Marion Mahony Griffin

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Marion Griffin (February 14, 1871 – August 10, 1961) was an American architect and artist. She was one of the first licenced female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Death 2 Architectural work attributable in part or in full to Marion Mahony Griffin (partial listing) 3 References 4 Sources 5 External links

[edit] Biography

She was born Marion Lucy Mahony in Chicago, Illinois, the second child and eldest daughter of the five surviving children of Jeremiah Mahony, a journalist from Cork, Ireland, and Clara Hamilton, a school teacher. She graduated from MIT in 1894, where she studied with Professor Constant-Désiré Despradelle.^[1] Mahony went to work the next year in the Chicago studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, designing buildings, furniture, stained glass windows and decorative panels.^{[citation needed]} She would be associated with Wright's studio for almost fifteen years and was an important contributor to his reputation, particularly for the influential Wasmuth Portfolio, for which Mahony created more than half of the numerous renderings. Architectural writer Reyner Banham called her the "greatest architectural delineator of her generation". Her rendering of the K. C. DeRhodes House in South Bend, Indiana was praised by Wright upon its completion and by many critics.^{[citation needed]}

John Lloyd Wright, Wright's son, relates that William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert Chase McArthur, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis were the draftsmen--the five men and two women who each were making valuable contributions to Prairie style architecture for which Wright became famous.^[2] During this time Mahony designed the Gerald Mahony Residence (1907) in Elkhart, Indiana for her brother and sister-in-law.^[3]

When Wright hurried off to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney in 1909, Wright offered the work of the Studio to Mahony; this, she declined. But after Wright had gone, Hermann V. von Holst, an architect who had taken on Wright's commissions, hired Mahony with the stipulation that she would have control of the architectural designing. ^[4] In this capacity, Mahony was the architect for a number of commissions Wright had abandoned. Two examples of these include Henry Ford's Dearborn mansion, Fair Lane and the Amberg House in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mahony recommended to Von Holst that he hire Griffin to develop a landscape plan for the area surrounding the three houses initially commissioned from Wright in Decatur, Illinois. Mahony and Griffin worked closely on the Decatur project immediately preceding their marriage. After their marriage, Mahony went to work in Griffin's practice. A Walter Burley Griffin/Marion Mahony designed development that is home to an outstanding collection of Prairie School dwellings, Rock Crest Rock Glen in Mason City, Iowa, is seen as their most dramatic American design development of the decade. It remains the largest collection of Prairie Style homes surrounding a natural setting.

Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin were married in 1911, beginning a partnership that would last for 28 years. Griffin was a fellow architect, a fellow ex-employee of Wright, and a leading member of the Prairie School of architecture. Marion's watercolor perspectives of Walter's design for the new Australian capital city of Canberra were instrumental in helping secure the first prize in the international competition for the plan of the city. As a result, in 1914 the couple moved to Australia to oversee the design of the new capital. Marion managed the Sydney office and was responsible for the design of all of the private commissions that they obtained.^[5] They pioneered what was called a Knitlock construction method, which was inexactly emulated by Wright in his California textile block houses of the 1920s.

Later, they practiced in India and in less than a year, Mahony oversaw the design of over one hundred Prairie School influenced buildings there.^{[citation needed]} Upon Walter Griffin's death in 1937, Mahony completed their remaining work and then returned to the United States. In this way, Mahony and Griffin spread the Prairie Style to two continents far from its origins. She credited Louis Sullivan as the impetus for the Prairie School philosophy; similarly, she considered Wright's habit of taking credit for the entire movement as the reason for its early demise in the United States.^[6]

[edit] Death

Marion Mahony Griffin died in Chicago, aged 90, and is buried in Graceland Cemetery, Irving Park Road & Clark Street, Chicago.

[edit] Architectural work attributable in part or in full to Marion Mahony Griffin (partial listing)

• All Souls Church (demolished), Evanston, Illinois – 1901
• The Gerald Mahony Residence (demolished), Elkhart, Indiana - 1907^[7]
• David Amberg Residence, 573 College Avenue, Grand Rapids, Michigan - 1909
• Edward P. Irving Residence, 2 Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois - 1909 ^[8]
• Robert Mueller Residence, 1 Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois - 1909^[9]
• Adolph Mueller Residence, 4 Millikin Place, Decatur, Illinois - 1910^[10][11]
• Niles Club Company, Club House, Niles, Michigan - 1911^[12]
• Henry Ford Residence “FairLane” (unbuilt initial design; 1913)
• Koehne House (demolished 1974), Palm Beach, Florida - 1914^{[13][14][15][16]}
• Cooley Residence, Grand St. at Texas Avenue, Monroe, Louisiana^[17]
• Fern Room, Cafe Australia, Melbourne, Australia - 1916
• Capitol Theatre, Swanston Street, Melbourne, Australia – 1921-23^[18]
• "Stokesay", residence of Mr. & Mrs. Onians, 289 Nepean Highway, Seaford, Victoria, Australia - 1925
• Ellen Mower Residence, 12 The Rampart, Castlecrag, Sydney, New South Wales - 1926
• Creswick Residence, Castlecrag, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - 1926
• S.R. Salter Residence (Knitlock construction), Toorak, Victoria, Australia - 1927^[19]
• Vaughan Griffin Residence, 52 Darebin St., Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia - 1927^[20]

[edit] References

[edit] Sources

• Paul Kruty. "Griffin, Marion Lucy Mahony", American National Biography Online, February 2000.
• Brooks, H. Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright and the Prairie School, Braziller (in association with the Cooper-Hewitt Museum), New York 1984; ISBN 0807610844
• Brooks, H. Allen, The Prairie School, W.W. Norton, New York 2006; ISBN 039373191X
• Brooks, H. Allen (editor), Prairie School Architecture: Studies from "The Western Architect", University of Toronto Press, Toronto & Buffalo 1975; ISBN 0802021387
• Brooks, H. Allen, The Prairie School: Frank Lloyd Wright and his Midwest Contemporaries, University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1972; ISBN 0802052517
• Waldheim, Charles, Katerina Rüedi, Katerina Ruedi Ray; Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives, University of Chicago Press, 2005; ISBN 0226870383, ISBN9780226870380
• Wood, Debora (editor), Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art and Northwestern University Press, Evanston, Illinois 2005; ISBN 0-8101-2357-6

[edit] External links

• Marion Mahony Griffin, Digital Projects, New-York Historical Society
• About Mahony's contribution as an artist and architect
• Biographical notes at MIT
• Marion Mahony Griffin: Drawing the Form of Nature an exhibition of Mahony Griffin’s graphic art at the Block Museum, Northwestern University, United States of America
• The Magic of America: Electronic Edition online version of Marion Mahony Griffin's unpublished manuscript, made available through the Art Institute of Chicago
• "Rediscovering a Heroine of Chicago Architecture", New York Times, January 1, 2008