This study engaged with the architecture of the ‘Initial Structure’ at Newman College, 1915-1918, so as to establish this building’s place in the oeuvre of Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937). Griffin’s architecture at Newman College was unparalleled in Melbourne yet it has never been the subject of a comprehensive study. Further, a measure for Griffin’s creative method and architectural style has not been developed to date although much scholarship has been devoted to the identification of events and works in Griffin’s career. Furthermore a substantive analysis of the architecture of Walter Burley Griffin was lacking that defined and distinguished his work from that of the so-called ‘Prairie School’, and of Frank Lloyd Wright. / Walter Burley Griffin was the conceptual designer of Newman College, while Marion Mahony Griffin (1871-1961), his wife and architectural practice partner was its facilitator. An evaluation of Griffin’s university education, 1895-1899, drew out the compositional concepts of parti, types and architectonics, as his own preferred means of working. Griffin’s mature style in the college design was also indebted to his architectural practice and experiences in Chicago, 1899-1914. An initial assumption in this study was that Griffin was eclectic, as were the American predecessors he admired, Thomas Jefferson and Henry Hobson Richardson, as were Griffin’s contemporaries, Louis Henri Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. Thus the sources of Griffin’s architectural ideas, elements, and methods of composition, have been traced in this study. / American campus designs were surveyed and comparisons made with the other three late 19th Century college buildings at the University of Melbourne to distinguish Griffins’ innovations in college planning, construction and form at Newman College. The description of the commissioning, committee-work and program for the Newman College building revealed the social and political idealism that linked Griffin with his supporters among Melbourne’s Roman Catholic community. Griffin worked with ‘structure’ in mind, both compositional and constructional. Particular partis, typologies and architectonic patterns have been 3 identified in the compositional structures of the college building design. Similarly Griffin’s adaptations of new and exploratory building techniques were investigated. / Griffin’s sources were not only American. He derived inspiration equally from seminal European and Asian precedents, which provided instances of an underlying compositional structure. In the architecture of Newman College the composite plans, mixed construction techniques and materials, and richly layered forms allowed Griffin scope to express ideal college purposes, spiritual universality, and organic wholeness.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/245326 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Turnbull, Jeffrey John |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
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