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The Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin Design Drawings of the City of Canberra

 
Register no. 006
Year of registration 2003
Abstract There are twelve Walter Burley Griffin (WBG) Canberra design drawings. Standard size is 760 x 1525 mm. The drawings are mostly on cotton cloth and are executed in inks and watercolours. The drawings were created by WBG and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin in 1912 for entry into the Australian Federal Capital Design Competition. The quality of the design as well as the beauty of the drawings resulted in WBG winning the competition. Griffin was appointed Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction in October 1913 and utilized the winning design as the basis for the new city. The design is considered an outstanding example of landscape design, utilising the natural topography and investing the city with ideas prevalent in the City Beautiful and Garden City movements which dominated town planning in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The documents are also central to the development ? both physical and conceptual ? of Australia?s national capital.
1.0 Identity and location 1.1 Name of documentary heritage The Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin Design Drawings of the City of Canberra
1.2 Country Australia.
1.3 State, Province or Region Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
1.4 Name of organisation or institution (if appropriate) National Archives of Australia.
1.5 Address PO Box 7425, Canberra BC, ACT 2610. Telephone +61 2 6212 3600, Facsimile +61 2 6212 53699, Email archives@naa.gov.au, http://www.naa.gov.au.
2.0 Legal information 2.1 Owner (name and full contact details) National Archives of Australia, PO Box 7425, Canberra BC, ACT 2610. Telephone +61 2 6212 3600, Facsimile +61 2 6212 53699, Email archives@naa.gov.au, http://www.naa.gov.au.
2.2 Custodian (name and full contact details) National Archives of Australia, PO Box 7425, Canberra BC, ACT 2610. Telephone +61 2 6212 3600, Facsimile +61 2 6212 53699, Email archives@naa.gov.au, http://www.naa.gov.au.
2.3 Legal status (if different from 2.1)
(a) category of ownership Public.
(b) details of legal and administrative powers for the preservation of the documentary heritage Archives Act 1983 (Commonwealth).
(c) accessibility The records are available for public access under the Archives Act 1983. Physical access may, however, be restricted or supervised due to their fragile nature. Access to digital surrogates is already available through the NAA web site, and high quality digital images are available for reproduction and publication purposes. These records formed the centrepiece of the National Archives? exhibition A Vision Splendid: How the Griffins Imagined Australia?s Capital.
(d) copyright status The records are subject to copyright under the Copyright Act 1968. Copyright is owned by the Commonwealth and administered by the National Archives and the agency responsible for the records.
2.4 Responsible administration The National Archives of Australia is responsible under the Archives Act for the care of all Commonwealth records which have been identified as national archives and that are more than 30 years old. In most cases this is achieved through the Archives? custody of the records. The Griffin drawings are held by the National Archives in its main Canberra repository.
3.0 Identification 3.1 Description and inventory Although there are only 12 drawings, they consist of 15 panels, some of which join together to form panorama views. As a result, the documents are controlled as 15 items by the National Archives, rather than 12 complete drawings.

Series: CRS A710 Drawings submitted in the Federal Capital Design Competition
  • Item 36 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] Map of contour survey of the site for the Federal Capital of Australia [Part A], 1911? 1912, 1350 x 1350 mm
  • Item 37 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] Map of contour survey of the site for the Federal Capital of Australia [Part B], 1911? 1912, 1350 x 1350 mm
  • Item 38 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] City and environs, 1911 ? 1912, 1520 x 760 mm
  • Item 39 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] Section A - B northerly side water axis Black Mountain to Lake Park [Part 1], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 40 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section A-B Part 2], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 41 Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section A-B Part 3], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 42 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section A-B Part 4], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 43 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] Section B - A southerly side of water axis government group, 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 44 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin] Section C - D easterly side of land axis Ainslie to Red Hill [Part 1], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 45 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section C- D Part 2], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 46 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section C- D Part 3], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 47 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Section C- D Part 4], 1911 ? 1912, 760 x 1525 mm
  • Item 48 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Perspective] View from summit of Mount Ainslie [Part A], 1911 ? 1912, 632 x 2327 mm
  • Item 49 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Perspective] View from summit of Mount Ainslie [Part B], 1911 ? 1912, 632 x 2327 mm
  • Item 50 [Competitor number 29 Walter Burley Griffin - Perspective] View from summit of Mount Ainslie [Part C], 1911 ? 1912, 632 x 2327 mm
3.2 Bibliographic/Registration details See above.
3.3 Visual documentation, if appropriate (for example photographs or a video of the documentary heritage Reproduced in several publications, including Paul Reid, Canberra following Griffin: A Design History of Australia?s National Capital, National Archives of Australia, 2002. Digital copies available through the RecordSearch database on NAA web site http://www.naa.gov.au.
3.4 History The drawings were created in 1912 and shipped to Australia as entries in the Federal Capital Design Competition. At the conclusion of the Competition they were purchased by the Commonwealth of Australia. They were in the custody of the Department of Home Affairs up until the early 1960s when they were transferred to the National Archives.
3.5 Bibliography

Wigmore, Lionel. The Long View: A History of Canberra, Australia's National Capital. Melbourne: F. W. Cheshire, 1963.

Gibbney, J. Canberra 1913-1953. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1988.

Harrison, Peter. Walter Burley Griffin, Landscape Architect. Canberra: National Library of Australia, 1995.

Turnbull, J., and P. Navaretti, eds. The Griffins in Australia and India. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1998.

Reid, Paul. Canberra Following Griffin: A Design History of Australia's National Capital. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2002.

Vernon, Christopher. A Vision Splendid: How the Griffin's Imagined Australia's Capital. Canberra: National Archives of Australia, 2002.
3.6 Names, qualifications and contact details of up to three independent people or organisations with expert knowledge about the values and provenance of the documentary heritage
Mr Christopher Vernon, Senior Lecturer Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Fine Arts, University of Western Australia, Nedlands, WA 6907.

Ms Anna Rubbo, Associate Professor of Architecture, University of Sydney, Department of Architecture, Planning and Allied Arts, Wilkinson Building (G04), 148 City Road, Chippendale, NSW.

Professor James Weirick, Professor of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW 2052.
4.0 Assessment of the documentary heritage against each criterion Criterion 1 - Influence The drawings are unique in that they were the only set of drawings submitted by the Griffins to the competition. Other sets of similar drawings (possibly 2 sets) were produced by the Griffins at the same time but it is currently unknown whether they have survived, and it appear that no other set is in safe archival custody. Neither are any drafts known to have survived. Loss of the drawings would mean the loss of an irreplaceable record of an important turning point in Australian (and World) landscape design and in the architectural and social history of Australia. The drawings are also unique in other respects. They represent the first vision of one of the world?s few capital cities to be designed and built on a natural landscape, rather than over and around an existing city. The Griffins were among the first practitioners of landscape architecture, and nowhere else did they have the opportunity to practice their art on such a scale and see it implemented. As Christopher Vernon has written in A Vision Splendid, ?most competitors responded to the site as though it were a blank page, distorting it to conform with various aesthetic principles. In contrast, the Griffins? sensitivity to the site?s natural features, especially its rugged landforms and watercourse, was paramount to their design?s success.? Marian Mahony Griffin was only the second woman to graduate in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the drawings are among the finest works of this under-recognised female architect. Vernon acknowledges that ?Marian?s drawings were a vital and persuasive factor in the decision to award the Griffins? submission first prize? in the design competition. Numerous publications have discussed the significance of the drawings (see 3.5above). The persons with expert knowledge named at 3.6 would also confirm significance.
Criterion 2 - Time The documents represent the first vision of the national capital for the newly federated Australia. There has been much debate on the extent to which the vision was or should have been translated into reality. The documents are an important record of what might have been. As the original ?blueprint? for Canberra the drawings have an obvious connection for the city as it lives today, but also, through Canberra?s status as the national capital, the drawings represent a changed vision of the Australian landscape.
Criterion 3 - Place The documents represent the first vision of the national capital for the newly federated Australia. There has been much debate on the extent to which the vision was or should have been translated into reality. The documents are an important record of what might have been. As the original ?blueprint? for Canberra the drawings have an obvious connection for the city as it lives today, but also, through Canberra?s status as the national capital, the drawings represent a changed vision of the Australian landscape.
Criterion 4 - People The drawings represent perhaps the most significant works of two great architects who established a long-term connection with Australia. The Griffins remained in Australia for more than twenty years and went on to design many projects in Australia, notably the Castlecrag subdivision on Sydney Harbour.
Criterion 5 ? Subject/Theme The subject represents a critical moment in the history of Australia ? not just the creation of a new capital city but also a break with traditional, European approaches to landscape design.
Criterion 6 ? Form and style Marion Mahony Griffin is increasingly seen as a great undiscovered talent. Her work is starting to receive due recognition for its high artistic achievement. The drawings are fine examples of her oeuvre.
Criterion 7 ? Social value
Secondary criterion 1 - Integrity Their integrity as the complete set of drawings submitted by the Griffins is also intact. Their immediate context, as part of the set of drawings submitted by many competitors in the national capital design competition, is also preserved by the Commonwealth, as these documents form the most important elements of a larger series of submitted designs.
Secondary criterion 2 - Rarity The drawings are unique.
4.2 Contextual assessment including an assessment of the importance of a series of documents, the importance of a series of documents in a particular setting, and the assessment against other documentary heritage
4.3 An evaluation of the authenticity The drawings have been in the possession of the Commonwealth of Australia since submitted to the Federal Capital Design Competition by Griffin.
4.4 An assessment of any threat(s) to the preservation of the documentary heritage They are stable and secure and are currently not threatened with loss or damage. They are also currently well managed
5.0 Management plan The items are managed as part of the entire NAA collection and receive the same level of storage, care and control as all parts of the collection. As such their storage is of the highest quality, they are stored in a secure building in optimum environmental conditions and access is carefully controlled by the National Archives. None of the documents is judged to be at risk by virtue of political conditions, environmental or physical conditions, or usage demand (which is met by providing access to copies, and/or public display under secure conditions). No budgetary threat to the documents exists or is foreseen.
6.0 Consultation 6.1 Details of consultation about the nomination with the:
(a)Owner Nomination prepared by the owner.
(b) Custodian Nomination prepared by the owner.
(c) Relevant Regional or National Memory of the World Committee (if appropriate UNESCO Australian Memory of the World Committee, ANU Centre for UNESCO, 5 Liversidge St., Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200. Telephone +61 2 6125 9943, Facsimile +61 2 6125 4959, Email carole.caldwell@anu.edu.au, http://www.amw.org.au.
(d) Independent institution(s) and/or experts

7.0 Nominator 7.1 Name National Archives of Australia.
7.2 Relationship to the documentary heritage Custodian
7.3 Contact person (if appropriate) Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, Acting Director-General, National Archives of Australia.
7.4 Contact details National Archives of Australia, PO Box 7425, Canberra BC, ACT 2610. Telephone +61 2 6212 3600, Facsimile +61 2 6212 53699, Email archives@naa.gov.au, http://www.naa.gov.au.
This site last modified: Sunday 2 March 2008. © Copyright 2003-2008, Australian Memory of the World Committee.
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