Welcome to the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America

Photo by Mati Maldre

Welcome to the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America web site. Our mission is to preserve the legacy of architects Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin and the Prairie School of Architecture.

Please enjoy our site.

SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING
Saturday June 18, 2016
Join us in Chicago's Beverly neighborhood
and nearby Blue Island!

Here are important details for the seventeenth annual meeting of the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America, to be held on Saturday, 18 June:

MEETING: The meeting will begin promptly at 9:00 AM on Saturday morning in the Arts Center of the Morgan Park Academy at 2153 W. 111th Street, Chicago, 60643. The building will be open at 8:00 and we urge everyone to arrive by 8:30. You may park in the lot on the west side of the Academy buildings [see map]. Morning lectures will take place in this space, which we have reserved from 8:00 AM to 1:00 PM. Lecture topics will include Griffin’s low-cost housing; the Society’s effort to encourage preservation of Griffin’s Sloane house in Elmhurst; Chris Enck’s amazing project to move Van Bergen’s Irving House, formerly in Wilmette; and an examination of Griffin and Wright’s architectural ornament and its relationship with so-called Art Deco by Robert Bruegmann, Professor Emeritus of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

LUNCH & TOURS: Box lunches will be delivered to the Arts Center at noon. From 12:30 to 5:00 we will be visiting a selection of houses in Chicago’s Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods and the nearby village of Blue Island. These include houses by Griffin, Wright, and Maher, as well as a cross-section of the work of Robert Seyfarth and even a fabulous house by Bertram Goldberg.

SUNDAY TOUR: The Society is offering a tour of the William Sloane house in Elmhurst at 248 Arlingon on Sunday morning. As we will learn about on Saturday morning, the Society is sponsoring the writing of a National Register nomination of the house and possible donation of a preservation easement to assist in keeping this important house viable for many years to come.

ACCOMMODATIONS: A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hilton Oak Lawn, 9333 S. Cicero Ave., Oak Lawn, 60453, for the nights of Friday and Saturday, 17 and 18 June, under the name of the Walter Burley Griffin Society. Reservations should be made directly with the hotel at 800-315-1058. The hotel is located a few miles west of Beverly just north of 95th Street.

Please fill out the REGISTRATION FORM, indicating your choice of sandwich and beverage for lunch, and return it to the Griffin Society’s headquarters. The cost will be for $15 for the Saturday meeting and tours, $10 for the box lunch and, of course, registrants must also have paid their annual dues of $25 to the Society.

The Walter Burley Griffin Society of America
is proud to announce...

NEW BOOK:
Rock Crest/Rock Glen
Mason City, Iowa
The American Masterwork of
Marion M. and Walter B. Griffin

By Paul Kruty, Robert E. McCoy, Paul E. Sprague, and James Weirick

The Griffin Society is pleased to announce the publication of its latest book on the work of the Griffins: the first monograph devoted to the internationally significant site that is Rock Crest/Rock Glen. This eighteen-acre site, meant to hold nineteen houses, marks the culmination of their American practice. Lauded by Peter Harrison, the prescient Australian architect, planner and historian credited with reviving interest in the Canberra plan in the 1950s, as “the nearest approach to a complete demonstration of Griffin’s talent for the design of a total domestic environment,” Rock Crest/Rock Glen has not been the subject of intense investigation since 1968, when Robert McCoy first examined the various personalities that came together to produce this masterpiece in The Prairie School Review. Drawing on unpublished photographs, documents and drawings from the Griffins’ office only recently made available at the Australian National Library in Canberra, and supplemented with a host of original sources from a variety of American archives, the four authors examine this amazing development from contrasting points of view. Here for the first time are in-depth analyses of the historical background and clients by Robert E. McCoy; of Griffin’s development leading to this remarkable design by Paul Kruty; of each of the buildings and projects by Paul E. Sprague; and the place of Rock Crest/Rock Glen in the Griffins’ complete careers by James Weirick. The book includes the texts of the two contemporary analyses of the project (one by Griffin himself) and a lengthy bibliography.

Rock Crest/Rock Glen, Mason City, Iowa: The American Masterwork of Marion M. and Walter B. Griffin sells for $35, plus p & h, with a 20% discount price for Griffin Society members. 166 pages, with 175 black-and-white and 39 color illustrations. Walter Burley Griffin Society of America, 2014. ISBN: 0-9793588-2-5.

Published by the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America. 1152 Center Drive,
St. Louis, MO 63117. info@wbgriffinsociety.org www.wbgriffinsociety.org

INDIAN MONOGRAPH AVAILABLE

The Griffin Society is pleased to make available a limited number of new copies of the ground-breaking book, Two American Architects in India: Walter B. Griffin and Marion M. Griffin, 1935-1937, published in conjunction with the international conference, “The Griffins in Context: American, Australia, India,” held at the University of Illinois in October 1997. Written by Paul Kruty and Paul E. Sprague, the book is a comprehensive examination of the brief but productive period during which the Griffins worked in northern India. Long unavailable and difficult to find, the book is for sale through the Griffin Society for $25, which includes shipping and handling. (A few used copies are currently available on Amazon for up to $98.82 plus shipping.) Copies may be ordered by writing to the Walter Burley Griffin Society of America, 1152 Center Drive, St. Louis, MO, 63117.