Design of Leeton and Griffith

Larissa Sakardi and Roy Lumby will talk on "Cities in the Bush", 24 April 2009 in Sydney. This is about the designs for the Australian towns of Leeton and Griffith by Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. An interesting aspect of this is the role of Marion Mahony Griffin, who was previously though of as just an illustrator of her husband's designs. Also the idea of reforming society through planning which has gone out of vogue has been partly now resurrected in the National Broadband Network, which resembles an invisible version of the Griffin's designs. Australian cities to be fitted by fibre optic cables in patterns which resemble the circles and junctions of the designs for Leeton and Griffith. The Griffin's Canberra has already been fitted with such a system.

Cities in the Bush

Canberra was born out of divisions emerging out of the federation of Australia’s six states and was blessed with a superb plan designed by two of the twentieth century’s most gifted architects, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin. The couple designed a visionary city symbolising national aspirations, a place in harmony with its splendid landscape setting.

Griffin built on the precedent of Canberra and designed the cities of Leeton and Griffith a year or so after coming to Australia. However, the infant Canberra was soon to founder on bureaucracy, public indifference and conflicts of personality while the promise of Leeton and Griffin was only partially fulfilled.

This joint presentation by Larissa Sakardi and Roy Lumby will examine the city plans devised by the Griffins and the reality of the cities that began to emerge during the formative decades between the two world wars.

Friday 24 April 2009 from 7.30 p.m. ...

From: Cities in the Bush, The Twentieth Century Heritage Society of NSW Inc, 2009.