Marion Mahony Griffin
Marion Mahony Griffin was a pioneering Chicago architect whose career spanned three continents and more than five decades.
She was born in Chicago in 1871, and was the second woman to graduate with an architecture degree from MIT. From there, she became the first licensed female architect in Illinois. She played an important role in the development of the Prairie School of architecture and worked closely with both Frank Lloyd Wright and the man who would later become her husband, architect Walter Burley Griffin.
Marion Mahony Griffin and Frank Lloyd Wright
She joined Frank Lloyd Wright’s Chicago office in 1895 and became an important member of his Oak Park studio. She was an exceptionally talented architectural delineator, creating the extremely detailed drawings that helped communicate the Prairie School’s ideas.
Her drawings were also crucial to the publication of Wright’s work in Europe. She prepared more than half of the underlying drawings for the influential Wasmuth Portfolio, helping introduce Wright’s architecture to an international audience.
Despite her contributions, her work was long overshadowed by Wright’s reputation.
Designing Canberra
In 1911, she married architect Walter Burley Griffin. Together, they traveled around the world working together.
In 1912, the Griffins won an international competition to design Canberra, Australia’s new capital city. Marion’s extraordinary presentation drawings were an important part of their winning entry, illustrating Walter’s vision for a city integrated with its natural landscape.
The couple later worked in Australia and India, designing buildings and communities while developing ideas about environmentally sensitive planning.
One of their most notable projects was Castlecrag, a planned community near Sydney that emphasized landscape, natural materials, and the relationship between architecture and its surroundings.
A Career Beyond Architecture
Mahony Griffin was more than an architect. She was also an artist, planner, environmentalist, and writer.
After Walter died in India in 1937, she returned to Chicago and eventually completed The Magic of America, an extensive illustrated manuscript documenting their life and work. The manuscript runs to more than 1,000 pages and provides an extraordinary record of her ideas and artistic work.
Today, her work is increasingly recognized as an important part of the history of both Chicago architecture and women’s contributions to the profession.
Death
Mahony Griffin died in Chicago in 1961, at the age of 90. Her ashes were originally placed at Graceland Cemetery & Arboretum without a marker.
In 1997, her remains were moved to our columbarium near the chapel, where a memorial plaque featuring one of her own flower drawings was installed. Her plaque can be found today in our Chapel Hill Columbarium, Lot/Pathway: Wall C-South, Space: 28a.