in itself and I recall that Griffin's plan had some sort of People's hall sitting on Capitol Hill, higher than Parliament House.--A Y Arktos 20:27, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political battles 

message: Someone asked what I meant by mahor works for the lists - mostly I thought the lists should include buildings/developments that are easy to find information on, that are mentioned in the text, or other major texts as an notable piece of his work.--nixie 23:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Major

message: Can somebody please verify - This article lists Walter Burley Griffin as the inventor of the carport, yet the carport article iteslf lists somebody else.
:I just went through the photos included in Maldre's book on WBG, including the Catalog of Griffin's American buildings (in photographs) and saw nothing that looked like a carport. This article also makes a claim about WBG and reinforced concrete that I find diffucult (really, impossible) to believe. I say that both claims GO. Carptrash 23:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm removing the reference as this has been sitting as disputed for sometime now. The bellman 12:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quoting from the Carport Intergrity Policy for the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office 
As early as 1909, carports were used by the Prairie School architect Walter Burley Griffin in his design for 
the Sloan House in Elmhurst, Illinois (Gebhard, 1991: 110). By 1913, carports were also being employed 
by other Prairie School architects such as the Minneapolis firm of Purcell, Feick & Elmslie in their design 
for a residence at Lockwood Lake, Wisconsin. In this instance, the carport was termed an “Auto Space” 
(Gebhard, 1991: 110). The late architectural historian David Gebhard suggested that the term “carport” 
originated from the feature’s use in 1930s Streamline Moderne residences (Gebhard, 1991: 107). This term, 
which entered popular jargon in 1939, stemmed from the visual connection between these streamlined 
residences and nautical imagery..... 
In the 1930s through the 1950s, carports were also being used by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Usonian 
Houses; an idea that he probably got from Griffin, a former associate.
This is from a Reference of Gebhard, David. “The Suburban House and the Automobile.” The Car and the City: The Automobile, the 
Built Environment and Daily Urban Life. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991: 106­ 
123. 
David Gebhard was the author of numerous volumes on the architects and architecture of California. He was the founder and curator of the renowned architectural drawing collection at UCSB. 
So according to this information Walter Burley Griffin was the first known to include the use of the carport in housing design. Boylo 06:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

text:  The carport could have later been enclosed to a garage, its hard to tell how enclosed it is from the photo's angle. But even so, would a copy of the architectural drawing prove that this was originally designed as a carport ? If you look at this photo of the original drawings you will definately see that a carport was designed and not a garage. Hope this renews your faith in David Gebhard  
Also just found this photo which proves it was orginally built as a carport at the home (btw this photo was only purchased by the library in 2006, so maybe why it hasnt been found before)
Here's a first floor plan that also shows it as a carport.
Boylo 01:26, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I feel like Doubting Thomas must have felt when presented with (John 20:24-29)  . . ... well, you know what.  Boylo's presentation is iron clad, leaving no room for   uncertainty.  My faith in all that is sacred has been restored.   One of the treasures of my library is a copy of Architecture & Ornament in Late 19th Century America from David Gebhard's library.  Here is a rubbing of his embossed stamp - Difficult-to-impossible to decipher, but the faithful (restored and otherwise) know what it is.  A sacred relic. Life is good. Carptrash 14:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  No Longer Disputed 

message: It is commonly known that W B Griffin was dismissed from his position in Canberra by being handed a dismissal note on New Year's Eve of 1920. He did not resign!!! The source should be checked again.
By the way - W B Griffin was quite hated in Canberra by the politicians who found him too eloquent and too educated (references?). Also, W B Griffin didn't want to follow their ideas - that is why he was fired and Canberra in the end looks more like an English village than a city with boulevards with shops alongside as in Paris (Griffin's vision). LA  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.34.140.221 (talk) 03:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resignation vs Dismissal 

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thread_title:  Copyright problem removed 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Griffin was largely under-appreciated during his time in Australia, but since his death recognition of his work has steadily grown. In 1964, when Canberra's central lake was filled, as Griffin had intended, Prime Minister Robert Menzies declined to have the lake named after himself. Instead he named it Lake Burley Griffin, making it the first "monument" in Canberra dedicated to the city's designer ("Burley" was included in the name because of the misconception, which has continued, that it was part of Griffin's surname).
There is nowhere in this article (or the one for Lake Burley Griffin, for that matter) to explain this passage. If the meaning is that "Burley" was his middle name, not surname, perhaps that should be added to the text as a clarification for readers less-familiar with the English-language naming system.
--Vadim Galimov (talk) 12:44, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confusing/possibly faulty information in the Legacy section