Visited 15 December,
2012
There are several types of To Do lists: there’s the list of things to do today or this week or
before Christmas; there’s the list, broader in scope, of things intended to be
done “one day”; and there’s the list of vague aspirations, not yet written down
but in the back of the mind somewhere.
None of these should be confused with the Bucket List, a rather more serious listing of things you want to do
before you die. Whereas the day-to-day To Do lists have a mental overlay that
allows the list-maker simply to transfer non-accomplished items to the next update
of the list, the Bucket List doesn’t
graciously permit second chances.
There comes a time (if you’re given the time) when
contemplation of a Bucket List becomes
a serious reality; and lucky the person who by then has fulfilled all ambitions
and desires, and for whom a Bucket List
is meaningless.
I would have to be one of the World’s great keepers of To Do lists, and yet nowhere have I listed
“visit Eaglemont”. But, for as long as I
can remember, the suburb of Eaglemont has intrigued me. I’ve been through Eaglemont station on the way
to other places, but never alighted. I
have visited all the next-door places, but not Eaglemont. And why has Eaglemont excited my
imagination? Because Walter Burley
Griffin designed property subdivisions there.
Burley Griffin was a great American architect. But he was much more – a town planner, a
designer of interiors and furnishings, a humanist, and an environmentalist. Australia was fortunate to have had him in
our land for 21 years, from 1914 to 1935; and fortunate, too, to benefit from
the considerable talents of Griffin’s wife and working colleague, Marion Mahony.
Griffin came to Australia having won the international
competition for the design of Canberra, and it was his task to supervise the
laying out of the National Capital.
Griffin’s professional career had three phases, aligned to
geography rather than to professional style.
While not ignorant of trends, Griffin remained a captive of the American
Prairie School from whence he came.
American sources on the life and work of Burley Griffin
refer almost exclusively to his work in the United States, and the subsequent
periods in Australia and India receive little attention by comparison. This is not just a bit of American
insularity, but a tribute to Griffin’s importance in his home country. Nevertheless, the scant reference to
Griffin’s work in Australia, and later in India (where Griffin designed the
library of the University of Lucknow and about 100 other buildings) is pretty
near-sighted.
After marriage, Mahony practiced from the Griffin office,
and remained thereafter as the Griffin practice’s chief draftsman. One source says that Mahony “used her pen to
breathe life” into all Griffin designs; and I can vouch for that. In 1998 I attended the “Beyond Architecture –
Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin” exhibition at Sydney’s Powerhouse
Museum. This exhibition was not only a
survey of Griffin’s life and work, but also a re-appraisal of Mahony’s
contribution. It was not by mistake that
Mahony’s name appeared first in the title of the exhibition. Her architectural plans were finely detailed
and their illustration was exquisite and magical, altogether memorable. Notably, Mahony’s work was initialled MLM
before her marriage, and MMG after.
Despite her outstanding qualifications and talent she was happy to be
seen as Griffin’s helpmeet; in its reappraisal the Powerhouse exhibition
demonstrated that the truth is not so simple.
Mahony, although five years older than Griffin, outlived him
by 24 years. She returned to Chicago in
1937, after Griffin’s death, and lived there in relative obscurity until her
own death at age 90.
Silverdale Road is short but characterful. Its central section runs parallel to the
railway and Eaglemont station, and at both ends there’s a sweep away like the stage
boxes in a theatre. There’s quite a
concentration of shops, both sides of the road, and traffic congestion has been
mitigated by the conversion to one-way.
The collection of businesses is diverse and interesting, including an
impressive looking butcher and greengrocer, and a small supermarket. There’s a happily non-conforming estate
agent: no multiple property ads in the window, instead memorabilia of Eaglemont
properties past. And there is Nostalgia
Wireless - formerly of Union Road, Canterbury Road, Collingwood etc. It is as cluttered and shambolic as ever, and
as enticing as ever. Console radios of
the ‘30s and ‘40s, mantle radios as young as the ‘50s, valves (vacuum tubes) of
all makes and sizes, and not a transistor or printed circuit to be seen.
We breakfasted at Eaglemont Dish. The porridge was not
served with milk but with peach juice, and pieces of home-stewed peach. The Bircher was served with yoghurt and
multiple toppings, principally blueberries.
Delicious, but both dishes were a little too sweet.
And what of Griffin and Eaglemont? The first Griffin subdivision was known as
the Mount Eagle Estate. It was not
strictly a greenfield project: first white settlement in the area dated from
the 1840s, and a substantial farm residence was built in the late 1850s. There had been an attempt at subdivision
during the land boom of the 1880s, but most allotments failed to sell. In 1888 the Mount Eagle homestead was made
available to a society of artists, a number of whom (Tom Roberts, Charles
Condor, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin) then lived on the site and became known
as the Heidelberg School.
Although suburbia encroached over subsequent years, the
Mount Eagle home and farmland remained largely intact………….until 1915, when
Griffin was approached by the then owner to design a subdivision of 145
residential lots, to be known as the Mount Eagle Estate. Griffin’s design incorporated curving streets
that followed the contours; and private parklands, not on the street frontages,
but each accessible from a group of surrounding properties with unfenced back
yards. Preservation of native flora was
integral to the Griffin conception. In
1916 Griffin also planned the adjacent Glenard Estate. Griffin designed a number of the Eaglemont
houses, and the Griffins lived on the Estate for some years.
In Griffin’s Eaglemont we have an early example of “garden
suburb” town planning, and one never bettered.
When you consider that in addition to their Eaglemont work the Griffins
designed Canberra (1911), the towns of Leeton and Griffith (both in 1914), the
Sydney suburb of Castlecrag (1924), and Ranelagh Estate at Mount Eliza (also in
1924) – as well as the huge body of architecture - it is impossible to identify
any other single contributor/s with such a huge impact on the Australian built
environment. The Griffins were truly
remarkable people; and on the basis of enduring legacy they are much higher in
the Australian pantheon than most of our politicians and other public figures.
And Griffin buildings are beautiful too!
