Monash University Publishing | Contacts Page Chapter 4 Almost Forgotten, if Not Unknown Australian and Indian Capital Connections Christopher Vernon Australia has long recognised Walter Burley Griffin as the American who designed its federal capital city, Canberra. More recently, it has begun to acknowledge Marion Mahony Griffin as the capital’s co-designer. Walter’s wife and professional partner, Marion Griffin was an architect and graphic artist in her own right. Today they are popularly known by their first names and collectively as ‘the Griffins’. Almost forgotten, if not unknown, is that the duo’s remarkable careers culminated in the 1930s with a flourishing practice in India. 1 Even more surprising for some is to learn that one of Canberra’s designers is buried there. How these former protégés of Frank Lloyd Wright came to practice in India is a saga that, as Rosie Llewellyn-Jones (2000:177) put it, ‘began in hope, but ended in tragedy’. Today, as India’s ever- burgeoning economy continues to transform the face of the subcontinent’s landscape, it is timely to revisit the couple’s little known Indian swansong—and its imperiled legacy. The journey that led the Griffins to India began with their 1912 victory in the international design competition for Canberra. As a point-of-beginning then, an overview of their entry’s symbolic content offers a contextual backdrop against which to consider these Americans’ trans-hemispherical movements, first to Australia and then to India. It also reveals resonance between Canberra and its immediate successor—and to some degree, heir—New Delhi, and illustrates the unevenness of Great Britain’s imperial project. Canberra’s origins can be traced to 1901, when six of Britain’s antipodean colonies federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia. Unlike India’s then imperial circumstance, Federation was initiated from within by Australians themselves. Though the new nation’s forces were still serving the British Empire in the South African Anglo-Boer war, ambition to build a national capital quickly arose from this ethos of political reconfiguration. However, ongoing rivalry between the Commonwealth’s two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, compelled it to construct a capital de novo. Having adopted American precedent, the Australian Constitution required the city be positioned within its own federal territory, not in one of the six states. Seven contested years later, in 1908, an inland district in the state of New South Wales was selected. Next, the Commonwealth surveyor was instructed to determine the city’s specific site from a ‘scenic standpoint, with a view to securing picturesqueness, and with the object of beautification’ (Minister for Home Affairs 1908). As these qualifications suggest, the capital building enterprise was as much a landscape design proposition as it was an architectural or engineering concern. In 1909, the surveyor selected a largely pastoral site within the broad valley of the Molongolo River as meeting these criteria. With the future capital’s site now fixed, the new nation was ready to contemplate the design of the city itself. Page 1 of 8 'Almost Forgotten, if Not Unknown: Australian and Indian Capital Connections' in Wanderings in India: A... 10/07/2015 http://books.publishing.monash.edu/apps/bookworm/view/Wanderings+in+India%3A+Australian+Percept...