A BEGINNING, AN END AND ANOTHER BEGINNING
(Marion Mahony Griffin, Architect)
by
John K. Notz, Jr.
Delivered to
THE CHICAGO LITERARY CLUB
April 23, 2001
"Anthroposophy has contributed insights into all the arts: speech and drama, painting, sculpture, music, and the new art of Eurythmy. . . ."Mrs. Griffin, while you were at your Castlecrag home, near Sydney, you were known to have so danced. For you, however, these words from the brochure on Anthroposophy that I found resonate better (I QUOTE):
"In architecture, beyond blending beauty and function, buildings should be ecologically sound and reflect the character of the region or culture. They should provide an environment enhancing the physical, psychological and spiritual well-being of the people who work in them."Today, while these words strike me as entirely in tune with our society's emphasis on ecology, I wish that you were here, to explain to us:
(1) Were there any such interests in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright, during the more than 10 years that you were there (1895-1908)?Tonight, Mrs. Griffin, I will be talking to our audience, first, about your beginnings - your "formative years" - in the Hubbard Woods of your childhood (the 1870's) and in the Chicago of the years of your schooling (the 1880's and early 1890's). Then, I will talk about what happened well after the end of your life - the circumstances of the creation of the 1997 memorial for you at Chicago's Graceland Cemetery. As a closing, I will describe the growing interest in ready availability of some form of publication of your typescript memoir - The Magic of America. I have taken to calling to calling your typescript and its many accompanying documents, simply, Magic and this publication interest of mine, "Another Beginning".
(2) Were there any such interests in Canberra, during the seven or so years (1913-1920) that you and your husband struggled with and lost to the ever changing and envious Australian elected government bureaucrats assigned to implement your husband's award-winning plans for Canberra?
(3) Were there any such interests among those who sought, with you, for some ten years (1925-1935), to develop the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag, where many of your husband's late house designs exist, today?
(4) Were there any such interests in Lucknow, India in the 1930's, where your husband's designs for The University of Lucknow were to have been implemented and where he, tragically, died in 1937 - too young?
(5) Were there any such interests in the Chicago to which you returned after closing your husband's architectural practices in India and Australia or in the late 1940's and early 1950's, when, before your own death in 1961, you offered your last professional services to our City - and your offer was ignored?
"A home, eminent in the early days of the Lake Geneva colony for the brilliant qualities of its mistress, was that of Mrs. H. M. Wilmarth, on the South Shore, . . . Designed and built by her daughter, Mrs. Harold Ickes, its years of assiduous devotion to the preservation of its unusual natural surroundings have made it one of the beauty spots of the Eastern half of the Lake. . . ." (at p. 183)While Anna Wilmarth Ickes had a remarkable career of her own - of such substance that she has her own entry in Oxford University Press' "American National Biography" (1999) - she had no formal education in any of the fine arts - let alone in "architecture". I doubt that she could have designed this structure.
(1) Newman College of The University of Melbourne. I am told, authoritatively, that Marion contributed nothing to its design. In its Library, however, are the more than life-sized sculpted heads of both andMarion is recognized to have, at least, contributed, substantially, to the design of the extraordinary interior lighting - lighting that is, now, in the course of restoration.
(2) The Capitol Theatre.
(1) While at least adequate interest in Marion Mahony Griffin exists, the will to move forward and effect prompt public access to Magic does not;My hope is that, sooner, rather than later - just as Graceland Cemetery, belatedly recognized the presence of Marion Mahony Griffin - either or both of The New-York Historical Society and The Art Institute of Chicago will provide better access than presently exists to at least the contents of the typescript of Magic - perhaps on a web site accessible to all interested. Any editing of those contents can follow - as can reconciliation of other versions with the version first to be "posted".
(2) Any form of additional publication of Magic is a low priority for its staff; and
(3) The current "powers that be" are not willing to invest the time, let alone the money, necessary to see that even minimal electronic access to the typewritten text is effected.