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[Note: ==== first Section III Title Page ====]
THE MAGIC OF AMERICA
SECTION III - THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE
SECTION I - THE EMPIRIAL BATTLE
SECTION II - THE FEDERAL BATTLE
SECTION III - THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE
SECTION IV - THE INDIVIDUAL BATTLE
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SECTION III . THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE Page
FRONTISPIECE . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
MARY OF CASTLECRAG 4
No. 1. BANKSIA MARGINATA . ON THE SEACOAST 9
No. 2. ILLAWARRA PALMS 21
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No. 3. EUCALYPTUS FICIFOLIA 40
No. 4. FICUS RUBIGINOSA 51
No. 5. EUCALYPTUS DIVERSICOLOR 65
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No. 6. ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA . CASTLECRAG 85
No. 7. CALLITRIS COLUMELLARIS & ANGOPHORA SUBVELUTINA 106 [Note: [105]]
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No. 8. MELALEUCA 122
No. 9. TREE FERNS 143
No. 10. TASMANIAN EUCALYPTUS . ROUGH BARKED 154
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No. 11. EUCALYPTUS URNIGERA . TASMANIA 182
No. 12. TASMANIAN EUCALYPTUS . LEPTOSPERMUM SHRUBS 197
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No. 13. CASUARINA . EUCALYPTUS & PITTOSPORUM 227
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No. 14. TASMANIAN COASTAL MELALEUCAS 253
No. 15. TASMANIAN PALMS 273
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No. 16. ACACIA MELANOXYLON 297
No. 17. MELALEUCA & EUCALYPTUS 315
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No. 18. SASSAFRAS TREES . TREE FERNS & GIANT WHITE EUCALYPTUS 331
No. 19. LEPTOSPERMUM . NEW SOUTH WALES . TI TREE 350
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No. 20. ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA 370
No. 21. EUCALYPTUS RUBIDA 384
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No. 22. EUCALYPTUS HAEMASTOMA & SAPROPHYTIC SHRUB 399
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No. 23. ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA & GRASS TREE 428
No. 24. CASUARINA (SHE OAK) & FICUS 458
[Note: ==== Section III Frontispiece (table of contents) ====]
FRONTISPIECE . WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
[Note: The
caption to the New-York Historical Society's illustration reads, "W.B.G.
on lawn of 56 The Parapet . Castlecrag."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 1 ====]
I cannot always feel his greatness.
Sometimes he walks beside me, step
by step,
And paces slowly in the ways -
The simple wingless
ways
That my thoughts tread. He gossips with me then,
And finds it
good;
Not as an eagle might, his great wings folded, be content
To
walk a little, knowing it his choice,
But as a simple man,
My
Friend,
And I forget.
Then suddenly a call floats down
From the clear airy spaces,
The
great keen, lonely heights of being.
And he who was my comrade hears
the call
And rises from my side, and soars,
Deep-chanting, to the
heights.
Then I remember.
And my upward gaze goes with him, and I
see
Far off against the sky
The glint of golden sunlight on his
wings.
Eunice Tietjens in The New Poetry
Advance Australia 1 March
1928.
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MINIMUM DWELLING
[Note: The caption to the New-York Historical
Society's illustration reads in part, "Walter Burley Griffin, Architect,
1906." The structure may be the Frank N. Olmstead House in
Illinois.]
[Note: Ralph Waldo] EMERSON -
"If a man can build a plain cottage
with such symmetry as to make all the fine places look cheap and vulgar; can
take such advantage of nature that all her powers serve him; making use of
geometry instead of expense; tapping a mountain for his water-jet causing
the sun and moon to seem only the decorations of his estate; this is still
the legitimate dominion of beauty."
[Note: In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 3 ====]
W.G. [Note: William Gray] PURCELL -
The photograph above is printed in honor of a distinguished architect and man of quality in mind and spirit. His name is all but forgotten although his prize winning solution of a plan for the capital city at Canberra, Australia, in 1913 opened the doors to the new world of Regional City Planning with a project which will not soon be surpassed. One hundred and thirty of the most famous architects from all nations competed. Only Griffin and [Note: Eliel] Saarinen offered a program for a living city - all the rest were dead patterns - graphic designs of fabulous unrealities. I could write at length on this man and his work. He died in India in 1938 [Note: 1937] while directing an All India Exposition in Lucknow, the capital of the great province of Agra and Oudh concerning which not a line was published in any of our Architectural Journals. But I will leave this subject with a bit of grim humor. Of the one hundred and thirty competitors for the Canberra City Plan only Griffin, Saarinen and dear Albert Kelsey [Note: 1870?-1950] of Philadelphia were alert enough to find the significant issues in the program data supplied to all, and one hundred and twenty-seven of these cities, had they been built, would have been inundated under fifteen feet of water every fall!
The new aristocracy in architecture are much taken up just now with what is called the international style. They have failed to learn that when anything can be identified as "style" it is already dead.
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The Pinnacle was the only building on Castlecrag when we bought the property - three promontories of Middle Harbor. It certainly was strategically located. The lower story, a garage and one room, was built of the local sandstone which again was correct. A narrow stairway led to the attic space from the rear of which a door and a short flight of exterior steps led out onto that spectacular terrace from which you could survey two thirds of the surrounding horizon and the great stretches up and down Middle Harbor and out through the Sydney Heads to the Pacific Ocean.
We named it The Pinnacle. Its age is unknown but under loving hands it became not only livable but charming and even elegant in an antique way. Roofing it with concrete tile was revolutionary in Sydney whose enchanting bluffs had lost their beauty under the plague of red roofs and red brick walls that had crept like a skin disease over all Sydney's promontories. Moreover it became watertight which can't be said of the houses roofed with the Marseilles tile universal over there where the nature of the storms makes it entirely unpractical.
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VIEW IN ONE DIRECTION FROM THE PINNACLE
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As the years swept on, this strategic point served many purposes, neighborhood picnics with their rollicking gaieties, assembly vantage point for the gathering of the multitude to witness the Harbor sail-boat races, and endless stopping point for the streams of hikers for whom Castlecrag was and always will be, because it is Town Planned, a vantage point for superb views of the Harbor.
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[Note: Continued from page 5?]The inexpensive concrete Knitlock tiles were used on the gabled roofs, the garage was transformed into a great kitchen-dining room and the narrow room to the east became bedroom, and the studio room upstairs a sumptuous living room. All this happened by degrees. But it was occupied during the very early days by a brilliant English journalist and her daughter who from her babyhood took over the charge of Castlecrag as well as her mother. The story of Mary of Castlecrag is a wonderful story in itself for she was an outdoor child and wandered over and continually looked out for the interests of Castlecrag, safeguarding the flowers, reporting fires - she was the spirit of the place as if she were incarnated to watch and guard it, knowing every inlet and crag and flower, as well as tending to her mother's needs for her mother was mostly in town, interviewing, writing and so on. Later her mother's literary work took her to London so we lost Mary. But the Pinnacle was never vacant. You might call it the healthy seed from which Castlecrag grew into a truly modern municipality.
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No. 1. BANKSIA MARGINATA . ON THE SEACOAST
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There are many shrubs and trees whose flowers and seed clusters are cylindrical, many of them very showy, red or yellow or orange though sometimes green. Among them are the Callistemons and Banksias.
This is a Banksia Marginata decorating the edge of a precipice like a grand cap on the top of a majestic column. Like so many of the tropic seas, if not all of them, the water is a vivid blue like azurite or other precious stones.
The blossoms of the Banksias stand erect on the stems and, after the blossom time has passed, form a hard wooden cylinder sometimes 8 or 10 inches high. We used such a bush on one of our interior block reserves, the Ericifolia, for our Christmas tree in our out-door Christmas celebrations in Castlecrag for in the antipodes the Christmas is in the summertime.
Picturesque as the dwarf Japanese pines, they droop not at all nor show any signs of being any the worse for the sometimes long dry spells but merely suspend growth till the rain comes and then boom ahead to make up for lost time. Nor do they resort to needle leaves to accomplish this but spread their rich greens in every form of leaf known to deciduous plants.
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No. 1a . BANKSIA ON THE SEACOAST
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
THE SUMMARY [Note: "OR PREFACE" crossed out] - THE UNIT HOUSE
COMPETITION
& MOST ECONOMICAL CONSTRUCTION
A dwelling is the most important unit in a human community. It is the most complicated problem, the one most difficult to solve in the profession of architecture. The range of its possibilities is endless. Other buildings are but incidents in the mass of dwellings.
In this unit (Page 15) we present a solution. It is like a life cell in a living body. In a way the health of the community rests on the perfection of the single cell as it does in the body.
We ourselves have put this cell to the test. In no point did it fail us - minimum of care, complete beauty, intimate connection with the garden, hospitable beyond the normal.
This is one of those surprising forms that give unbelievable results.
It meets the requirements of the three problems and suggests a fourth for a perfect finish with a 4 foot unit.
With a 3'-6" unit it meets the competition requirements a little more amply since all four units come within the 1700 square feet limit giving a completely enclosed inner court. The colonnaded cloister feature could be added later. The children could build it. In fact if the knitlock tiles were used the family could build the entire fourth unit.
The exteriors shown in these photographs are not of this building but are placed here to show the varied ways in which the material can be used - with either plain or fluted surface, sometimes the flutes appearing on the outside, sometimes on the inside, sometimes on both outside and inside.
The smaller exterior with the chimney seat on the roof shows how the whole roof can be utilized for open terrace or veranda. As we used it, it became an important part of stage settings as for the last scenes of Goethe's Faust, Part II, and the angel choruses.
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VARIATION ON MINIMUM HOUSE . ELEVATION & PLAN
[Note: The
structure in the top image is the Vaughan Griffin House, Heidelberg
(Melbourne), Victoria. The plan in the bottom image may be the Guy House
adapted for knitlock construction. The caption to the New-York
Historical Society's illustration reads in part: "Still one room for
entertainment." ]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 13 ====]
Knitlock is a hollow 2 1/4 (two and a quarter) inch thick concrete block construction used for both exterior and interior walls and requiring no further finish though color can be added if desired.
Full or half columns may occur at desired intervals from two foot six inch to six foot units in exterior walls. They form the structural supports, and service pipes are invisible within their hollow spaces.
With proper designing it has the elegance of stone or marble for a fraction of the cost.
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If we construct one unit we have ample living space for a couple and even one baby thus specializing the 4th corner.
The floor area of one unit is - 445'
The floor area of two units -
890'
The floor area of three units - 1335'
The floor area of four
units - 1780'
With two units requirements are met for from one to five girls.
With
three units requirements are met for 5 girls and 5 boys.
With four units, one can serve for living and one for dining room. If we construct one unit we have ample living space for a couple. We ourselves lived in one for two years and found it perfect for our own comfort and for the entertainment of our friends who were many. We really led an exceptionally social [Note: "lively" crossed out] life.
There were no doors in the house except to the bath fixtures. Curtains hung from a rod at doorhead height around the interior square screening any or all parts. We never did cut off the fireplace alcove nor the one opposite it. Usually the curtain was pushed to shut off the corners leaving the living room (with a round table in the center) 13' square plus the fireplace alcove and the three major alcoves. The one opposite the fireplace held the piano and a library table. The other two held couches (bed springs) one single the other double and very comfortable divans they were. We had innumerable big cushions.
One corner is the kitchen, one the bath room, one the dressing room, one the library (or entrance as we used it - or nursery as it could be used).
The time came when we had to leave the city. We had thought we would never sell it but it became impossible for us to use it so we offered it for sale. It was sold the next day. After the owners had been there a couple of years they had to move across the continent. They offered it for sale and it was sold the next day.
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UNIT HOUSE & EXTENSIONS
[Note: This illustration appears to
have been submitted to the Chicago Land Prize Homes Competition,
sponsored by the "Chicago Herald American" newspaper, in 1945. The
design is based on the GSDA [Greater Sydney Development Association]
Caretaker's Lodge, according to J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The
Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) pp. 258, 263-264. Inserted in
the submission are three photographs: a living room (Pholiota), a patio
(Felstead House?), and a “perspective” (Mower House?).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 16 ====]
This sheet summarizes the flexibility of knitlock construction showing homes of one unit, a detail of whose living room is shown in the photograph, to homes of four units surrounding an open court so desirable in warm climates. Photo of such court shown in patio photo.
A father and his teen aged son could build such a home a unit at a time and could sell it under competitive prices if called to some other district.
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INTERIOR COURT
[Note: The structure is the Felstead House.]
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The adding of an identical square to this (corner to corner) would bring the living floor space to 890'. It should be added to either the kitchen corner or the bathroom corner. This would provide sleeping, playing, study, entertainment space for from one to five girls. An identical square added to the other service corner, bringing the area to 1335 square feet, would provide equally for from one to five boys.
The building of a fourth identical square by a contractor or by the family would completely enclose an interior court. This would bring the floor area to 1780 feet. This would form a completely enclosed open court for play or garden or pool with an encircling cloister giving access to every unit of the house. This cloister could be added at any time.
As the children married and went to the four corners of the world the parents could retire back into their original unit and live off the rental of the other three.
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CIRCULAR STONE HOUSE . 1, 2, or 3 stories
[Note: The caption of the
New-York Historical Society's illustration reads, "Stone Dwelling [-] If
one story a minimum cost house [/] 3 Flat Building [-] Appropriate for
[/] Hubbard Woods Ravines.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 20 ====]
Unlike other building materials, stone lends itself to the construction of curved walls. One thus gets the maximum living area with the minimum of external wall.
On terraced ground as shown, a one to three story building can be built at minimum cost.
If used as three flats, the entrance to each would be from its particular terrace as shown. If a single house external stone steps could be built along with the external wall at slight cost.
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THE ILLAWARRA PALM. SEAFORTHIANA
This the most graceful palm I ever saw, is a native of New South Wales and gives a real feeling of the South seas to many a garden and coast line. And what a Frenchy touch, holding onto its scarlet berries still after next year's lavender flowers have burst out of their great pod.
What a shock, and how one is inclined to believe everything Europeans say about Americans, when we learn that in Florida artificial Palm trees are rapidly taking the place of real ones. To one who has seen the spiritual forces that bathe growing things, varying in color with the seasons, it must indeed seem the worshipping of brazen images instead of deity.
This exquisite New South Wales palm has a silver gray trunk ringed from the annual fall of its leaves. And its red berried fruit holds over in great bunches till the purple tasseled blossoms of the next season have come and are in full show.
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INITIAL . ILLAWARRA PALM
[Note: See the illustration at the beginning of
this chapter.]
CONTINENTAL PRESERVATION - Walter Burley Griffin
WHAT IS TOWN PLANNING is a reasonable question because it concerns a subject for science or literature that is of recent origin. It is of our own lifetime.
40 YEARS AGO NO SUCH THING - In 1897 after five years of experimenting in the design of cities and formulating certain principles therefrom, I searched the library of my university as well as the three metropolitan libraries in Illinois for comparisons and found only some German contributions of which I had read the English and French periodical abstracts.
INAPT DESIGNATIONS - However we have had time now to find out that Town Planning is not precisely Town Planning.
TOWN PLANNING - For firstly:- Towns, in the local sense, are generally piecemeal affairs, not entities either in area nor functions.
CITY PLANNING - City planning suits better in America where Municipal organizations are single entities and embrace up to a hundred square miles.
REGIONAL - But even in America, in this age of rapid transit, Nation, State and Regional planning has to come into vogue.
TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING - In New South Wales, a Town and Country Planning Institute has recently been established.
NOT HARD AND FAST - And secondly:- That is only one side of the difficulty. Town Planning as a term includes everything in the Town, whereas everything is by no means capable of being planned. This has resulted in making of it often a catch phrase and catch-all for establishing some authority over everyone and everything in the community which, in a democracy, must work as more limitation and restriction on individual initiative.
AN IMAGINATIVE FACULTY - ABILITIES ORGANIZATION - Here then is a fatal contradiction, for planning is possible only to an imagination, and imagination is a function of the individual. Of course, only as far as that particular individuality has comprehended all the
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CASTLECRAG'S 3 PROMONTORIES will be a MUNICIPALITY
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elements entering into a planning problem will the plan be effective. But there are no laws for planning, only human faculties that are derived from knowledge and experience after that knowledge and experience have become absorbed into a complex of human capacities which defy analysis and from which they cannot be abstracted by any intellectual analysis, nor organized into any codes of law. In other words, a plan must be a work of art and works of art cannot be effected by Boards or Bureaucracies.
LAWS OF PLANNING - The laws of planning can be derived only from all the finished plans and are always being varied as fresh plans are always being created. If all Towns, Cities, Regions and Continents even are filled with ever changing planners for all their activities and developments, what scope is there then for general planning?
FUNDAMENTAL UNITY - Only for that planning which places first things first in the order of their determinability; and this planning will be effective in proportion as its imaginative picture represents a possible unity and as that unity appeals to the people whose creative activities are to co-operate in obtaining and extending it. This is why the scope of effort has so continuously widened.
LAND PLANNING - Except where the unique power of single control for use makes possible the complete realization of the landscape and building development within a brief period, Land Planning would be a sufficiently comprehensive term to cover the possibilities - the best use of the land.
COUNTENANCE OF THE EARTH BEING - Land however is not just space in two dimensions corresponding to a section on the map but whatever be its state of nature or of human occupation, it is a feature of the countenance of that perfected living-being - the Earth.
NATURE'S WORKING - Land planning or site arrangement is therefore concerned in understanding the features and processes of the Earth itself, the relationships of the configuration, the vegetation, the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 26 ====]
rocks, the soils, the waters, the very winds; and conservation to the maximum of their effectiveness and their irreplaceable perfection and beauty.
MAN'S INCIDENCE - Man too is a part of the Earth and there is always room enough for the preservation of the significant results of his strivings where these have expressed either general cultural growth or successful individual achievement.
HISTORICAL INCENTIVES - These were the greatest of incentives to continued effort and unique expression of successive times each of which is a different but by no means necessarily a better sort. In this regard the old world has a great advantage, and to wherever it has most respected the remnants of the earlier periods of civilization, the man of the newer countries has to make pilgrimages.
FIRST AUSTRALIAN BUILDINGS - A much needed lesson in humility in the face of the ostentation, arrogance and individual assertiveness, the very opposite of individual creativeness, shown in most of the buildings of a century, that hundreds of earnest leaders of thought in Sydney today should be exercising themselves to prevent the Government from demolishing such a primitive, even "barracks" structure as that of Governor [Note: Lachlan] Macquarie's on the east side of Queen's Square. That lesson will probably not be learned now whether or no this building is saved but it is to be hoped that this outstanding object lesson of the value of sincerity and restraint will be allowed to go on working at least until the community is taught. (The futility of all such attempts is because of the lack of an Abilities Organization consisting of the total citizenry as does the political.)
NEW ENGLAND 3 YEARS AGO, 3 CENTURIES AGO, CAPE COD - In 1932 I visited the first settlements of New England to find the original primitive bare wooden Puritanic simplicity so highly prized that no millionaire has dared or would dare to desecrate what has become the most fashionable summer resort of the Atlantic Coast with an intrusion of a different or more
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CASTLECOVE . 3rd PROMONTORY DETAIL . INTERIOR RESERVES & CONNECTING PATHS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 28 ====]
Detail of 3rd Promontory - Castlecove - showing the streets of easy grades making the whole promontory practicable for residential occupation.
Business section on the top level on one of Sydney's main outer thoroughfares connecting coastal municipalities.
Residential allotments enclosing park reserves all connected by park paths perpetuating for all time the entrancing walks throughout the whole of the three promontories.
On this promontory are the Golf Links, none finer in the Sydney or surrounding districts.
[Note: This "caption" is not in the New-York Historical Society's copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 29 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 26]elaborate architectural character. What a contrast with the corresponding Newport of the last century, the exhibition of rivalry in ostentation that ended in the destruction of all attraction.
BOSTON, BEACON HILL MASSACHUSETTS - Beacon Hill in Boston, because of the genuine simplicity of the 18th century homes, is the only fashionable area in any modern city that has not ended in the phenomenon of the "blighted zone" degenerated through cheap and disreputable habitation to factories and workhouses.
OUR NATURAL HERITAGE - Because we have so little of historical mementoes left, our land planning must stress their preservation, but it is because we have so much, such great wealth of natural beauty here in Sydney that our land planning is the most urgent necessity. Our natural attraction is not a matter of "beauty spots" but of a general character that is unique among great cities of the world embracing as it does, right at our doors, a combination of all the famous Azure Coasts, Mountain Lakes, Clean Evergreen Forests and rich and delicate flora, with a perennial salubrious climate, and this applies to the coasts to the North including Port Stephens though at that point we have a sealevel entrance to the interior of the continent.
DISCRIMINATION IN USE - Of course it is not planning that preserves these advantages, for planning is after all only arrangement, but it is only through forethought in the arrangement of our operations that best use and maximum conservation of our resources are rendered possible.
PESSIMISTIC IMPOTENCE - Most of the destruction and wasteful use is unconscious or arises through lack of belief in, or comprehension of, any better alternative practicable for any single perpetrator.
SCENIC "ACCESS" WARRINGAH [Note: beachside suburb of Sydney] AS HAPPENED IN HUBBARD WOODS - Thus we have just now the spectacle of a road under construction to make more accessible one of our loveliest peninsulas, whose sole value is scenic beauty, desecrating the first palm valley traversed (beyond the twenty miles previously
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despoiled of all attractiveness) with a ballast quarry and dump whereas the identical road material was attainable in a secluded quarry in the already despoiliated area - Balgowlah.
SEAFORTH - THE DEVASTATION WROUGHT BY POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS FUNCTIONING OUTSIDE THEIR REALM - Then look at Seaforth, Middle Harbor, where the shire Council has for several years been constructing as relief work a "Scenic Drive" at the cost of their chief scenic feature traversed, the unique bluff now disfigured by the huge ugly rock excavation, an open wound across it that will not heal and which has destroyed much of its charm forever. These so-called scenic roads are without plan because a plan implies a comprehensive purpose and not the defeat of the purpose through the means employed. For instance, one way traffic routes would have accomplished at once the access to the scenery and saved the scenery itself though it would not have employed so much relief labor which was the immediate expedient that irreparably defiled the last vestige that is left of Sydney's first PRIDE - the Harbor of unsurpassed beauty.
GOLF COURSES - Likewise we have Golf Courses denuding the remnants saved as reserves of our Harbor front at Mosman and Northbridge in which latter case the twenty-two thousands of pounds already spent would have purchased and completely developed suitable lands with several golf courses, instead of one as here, on sites less valuable as marine bluffs, reminders of what the whole of the Harbor was like in its prime before it became our shame.
OIL TANKS - Again at Chowder Bay, the Commonwealth Government is just now contributing huge oil tanks to the amenity of the park and residential section of the Mosman Promontory hitherto least devastated.
MERE INSTANCES - These instances are cited not because they are unique but because they are not unique. All these violations of the principle of conservation of priceless values are happening at this
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very moment in one locality but they are very like those that have been happening all over a continent during a century and will continue to happen so long as there is no consciousness of their avoidability. And not only in one but in all continents under the control of Western peoples all of whom are organized in totalitarian states - with but one community organization.
HARBOR BIFURCATION - If the Harbor Bridge is accountable for this last sort of thing thus forcing maritime industry over the foreparts of the harbor, then that fact should have been taken into account in determining upon the bridge transport which is obviously not the outcome of calculated land planning forethought if it industrializes the North Shore which it was generally thought to make accessible as a retreat from industrialization.
TRANSPORT TAXATION - If moreover the Railway and Tramway Departmental Policy, on which it purported to be financed, had been a matter of Land Planning would it have deliberately so differentiated values as to force flats into all the stations of the North Shore line and to resuscitate the dismal semi-detached houses in rows along the tram routes? Transport taxation should be determined by the Abilities Realm and executed in the Economic Realm.
WALLED TOWN CONDITIONS - RESULT OF POLITICAL CONTROL - For such is the consequence that was pointed out by Town Planners twenty years ago and which is now materializing because of the degradation of bus services and impositions on all competitive transport to the discomfiture of many residents and of all those hopeful of a growing home-loving civilization here in Australia.
CHAOS GOVERNS GOVERNMENT - THE MESS RESULTING FROM REQUIRING ONE ORGAN TO DO THREE DIFFERENT FUNCTIONS - All matters sited [Note: cited?] have been the palpable perpetrations of our delegated authorities, the governments, in one shape or another; hence the issue of Land Planning does not involve the setting up of any greater degree of governmental authority over the people but rather of establishing for the
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various branches of governmental administration, a relationship to the standpoint of the trained and experienced Town Planner, so called. This can be accomplished through the building up of a National Ability Organization.
ORDER PROMISED - The State Government has now promised Town and Country legislation and, as no party issues are involved, all political elements can work together in forming an instrument.
CENTER OF CONSCIOUSNESS PROPERLY THE FUNCTION OF THE ABILITIES ORGANIZATION - First of all, to focus the interest of the established authorities onto the comprehensive point of view necessary for LAND PLANNING in the activities of most of the departments and all the Municipalities and Shires.
SCOPE FOR PRIVATE ENTERPRISE - Secondly to provide legal powers for private initiative to plan for single, joint or voluntary group or district development unfettered by the arbitrary regulations and impositions which prevent the carrying out of such plans at present.
RIGIDITY OF STANDARDS INEVITABLE IN A POLITICAL ORGANIZATION FUNCTIONING IN OTHER THAN THE REALM OF EQUITY - All regulations have come out of experience of certain plans and, because the devising of land plans has been acknowledged for such a short period and is constantly bringing in so many changes, the regulations certainly serve to perpetuate bad features of out-dated experience.
INSTANCES - Roadways suitable for the contours of a cliff-side topography are outlawed whereas impossible roads up and down are sanctioned through these arbitrary standards. Likewise the orientation of houses to best utilize the sites for sunlight and outlook is thwarted by irrelevant clauses.
ADAPTABILITY THE INEVITABLE CONSEQUENCE OF TOTALITARIANISM - Regulations preclude individual thought or judgment on the part of the administrators as well as all others and excuse the retention of untrained inexperienced officers where the highest kind of foresight, insight and courage are needed to protect the right of the future. Land Planning will not assure
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TERRACE DWELLING . KNITLOCK
[Note: The structure is the Lawton
House, Castlecrag.]
STONE DWELLING ON MIDDLE TERRACE
[Note: See Note for "Stone Dwelling
on Middle Terrace" at III.07.115.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 34 ====]
The road frontage of this knitlock building is above the house and the view is down the valley so the entrance and bedrooms are on an upper level and a half flight leads down to the family living rooms whose roofs thus become the veranda and open terraces.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 35 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 32]proper development but will permit it.
DEVELOPMENT PLANS IN DUE TIME - Development of living, growing communities must generally be planned contemporaneously and for those who stand the cost but all these plans are either conscious or unconscious of a comprehensive plan for the fitting utilization of the lands of which they comprise only a part. With no consciousness there ensues the chaos and conflict that we have.
CONSIDERATION VERSUS EXPEDIENCY - With such a consciousness, which presumably will have to have a trained sympathetic spokesman, there can evolve that degree of consideration for time and place beyond the immediate needed actions in which only the expedient has had rein hitherto.
ACCOMMODATION POSSIBILITIES - The physical objectives of town planning are not new despite the fact that they are very seldom realized due to such deterrents as already instanced.
POLARITY
FRATERNITY ECONOMIC (1) - For all areas, it is important to
realize that General Accommodation, the realm of the principle of
Fraternity, rests on the foundation of two groups of fundamental opposites.
EQUALITY
POLITICAL (2) - Communication depends upon the political
principle of the equality of all men - equity.
LIBERTY
ABILITIES (3) - Occupation depends upon the cultural principle
of freedom of the individual for creative effort.
MAIN WAYS - Again communication may be for facilitating general circulation with direct simple easy continuous routes.
BRANCH WAYS - Or for discriminating distribution by means of circuitous or complex discontinuous systems.
PUBLICITY - Likewise Occupation may be;- (a) for general service of easiest possible accessibility to everybody, or
PRIVACY - (b) for special vocations, avocations or domestic neighborhoods all of distinctive character to meet the choice of their particular occupants.
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INCINERATOR IN THE OLD QUARRY OF COVECRAG
[Note: Structure is the
Woollahra Incinerator.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 37 ====]
The old Quarry becomes a pool in a park. The incinerator has no unpleasant qualities so the building housing it can become monumentally attractive.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 38 ====]
CANBERRA ANOMALIES - These distinctions allow me to explain for the hundredth time a popular misconception of the Canberra plan due to the facts that confused distributive roads were executed in advance of their counterbalancing system and also that the first business was forced arbitrarily to occupy a district deliberately side-tracked in the plan for the purpose of residential seclusion.
EXTREME SEGREGATION - The possibility of planning for differential use can be studied now in actual communities where the pedestrians follow separate routes from the motorists, and the houses connect with the schools through parks and playgrounds rather than through the streets, thus contacting neither business nor traffic.
CONSERVATION CASTLECRAG - Castlecrag is planned for mutually exclusive vehicle and pedestrian ways but its primary motive is the conservation of the pristine loveliness of several miles of rock-bound woodland covers of Middle Harbor in such wise that it will be safeguarded, in the measure necessary, by hundreds of appreciative owners and interested rangers for all the future, which has not been found possible for any of the reserves under general public authorities to say nothing of the unrestricted private occupancy which has so completely destroyed the inherent character of the rest of this landscape that once was one of the world's rare treasures.
SOCIAL EXPRESSION - There are sociological corollaries, particularly to domestic land planning, which have been evidenced for ten years even in this small nucleus of a community. The greatest social defect of modern metropolitan life is in the obliteration of the individual in the unorganized mass.
Immediately surrounding Castlecrag are no less than three thousand inhabitants in a square mile in which there is neither church nor hall, school nor club nor lodge nor social consciousness of any sort, yet in contrast here within this group of but a score or more homes there have been continuously living literary, sociological, dramatic,
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 39 ====]
philosophic, musical, folk dancing or ballet, as well as social groups, tennis and golf clubs and kindergartens, all independently recruited and carried on independently giving scope to individual expression and activity other than as mere witness.
FIRST SCENIC THEATRE - Such things as the Haven Scenic Theatre of which you have heard, whose plays on the natural rocks amidst the trees and flowers of the Cranny Cove have been given each of the four seasons of the past years, seem not to have been possible except in such an atmosphere of conscious plan. Yet all the wonderful facilities have existed from the beginning all over Sydney and have been allowed to go to destruction beyond recall, one by one, without a sign or a protest.
COVENANT HOUSING - An essential part of harmonious development in these eclectic days is the protective building covenant whose function cannot be compassed with any lesser power than ownership, delegated.
UNOBTRUSIVENESS - This is particularly the case where the conservation of a primeval nature in occupation is to be insured. That involves the prevention of obstructive or obtrusive erections. With those hundreds who realize the necessity for and understand the effectiveness of these precautions in firmly establishing an unique attractiveness and who have joined in this undertaking there is no question of the ultimate outcome.
VALUE OF RESULT - Any who are in doubt can study the results already obtained in comparison with the current practice on all grounds economic, social or aesthetic, to find the justification for the expectation.
LAND PLANNING - When there is a general acknowledgement of the patent fact that effective Land Planning is possible, such efforts will find support on all sides.
THREEFOLD COMMONWEALTH - These things can be obtained generally in our communities only by the threefold organization of our communities the entire separation of the Abilities organization and the Economic organization from the Political organization, each manned by the total citizenry.
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 41 ====]
The brilliant henna colored blossoms of the Eucalyptus Ficifolia almost bury the foliage of the whole tree. In West Australia the gums run a race with all the other trees and shrubs. They are like Shakespeare's Bottom, they want to be the lion too. They deck themselves out in blossoms now this color, now that, some pink come yellow, they will not be outdone, and the Ficifolia comes out sometimes one shade of red, sometimes another but mostly an indescribable rich henna - a brilliant orange toned red. I can't find a word to describe it. No wonder my husband and I quarrel over the naming of colors. No words fit.
In Western Australia blossom time is a riot and the usual white flowers of the Gum Trees turn to every color of the rainbow and many shades that no respectable rainbow ever indulged in. Stately avenue trees too so that the whole streets can be planted to the unbelievable henna flames, or pink or yellow. Not blue. There are Blue Gums but it is the exquisite blue of their young leaves that gives them their name, not the blossoms. Think of the slopes of the Rocky Mountains planted to masses of this color, not too far above frost lines! "Well why not? Come on let's."
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 42 ====]
MAP OF MOSSMAIN - MONTANA - U.S.A. - 1913
INITIAL - EUCALYPTUS FICIFOLIA
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
The town of Mossmain is situated at the junction of the Great Northern, Northern Pacific and Burlington railways, near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Clark Fork Rivers, in Yellowstone County, Montana; about 250 miles west of the eastern boundary of the state and 150 miles north of its southern boundary. It is 900 miles to St. Paul [Note: Minnesota]; 900 miles to Omaha [Note: Nebraska]; 650 miles to Denver [Note: Colorado]; 225 miles Butte, Helena and Great Falls, Montana; 600 miles to Spokane [Note: Washington] and a 1,000 to Seattle [Note: Washington]from Mossmain.
Nature and not man fixed the immutable advantages of this spot. Situated at the entrance to the Clark Fort Valley, embracing the largest and most productive section in natural resources of Montana, it stands a distinctive opportunity.
The building of towns in Territorial days was wholly a realm of speculation, of land speculation. Their location was fixed by the trail blazing railway engineers on the level ground at certain intervals. The townsite of Billings [Note: Montana] was laid out in accordance with this policy. But when the country settled up and the traffic increased, the Northern Pacific Railway from the standpoint of convenience and economy was forced to move its round house and shops to a point 14 miles West and there establish division terminal facilities.
In recent years, James J. Hill, in building the Great Northern Railroad south from Great Falls to a connection with the Burlington system, the control of which he had acquired was forced by the topography of the country to establish the southern terminus of his line at the point chosen for the city of Mossmain.
"Work is not and was not meant to be the whole of life. The leisure problem equals in importance the labor problem and surpasses it is difficulty. While the cities have grown to unwieldy
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 43 ====]
proportions, creating great wealth that the few might find leisure for the enjoyment of club life, travel and other diversions, the social conditions of the community have been given little thought, and the social needs of the citizenry as a whole have been entirely neglected.
A city is first of all a business enterprise with certain well defined assets, such as its location in regard to trade, its manufacturing possibilities, the natural resources surrounding it, its climate and its desirability as a place in which to live. Shall all these valuable assets be left to the exploitation of the speculator, or shall they be utilized for the benefit of the people who live in the town?
We of America have not made a great success of our city building. A town or city can and should be built like any other business enterprise, after a definite plan and with a definite purpose. The man who should build a business block without first securing place and specifications from a competent architect, and without having the site surveyed to ascertain the exact line of his property and the established grade of the street would be regarded as a fit subject for an asylum.
"Every home with a garden setting."
Yellowstone Garden City Holding Corporation.
This corporation has been formed and is incorporated under the laws of the State of Montana, for the purpose of taking over and developing by altogether new colonization methods, Five Thousand (5,000) acres of irrigated land situated at and adjacent to the junction of the Great Northern and North Pacific Railways near the town of Laurel, Yellowstone County, Montana; and for the further purpose of laying out and building a city or trade center thereat, consonant with the plans prepared by Walter Burley Griffin, architect of Chicago, and now building on virgin ground the new capital City of the Commonwealth of Australia.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 44 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 45 ====]
For these purposes the Corporation has secured land abutting on the main line tracks and sidings at the junction of the two great transcontinental railroads. The plans provide for suitable terminal warehouse facilities, stock yards, packing house, cold storage and creamery plant, water works, gas works, electric light and power plant, municipal theatre and club houses, administration and store buildings and such other conveniences and essentials of a modern city as shall be essential from time to time.
In the furtherance of the objects and aims of the Corporation, the following Declaration of Principles has been adopted as portraying, in brief, the basic or fundamental tenets on which the undertaking is predicated:-
1. To stimulate and make profitable intensive farming and to bring it within the reach of people of small means by co-operative effort and the creation of a market at the farmer's door.
2. To relieve the tedium of agricultural life by providing the tiller of the soil with some of the essential conveniences of the city dweller.
3. To relieve the nerve tension of city life by placing within the reach and enjoyment of every worker and dweller therein some of the attendant delight of the country - every home with a garden setting.
4. To provide sanitary conditions that may be enjoyed by all - a benefit to poor and rich alike.
5. To safeguard the amenities and unearned increment so that every inhabitant, rural and urban, shall share in the ultimate social and financial benefits.
First - To have as a nucleus for succeeding construction activities a comprehensive city plan, which shall embody every modern requirement known to science and art for the happiness and well being of the residents thereof and which shall give then beauty of
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 46 (table of contents) ====]
LIBERTY HALL . SINGLE TAX CLUB HOUSE . MELBOURNE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 47 ====]
Melbourne was planned not correctly but on too grand a scale so that what were intended as alleys in the original plan have become minor streets.
On Griffin's advice and through his energy the Single tax organization of Melbourne bought this lot and building on such a street close to the business center. It was remodeled to Griffin's design.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 48 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 45]surroundings not possible to obtain in any other way; every modern convenience for the economical transaction of business and the handling of merchandise, raw material and agricultural products; and which shall provide for a civic center, parks, playgrounds and open spaces and all other requisites for their enjoyment.
Second - To reverse the usual city building methods which have to do with town lot speculation schemes, and to substitute therefore the more modern plan which provides for a long term lease of the lands for both agricultural and business purposes.
Third - To subdivide the agricultural land surrounding the townsite into small tracts and by means of co-operative selling plans provide a market at remunerative prices for all products raised.
Fourth - To establish a district Agricultural School similar to those operating in Belgium, Holland and Denmark and through which the farm life of those countries has been regenerated by making the small truck farm profitable.
To Mr. Preston B. Moss more perhaps than to any other man is due the growth of the city of Billings and the marvelous development of the surrounding country. He was convinced that some better method than buying land and reselling it would have to be adopted if actual settlers were to be protected. Mr. Moss secured a site that meets admirably every requirement and need of commerce and trade and ideal social amenities; and in Walter Burley Griffin he found the man of the hour in modern city development. Mr. Griffin after making a personal inspection of the site gave it his unqualified and enthusiastic approval, and undertook the preparation of the plans. Mr. Griffin inspected the site on his return trip from Australia where he had just closed a contract with the Federal Government to superintend the construction of the capital city Canberra.
The estate is all under irrigation canals taking water from
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 49 (table of contents) ====]
PLAN OF MOSSMAIN . MONTANA
[Note: The New-York Historical Society's
illustration is entitled "Town Plat of Mossmain, Montana."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 50 ====]
the Yellowstone River, an inexhaustible supply coming from the water-shed of the Bear Tooth Mountains, the highest range in Montana, and from the natural fountains and lakes of the Yellowstone National Park. Extensive terminal freight yards of the two systems from St. Paul to Spokane. Here is concentrated for distribution the freight received from the east for a point west, and vice-versa.
Mr. Griffin says - "We have in America and in the newer countries much greater possibilities of town planning than have been recognized in the European experiments or garden villages."
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 51 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 52 ====]
THE FIG IS A SORT OF RUBBER PLANT and it pours its roots fantastically over the rocks till the gnomes make some entry open in the rocks for then to enter. The gnomes don't bother with them till all the other plants have been attended to. Without the help of the gnomes the roots of plants could not make their way through the earth nor could the leaves and flowers and fruit develop without the help of the undines, sylphs and fire fairies. All these things require intelligence though the blind materialists of today are all like Topsy who thought she just growed without any father and mother.
The fig foliage is a solid mass. It lets no atmospheric moisture pass it by but makes use of it all. That is where the Undines are at work. In the waterfalls is where they play.
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ARCHITECTURE IN ANOTHER 50 YEARS
Walter Burley Griffin
One would not rashly venture upon prophesy of startling developments in 50 years in the matter of a record line such as architecture if he were to be guided by the relics of this art and the all but geologically slow transformations distinguishable within the period of any given people or civilization. Nevertheless because architecture is, in a most subtle and accurate way, a reflex of life the prophet may find better grounds for interesting speculation in the thoughts and tenets of his time though he may detect only germinal ideas just seeming to extend tentative rootlets.
When as a boy I consulted Herbert Spencer's philosophy for enlightenment and found architecture considered virtually an ecclesiastical appendage, the notion seemed a preposterous limitation and I feel sure that my reaction represents the typical modern attitude toward this art. Just so. But after studying the buildings and noting with astonishment the absence of creative architecture in the western world for half a millennium, in fact since medieval times, the force of Spencer's observation became striking if not conclusive. Moreover in the face of the worldwide testimony of the stones that the religious structures have been the only ones to make lasting contributions to the art of architecture it is meet to give pause as to what architecture is when considered a live, growing thing, not a grave yard.
Buildings can tell the story of dead architecture as well as live architecture and we have ample record in the Roman Empire of at least one age before ours where the minds were possibly too much directed toward superficial ease and comfort to find opportunity for much exercise of the imagination which is undoubtedly the most real satisfaction obtainable from life. When we first reflect upon our own times we may well be flattered to recognize, in the mirror, the Scientific Age. Then our characteristic physiognomy in our buildings constitutes a scientific architecture and that is about the best we can say for it so far.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 54 (table of contents) ====]
THEATRE BUILDING . MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is sometimes
called Capitol House as well as Capitol Theatre.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 55 ====]
We do find economic structural triumphs in vast tunnels and bridges and skyscraping towers and mechanical utensils marvelous beyond all precedents.
But these achievements seem to be of short vogue and constantly going out of fashion before something still more economical or "scientific" and, though an individual architectural designer, a Louis Sullivan, may now and then attain to considerable flights of creative art, such flights have commanded insufficient sympathy from the public, support from the business men or co-operation from professional colleagues to bring about any general elevation of standards, which only amounts to another way of stating the case that Architecture is a reflection of the civilization or culture that it houses. This is so because in its broadest sense Architecture is the art not only for the man in the street but by the average man. It alone among the arts denies to "genius," the exception, or the man ahead of his time, the very forces, the colors, the notes, the words with which to express himself or to blaze a path for the masses. The latter must here painfully and gropingly tread out their own uncertain way.
If the ideal of the current culture is personal economic security or, in the last analysis, economic rivalry then we must lack the concord that could express itself in an environment of harmonious forms. If moreover a given culture, in its profound cravings, is devoted to ferreting out practical relationships and working hypotheses among physical phenomena, then that culture cannot be expected to express itself with unbounded enthusiasm in the playthings of life, nor to have much concern with the subjective universal mind and the emotional satisfaction of the art and joy of living. Instead our one-eyed intellectual, objective attitude toward life has relegated art to a sort of learned cult with orders and precedents sanctioned by rules and regulations which, even when derived from ancient religious expression, do with very poor propriety constitute the authority for referees in a professional game of Architecture. But a practical business world only
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 56 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 57 ====]
The whole lighting of the theatre is indirect.
The whole ceiling of the auditorium is stepped and illuminated in all colors from concealed lamps, in the highly ornamented steps of the ceiling, which are played like an angel orchestra before the play and at intermissions.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 58 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 55]in such wise, measurable and ponderable, can this art bespeak knowledge, "science," as contrasted with a thing so "irrational" as instinctive feeling.
Even our artisan cannot now acknowledge consciously the faith that is in him which makes him in spite of himself put on the extra touch, the effort toward perfection, for which he is not paid but which alone makes his labor tolerable or his product valuable. As a unit in the army of labor he must, however, prevent any possibility of tribute to the economic enemy.
Again as related to the whole of our natural environment, conceived as warfare for survival, what other than extermination of nature could be the end of Man's work. So he has fought to the death the marvels of inorganic and organic creation until the upshot is or will be a quarried world of rank weeds and domestic pests on the one hand with a modicum on the other hand of useful but diseased degenerated plants and animals tamed and cowed. The architectural representation of this state of mind in our times is our cities all alike dirty, monotonous, disorderly and desolate.
It will be admitted that the modern age has been useful and productive of the foundation, possibly, for a freer life in succeeding generations. The scope for imagination is a hundred fold greater than at any other time in history when a squad of men with mechanical equipment can perform feats of construction in a year that centuries of legions could not accomplish before. What a contrast with the actuality;- Unhappy timid people with their buildings (the monuments do not lie) a monotonous reiteration of the commonplace, the lifeless and the ugly.
As soon as we feel that we have attained to something that can be said to stand for general happiness or good fellowship, fraternity, co-operation, then we can look about us to discover that Architecture has once more arrived. Although we hardly feel justified now in casting our eyes about with a great degree of expectation yet future improvement comes only out of present dissatisfaction and we have some grounds for
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ENTRANCE PROMENADE TO AUDITORIUM & GALLERY
CARPET DESIGNED
BY W.B.G. . WOVEN IN ENGLAND
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 60 ====]
The entrance lobby approached by circular steps from a sumptuous entrance waiting room forms an intermission promenade for the main floor audience.
The stairway leads to the magnificent foyer above and thence to the balcony and balcony boxes.
The indirect lighting here is from the capitals of the majestic columns and piers.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 61 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 58]suspicion of a generally dissatisfied and disillusioned state of mind.
The people of today are uneasy, straining at their limitations whether they realize or not that these limitations are in the restricted direction of their mental activities. Signs of this state are in the hectic sources of recreation and mental relief so largely at present dependent on the external stimuli, spectacles, thrills, jolts, jars, jazz, joy-rides, wagers, "flickers," cabarets, air and water stunts and speedways. All these aim at emotional satisfaction and so far as they serve to achieve enduring pleasure something of creative art will arise out of them but little is in evidence so far of such results. We can judge from our individual experiences how little better than intoxicants are the ever-multiplying diversions, and posterity will have ample proof of their futility in our discordant houses.
Nevertheless, there is a certain spontaneity in these expedients and so much less hypocrisy than in the puritanical pretensions of only a few years back that I think our materialism has so far advanced as to be no longer comparable to a supernatural counterpart, another external agency, which has been proven in the end a futile evasion of the awful logical consequences to our human desires of the exorable external material automatism now being accepted for better or worse. Better or worse it must soon be, for a hectic state can only bring quick exhaustion.
We may concede the interpretation that following the intellectual reversion at long last, some centuries ago, from credulous fear to courageous curiosity we are now at a corresponding psychological turning point from repression to a flaunting exploitation of the feelings, emotions. If the parallel can be maintained the working out of a new common idea will be even more rapid in the coming era than was the unexampled development of the scientific and practical ideal in the past three centuries, and it is inevitable that even half a century will mark definite progress because the factors contributing to development upward or downward are now brought before the whole world immediately
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ART GALLERY . COMPLETELY INDIRECT LIGHTING . DAY & NIGHT
[Note: This illustration may be associated with the United Provinces
Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 62b ====]
The lighting of this Art Gallery as shown in the section is indirect for both day and night lighting, the pleasantest for the eye and showing the pictures to greatest advantage.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 63 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 61]they come into play in the remotest section. If the growth is already upward it will sprout fast, if not the point of exhaustion of all capacity for excitement through externals cannot be far off. Then, after passive simian curiosity has been satiated by science and the economic strain eased by practical expedients, when the physical senses are become callous to excitement, more men will have to turn their attention inward to the possibilities of co-operation between head and heart, to creative effort.
The belief or philosophy which has failed to develop an organic communal life has been inconsistent or in conflict, fundamentally, with life. We have come to recognize an external natural order of things which we see, hear, touch, smell and taste and consider real. But, as such a world of isolated individual intellect supplied no place for such instinctive ideals or desires as beauty or justice, and if the supernatural or divine world once conceived by us to support those ideals has lost its reality, we are not far removed from the condition of Rossum's Universal Robots.
For the beginnings of a fresh life we have to go from the mass opinions to those of the few pioneers who have, for about a century now, been exploring the complexities of the human mind and soul and the conditions for full-rounded healthy working. From these students a practical religion may be forthcoming compatible with modern objective science but taking into account, without the prop of external agencies, our vaster subjective activities, desires and needs. Then again will the imagination and the creative powers of mankind be unbound and free for an Architecture as far transcendent of historical efforts as is our science of construction and our economic power.
[Note: "R.U.R.: Rossum's Universal Robots" - A play (published 1920, performed 1921) by the Czech writer Karel Capek in which robots, originally designed as cheap labor, come to threaten the human race with extinction.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 64 (table of contents) ====]
FOUNTAIN PAVILION THEATRE
[Note: This illustration is associated
with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
LOCATION PLAN OF THEATRE & CABARET
[Note: This illustration
is associated with the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow,
India.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 65 (table of contents) ====]
No. 5. EUCALYPTUS DIVERSICOLOR
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 66 ====]
No. 4. [Note: 5.] INITIAL CAPTION
There are over 500 varieties of eucalypts in Australia which we might say is the habitat of the gums though a few are native in Mexico and perhaps somewhere else. The wattles run them a close second mounting up to some 400.
In this eucalyptus diversicolor we have one of the tall fellows which sometimes shoot up a 180 feet before branching. Some of them are as tall as our sequoias in California which has been counted the tallest tree in the world. But they attain no such girth. For huge trunks we have to go to the native beech of Russell Falls, of Tasmania though not limited to this region. The foliage of this Beech is like our maiden hair fern, leaflets the size of your thumb nail with serrated edges, multiple pinnate. This combination of exquisiteness and majesty is breath-taking.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 67 ====]
INITIAL - EUCALYPTUS DIVERSICOLOR
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
THE MAGIC OF AMERICA
SEC. II - THE MUNICIPAL BATTLE
With the exception of Canberra, the Federal Capital - Tuggeranong, the Arsenal City - Griffith, Capital of the Irrigation District, New South Wales - Leeton, an Irrigation Town - and Port Stephens city plans, Griffin's work brought him into contact with Municipal instead of Federal authorities. Again there was the perpetual fight against bureaucracy.
To realize the deadly effect of urban life - all of it really slum life - we shall begin by sketching bits of life in the paradise which is nature, and swing on to recounting at least one man's effort to show that it is not inevitable nor necessary to impose on modern children the restrictions, the filth, the noise and monotony, the prison life in fact, which characterizes our modern urban civilization bringing conflict and war to adult life.
Foresight is requisite. Without it man is not human. He becomes not animal but beast. Foresight means planning. Planning must include a totality, from a continent to the tiniest unit, a single home in relation to its neighbors.
Griffin's battle with Municipal autocrats illustrated in Pholiota (settled by favor and prestige) was continuous throughout his quarter of a century adventure in the Eastern Hemisphere. He and his wife began their adult life with the beginning of the 20th century, a century that has indulged in the most dreadful wars the world has ever known. These are the European peoples who in recent times have migrated to all parts of the world, destroying, always destroying. Let us see if in such a world we can find constructors who point the way out.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Griffin were fortunate in having been born in the fertile Mississippi Valley. Mother's notes give a glimpse of our early days.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 68 ====]
After the fire (the Chicago fire [Note: October 8-10, 1871]) Jere [Note: Jeremiah Mahony, MMG's father] hired a vehicle to take me over the burnt district, for he felt it was a sight I ought not to miss. The desolate picture is as vivid today as then, and it seems as though fairies must have worked to efface every trace of such a desolate field of destruction. I only remember a woman carrying a pan of milk; and Asa Gage saying that after walking quite a distance down Wabash avenue he noticed he was carrying a potted plant.
There were many broken hearts and lost fortunes but the prevailing spirit was, "We are alive and work will restore." Jere for a while wrote a daily column for the Herald; published a magazine for Mr. Barnes of New York; a school magazine for Chicago teachers; edited the Prairie Farmer; and was principal of a school. A man on top of a bus pointed to Jere who was going over the bridge and said, "There goes a man who can carry more work on his shoulders than any other man, with never a grumble and always a smile." He was a fearless writer and a poet.
Christmas Eve - Clara Hamilton Mahony [Note: MMG's mother]
The poetry, fun and beauty of our Christmas parties for 30 odd years is not in my power to do justice to. Anna Ickes said she would hurry to cross the continent if necessary to be on time for that evening, and her eldest son Wilmarth who had been a guest from babyhood to business man, even when by deaths and changes the royal old times were past, couldn't feel the old glamour was gone, would plead previous engagement to friends and his lady love when they pleaded for his presence. The only rule made was no presents, and friends kindly observed it. But let me try to describe the Xmas Eve party. The same families all those many years: - Mrs. Ella [Note: Flagg] Young, the 1st woman Superintendent of Chicago Schools, the Wilmarths, the Perkinses, the Mooneys, the Gilmores and ourselves. At first we used to sit at a table for twenty-seven. Our chicken pie was a big dish pan covered with a crust and filled with toys for the tiny ones. I shall
[Note: Mary J. (Hawes) and Henry M. Wilmarth were the parents of Anna (Wilmarth) Ickes.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 69 ====]
never forgot how little Eleanor kicked and clapped her hands when from a hole in the middle of the crust a jumping jack stuck his head out. The tree was always a beauty with its frost and tinsel, the room gay with lights, berries and evergreens and happy faces. For a few years several children of our eighth grade we would treat to ice-cream up stairs, then, at the proper moment, a [Note: Edward] Burne-Jones picture of juvenile loveliness, they would come marching down the stairs to Aunt Myra's music and stand around the piano singing Christmas carols (breathtaking, the music, for Mother's school was in Chicago's Bohemian district). Sometimes a charade or a little play by the children themselves but, on account of the little ones, an early start home. After guests were gone we hung up our stockings and put a big basket in front of the fireplace for overflows.
Our friends were legion for Jere and myself were so long connected with the schools, and he also a writer for magazines and all the papers. One night he was walking with Mr. Hoyne. He said to him, "Phil how did Howland get in? (as Superintendent of Chicago schools)?" "Oh I don't know, I guess it was the press." So when Jere reached home he said, "Clara, what do you think I am?" Answer - "The press." Then [Note: he?] explained about his interview with Mr. Hoyne upon whose saying [Note: "the press" added in N-YHS copy] he had pulled out of his pocket a roll of newspaper clippings every one of which Jere had written.
AFTER THE FIRE. Marion Mahony Griffin
That I was one of the Angels' foundlings I am convinced for my early childhood was spent in a bit of Mother Nature's paradise, indeed reversing the tradition, they had to set Chicago on fire to drive my parents out of Hades, so to speak, into Paradise, me a babe in a clothes basket with my older brother, Jerome, trudging along as best he could. They paused a year on the very edge of Paradise to give birth to my next brother Gerald - "big Jere [Note: Jeremiah], little Jere and Jere with a G" as my beloved Aunt Myra said - the Ma' ho nys - with the accent on the first syllable as interestingly enough, we found everyone pronounced it in Australia but in America - well everything gets changed in America, the melting pot. For in High School when
[Note: The illustration listed as being on page 70 in the table of contents:
STONE & CONCRETE RAVINE DWELLING . MR. BLYTHE
is lacking in the
New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 71 ====]
The balanced elegance of this dwelling is effected, and at the same time an economy, by uniting the garage to the main building and placing a library den over it. Thus the one story dining room is balanced.
With the 2nd story windows, central between two heavy piers, grouped with a bit of relief ornamentation extending this central feature from the roof to the wide picturehead and the flowerbox sill treatment in the 1st story, the building becomes as elegant as any classic structure.
These things call for the artist's inborn sensitiveness to form in three dimensions added to the mathematician's sense of structural economy. These combined qualities are essential to the architect as distinguished from the artist.
[Note: This page is not in the New-York Historical Society copy. Editorial comments written on the left side of the page read, "Place (not in III) (in IV ?) (? Sloan) [/] Blythe."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 72 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 69]the young immigrant corrected his teacher, Mr. Howland, on the pronunciation, Mr. Howland said - "Oh I can't get these Italian a - s [Note: a's?], we'll call it Mayony and Mayony it has been ever since though on various occasions I tried to get the h [Note: y] turned right side up as for instance when I migrated to Boston for my University work and my B.S. in Architecture. But within a few weeks Mrs. [Note: Mary J.] Wilmarth came to see me in Boston and asked for Miss Mayony and so it continued to be.
The next year the family moved to Paradise, Hubbard Woods they call it now and well does the owner of that district in our childhood days deserve to have his name honored for he would not let it be subdivided and sold in the gridiron fashion of the time. It is sad indeed that Town Planning had not become established before the Gold-coast of Chicago extended to take possession of this lovely bit of post-glacial ravines, for the ravines themselves would have been held as reserves.
A royal domain it was for us children. Since each human being has a guardian angel who watches over him through life and on through the periods between death and rebirth I am especially grateful to her and glad that my early childhood was spent so completely surrounded by beauty for only so can one in another incarnation himself be physically beautiful. We comprehended this when in India where everyone is surrounded by beauty for there they do not segregate the slums, and even the men are wonderfully beautiful, every type and so beautiful.
The other Marion too, my Boston pal, had similar advantages. We are told that the reason why there are so many commonplace people today is because they are taught to read at too early an age, another consequence of which is premature sclerosis. One of the most interesting people of my acquaintance was this mate of mine at Boston Tech. Due to her frailty she had been given no teaching until she was twelve. Entering school then she rapidly put herself on even terms with the other children. At fourteen she passed with the children
[Note: "Boston Tech" - The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was known as Boston Tech (near Copley Square) from 1865 to 1916, when the Institute was established in Cambridge.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 73 ====]
of her age into High School the four years' work of which she completed in three years. At the same time, at her home by herself, she did the first year's work of the University and so entered the second year of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when she was seventeen. She was beautiful, brilliant and charming.
Along the shore of the lake [Note: Lake Michigan] between Winnetka and Glencoe is the beginning of the ancient glacial moraine which has been cut by the Undines, the water fairies, into lovely ravines while the bluffs along the lake shore are still high and steep. There were four families who ruled the whole realm, nearly two miles from north to south, and which, west of the track, was occupied by as few houses and, except for them, empty for the whole extent of two or three miles to the west - the great Skokie which was the head of the North branch of the Chicago river, whose waters should have been controlled but never drained off. What a thrilling and mysterious place this Skokie was of which one heard some dreadful tales! It was a great sea of grass dotted with islands, of trees, but no one could venture there for the surface of the ground had no foundation below it. Jerome once went out with a gun and sank to his shoulders and but for his gun would have been lost. With the support its spread gave him, he worked his way back to real land.
Concerning human beings this Xanthippe child can remember no emotion except that of curiosity about grownups - a great wonder as to what they were thinking and doing, a wish she might be invisible and sit in a corner where she might find out what they were about only if they were unconscious of her; but Oh! the thrills of all out-doors! Fortunately for these children there was an assistant in the family, a young Irish woman who enjoyed her work and loved to play. Katy [Note: Katie?] Tully took the children on adventure after adventure. In the early spring they went down in the ravine and brushed the snow away to gather the first hepaticas - white and pink and blue and lilac. And there under the snow the winterberries were found, and sassafras
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 74 ====]
root and slippery elm bark. They scoured now this part of the woods and now that, as the seasons passed, to gather June berries and choke cherries and huckle berries, wild strawberries, raspberries, black berries and, as fall came, hickory nuts and butternuts and walnuts and off to the Skokie prairies to add hazel nuts to their stores. What fun to climb the young hickories and swing from their tops to the ground, secure in their supple strength!
One wintry day when the waves had piled hills over the water and shore right up to the bluff, a group of children on a tour of discovery had found and investigated one of the caves in the ice and peered through holes in the ice floor to see the waters they could hear rushing below. As they came out there was father coming toward them. He said nothing but they all went home together. The idea that little children know their elders' thoughts without words one can well understand because of the vividness of the picture of her father, as they appeared from nowhere before his eyes, still in her memory. He had evidently been searching and frightened but he said nothing to frighten them. That was like her father for she remembers too how, when he came home from Chicago at night, he used to take her on his knee and let her count the change in his pocket. Each time she used to "nick" [Note: i.e., steal, take] something but he never said anything nor did he ever forbid the counting of his change. The game didn't last long, and of course he knew what she was doing, but she has always been grateful that he didn't by any word or look plant in her mind, for it was a sensitive mind like any child's, an idea that she was doing a sinful thing. It helped her to be able to counsel many a mother later for it was one of those personal experiences which enable one later to comprehend children whereas most grown-ups these days have no understanding at all of what a different thing a child is from a grown-up: that, for instance, a child can't form moral concepts before the time of the change of teeth, when the second of
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 75 (table of contents) ====]
STONE & KNITLOCK RAVINE DWELLING . CASTLECRAG
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 76 ====]
This cheapest form of masonry construction, knitlock, invented by Griffin before he left the United States for Australia, gives a five room house within the area of a usual four room house, and, since interior and exterior walls are identical, can be added to at any time without extra cost.
This house is in a stone district so the knitlock has been used in connection with the local sandstone. Endless charming note can be effected by the combined use of these two local materials for the tiles in this case were made from more or less disintegrated local stone which varies in color from white to yellow to russet red.
The original, a complete house, was the square structure on the lower terrace. Next the garage on the street level and next the veranda and two bed rooms on the upper terrace.
The whole was of course planned from the beginning.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 77 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 74]his four bodies, the etheric body, is born so to speak, and that therefore moral teaching before that time perverts them, stunts them. One recognizes that the elders must protect themselves but not by moralizing.
There was a similar experience later in life with a five year old niece coming to Aunt who was to be counted on in time of trouble. She had broken a saucer and wanted Aunt to hide it. That was as far as her child cleverness, slyness if you will, could take her. So Aunt said "All right." But after a few moments she said - "But what if Mother found it? Then she would have to punish you. But, now, if you tell her and say you are sorry she can't punish you, can she?" She gave the matter cool consideration and accepted Aunt's advice. It worked. Moreover she grasped the whole working principle and after that not only 'fessed up but heaped such ingenious terms of reproach upon herself that one couldn't scold her, there was nothing left to be said. Children are clever. They should be handled on those lines during those early years. She is the one who wouldn't eat meat after she found that people killed "tame" chickens and, "Why did they kill tame cows?" Her mother laughed when she announced that her religion was the vegetable religion so she turned to me with - "There is such a religion isn't there Aunt?" "Yes," aunt said, "in India those of the Buddhist religion eat only vegetables." "Well, that's my religion," she said. And she lived up to it which required the family to go far in that direction.
The wonder of that life in the open was not only in play - hide and seek as the darkness grew in the evening, taking away all fear of the dark (which is natural in children) - the skating on the ponds - but also the tasks like gathering chips or fire-wood where trees had been felled and logs piled up, the participation in human life. It is Katie [Note: Katy Tully?], that lovely friend, to whom she owed the fact that she danced in those early years when training of the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 78 ====]
whole body to rhythmic movements is of vital importance if one is to function as artist or musician in later life for mother, who had taught before marriage, after the birth of her fifth child was teaching again.
There were too the hours and days by the lake whose fine beach was the ideal playground, taking turns on father's shoulders as he swam out and out, father whose ideal of heaven was a great ocean where one swam and floated the duration. Watching father and Mr. Chisholm, the neighbor across the road, one of the four families who constituted the charming community in this great and lovely domain which has now become the most elegant of Chicago's suburbs, watching these two men's heads way out in the lake as they sat on a sand bar and talked and talked for they were both journalists at that time, father "the best slinger of the king's English in Chicago." Or dimly conscious on another afternoon, the water fairly rough and father way out, his head barely visible on the wave's crest and then gone from sight, that mother who would never go in swimming was sitting on the sand at the foot of the bluff, very still for a very long time, unobservant of her children (I remember it vividly), with her eyes glued on that distant black speak. For father had got caught in a current. They call the lake treacherous but I refuse to use a word so inappropriate to a superb creature which is but leading its own life in its own perfect way. And father was fighting for his life and gradually won his way back, superb swimmer that he was. Again the vividness of the remembrance shows that she read her parent's thoughts as children do in those early years.
Or thrilled when father would breeze into the house saying, "With this East wind there must be a storm on and we'd better go watch it," and at an hour most untoward for children all would troop down to the bluff and watch the waves storming over the whole beach and pounding half way up the bluff, such majesty! And once a wrecked ship
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 79 (table of contents) ====]
RIVER BLUFF DWELLING
[Note: The structure is the Melson House, Rock
Crest-Rock Glen, Mason City, Iowa.]
RAVINE DWELLING
[Note: The structure is the Paton Residence (Scheme
No. 1), Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 80 ====]
Both these houses were built of local stone, the one on the water frontage of lime stone. This frontage was simply a continuation of the vertical old quarry wall. When completed Griffin climbed from the river bottom to the roof of the house. This is in Mason City, U.S.A.
The keystones of the upper windows were carried in stepped form above the roof. Aesthetically it solved the problem of the flat roof. This was the origin of the motif so popular since in city buildings and bridges, etc., in Russia, India, Australia, the United States. An imagination once conceived and executed is reflected in the others and becomes accessible to imaginative thinkers, and of course to the uninspired who follow and often claim.
The ravine dwelling in Sydney, Australia, was built of the local stone which there is the old Potsdam sandstone.
Both are terraced houses and all windows, except the massive piers emphasized and so making bookcases, cupboards, wardrobes or fireplaces in the interior. Every necessity is taken advantage of to add beauty to the dwelling. Thus minimum cost dwellings have the beauty and charm of the expensive ones.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 81 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 78]was swept up on the beach where it lay for many months.
Mr. Chisholm, who adored father, in physical appearance was a duplicate of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was quite as likely to drop in for a chat at two o'clock in the morning as any other time. One night the Chisholm family and guests dressed up as Indians and raided the Mahony house. Another evening we all went over there. Mrs. Chisholm, fat as any prima donna, was a lovely soprano and that night mother with her "India rubber face" as one of her old teachers used to call her, told a funny story of the family with the crooked mouths trying to blow out the candle before going to bed, and father who had never heard her tell a story before because she was not a raconteur, circled round and round through the rooms hating to miss any of it yet unable to endure the agony of his own laughter. And one night mother waked her up early in the morning to see Venus. She is sure she has never seen it so big since.
Week ends were apt to be stirring compared with the very quiet week days for guests were continually dropping off at the Lakeside station and Xanthippe, always a tomboy, was usually called upon to climb the tree in front of the porch, branchless to the height of the house, which she alone could climb none of the boys being equal to it. She had a way of her own, bare footed, monkey fashion, soles of her feet planted against the trunk. If her feelings ever got hurt which didn't happen often and of which she has no recollection, she would slip away (so her aunt told her in later life) and hide herself way down under the bed clothes and was so tiny as to make a hardly perceptible bump.
And then one day when there had been a grand clean-up for a weekend party, and mother had oiled the floors and put the rags up in the attic which certainly could run a temperature on a hot day, and the family and the first guest, Ruthven Pike, had all gone to sleep after an all day and evening picnic, the house caught fire, spontaneous combustion from those oil rags and burned to the ground.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 82 ====]
"A magnificent bonfire" said mother. In the hurry and flurry of rescuing as much as possible, it was Katie [Note: Katy Tully?] who remembered Xanthippe, woke her and put the baby in her arms and sent her across the street to the Chisholm's. It was Katie who told the tale of how provoked she was to see Mr. Pike deliberately completing a careful toilet even to the perfect tying of his tie, and then seeing that it was he who, coming out of his room, went straight to the barrel of gasoline and rolled it out of the house, quite likely in this way forestalling an explosion. The family had to go to Chicago to live. Xanthippe spending a year with her beloved Aunt Myra, mother's idolized sister, in Tremont, Illinois.
But on with our Australian tale - February 1919, Melbourne - Dear Clarmyra [Note: MMG's niece, daughter of MMG's sister, Georgine] I certainly do wish you could have been with me during our holiday in Tasmania. We would have had grand times together. It would have been a fine chance for me to have put you through your paces in drawing and painting. I think I'll make use of the chance of doing a bit of dictating to Miss Ullyatt to send you a general account of this holiday which came in so surprisingly short a time after my September outing in the Grampians [Note: Victoria, Australia] with Uncle Walter, because these holidays are the one thing we can write freely about without any fear of complications because they are so utterly distinct from our routine life, either personal or business, and seem scarcely a part of ourselves that it does not seem like telling personal matters to the general public in case the letters should be read, as they undoubtedly are, by others than those to whom they are addressed.
One of the artists of Melbourne in whose work we have been interested, Bertha Merfield [Note: 1869-1921] (who later did the huge mural of gums in the valley in the Cafe Australia) said to me one day that she was planning to take a vacation in Tasmania and wondered if I would like to go along, to which I promptly said I would. I was confident that her choice of a location would be satisfactory to me. Moreover it's no earthly use to wait till Walter can go with me if I am to see anything of this country or be able, as I have wanted from the beginning, to make
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 83 ====]
drawings of the fascinating trees to be found if one can only get away from the habitations of man.
It seemed too bad and rather outrageous to run away from home at Christmas time but as it was then or never I decided I could not afford to throw away the opportunity. Had promised candy for Walt to give to some of his favorite ladies but guests came unexpectedly to dinner on the last night so the next morning on his telling me he would lend a hand I undertook to boil up some candy. At the end of about a half hour, he was struck with compunction at not going to the office so my human limitations made it impossible for me to do more than finish the boiling of the batch I had on the stove and lay out materials required and leave him to manage the rest as best he could, which to the amazement of all of us, he did most successfully and proud as a peacock he was over it too. All this meant a wild rush at the last moment to catch the boat which for the next 24 hours I wished I had never caught since the trip on the Loongana, which is never painted in glowing colors, everyone said was the worst ever. The storm was over before we reached Tasmania where we had a wonderful fortnight which enabled me to add a number of unique trees to my set of Forest Portraits.
MARION MAHONY GRIFFIN - ROMANTIC
[Note: See also the illustration at
Section II, No. 21, page 348.]
[Note: In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 84 ====]
Mrs. Griffin in her youth amused herself playing the roles of Beatrice, Portia, Olivia, etc.
Now Olivia is a great role usually suppressed because the star playing Viola wants no rival. A man in our audience sitting next to my brother asked him - "Who is playing Olivia? She is a fine actor." Grouchily my brother said - "She is my sister," which left the inquirer as much in the dark as before.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.][Note: ==== Beginning of page 85 (table of contents) ====]
No. 6. ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA . CASTLECRAG
[Note:
This images appears again as the last image in Magic of America, "Ravine
Dwelling . Castlecrag," at IV.28.494.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [86] ====]
A CASTLECRAG HOME IN A CASTLECRAG GULLY
The floors solid on the ground keeps the house cool in the summer and warm in the winter, stone walls, hollow concrete roofs.
The botanists tell us that this district has a greater variety of blossoms than any other spot in the world. Trees and shrubs are in blossom the whole year round, a constant succession, in endless variety.
By planting the proper varieties one can have acacias, the wattles, the golden rod tree, in blossom all the 12 months of the year, great masses of showy clusters of various shades of gold.
This high tree too, an Angophora Lanceolata, loving the spectacular, chose the edge of a precipice thus dominating the gully. Humans ignorant of spiritual science might well wonder whence it got its nourishment but indeed the plant has no need of earthly things for its nourishment but only for its support and to maintain its upward position.
The trunk of the Angophoras may be round or it swells out in one direction and then narrows up to a slender oval in section at another according to its passing mood, and the branches pay no attention to the laws of gravity, reaching out twisting and contorting as if they were in water, indeed in every way often resembling water animals, this pink barked tree resembling a great octopus with outstretching twisting and contorting tentacles. This is because the vegetation originated in the Lemurian times when the partially solidified parts of the earth were still bathed in heavy mists so that the vegetables as well as the animals were still sea creatures. The platypus ornithorhynchus [Note: duckbill platypus] is an example in the animal kingdom.
In my drawings I did not choose these extremes, being fascinated by the beauty of those of the trees that were not quite so strange to my western eyes, for our America gives us much later forms for America is dominated by the life ether, the last that has functioned in the evolution of the solar system, the solidifying instead of the liquifying forces. This magical tree is quite restricted in its habitat to the greater Sydney area of which our 3 wonderful Castlecrag promontories are a part and here they are being carefully preserved. A visitor said 2 men had discovered Australia, Captain Cook to possess it & Burley Griffin to preserve it.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 87 ====]
THE ARCHITECT'S BURDEN
WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN
A TALK TO STUDENTS - 1924 - Sydney, Australia
In his treatise on painting, Leonardo da Vinci dealt with art's fundamental values. First he declared that no artist is worthy of praise unless he is universal; that he should acquaint himself with all the phases of life; that he should disdain to make pictures out of other pictures, but should go directly to life and, having mastered all the technical intricacies of his calling, he should use his imagination and build up an art. Certainly this is impregnable doctrine. In the second place he advised close contact with nature.
Now I wish to develop this attitude toward the modern field of architecture. You are starting where I bespeak 30 years experience and hence dwell on what seems the most important issue albeit the most disagreeable of all subjects for us. The subject is not chosen because of its attractiveness. The topic is in fact disagreeable in the extreme for our architecture is only manifestation of the diseased condition of our society in whose body the faculties of art are all but atrophied.
When we come to think of it, no art has nor merits in our day so great popular appeal as music, yet even that appeal means so little that we here cannot afford or find the time of one person in 10,000 for a dozen days out of the 365 for the presentation of the most adequate form of musical expression - that of the symphonic orchestra. If we are able to excuse ourselves in the fact that no community elsewhere does better, that is so much the worse for the status of music.
As to the graphic arts, at the first attempted representative exhibition of current painting that has been heard of here during the ten years of my residence in Australia, I counted a total attendance of four persons apart from my party during the evening I attended. Irrespective of the merit of the paintings, which is another subject, what can be said for the curiosity to say nothing of the interest of the people of our time in this, one of the supreme avenues of human
[Note: There is no page 88 in the typescript.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 89 (table of contents) ====]
CHIMNEY OF PYRMONT INCINERATOR
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [89-2] ====]
The Sydney Incinerator erected on the high rock promontory of Pyrmont will stand we think as an historical record of 20th century architecture. It is as beautiful, as majestic, as unique as any of the historic records of the past. Historically it records the basic fact of the 19th century civilization later emphasized by the smashing of the atom.
The ornament is the record of what remains when matter is destroyed - warmth which manifests in the material world in the spherical form - the only form of matter when the solar system came into material existence, the Saturn period; the triangle when the gaseous condition came in the Sun (see photograph of the Sun's rays); the crescent or wave form of the Moon period when there was the liquid condition of matter; and the rectangle, the controlling form of the solid condition as seen in the human being's blood crystals. When the atom was smashed there remained only warmth, light, sound and magnetism.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 90 (table of contents) ====]
INCINERATOR OVERLOOKING THE CITY
DECORATIVE MOTIFS FIRE (warmth) AIR
(light)
WATER (sound) EARTH (magnetism)
[Note: There is no page 91 in the typescript.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 92 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 87]expression or invention or creation.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the plastic arts for we are right in an epidemic of soldiers' memorials.
Though it may be more difficult to ascertain numerically the hold of literature on the people of our time, there is slight evidence in the printed matter in circulation and on the stands that interest in the art of literature is any greater than among illiterate peoples and primitive times.
Then where does architecture come in? If it is monuments you would see, look around you. Can anyone here recall a single creative expression of human endeavor or a single idea in this line in the last five hundred years? (At that time Griffin's practice had been in Melbourne only and his influence had not yet spread beyond that city.)
By reason of specializing in this search during thirty years, perhaps I might be able to cite an answer but I don't wish to appear pedantic and then you could easily dispute it. But granting one exception or so in the half millennium where now does architecture stand in our civilization? Where does even the imitative stylistic practice which we may designate architecturesque come in?
A view of one of our cities, the physical expression of our civilization, will reveal from an air plane the following fourteen points in approximate order of importance:-
(1) Disorderly grouping of desert streets, ways and lump structures.
(2) Railway yards and trestles.
(5) Sheet iron and paper roofs.
(6) Factories, wharves, sheds, and street verandas.
(7) Smoke stacks and roof tanks.
(8) Signs - white, blue and yellow.
(9) Palings and weatherboards.
(10) Brick boxes and out-houses.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 93 (table of contents) ====]
MUNICIPAL OFFICE BUILDING MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is the
Collins House Extension.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 94 ====]
(13) Stereotyped Town Hall and Post Office towers.
(14) Crowded tetrahedronal chunks with one or two sides plastered and dolled up over sheet glass foundations.
Item 14 is the concern of the architect. Here in our civic world is the opportunity for the expression of the human soul in more or less enduring form for the satisfaction of the most insistent of spiritual cravings.
Now if you are going into architecture you must at least believe that the only vital happiness in this world, the supreme objective of developed human beings, is satisfaction in the results of creative thought - the one new thing under the sun. Each and all seeking such achievement in an environment such as just outlined, must realize the necessity of considering, from every possible point, our disagreeable status.
Take the architect's case further when he comes to deal with his two dimension opportunity in the street, right in the middle of a crazy quilt of other facades and also what lies behind. He finds his scope already cast in an iron mold largely by uninformed and unsympathetic officials in the guise of policemen, engineers, clerks, lawyers, and agents of vested interests and politicians, to say nothing of the investing client himself who "knows what the public want," notwithstanding that the same public may never have been given the choice in the matter, and finds that the creative efforts of all the professionals who have tried to develop through a lifetime of experience, have been similarly snuffed out by the established forces of law, order and subservience.
The Architect's fellows in the other fields of art must, as has been aptly claimed, be condemned to one of three states - a parasite, a pander [Note: i.e., panderer] or a recluse. Now, whereas it is possible for a composer or
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 95 (table of contents) ====]
LANTERNS RESTAURANT . HIGH WINDOWS TOWARD STADIUM
STADIUM FACADE
& STREET FACADE
[Note: This illustration is associated with
the United Provinces Exposition in Lucknow, India.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 96 ====]
The Lantern Restaurant [Note: at the United Provinces Industrial & Architectural Exhibition, Lucknow] was built on the top of the embankment overlooking the race course hence the windows on this facade were high so no one could see the races without paying for his seat.
Lighted at night the openings framing the doors and windows make a spectacular illumination feature from the exterior as they do for the interior during the day.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 97 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 94]a writer and, though in a far less degree, also a painter and occasionally even a sculptor, to carry on to a small degree as a recluse, the Architect cannot so carry on at all and the fact that he is driven to be either a parasite or a pander is enough to account for the obvious absence of creative architecture today.
Nothing much, as you can see, can be said for the status of architecture but the significance of this absence of status to civilization is so appalling and the consequence so inevitably disastrous to society that we may pursue it further. When architecture had a status its scope was nothing less than the harmonizing of man's habitat with his physical environment, external nature. Instinctively the other living things have this faculty and all vegetable and animal structures comprise a congruous whole. Beaver dams, ant hills, beehives, bird nests and bowers exhibit the first essential principal, economy of effort (play), necessary to harmony.
All the evidence of historic civilizations among men prior to the Romans exhibit also the second essential - subordination to nature, and indicate something in these civilizations that we lack - a closer relationship of man to nature. Japanese roads, all in cuttings, do no violence to topography. Feudal castles appear to grow out of the jagged rocks of Europe. The mud houses of the African deserts and the storied adobe cities of the Pueblo Indians in America are as distinctly part and parcel of a homogeneous nature as is the Eskimo Igloo and all these certainly represent more scientific, economic and comfortable housing under their conditions than do our houses constructed now after 2000 years to the specifications of Vitruvius for the Roman army hutments of Augustus Caesar.
The relation of the larger architectural efforts of Asia and ancient Africa and America, as well as the African cities is that of a beautiful part of nature's magnificence in which the more artificial graduate to the most unrestricted nature without incongruity.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 98 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 99 ====]
With us here this widest phase of the Architect's work, landscape architecture, is unknown except as a meaningless name. Were the architect a factor in life today this field would supply the motif for all his works and our creations would be designed to serve natural need instead of artificial prejudice.
The scope, scale, materials, proportions and the details of embellishment of buildings are naturally only functions of the group with which it must fit and that again of the larger landscape. What sane person sufficiently detached to take an artistic standpoint could find any satisfaction in such a collection of incongruities as this street outside whose only merit is faithfulness to the ostentation, imitation, greed and intolerance, every anti-social force that actuates our civilization. The absence of that disinterested point of view accounting for the lack of architects, and specialization and preoccupation amongst the most of us concerned with esthetic matters, has resulted in the unleashing of the forces of men to destruction.
Without guidance of ideal constructive imagination we are now witnessing a ruthless invasion of nature on every hand. Even Sydney Harbor will have become a by-word before the fact is realized that it is becoming more and more a catchword. Each year more and more are forests ring-barked, fields eroded and pest-infected, rivers befouled and dredged, factory-invaded and slashed by railways. Cliffs are hacked off for motor tourists with more and more vegetation dust-coated, and disfigured with advertisements and pole lines. Continuously more and more are the flowering shrublands burned off to grassy uniformity and an everlasting sameness substituted for infinite variety. Even the same few gaudy genera of plants are gradually monopolizing all the gardens of every climate in a more common, commonplace and accessible world of less interest, less mystery and less charm.
We never stop to think that when we have uprooted a square foot of the soil we have perhaps replaced a score of species brought into stable equilibrium through eons of time by a single frail plant which, the moment it is neglected, will give way to one of a dozen
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 100 (table of contents) ====]
NEWMAN COLLEGE . KITCHEN CORNER
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 101 ====]
We are actually coming within measurable distance of the elimination of all divergent races; all animals except stock and vermin; all uneconomic plants except weeds; and the dissipation of all economic minerals, in fact the spoliation of all our resources to end in an ant-like existence and the elimination of the soul. There is no force now in evidence to stop this tendency and we are safe in assuming that no material force nor government nor economic necessity can overcome a force that has been gaining momentum for four hundred years. Nothing short of the acceptance of a new idea of what we are here for can reverse this current in which man has abandoned his manifold individual faculties to an intellectual authority on the plane of physics, presuming that this authority derived from discoveries in the field of science is sufficient to rival the scheme of nature itself. It is an egoistic and vain presumption which must yield to attack in turn if such attack be made from the vantage point of man's spiritual relationship with nature for there is a perfection, infinity and intelligence in natural phenomena continually eluding the curiosity of the scientist and which therefore it is the proper business of our art to respect. After all, psychology admits that 90 per cent of our mentality is subconscious and it should be easily perceived that where the ant, for instance, can exist in complete ignorance of man's world, there are certainly realities beyond the scope of our conscious intelligence.
Once we begin to guide our actions by all our faculties including reverence for the handiwork of nature and that constructive instinct evidenced in most individual endeavor then only will we begin to see where and how a minority, by use of political power have for selfish interests been leading us by propaganda and misuse of science and education where they would be unable to drive us by physical force.
We can feel now, however, a stiffening of the physical force measures in sumptuary and coercive legislation aimed at individual freedom
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [102] (table of contents) ====]
NEWMAN COLLEGE . ENTRANCE TO STUDENTS' 2nd STORY SUITES
BALCONY
PROMENADE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 103 ====]
of thought and expression and it is high time to join all the forces interested in creative work, Art, to battle down coercion of individuals at the same time opposing the false gods of work, class and monopoly.
Not only have workers in the aesthetic fields the best realization of what is lost in our civilization of monopoly power but they alone have the means to turn the minds of men which are less susceptible to the exhortations of the preachers or the arguments of the debaters that counter their prejudices than to the appeal of the object lessons which art alone can present.
The artist in our time knows what it means to be a slave and a drudge if he be not parasite or pander, and must feel, most keenly, all interference with freedom of action. If he applies his intellectual detachment, which is the essence of the aesthetic, to the present day problems he should readily uncover that abuse of the power in our communities which distinguishes them in degrees at least from all civilizations that have produced a real culture where work is volitional, another name for play, and where therefore diversity and individuality express themselves in every function, in every movement, color, garment, utensil or shelter and where all these are beautiful, as with the so-called Barbarians and all other older civilizations.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 104 (table of contents) ====]
NEWMAN COLLEGE . CLOISTER FACADE
[Note: The New-York Historical
Society illustration is entitled, "Court View of Newman College."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [105] (table of contents) ====]
No. 7. CALLITRIS COLUMELLARIS & ANGOPHORA SUBVELUTINA
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 106 ====]
INITIAL CAPTION
ANGOPHORA SUBVELUTINA & CALLITRIS COLUMELLARIS
I think there are but two Angophoras, the Lanceolata and the Subvelutina. This latter is a stately tree with a dark rough bark. The only technical difference between the gums and the Angophoras is that the Eucalyptus has a spherical seed pod with a cover, the word eucalyptus means "I cover thee." The Angophora has no cover. The flowers of both are the same, compact bunches of stamens and usually in clusters.
I feel that the Archangel who painted Australia was the greatest of them all. Everything is so decorative and to me, an architect, the function of painting is decoration, mural decoration. You don't have to be an artist there, the picture presents itself to you in perfection. You put it down just as it is.
Grouped with this in sharp contrast is the Callitris Columellaris, its fine leaves one of the few brilliant greens ever to be found in the landscape of Australia, massed rich and moss-like. It is a wonderful tree for landscaping effects and for stately avenues. It has not been used such yet for it seemed to bear no seed. But a few years ago a group of very ancient trees was found, several with seeds which will be made good use of in botany loving Australia.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 107 ====]
During Alstan's [Note: daughter of WBG's sister, Genevieve, and Roy Lippincott] stay and at other times when "Uncle" could get up for the weekend we would go on tours of discovery, rowing in that most beautiful, secluded and truly domestic of Sydney's harbors. I remember my brother Jerome's saying what a thrill it was to go on jaunts of discovery on his own property down there in Mexico. Once even, he happened upon the ruins of an ancient city on his own plantation. Well it wasn't just that way with us but those jaunts of discovery on our own property, how beautiful they were.
The senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] had scarcely arrived in Australia when he made up his mind that he would look about for the best location for developing a high class residential suburb. The first two or three years the pace was too great to do anything about it. But just the same he kept thinking about it and made up his mind that Sydney was the best for such an undertaking. They had accepted single tax there and it was booming ahead of Melbourne and rapidly becoming the Metropolis of the continent. So presently he started a thorough search, motored in every direction, searched the titles office and finally settled on the Middle Harbor district. Beauty Point looked very attractive so he began negotiations for purchase but he deliberated too long and another man cut in and finalized a purchase. We had not yet sufficiently mastered that other external world - our souls - not to feel the pang of a heart-break.
But this was all to the good for now he found out that three of the promontories beyond, which everyone had said were crown land, were really owned in London. He found a Sydney agent who had been connected with this property and asked him to get the owners to quote a price for the first promontory.
The whole story of this district is interesting. We often thought of making a moving picture of it. Our middle promontory, Covecrag, as seen from the water, is a perfect cone like Fuji Yama, only a perpetual green and blossoms instead of perpetual snow. On still days it is
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 108 (table of contents) ====]
MOUNT FUJI YAMA [Note: Fuji-san]
COVECRAG FROM MAIN ARM . MIDDLE HARBOR
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 109 ====]
Though not so big, the Covecrag peninsula viewed from the harbor has the constantly changing and lovely effect of Fuji Yama only it is everblooming. The raking views from it sweep up and down middle Harbor, and from it the water events can be viewed to perfection. When fully occupied it will still look as it does now for the contour streets will be invisible and will enable the residences to nestle in its gardens. On its very top some monumental buildings may be erected.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 110 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 107]completely reflected, and on still nights you slip into your canoe for the enchantment. A Governor General, Lord Carrington [Note: Charles Robert Carrington, Governor of New South Wales] had, like Griffin, taken a water trip up Middle Harbor some forty years before and realized what a lovely suburb it would make. He chased down titles, bought in and thus unified the properties, formed a company, sold shares to the Lords and Ladies of England, got the charming suspension bridge started across the first valley, pressed the government to put a tram line across from the occupied suburb to the South, and then the boom burst. That was Australia's big bust. All the gold went to England for the Boer War. The bottom dropped out of everything. The Company went bankrupt and passed into the hands of the bridge contractors. Then they went bankrupt and the property passed into the hands of the debenture holders in London and there it lay. They had never seen the property. From descriptions it sounded impossible for occupancy, steep and rocky precipices unfit for habitation.
So when nearly half a century later a prospect of sale came they said "all or nothing" and Griffin was asked to make an offer. He offered what he had expected to pay for one promontory and got all three. The pity was we didn't keep it all in our own hands for as it turned out we could have handled it and would have gotten along much better without the trouble makers we got tied up with in the company that was formed.
We missed our canoe "Allana," our beloved but, though this Harbor was enclosed and quiet in comparison with the others, the row boat was more sensible. Such trips! Way up to the head waters of the harbor though we owned only to Killarney and Echo Farm which was where the first settlers of the Sydney district landed and dwelt; slipping by moonlight up our own Crag Cove and Castle Cove under great overhanging rocks beautifully carved by water and wind, and such exquisite tracery of branch and foliage, rich in its varied colors, and still, Oh so still! except for the occasional plunk of a leaping fish!
[Note: "Allana" was the name of the canoe in which WBG and MMG took trips along the Chicago River. See especially Section IV, No. 12, "Autobiography of Xanthippe."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 111 (table of contents) ====]
CASTLECRAG BEFORE OCCUPATION . UPPER LEVEL DENUDED
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 112 ====]
And the incredible beauty of the phosphorescence in the water below us and dripping from our oars, Lucifer lighting the depths.
What tramps over the promontories where Griffin established the roads at first go, by instinct apparently, for when the surveys were made the roads went just there where he had led me on those first walks though all the engineers of Sydney had said no roads could be constructed there other than the one on the crest. What bits of subdividing had been done were allotments impossible for comfortable occupation, slivers leaping from precipice to precipice down the 350 feet to the water's edge. And yet those bluffs proved ideal for occupation when handled with due respect to their natural formation, terrace on terrace like majestic steps of a grandiose theatre. Under Griffin's reverent touch the roads of easy grades, following the contours, but emphasized the charm instead of destroying it as they did practically everywhere else in Sydney.
A visitor to Castlecrag said two people had discovered Australia - Captain Cook (to despoil it) and Mr. Griffin (to conserve it). This difference is one we should wake up to if we want to prevent future wars. Renown should go [Note: to?] the conservers. Everywhere the Anglo-Saxon has gone he has left his mark of ugliness and destruction. In America the only beauty is what the Spaniards left, in South Africa what the Dutch did and so on.
These promontories became a residential district where each home would have, till the end of time, the unobstructed outlook that the site had from the beginning. As a rule this includes a grand sweeping view of the harbor with the Spit reaching across toward Manly, and on beyond to North Head and the Pacific Ocean to the horizon. Elsewhere in Sydney this has not been the case. Everywhere a drawing had been laid out on the drafting board irrespective of contours. No one was concerned with the fact that Sydney consisted of bluffs and valleys - unbelievable but true. As a consequence of the gridiron plan everyone
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 113 (table of contents) ====]
FIRST HOMES BUILT ON CASTLECRAG
[Note: The structures, left to
right, are the Moon(?), Grant, and Johnson Houses.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 114 ====]
On the top levels of these wooded slopes there is no objection to buildings with sloping roofs if the client desires for there they would not increase obstruction to the Harbor views.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 115 (typescript) ====]
[Note: Continued from page 112]who bought a lot was hoaxed except those on the very foreshore when the whole community was cheated for all these water frontages should have been retained as community reserves. The others bought a lovely view but by the time the occupation was completed no one, with but a few exceptions, had any outlook at all. Steep dangerous roads ran down the slopes, great scars to the end of time. Each row of houses blocked the view of the next row and on the other two sides the views of each house were blocked by the neighboring house because of the absurd established building line. While this is the state of affairs in the rest of Sydney, in Castlecrag all four directions are open garden views for all time.
And so - except where the houses are of the local stone and the roofs flat - the red skin disease of bricks and tile creeps across the city and suburban areas and breaks out in every tiny village or resort even far out in the open districts. Evidently materialistic thinking brings hate and fear of beauty wherever it exists, naturally since beauty is manifestation of spirit.
From the homes in Castlecrag one can look to the East in the morning and see the sun rise, an ever varying mural decoration on the eastern wall. At times one gets such a superb spectacle as we did that morning when a rosy dawn shone over valleys filled with mists stretching horizontally and curling up at the ends as the Japanese show them in their prints; veil after veil till you could count ten distinct planes so that North Head looked as if it were many miles away. Or again, at night, the spectacle of the full moon and its wide wake, there in your own house, a permanent but constantly changing living mural decoration.
The really strategic points of the estate were all set aside as reserves, accessible to the whole community, where children could climb and play and thrive and grown-ups could gather and entertain their friends. Griffin was the greatest conservationist of his time for he did not merely set aside these beautiful districts but showed how they could be occupied without destroying their natural beauty. Long, long
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 116 (table of contents) ====]
STONE DWELLING ON MIDDLE TERRACE
[Note: This illustration is listed
as being on "page 115" in the table contents, but appears (together with
a plan of Castlecrag) on page 116 of the New-York Historical Society
copy. An inscription on the verso reads (in part): "Snap ['of' crossed
out] by the Proprietor, [/] Mr Reeve of his house on Edinburgh Rd. [/]
on the site where once [/] Edgar Herbert started [/] to excavate to
build [/] -- House cost £1165".]
PLAN OF CASTLECRAG & THE HAVEN VALLEY SHOWING PARKS & CONNECTING PATHS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 117 ====]
To the Castlecrag and Haven Estates shown here the Cape Estate was later added - the peak of this first promontory.
This map shows the interior reserves and their park paths which means that the future as well as the present can have miles of rambles through such beauty as is rarely if ever found in occupied districts.
These paths will be used for underground services, piping, etc., so that the paved streets need not periodically be torn up for their replacement or repairs.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 118 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 115]walks along the five miles of water frontage are a part of the allotment of everyone who bought a lot on Castlecrag. And in spite of all this open outlook, entire seclusion so that we never drew our curtains from the beginning of the year to the end. No passing person could look in on us, and yet we were only 30 feet from the street and on a level with it. On the other side the street was 40 feet below us. The way of planning the house as well as the planting helped this though there were no formal hedges.
Leaving Pholiota I went to Castlecrag.
There had been a strange conflict which only a character testing deepening of consciousness brought to an end. After those years together in work and play, breakfast over and the house in order and leaving for the office together, the busy days with its long hours, return together. Then came that apparently perverse requirement of mine that the senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] should get down to the office by nine in the morning. By ten there was always a stream of people. It was almost impossible to get hold of him to get the decisions, which must come from the designer, to facilitate the work of the draftsmen and shorten the often long hours of work at night by means of which I could function as mediary [Note: intermediary] the next day between designer and those carrying out the drawings.
Later I learned that intellectual work belongs to the morning; will (action) to the afternoon; and imaginative work to the evening. It was a necessity of his nature that he should be a night hawk. But nagging made no impression on him. It certainly was no pleasure to me and half in temper, half in desperation, I decided to leave Melbourne and go to Castlecrag in Sydney. After all his sister's home was in the same yard.
It became apparent that a real need had been calling me from my unconscious realms and also that my time had come for as general testing of character ultimately developing new faculties. With no ideas at all in my head, I settled into a boat house on the extreme
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 119 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . TOP LEVEL . DAY & NIGHT LIGHTING FRETWORK OF
GARAGE
[Note: The structure is the David Pratten House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 120 ====]
boundary of the estate toward the headwaters of Middle Harbor. It was a rough house built on a floating pier attached to the rocks of a sheer precipice a hundred feet high so there was no way out at the back. Since I had no boat there was no way out for me. But the company engineer lived in a waterside cottage within coo-ee and he brought me victuals and drink. The senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] came up the first week and along with the King (the first name of the Minister of Home Affairs at the time) [Note: King O'Malley]. If I remember rightly he slept on the table, the second cot going to the King. A storm came up in the night and we rocked on the waves. The King was up off and on all through the night, sure we had broken loose, going out the back door to feel the precipice. Neither love nor money could make him stay the second night.
But a fortnight's vacation once in five years was enough for me so I moved into one of the company stone houses built at the time of the original subdivision and auction sale. This method was used to establish values but not resorted to afterwards. The rest of the property is being disposed of by agents in direct touch with individual clients, the only method appropriate to a covenanted estate. A year had passed since the auction sale during which road construction and several stone houses had been built. But the sales had been far from satisfactory, and at this time had practically ceased. We finally figured that there was a conspiracy among the share holders to squeeze Griffin out of the company - a method not so unusual as you might think. Now as always there were streams of people going through this property which was in the nature of a National Park to the crowded districts back of it. Its lovely wooded slopes and miles of waterfrontage on the quietest of the Sydney Harbors made it a natural playground.
Released from the drafting board for the moment, I decided I would try my hand at selling allotments and, with two or three young folks to lend a hand, I got busy turning my efforts to making contacts with the passers-by or those the young folks brought to me. So many
[Note: "Coo-ee," a call, shout, or greeting (sometimes implying a sense of distance), can mean "in easy reach of" or "very near to."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 121 ====]
sales were made in that way that it soon became apparent that there was something not on the surface in the failure of the agents to make hardly any. Later revelations confirmed our suspicions. My success in making sales wiped out the deficit of the proceeding two years so that the books showed a good profit for the whole period during which considerable sums had been expended in road construction, etc. Up to now we have [Note: had] spent some $250,000 on the roads. This achievement of mine brought an end to any effective results from machinations of this type though the warfare against Griffin continued, disagreeable but not dangerous, till they cooked up another scheme.
[Note: The above text was typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.][Note: ==== Beginning of page 122 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 123 ====]
There are two types of ti-trees, the Melaleuca in Victoria and the Leptospermum in New South Wales. Both grow in sandy stretches. It is easy to realize here that the plant kingdom precedes the mineral kingdom, as our own knowledge of coal (and the diamond) shows us, for in many cases the growth gradually adds minerals - iron, etc., to soils formerly lacking them.
In contrast to South Africa where there are so many large flowers, which by the way are perfectly adapted to planting in Australia, in this continent on the other side of the Indian Ocean the flowers are almost all small but very showy in their massing. One of these, the Styphelioides, is a stately avenue tree, symmetrical, white barked, densely foliate and in the spring a solid mass of white blossoms though sometimes only half the tree decides to blossom. They have their whims in Australia.
The trunks of these trees are like a cluster of vines twining about each other, almost completely separated. They can truly resist storms though they bend with judgment to the prevailing winds. This is a Tasmanian tree, the south west coast.
There are no soft woods in Australia so not the temptation there is here to build houses of wood. You can't drive a nail into these woods. But many of them are very beautiful for cabinet work. Though Australia has no such Autumn splendor of color display as we, yet in the season when the rains come the gum tips, the new foliage, make a wonderful show and everybody is out gathering gum tips for home decoration.
[Note: The two preceding paragraphs were typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 124 ====]
INITIAL . MELALEUCA
[Note: See the illustration at the beginning of this
chapter.]
ADVENTURE IN MISGUIDING THE YOUNG
WHAT OPEN SPACES MEAN TO THE YOUNG
All my life the time I have spent with children, always borrowed since I had none of my own, has been spent in making them "naughty." To me it was an obvious perversion of nature to try to instill moral notions into little children and a very apparent imposition on the part of grown-ups to make life easier for themselves at no matter what cost of loss of character to the young. My instincts were later on confirmed in this matter when I learned that up to the 7th year, marked by the change of teeth, the life forces are necessary for the task of developing the physical body and only then are freed making it possible for a child to form moral concepts. Precocity here reacts injuriously on the physical body.
In our early days in Sydney, we were acquiring the 3 Middle Harbor promontories for the development of a high class residential suburb, Castlecrag. I had not been there long after the office had moved down to Melbourne when news came up from Melbourne that young five year old Alstan [Note: daughter of Roy and Genevieve (WBG's sister) Lippincott], as reported by the senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] on his weekly visit to Sydney, had turned mischievous, a pest to young and old in the family. I suggested that he bring her up to "aunt" for a visit. I was chiefly occupied at this time in making a set of forest portraits on satin of Australia's peculiarly decorative trees. In this bush a child could roam at will. Children should no more be brought up in houses than colts and calves.
Knowing her terror of dogs. I spent the time it took to walk from ferry to flat in expounding to Alstan how Murphy, our flat-owner's incredibly ugly dog, was different from ordinary dogs and a special friend of children. Much to my relief, for I have always had a fear of dogs myself, Alstan took me at my word and accepted Murphy from the start. On her arrival, she told me daddy had said she could come home as soon as she wanted to, to which I said, "Of course." However, at the end of the second day, she told me daddy had said she could stay as
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 125 (table of contents) ====]
VALLEY FIRE-SWEPT BUT KNITLOCK HOUSE NOT INJURED
[Note: The
structure is the Creswick House (House of Seven Lanterns).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 126 ====]
This knitlock house perched on a rock withstood without injury a fierce fire that swept the valley though its concrete walls are only two and a quarter inches thick.
From across the valley this tiny house looks like a veritable castle. The flower boxes extend the corners of the building up to door and windowhead height giving cupboards in the interior rooms and gaiety to the exterior.
At the house entrances, front and back, the roofs are lowered to doorhead height and the columns (four quadrants) forming door and window jambs are run up even above the main roof height and are finished with four flaring tangents to form lanterns.
This playing with the knitlock tiles adds no expense to the building, gives it charm in a close-up view and makes it look like a great castle from a distance.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 127 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 124]long as she wanted to, to which I said, "Of course." As it happened, she stayed about two months when "uncle," coming up from Melbourne, unwisely told her that the baby chickens were coming out of their eggs back home. Alstan promptly decided that she must go back to see the chickens and told everybody she met for the next few days that the chickens were coming out and she must go home to see them. So home she went.
After the first few days, I had been shocked to find that her baby soul was filled with fears. All her games hung on fears. When it rained she ran into the house afraid of the rain. I drove her out saying, "Go out and play with the water fairies who have come down to dance with you."
With breakfast over, each morning we packed a lunch and went out for the day, I with my drawing paraphernalia and, walking or rowing, we would find my tree. One day as we followed a path along the hillside, I noticed that Alstan was hopping from one side of me to the other, and I realized that a small stray dog was trailing along with us. I made her choose her side and stay there. Then I made her hold her hand down instead of jerking it up. Later in the day when she stubbed her toe and cried a bit and the dog insisted on licking the tears from her eyes I said, "Well then stop crying. He is just kissing the tears away." And finally when she took her nap on the ground at my side, the dog insisted on sleeping close to her cheek. After this day's discipline the fear dropped entirely away from the child. She accepted the statement I made that dogs were friends of people but that they were not always sure people would be friends to them so you had to hold out your hand to show them you were a friend. And I must confess that when I saw her going up and holding out her little hand to dogs that seemed far from amiable to me, I myself was frequently fearsome [Note: i.e., apprehensive, frightened]. But on her return home she took the whole family in hand and broke down their fears. Her father wrote me saying, "What have you done to Alstan? She is a changed child physically, mentally and morally." The outdoor life so important to all children had been hers for two months for, as soon as breakfast
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 128 (table of contents) ====]
THE AUSTRALIA CAFE . MELBOURNE . AFTERNOON TEA ROOM
LOOKING TOWARD
STAIRWAY TO BALCONY OF BANQUET HALL
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 129 ====]
was over, we were off, rain or shine, and returned only in time for an evening meal after which both she and I were ready to drop into bed. The child that had come up to see me, a frail little girl, was spoken of by strangers who saw her at the end of eight weeks as a sturdy little boy. Never again did naughtiness appear. Such is the magic of a wholesome and richly imaginative outdoor life for children.
At Castlecrag, I noticed at one time that one of the children was inclined to snitch things and I realized then that our suburban children had no orchards to raid, so I improvised a substitute by having always in my kitchen a case of fruit from which the children could help themselves. The doors to my house were never locked and the children had been taught not to knock but always to come right in. The news flew around and shocked mothers came to me to protest. But I insisted that the children in my house could do what I was willing they should do, and naturally the mothers didn't find it easy to keep the children away from my house. This experiment was very interesting, the attitude of no two children alike. Some were a bit ruthless at first, some very mannerly. One boy came every day [Note: "after school" added in the N-YHS copy] and asked if he might get a drink of water, to which I replied, "Yes, and help yourself to an apple while you are there." Another small boy sent his wee sister in for two apples, but presently I suggested that brother come in for his own. It became an established institution and really was never abused. It satisfied the one in whose behalf I had started it, and never again was anything found missing from the house, though the children came in flocks like birds alighting on my lawn for pranks as they came and went. One day I came home to find the whole facade of my house (whose walls are rough stone with projecting stones here and there) ornamented with children from the ground to the roof, the babies on the lowest stones and the older children all the way up. 'Twas a great sight. To the children it was a great adventure. I am sure that many mothers' grown-up misunderstanding of children was
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DAPHNE . GODDESS OF NATURE'S GARDENS . CAFE AUSTRALIA
THE 3
GODDESSES ON REVERSE SIDE OF PIERS FACE STAIRWAY
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 131 ====]
In Castlecrag Persephone, Echo & Daphne were recognized as the Goddesses of the Valleys and were truly honored and loved. At times Castlecrag children saw the fairies.
In our rehearsals of the plays in the valley the children often came with their mothers and played around during the hours of drill. Sometimes a small child would sit a half hour at a time watching and living along with the play.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 132 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 129]No more than I could endure to see "good" children could I endure to see stodgy young folk, industrious from a sense of duty and narrowly limited in their interests. Of course I had not been long established in No. 17 Castlecrag before one of the rooms became a drafting room and soon one of our Melbourne draftsmen, Louisa Lightfoot, was brought up to work in Sydney and for a number of years she lived with me. She was a beautiful blond, a graduate in Architecture of the Melbourne University, a capable worker. I said to her, "Why don't you young things learn to dance, not just ball-room stuff, but real dancing." "I never thought of it," she said, with a faraway look in her eyes. Indeed having had the world for adventure, now a thing of the past, the one obligation of grown-ups to the young is continually to open to them the doors of other types of adventure. This is what is contrary to what we are doing these days. When children are 5 years old we put them in prisons calling them schools, and from that time on their lives are imprisoned within four walls. For the most part these prisons are hopelessly ugly, a fact which in itself is enough to destroy anyone's character. No wonder we find our young people lacking in initiative, sitting back waiting for someone to hand them a job, thinking the world owes them a living, lacking in capacity to create careers for themselves. Materialistic thinking leads to this too, for they assume that it is their parents who have chosen to bring them into the world whereas it is they who, many centuries back, have chosen their parents and, from the causal realms, brought them together. The physical scientists' reasoning that things just come about is as comical as Topsy's assertion that she had no father nor mother but "just growed."
Now, with the dance, Castlecrag came alive, a truly live spot in Australia, and always more and more alive though only a handful of people in the early days. A whole series of public and private activities developed covering the whole range of community life.
[Note: Louisa (or Louise) Mary Lightfoot (1902-1979) also had a career as a dancer and choreographer.]
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CAFE AUSTRALIA DISHES
[Note: In the table of contents in the
New-York Historical Society's copy this entry is crossed out, and the
illustration itself is lacking. The blank page for the illustration has
been reproduced from the New-York Historical Society copy. See the
illustration, "Cafe China . Plates . Cups & Saucers," at Section
II, No. 6, page 92b (above).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 134 ====]
Louisa and I looked about. We were fortunate in having as one of our citizens Mr. Edgar Herbert, an expert in physical education. He took us on, about a dozen all told, ranging from fourteen to forty, and the Castlecrag ballet was in full swing. Before long he brought along Mr. Burlekov, a stray getting his living as best he could by odd jobs of cabinet making, a left over in Sydney from [Note: Anna] Pavlova's troupe of Russian dancers formerly of the Czar's ballet.
By the end of the first year we gave our first performance including a little play. I made a great hit dressed in my husband's dress suit. I had my hair cut and dressed man fashion for the occasion. All the ladies fell in love with me. Burlekov and Louisa startled the public with their skill in the Apache dance. From now on Louisa was taking the dance seriously. At our wonderful Castlecrag parties, attended by so many of Sydney's outstanding artists, the young folks arranged delightful programs. I always left the arrangement of the parties entirely in their hands. The combination of natural loveliness and beautiful architectural setting, constantly varied as one hostess after another offered her home, and the ingenuity of the citizenry in costuming, made beautiful and brilliant occasions of these community affairs none of which ever entailed any expensive outlay. Indeed my own knack at costuming was, I am convinced, the only faculty that ever won the real admiration of my husband who was constantly tickled pink to see the sumptuous and charming effects for unexpected guests or ourselves created from our stray sheets, table or couch covers and oddments that are always part of a home's stores. Indeed when Castlecrag, individually or in groups, entered the metropolitan affairs of Sydney, such as the annual Shakespeare Ball, they frequently walked off with the prizes.
Then a whole series of community festivities began to develop, a Greek party in the "Temple of Aphrodite," the minimum cost home of Elizabeth Guy, another "burst of genius" of W.B.'s, really another
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TEMPLE OF APHRODITE . CASTLECRAG
[Note: The structure is the Guy
House.]
TEMPLE OF APHRODITE . LIVING ROOM Looking through to DINING ROOM
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 136 ====]
A tiny house, like a tiny temple, can be a perfect work of art. Built of local stone and concrete sewer pipes this house is a minimum cost house but it is a gem, perfect for daily life or for neighborhood gatherings - really a one room home.
Perched on a rock on the edge of a precipice it commands the valley.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 137 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 134]type of one room house, ponderous, with colonnaded (concrete sewer pipes) fenestration on the four sides flung from the kitchen corner a rough stone pier, forming the kitchen walls, flat roofed, the three main rooms (the kitchen occupied one corner) separated by no wall but again colonnades, the rooms thus separated by glazed doors or thrown together at will. Every group throughout the evening formed, with the architecture, stately tableaux.
A Spanish party at Mrs. Felstead's. This knitlock home was built around an interior patio with its everblossoming flora luxuriant and reflected in the central pool onto which all the rooms opened (so no passage in the house) all the doors glazed so, whether open or shut, one glimpses ever new and charming pictures. The tapestries of the old world have no such value as these constantly occurring unforgettable living pictures. How wonderful if we all would learn how to live. It costs nothing but activity of heart and head and will.
A series of gaieties in 56 The Parapet into which we had moved because of its magnificent view across the harbor through the Heads to the Pacific Ocean. This dwelling, built of the local stone, stretches across the whole lot, vying with the Florentine palaces in dignity and charm. It was so lovely, lit up for the Christmas season, that we made daily walks down to the terrace below to look up to it and love it. Here, at one of the parties, there suddenly appeared at the seven French windows that open out to the lawn, seven Arab sheiks who swept in, took possession of the party and led the gaiety till three o'clock in the morning. Here, as at all the parties, all the arts were represented.
Each citizen of Castlecrag, stirred by the opportunities offered for self expression, could find no rest till his particular interest or faculty could take its place in the community life. So the ballet was supplemented by a dramatic club - The Dais - where plays were read, performed and written. This later launched the Haven Scenic Theatre in the valley. And there were other types of interests.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 138 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 139 ====]
Among these the Neighborhood Circle which brought lectures (and no one not even the Prime Minister ever refused to give a talk to the Castlecrag Circle), discussions, the study of the Art of Conversation, and so on.
In the ballet, Louisa found her life work. For a while it merely filled her spare time. She built up a little class, where incidentally I broke my wrist practicing a Russian ballet, then established another in the city, Sydney, and later gave her whole time to it. Under her grew up the Australian Ballet taking a conspicuous place in the Metropolis. Louisa was no longer living with me. I had taken issue with her on one point and for several years our relations were purely formal. After one of her ballet concerts where the bon-ton of Sydney in full dress had rolled up in their cars and packed the hall, I went back stage to congratulate her. She met me as I entered with, "I owe it all to you, Mrs. Griffin, every bit of it; without you I would have had none of it." She knew she was a success and it was very fine of her to express herself so to me. I feel that it is very improper to expect gratitude from young people. This sort of feeling is not appropriate to youth and should not exist in them during their formative years. But it is fine when they look back later on and recognize where opportunities have been opened to them, and take the trouble to express their appreciation.
Recently Louisa went to France for a year of study, came back through India where she spent several months studying and teaching in Madras and Adyar where Mrs. Arundale, the wife of Bishop Arundale, of the Theosophical Society, has established an international school of Arts. She herself an Indian, a radiantly beautiful woman, had danced and sung for us at our Castlecrag Neighborhood Circle giving us a realization of the exquisiteness of Indian art. Louisa returned to Sydney and before long put on a marvelous production of "Le Dieu Bleu," a ceremonial Indian dance. She gave it in Canberra also. But the charm of Indian life had taken hold of her and before the year had
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 141 ====]
Unique and spectacular features and all the water's shores were preserved for all time in Castlecrag's reserves and the houses opened their hearts and souls to them transforming the European barbarians of the past five hundred years, and founding a truly new civilization bent on preserving the earth instead of destroying it.
Through the picture windows Mother Nature painted grand pictures on the walls.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 142 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 139]passed she came over to tell me that she had dissolved her partnership in the Australian ballet and was going over to live in India permanently. Strangely enough but a few years had passed when we found ourselves established in India. India & America have much to gain by close interrelations. [Note: This last sentence is handwritten and has been inserted into the typescript.]
Well it is necessary that the people of the world should know each other and that we get away from the domination of the Folk Souls so it is all to the good that Europeans, so long as they are not bureaucrats, so long as they belong neither to the military nor civil service, should live in Asia since the great work of the world now is to awaken all humanity to realities, to rid each group of its illusions, to break down the Maya of the East and the Maya of the West. One who has experienced the two civilizations can recognize the truth of Dr. [Note: Rudolf] Steiner's statement that to the Eastern people the material world in [Note: is?] Maya, to the Westerners the Spiritual world is Maya. The task of both is to learn that both the material and the spiritual realms are realities, positive, concrete, perceptible realities, in both of which we can attain exact knowledge for the lack of which the world is now perishing. The smashing of the atom has shown the orient and the occident that matter can be transformed to force. The spirit can manifest in form.
I was glad to see this young apprentice of ours stepping out beyond the boundaries.
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 144 ====]
More ancient than the seed plants are those with spores. The forms in Australia have through the millenniums developed into trees growing to 20 or 30 feet in height, Scattered through the forests their fronds often have a spread of 15 or more feet - a number of varieties all exquisitely beautiful.
Tree ferns! One of the oldest forms of vegetation and to be found only in Australia, their trunks running up to 30 and more feet in height and their fronds often with a spread of more than 20 feet.
To walk entranced down the long aisle flanked with great golden brown columns, eyes lifted to dwell on the open lace work fretted vault through graceful fern fronds to blue sky, to walk, to stand, to listen.
The barks of these trees are sometimes like the hide of an animal, sometimes covered with a pattern like footprints, a permanent record of each frond that falls. And when a gully is swept by fire and everything destroyed the next year the ferns spread their canopy again unconscious of the devastating forces that have swept through.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 145 ====]
THE STATICS AND DYNAMICS OF ARCHITECTURE
Walter Burley Griffin
The Unity of Life is divided into two phases - The Static and the Dynamic. The Static phase in all pervasive, is universal, is eternal and does not change. The Dynamic phase is likewise universal and eternal but, conjoined with the creative spirit, it changes with every process of nature.
The Statics and Dynamics of life, in whatever functions and forms they are manifest, definitely and intimately make up the sum total of the experiences of a life in all its infinite variety, in all its operation through the field of its activity be it years, days, hours or untold aeons of time. They concern its birth, its adolescence, its flowering, its decadence, its death and its immortality. The Statics and Dynamics of an individual life are the quiet changeless mind and the ever-flowering, ever-flowing, ever moving, ever-changing action of the will, the heart, the soul, upon that mind.
Let us keep before us this picture for the usual formulae do not as a rule, convey the idea of the stillness of the mind, its sublime quietude, and the ebb and flow of the spirit that is conjoined with it. The Statics and Dynamics of a Life constitute the actual, the everpresent, whatever is heard, said, done, felt or conveyed to others through the operation of the personality in its complete, living equipment.
While the Statics of life, considered as the mind, are universal and changeless, the Dynamics of life considered as the will, the heart, the soul, are all pervasive, all inclusive defining all things but quite particular, quite local, quite native, quite personal, and with the ramifications as greatly separated as is the heart of a wayside flower from the heart of man.
Amongst our human kind we shall consider that the mind is the common denominator of us all; and that the will, the soul, the heart, is the common differentiator of us all which develops the personality
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CASTLECRAG INCINERATOR
[Note: The structure is the Willoughby
Incinerator.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 147 ====]
Castlecrag is a terraced municipality and so its incinerator is terraced. Complete combustion. No smoke, no smell.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 148 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 145]of races, nations, tribes, communities, through every conceivable variety of circumstance and environment, into our Chinese, our Hindu, our Hottentot, our Red man, our Malay, our White man with his "burden." The works of man are delicately related to himself and elaborately a part of himself and conform in their essence to the same cosmical program as do the mind and soul of man. Wherever we find the soul of one race differing from another, we find the works of its creation differing in just the particular way that the soul differs; and conversely we may observe in its works what manner of race it is.
Consider the Chinese at his ivories, his enamels, his rugs, his verses - what a story is there; consider the Eskimo at his skins and his hunting spear - what a story. The same Statics is there, the same mind, but what a variation in the texture of the heart and soul and impelling will. Consider the medieval monk at his illuminating and our modern multiple press - what a story, what a romance, what a change of circumstance. Consider the trail of the caravan across the sea of sand, the camel with untold story written on his antique head, and then consider the pathway of the modern ocean liner with the concentrated power of the overwhelming turbine; We dream of a long story between these, a fascinating romance of the play and counterplay, foil and counterfoil, intermeshing and blending of the Statics and Dynamics of Life, of men and the works of man.
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HOME BUILDING AS AN ART
MAKING A MODEL SUBURB FOR
SYDNEY
by "Naphthali"
City life seems to be inevitable. Man is a gregarious animal and loves his kind. But in this great land of open spaces gregariousness is overdone. One would think there was a limit to Australian soil to judge from our overcrowded and rather ugly cities, products of a tendency to follow in the gouty footsteps of John Bull, and a lack of imagination and artistic temperament which is truly British. When the climate and the open air life, combined with aggressive propaganda by the free spirits of today, have freed this budding Commonwealth from the grip of Mammon and the regime of the Philistine, we will begin to build a new civilization. This, of course, will call for new institutions. But first we must have new ideas, these are the ground-plan or the new Commonwealth, in which life will be lived as a fine art. Sounds Utopian, no doubt, to the matter-of-fact-mind, but sooner or later all of us will be Utopians. Even Columbus, who set out in a boat headed due west to seek the East Indies, was a utopian. But he arrived.
Mr. Walter Burley Griffin, who planned Canberra, is a kind of Columbus in his way. He has left the beaten track and launched out on the lonely waters, hoping to reach the city of his dreams some fine day. To drop the rather mixed metaphor, he has started to build a suburb by the shores of Sydney Harbor - out of ideas. It is true he will use solid stone and a certain amount of mortar and wood, and things material of that nature, but he depends for his effects on ideas. He is a kind of landscape architect - a painter of effects, in stone, and lime, and elevations. A British painter of genius was once asked how he mixed his paints. He replied - "With brains, sir." Mr. Griffin builds his model suburb with ideas. The stone and lime and other matters are of the earth, earthy; but the ideas are Mr. Griffin's own. With ideas he can demonstrate the triumph of mind over matter.
To achieve the broad effects he aims at, this landscape architect has a canvas of 700 acres, situate on the foreshores of Middle Harbour, one of the finest effects produced by that greatest of landscape
[Note: "Naphthali" - Naphtali (said to derive from a Hebrew term meaning "to wrestle" or "to struggle") was a son of Jacob and a founder of one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. A similar essay will be found in Section II, No. 16, page 246ff.]
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SWASTIKA PLAN OF DWELLING . ERIC M. NICHOLLS . Architect
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 151 ====]
There is a certain American [Note: Frank Lloyd Wright] who, although he has artistic feeling, is really not an architect at all though he is quick on the uptake. He has never built a swastika building but is now adding that to his claims.
If I am not misinformed the swastika has been used in Europe. It is now being used in Australia in a group of tall apartment buildings. But "I want to be the lion too" in America is claiming it as his own and articles are being published to that effect though he has built no such building. He does not wait till he has originated or built a type to claim it. As soon as he learns of it he publishes claims. The public likes scandals. It is his scandals that have given him his public.
See his sham imitation of knitlock in California which has none of the structural qualities of knitlock, and his floor on the ground which let the moisture through because it was an imitation of the idea without any of the structural knowledge which makes such a method water proof. Griffin's federal enemies have kept this man posted re Griffin's work. Fortunately that generation will soon be dead and gone but the Griffin & Nicholls office will carry on creatively.
This dwelling has used the swastika motif charmingly.
[Note: In the 1920's Frank Lloyd Wright built several houses in California using "textile block" (or "knitblock") construction.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 152 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 149]artists, Dame Nature. The combination which has resulted in the suburb of Castlecrag is a combination of Nature and Art. The native flora is a thing of beauty, and can be a joy forever. The aim of our builder of beautiful homes is to make human habitations things of beauty, if not eternal joys; and it is certain that he has done something that stands out as unique in Australian history.
The dwellings in this new suburb are designed to harmonize with their natural surroundings. The roads of easy grade sweep along the bluffs, and flow in curves which please the eye. The houses are inconspicuous, in keeping with the natural harmonies. As the natural flora is restored the houses will nestle into place so that the slopes, as they arise from the water's edge, will be as completely garden as they were before being devastated by the hand of the vandal.
The layout of Castlecrag is like that of a theatre. When each allotment is built upon, everyone will have a view of the stage and its setting, and in every direction the eye will encounter a garden, instead of a brick wall or an ugly fence. This effect is brought about also by the houses being placed so that they do not occupy a set building line, but are so placed that they conform to the general plan, which does away with all appearance of crowding, and almost entirely conceals the houses by trees, shrubs and climbers.
The flat roofs add to this garden effect. By degrees the splendid blossoming evergreen climbers, hardy in this climate, will cover or embower roofs as well as walls.
Viewed as a town planning effort, Castlecrag not only accepts and makes the most of natural surroundings, but meets all the needs of a human community. The homes are planned for the greatest economy for the occupier and the least inconvenience for the housekeeper, with the utmost in the way of aids to home life for old and young.
Open spaces are reserved for all time, interior parks giving safe play space for the little ones still calling for care, yet allowing them intercourse with other children, so useful for development. Park
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 153 ====]
paths connect these reserves, so that delightful walks will be possible even after occupation is complete.
Foreshores to the extent of some four or five miles are being dedicated to the public. Would that the community could regain those previously subdivided and sold to the water's edge.
A natural acropolis, 300 feet above the water, on the central peninsula, is the civic center; a sports field, surrounded by public and semi-public buildings, entered from the business thoroughfare through a semicircular colonnaded gateway. This center comprises such buildings as churches, clubs, assembly halls, schools, libraries, hotels, and theatres.
Two natural amphitheatres are located, the Cove theatre on the water frontage, the Glen theatre at the head of a valley. One hundred acres have been allocated to golf links, and a sheltered cove will be used as a yachting club.
The citizens of Castlecrag are organized for various community purposes. Committees for publicity, education, recreation, town-planning, and the like have been set up, and steps are being taken for the erection of the Castlecrag Community Clubhouse.
It is a great work, but it is only a beginning. It points to a new Australian life, based upon a new Australian idea. That idea is that it is absurd for Australians to keep following in the gouty footsteps of old John Bull or to ape Uncle Sam. They must think out a new civilization, and begin to draw up the ground plan of the new institutions. The idea may be summed up in a phrase; Life as a fine art. That is really what all the poets, the seers, the sages, the revolutionaries of the ages, have seen in their minds' eyes. It was the vision that Moses beheld from the Mount ere he passed behind the veil. Life as a fine art flourished on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in days long fled; in lands where corn and wine abounded; where song and music and drama made life resplendent; where man surpassed himself and became superman - all this glory that was Greece will be resurrected by the shores of the Pacific. Castlecrag is a step toward the Australian ideal - a new Civilization white in soul.
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No. 10. TASMANIAN EUCALYPTUS . ROUGH BARKED
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 154b ====]
THOUGH MOST OF THE GUMS ARE SMOOTH BARKED and shed their barks to a certain extent, some are rough barked like this one. The Messmates almost always grow in pairs which gives them their name.
However drooping the leaves may seem to the foreigner they are almost always stiff and fixed holding their position quite as fixedly as when turned down. A wind blown tree holds that appearance when there is no wind stirring. They make good compasses for the woodsmen who know their district as the bushmen always do. Australia's flora, the most ancient in the world, came up from the South polar regions and has developed the most varied species each of which seems to have chosen its particular spot and considerately does not invade the others.
[Note: This page is not in the New-York Historical Society's copy. The paragraphs on this page are essentially repeated at the beginning of the "Caption" on the next page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 155 ====]
TASMANIAN EUCALYPTUS. MESSMATES
So called because they usually grow in pairs. Though most of the gums are smooth barked and shed their barks to a certain extent, some are rough barked like this one.
However drooping the leaves may seem to the foreigner they are almost always stiff and fixed holding their position. A wind blown tree holds that appearance when there is no wind stirring. They make good compasses for the woodsmen who know their district as the bushmen always do. Australia's flora, the most ancient in the world, came up from the South Polar regions and has developed the most varied species each of which seems to have chosen its particular spot and considerately does not invade the others.
Along the edge of the sea we find these lovely Eucalyptus trees. Tasmania like the rest of Australia carries its forests on its rim. So back of these a bit we get into the depths of the bush where in spite of the fact that Australia has only an eighth as much timber as any other continent we find, as we do wherever white folks go, that they are cutting the heart out of the forest.
These trees illustrate a typical and wonderful fact about Australian trees that, though they give ample shade, rarely is the foliage so dense as to conceal the form and structure of the growth. This makes them ideal for architectural embellishment. The sad part is that [Note: the] white man so rarely does his part, has so lost his touch with the spiritual, that he is not even conscious of his obligation to add beauty, destroying none, as his contribution to creation but everywhere what he does these days is hideous.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 156 ====]
INITIAL - TASMANIAN GUM - MESSMATES
- ROUGH BARKED EUCALYPTUS -
TASMANIA
[Note: See the illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
CASTLECRAG - Walter Burley Griffin
Castlecrag is an effort toward Land Planning in the fundamental sense of arranging for that use to which the terrain is most suitable. Land in this sense is accorded the respect due to a highly developed and perfected living organism not to be exterminated nor treated as dead material, nor as a mere section of the map.
That part of the Metropolitan Unity which comprises its natural setting, its whole coastal district, has now gone through a metamorphosis from Botany Bay almost to Broken Bay so complete that without the fortunate survival of Castlecrag, one would scarcely be able to picture the Sydney of the last Century with its then justly famous Harbor.
In the eighteen-eighties upper Middle Harbor was selected in advance of the Eastern suburbs, now intensely occupied, for residential development and the monumental Suspension Bridge was to give access. However, the desired tramway facilities or franchises were so effectively withheld by the government that the bulk of this territory was precluded from occupation until the days of the private motor cars.
Since 1920 the motive of the suburban development of 750 acres in Castlecrag, Covecrag and Castlecove, within five miles
[Note: The above text was typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 157 (table of contents) ====]
BOTANY BAY . SYDNEY
[Note: The caption of the New-York Historical
Society's illustration reads, "Sydney Harbor . Location of
Castlecrag."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 158 ====]
Castlecrag will become an independent municipality.
Here at Castlecrag are the loveliest of all Sydney's once beautiful foreshores. Town planning is preserving their beauty. It will presently be an independent municipality.
The Australian Municipalities are different from ours. What we think of as Sydney is a group of entirely independent municipalities. Sydney happens to be the greatest business center but each of the municipalities of what we call Greater Sydney also has its business center and an entirely independent council and government.
Castlecrag is now a part of the Willoughby municipality. It plans to be an independent Municipality when it has the required population.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 159 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 156]of the city, is the preservation for the future of the pristine loveliness of some five miles remnant of the rock-bound woodland Coves, through the vigilance of hundreds of interested owners and appreciative rangers.
No control that is not localized in the strictest sense possible, i.e., personal, has so far availed to prevent the disappearance of our wild life before the advancing population.
In the present incipient stage of general understanding of nature even the best of our communities suffer their reserves to be "improved" which means despoliated [Note: i.e., despoiled], gradually obliterating the natural character. It is only necessary to stand on some lookout such as Covecrag to be able to distinguish, from all the rest, primitive spots that are under the care of considerate resident owners and not indiscriminately accessible to the public. Unfortunately the cases of personal protective interests are exceptional and even for these there are the hazards of bush fires, vandalism, dumping and reckless depredation of flowers, plants, firewood, poles, bee-trees, timber, soil, sand and stone. Notwithstanding these difficulties and the unsympathetic attitude of the public authorities, the restoration of natural states has already been noticeable in Castlecrag with a resident community of about two dozen families only and, during the survey and construction work, many roads and streets as well as playing areas, baths, tennis courts and golf courses besides the quarrying and housing have been established.
These operations have not appreciably silted up the coves because of the general contour alignment of the narrow roads, their early sealing and the drainage precautions taken wherever possible. The placing of the roads and the allocation of the home sites thus required complete contour surveys followed by detail personal feature studies in order to determine and to conserve the distinctive rock formations and flora.
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HILLSIDE DWELLING . LOT 196 THE HAVEN
[Note: The caption on the
illustration itself reads (in part): "Dwelling for Lot 195 The
Barbette.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 161 ====]
On these steep slopes dwellings can be placed strategically for maximum views and surrounding natural garden.
Only the garage need be placed on the street level.
The roofs of the rooms on the lower terrace become roof terrace gardens for the living rooms.
The stone quarried for leveling the floors of the dwelling can be used for constructing the walls. It is a sandstone which cuts easily and then when exposed glasses on the surface, ideal for structural purposes.
The house can be reached from either the street below or the park path above as can all the houses.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 162 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 159]The whole of the shores, the predominant heights, the coves, the sculptural rocks, were embraced in the connected system of local reserves. These separate and screen the garden fronts in the same way and make private their street fronts. Thus, in addition to the site individually occupied by a self-selected owner, he has an interest through the local Parks Committee of each neighborhood in which the control of these areas will ultimately be vested. At present one Committee administers the Castlecrag Reserves, collecting 10 shillings per year provided for by covenant, from each abutting lot for the expenses of up-keep and improvement. Even now two thousand native trees and shrubs have been added to the district already occupied.
All service pipes, wiring, etc., are in these park pathways so no street pavements need ever be disturbed. [Note: This last sentence is handwritten and has been added to the typescript.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 163 ====]
PICTURESQUE WATERSIDE SUBURB
SCENIC CHARM OF CASTLECRAG
Walter
Burley Griffin
Of the 3 branches of that wonderful estuary, Port Jackson, Middle Harbor possesses in fullest measure the qualities that have made Sydney one of the most admired ports in the world - intimate charm of land-locked water, rocky headlands and wooded coves.
Strangely enough, it has been the last to be exploited, though in other directions Sydney has been extended much further afield. Excepting reserves held by the Government for public purposes, the land along the other shores has been cut into small parcels and utilized without protective covenants or direction; so that in the end we find the capital which is the pride of the State without a single first-class, safeguarded, homogeneous, residential waterside suburb. It is fortunate, however, that the best opportunity has been left to the last.
The instinct that has peopled all the shores heretofore, has been the pioneering instinct reckoning the exuberance of nature an obstacle to be overcome, rather than a treasure to be preserved.
Now that the treasure has, in fact, become rare it may be valued more highly, conserved with respect and pains, and appreciated by those lucky enough to be able to live in the last suburban water-front area of Sydney - which is also the first to be developed with every possible care to maintain its pristine beauty.
The Greater Sydney Development Association, formed for the purpose, has taken over this one considerable area remaining available for settlement. It comprises the major part of three of the four promontories of the western shore of Middle Harbor, and also of the Middle Harbor ward of the municipality of Willoughby, extending from Northbridge to Roseville, with four miles of water frontage.
The association is undertaking an idealistic development of this new suburb, with driveways, parks and playgrounds complete, and with
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 164 ====]
the pavements, shops, residences and all other conveniences and services requisite to modern living.
Castlecrag, four miles from Circular Quay, derives its name from a towering rock which has been called "Edinburgh Castle" on the maps, and is included among the numerous reserves established by the association to conserve for the residents all the remarkable natural features of the place - its outlooks, monumental cliffs, caverns, ancient trees, fern glens, wild flower glades, waterfalls and foreshores.
No amount of artificial improvement could compensate for the sacrifice of this priceless heritage. The Australians probably spend more time and energy and endure more discomfort than any other people in the world today in trying to enjoy outdoor nature: but holiday outings and week-end humpies comprise the least satisfactory and most extravagant way of gaining necessary respite from the monotony of home and business life in a metropolis.
And these burdensome make-shift extra homes and extra tasks are gradually defeating their very purpose and spreading slumdom over the whole landscape.
Civilized man has never had a greater opportunity to find his home in the midst of a natural paradise than that offered him right in the Australian metropolis.
No savages could be capable of making such a mess of this opportunity as Sydney has hitherto made of it. Why? Because nature is a part of the every day, every hour, life of a savage; and he respects it as such, and not merely as an escape. The handiwork of the Creator is hardly a mere after-consideration in the scheme of the universe.
Our sordid environment is the consequence of an egotism that hardly even questions wanton sacrifice to immediate and personal - not social - advantage, of every vestige of the harmonious, perfect
[Note: "Humpies" can mean shelters made from natural materials, e.g., log cabins.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 165 ====]
development which on intense evolutionary process through eons has prepared for us.
With rifle and axe, fire, dynamite, poison and weeds, and pests, are we invading every day more of the choice bits of this earth; even making desolate those portions which we do not actually encumber with our "necessary" miscellaneous paraphernalia of factories and shops, verandas and fences, palings, gables, bays and dormers; yards, dumps, sheet iron sheds and tanks, tracks and piers - unassorted, often without use, all without harmony or variety, or beginning or end.
It is the object of art to make simple, easy, even playful, the most serious work of man, just as the real most serious work of nature, so perfectly organized and systematic, affords us rest, relief and sheer joy.
Castlecrag development is making of the necessary encumbrance, entailed by man's dwelling on the land, a fitting counterpart to the landscape. Since these encumbrances actually amount to only an eighth part of the land occupied, there should be no great difficulty in making them play a correspondingly subordinate part in the scheme already designed and executed by nature.
The thoroughfares wind around the slopes and skirt the rocky ledges where they will not disfigure the contours and will attract no more than the amount of traffic which is needed for the particular portions of the locality intended to be served by each driveway.
The drives, like those in parks, are smooth enough, wide enough and sheltered enough to accommodate pedestrians and vehicles together, and they also have banks of native trees, shrubs and flowers which, instead of being lost in a preliminary clearance, have been protected, encouraged and supplemented.
The individual allotments are approached from a drive on one side and on the other side face a spacious playground or park, or extensive
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 166 ====]
outlook from which and from their neighbors they are screened only by thickets and clumps of verdure to mask preliminary wire fences, rendering them as completely private as may be desired. The interior neighborhood reserves and playgrounds are primarily for the benefit of the house immediately abutting them, and they are managed in each case by a local council committee of the residents using them, to afford to all the opportunity of individual initiative and neighborhood emulation in their improvement and use for any of the various purposes of recreation, play, child education, training and social gatherings.
Large reserves, which face the public ways and waterways, are for the use of the suburbs as a whole, and will embrace sports ovals, golf links, yacht clubs and the like. The organizing of the chief one, the Country Club, is already in hand.
The buildings throughout Castlecrag are of the native stone, rough hewn generally, and random set in massive walls, with windows in batteries protected with overhanging trellises and climbing plants. Most of the houses have flat concrete roofs which best suit the tiers of cliffs and provide flower terraces of creepers for the prospects from the successive levels above them.
Novel standardized construction with solid floors, universal damp insulation, mortis-less joinery, folding windows, pivoted doors, rough wall textures and washable decorations, cool roofs and roof ventilation have been devised to bring the benefits of large-scale operation to supplement those of the comprehensive planning of these groups, which is thus made available to everybody in a position to appreciate.
Work at Castlecrag has been in progress a year, and the Postern and the Parapet (driveways) and the Cortile and Lookout (reserves) are accommodating new homes, twenty-one of which are already in hand. The construction of the Rampart, the Sortie Port, the Redoubt, the Bastion, and the Outpost ways, and the opening of their corresponding reserves, the Turret, the Keep, the Merlon, the Buttress, the Sentry, is nearing completion.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 167 ====]
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy the following is handwritten at the top of the page: "WBG was never an apprentice in his [/] office [/] FLW Story [/] Our Lakeside house parallelogram [/] with 2 octagons on either side [/] Marabo storks. [/] These appeared in Oak Park Office [/] Heller House used complete plan [/] except of flanking squares instead of octagons".]REMINISCENCES [Note: by Marion Mahony Griffin]
As Griffin's practice grew one of the first things he did was to work out a new form of partnership. It was especially important in Australia where class feelings create bad feeling and poor workmanship, but its form is equally important though in another way in America. For the transition from draftsman to independent practice is still difficult in America, the employer usually resenting his draftsman's not giving his full time and strength to his employer, and the breaking into independent practice without an established clientele is a very precarious step for the draftsman to take, frequently with only one client in view.
The unusual spirit in Griffin's office was conspicuous even to outsiders. I remember a member of a firm across the hall from us in Melbourne saying to me as I was leaving for home - "Your draftsmen seem never to go home." I replied, "Well I do my best to make them." "Yes," he said, "I know." In contrast was the remark of Mr. [Note: Roy] Lippincott (a partner in the Griffin office) to a draftsman in an office he was sharing in Sydney in the early months in Australia, one who typically dawdled at his work and whose interest on Saturday was centered on the afternoon off. "If I had as little interest in my work as you I
[Note: The above text was typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 168 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . MR. HENRY FORD . DETROIT SECTION
MUSIC ROOM . STAIRS DOWN
TO DEN
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 169 ====]
Sections through the living rooms of Henry Ford senior on the river bank in Detroit.
Living and Dining Rooms & Conservatory with bathing pool on upper level.
Mr. Ford's rustic den on floor below.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 170 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 167]certainly would certainly get out of architecture." Of course in Australia the conditions are worse for there they have the apprentice system which gives the apprentice little hope of any kind. In the Griffin office any draftsman who got a client was treated of a member of the firm. He kept his time card and continued to get his salary insofar as he worked for the office. On his own work he got the commission and was completely responsible. If he wished the help in any of the other architects he paid them on the basis of a sum established to meet that situation, a wage the same as his own. This did not affect the normal arrangements made between them as architect and draftsman, but it put younger members on sound ground while still inexperienced.
After Griffin's death and when I was returning to America it was at Mr. Nicholls's wish that the firm carries on in the name of Griffin and Nicholls with the name of the founder of the firm first. My complete confidence in my young partner made me very happy to have the Griffin tradition carried on in Australia.
Looking back to the days following my graduation in architecture, after a year of drafting with my cousin [Note: Dwight H. Perkins] I went into an informal partnership with another [Note: Frank Lloyd Wright] of the Chicago school of architecture who had just started independent practice though he had in the mean time built several houses of no particular character, one half timber, etc. But now the influence of the Japanese, who had exhibited at Chicago's first World's Fair, was being felt among a number of the young Chicago architects. The first jobs turned out had been a flat building whose distinctive characteristic was a frieze almost identical with that of a building of Mr. [Note: Louis H.] Sullivan's the founder of modern architecture. Another flat building was a semi court scheme 2 stories high. Its low hip roof and eaves were of the Japanese type. The third was a dwelling again with the low hip roof, its plan still the colonial parallelogram with center entrance and stairway hall. It did however establish a sill line for the 2nd story windows which carried
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 171 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . SECTION THROUGH LIVING & DINING ROOMS &
CONSERVATORY . DEN BELOW
[Note: In the New-York Historical
Society's illustration, the names of Marion Mahony and Herman von Holst
appear as the architects.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 172 ====]
around the whole house giving it a real dignity worthy of the discipline he had been under with Mr. Sullivan.
While this was going on I was told to make sketches for an abstract 2 story 3 bed-room house which I did. This gave me an experience of why the Chinese tipped up the overhanging eaves though expressed in modern scientific terms of forces of gravity instead of demons - a reality in whatever terms expressed. I guess I was never a conformist. Any [Note: Anyway?] it was a cruciform plan. Later on when I had left the office and Griffin was in partnership there an amazing thing happened. He told me one day several years later of his first experience there. A residential job had come into the office and the two men went into a competition for it. He mentioned the name of the client and I was wide-eyed thinking he was going to say he won it. Why otherwise should a man be telling me about it. But he said he lost, and I laughed and told him that house had been built exactly in accordance with my design - that first one. It was a revolutionary design, abandoning the universal parallelogram, T shaped, and center reception entrance hall dropped to ground level. His losing in that competition was doubtless a unique experience in that office. His revolutionizing of the work in that office was first expressed in the [Note: Frank W.] Thomas House.
Later this architect went abroad. He asked me to take over the office for him. I refused. But after he had gone Mr. [Note: Herman] von Holst who had taken over asked me to join him so I did on a definite arrangement that I should have control of the designing, that suited him. When the absent architect didn't bother to answer anything that was sent over to him the relations were broken and I entered into a partnership with von Holst and Fyfe. For that period I had great fun designing.
While the construction of the home of Henry Ford was being carried on, presentation sketches were made for Mr. [Note: C.H.] Wills. At this period I too followed the Japanese feeling. It was not till a short time afterward, when I entered Griffin's office, that I realized the difference.
[Note: The William A. Storrer Catalog Number (3rd edition, 2002) for the Thomas House is S.067.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 173 (table of contents) ====]
CORNICE TREATMENT . SETTING THE FRIEZE MOTIF IN THE CHICAGO SCHOOL
[Note: Added to the caption in the New-York Historical Society's
illustration are the words, "Basis of F.L.W.'s design for his 1st flat
bldg". The structure is the Bayard-Condict Building, designed by Louis
H. Sullivan, in New York City.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 174 ====]
His first flat building was on the boards when I entered this office. The frieze was almost a direct copy from this building of Sullivan's in whose office he had been trained. Throughout his practice it was he who followed others not they him. They were the creative ones. One wouldn't mind his taking up what inspired him but his claiming and publicity (made spicy by his scandals) stunned the movement, founded by Sullivan, in the United States for a quarter of a century.
He was quick on the uptake, naturally artistic but never an architect though he claimed the whole Chicago School of architects as his disciples. He spent most of his life writing articles making these claims and really was a blighting influence on the group of enthusiastic creative architects of his generation. Only a quarter of a century later has any creative architecture in the United States escaped the blight of his self-centered publicity.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 175 ====]
ARCHITECTURE & TOWN PLANNING INSEPARABLE.
IMPORTANCE OF LOCATION ON LOT
Our thoughts to be moral must conform to cosmic laws. We must not think personally where causes are cosmic. All forms in matter or thinking derive from the chemical ether which is the manifesting force as compared with the spiritualizing forces of warmth and light.
It is the central region of America that is ruled by the chemical ether whose basic manifestation is liquidity with the centralizing force [Note: "of gravity" crossed out] forming hemi-spheres - that great Mississippi Valley - and there we find the founders of creative thinking in the arts, the modernists, Lois [Note: Loie] Fuller [Note: "and Isadore [sic] Duncan" crossed out] in the dance, George Bernard [Note: George Grey Barnard?] in sculpture, Leo Masters [Note: Edgar Lee Masters?] in poetry, Louis Sullivan in architecture, Walter Burley Griffin in Ground planning - town planning or whatever you choose to call it, and so on. Though all new movements derive from one individual, since ideas arise in a human mind, when that has happened the way is open to all humanity to carry on and develop the work. The foundation has been laid. Louis Sullivan laid the foundation of modern architecture. His influence was felt as early in Europe as in America and even more powerfully there in the early decades. The successors vary in degree of creative power but they are not founders. Personal vanities and claims obstructed it here, especially the widely publicized braggadocio of one who did little but talked much.
The necessity of preserving the life of the Earth is a prime duty in every field of life, in every occupation, and taking maximum advantage of its gifts is the task of the designer.
The power of a conscientious consideration of all the elements of a problem was brought home to me when I saw the revolution in methods and results that took place when landscape was made a part of architecture. It meant not only a broadening of the view but a positiveness of action arising from the firm foundation of definite facts determining the general scheme before taking up details of internal requirements. Landscape architecture does not mean gardening as an afterthought to a building but means a consideration of the external
[Note: There is no page 176 in the Art Institute copy, though the number 176 appears at the end of the top paragraph on page 179.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 177 (table of contents) ====]
DIAGRAMS OF ALTERNATE LOCATIONS OF THOMAS HOUSE
[Note: The New-York
Historical Society's illustration diagrams Griffin's and Wright's "Town
Planning," i.e., their different placement of flats and a dwelling. A
hand printed comment at the bottom of the illustration reads, "Griffin
makes solving of problem the [/] basis of design in architecture". The
structure referred to is probably the Frank W. Thomas House in Oak Park,
Illinois.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 178 ====]
Walter Burley Griffin entering as a partner in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright molded the character of the work for years to come and the group of enthusiastic youths who passed through the office maintained a high character of work there and several carried on their work in the Eastern States. But those outside of this office were so disturbed by his claims that it seriously affected the character of their work.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 179 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 175]elements before starting to plan or to build. Not only natural conditions but the character of the surrounding buildings have sometimes to be taken advantage of, sometimes to be overcome. And we must consider not the mere personal point but must look to the advantage to everyone affected, for it is curiously true that a thing to be a real and permanent advantage to one must be an advantage to everyone, just as in the animal or man a sound organ is of vital importance to all the organs. Human society is an organism, and the individual can benefit only from what is of benefit to all since all are interdependent as root, branch, leaf and blossom of tree.
My first object lesson was the case of a house the working drawings of which had been completed, and accepted by the owner and the contract let when it was first subjected to the criticism from this fundamental stand-point, when Griffin entered into partnership with the architect [Note: Frank Lloyd Wright]. The lot was one next to a two-story flat building with its porch built close to the sidewalk line. Across the street from the flat building was a beautiful park. The house criticized was being set back on the lot as if shrinking from an ugly thing of which it was afraid, leaving the greater part of the grounds to the front, allowing the other building to look over it destroying its privacy and shutting off from the client the delightful view opposite, the home garden dominated by this ugly building.
A knowledge of the conditions of the surroundings led to the flat criticism that although the design was charming it was not the right answer, this was not the proper plan for the location, words which meant nothing to the designer who was only an architect, to whom town planning was a closed book. Griffin suggested that the living rooms be elevated above the eyes of the passer-by lifting the basement out of the ground, and that the house instead of being a parallelogram should be ell shaped, and that the whole building be
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 180 ====]
brought forward, one arm parallel to the street the other projecting forward alongside the flat building and so acting as a screen to the ugly mass thereby benefiting the whole avenue. This English basement type would make it high enough to conceal the flat building and would enable the projecting dining room to overlook the charming woods across the street, and also to get from dining room as well as living room windows a view of its own front garden, whilst the veranda and living room would attain privacy and look upon the graceful lines of the house itself instead of the ugly bulk of the adjacent building. Concentration of stair and service portions where no outlook was necessary was without any disadvantage. In other words, the special conditions called for a special type. The new arrangement was worked out, the house built accordingly, and a most charming home it is. At the same time the high class character of the street as a whole was restored by this screening of this blot on the landscape. The benefit to one was a benefit to all.
The ell-shaped form of this house established a new type in this office. On the whole in America as well as elsewhere a building, a residence, was a parallelogram. Nothing else was done. The Greek thinking had been back of this, a religious recognition of the 4th period of our present human cycle as the pyramid was the recognition of that 3rd, the Egyptian period. Once established the almost automatic thinking of our times flowed on in the same old groove. After all the mechanical is the idol of the present age so why not leave our minds to its tendency to work automatically. But this is the 5th Period. The parallelogram no longer suffices.
Now this tradition was broken down. The plan was not necessarily a parallelogram and freer forms developed in this office to be carried on later when Griffin had a free hand in an endless variety of crystalline forms for he conceived of buildings not as facades but as three dimensional. Thus the creator thinks. We learn that there as many universes as there are crystalline forms, each created by a great primal Spirit of Mathematics.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 181 ====]
Architecture is little understood at present. In the past it functioned through intuitive thinking guided by the Gods who do such marvelous things in forming nature. But now anyone who does a building is called an architect, [Note: Le] Corbusier, for instance, who is simply an engineer. His packing-box structures are not architecture at all. The engineer considers nothing but the material facts and consequently is bound to the past and never really solves problems. Others are temperamentally painters of pictures as was the other partner in this office, a scene painter who, to get effects, used what structural knowledge he had to defy nature rather than to work with it, as extremes of overhanging cornices, etc., often a heavy drain on his client's pocket-books. One might call it clowning, it certainly is not architecture. The solving of such problems, which is the basic temperament of a real architect, accomplishes the graceful effects desired by roofing his building in accordance with the requirements of the plan. He does not limit himself to a particular type, say the hip roof, as was the custom of this office under the influence of the Japanese with whose art America was just then becoming acquainted. If conditions of plan call for corner windows, such can be roofed with the hip whose support to the eye is the wall or pier which thus is set far back from the corner of the building taking away the snub nose effect. If the plan develops solid corners the use of the gable, whose thrusts are thus taken in a way satisfactory to the eye, is desirable. The carrying up of the fenestration into the peak of the gable gives the esthetic satisfaction of purpose and richness. These things cannot, of course, be done by rule of thumb. Creative thinking may at any time find new solutions but one is not an architect unless the problem is solved.
[Note: The paragraph below is crossed out in the Art Institute of Chicago's copy. It is very similar to a paragraph found on page 182.]An office building got the same town-planning treatment and made architectural history. The issue is how to build such a huge structure, meet the requirements of its functions, and still have it a thing that satisfies the human soul making its life and development possible as food does the body. An analysis of the building's requirements . . . .
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [181-2] ====]
[Note: The initial paragraph on this page repeats the last half of the first paragraph on page 181 and has not been reproduced.]The first office building of this office and partnership [Note: Larkin Building?] got the same town-planning treatment and made architectural history. How build such a huge structure, meet the requirements of its functions, and still have it a thing that satisfies the human soul making its life and development possible as food does for the body?
An analysis of the building's requirements showed that certain functions, as elevators, required no daylight so they were taken out of the bowels of the building and placed on the exterior walls forming impressive pylons. An interior court supplemented the external lighting and the massed exterior windows, treated as a unit, became a feature treated with consideration, and what is now called "modern architecture" was born. It took hold and swept the country only after the Tribune competition, some decades later, in which two architects who had won the two first prizes for the plan of Canberra, Griffin and [Note: Eliel] Saarinen, presented two designs solving the problem of lighting which is the distinctive requirement of modern times, now perhaps passing with modern inventions in lighting, and which includes light for the streets as well as the fenestration of the building.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 182 (table of contents) ====]
No. 11. EUCALYPTUS URNIGERA . TASMANIA
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 183 ====]
In Tasmania where color runs riot in everything the long lasting colors of the masses of fruits outvying the flowers in their long lasting conspicuousness, we find the barks putting on an equally amazing show. The Eucalyptus Urnigera is a case, its bark completely red, so fiery that paint cannot reproduce it. It was like a flame shooting up to meet the setting sun. In the nearby gully we see a pure white-barked Haemastoma called scribbly gum because always in its soft bark you find the writing of the fairies cut out be some slave insect of theirs to bring messages to the children of Australia to many of whom seeing the fairies comes quite naturally as it does to the Irish.
It took my mother some time on her visit to Australia to adjust herself so that she could enjoy their beauty. At first they shocked her they looked so naked. I am afraid she was a Mid-Victorian.
Seeing this tree at sunset I could not resist painting it so but the color is there in the bark and no reflection of the sun's glow.
Of all Lucifer's cohorts who painted this earth so magnificently, the angel who painted Australia was the greatest artist of them all. Not just great bunches of solid green but the rich intermingling of colors in the barks, in the leaves and in the groups, and since it is the trees and shrubs that are the showy blossomers instead of the herbaceous plants as with us, all through the year the infinitely varied and subtle shades of the flowers add their quota to the rich color.
[Note: The preceding two paragraphs were typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 184 ====]
INITIAL . EUCALYPTUS URNIGERA - TASMANIA
[Note: See the illustration at
the beginning of this chapter.]
SCENIC MARINE SUBURB OF MIDDLE HARBOR
Unique in beauty and design, the scenic marine suburb of Castlecrag, has brought the loveliness of Middle Harbor within easy reach of the City of Sydney. In the early days it was served by fast modern motor buses running at short intervals to and from Wilson's Point. With the completion of the bridge it became only 20 minutes from the heart of the city.
Castlecrag, Covecrag and Castlecove are the picked portions of that mighty amphitheatre which stretches down to the rocky shores, wooded coves and charming inlets of Sydney's finest reach of water. Designed to preserve all the remarkable natural features - outlooks, cliffs, waterfalls, fern valleys, foreshores, birds and animals - the covenant under which all lots are sold and homes built enforces town ideals of suburban development entirely novel to Sydney, with landscape architecture which harmonizes with its exquisite setting. In its unspoiled grandeur Middle Harbor vies with the world-famous Riviera, Italian Lakes and Norwegian fiords.
Other branches of Port Jackson have been marred by ugly gridirons of glaring red roofs and scarring streets, and the wonderful foreshores have been alienated and ruined. Seeking the pathway of least resistance, the City of Sydney has pushed its crowded suburban chessboards to the very portals of the great stone and wooded heights which look across the Harbor to French's Forest and Manly. Fortunately it has been halted there.
Some years ago the genius of Walter Burley Griffin, Architect and Town Planner, saw the amazing possibilities of the three virgin promontories on the Western side of Middle Harbor, with their glorious 5 miles of water frontage. His enthusiasm inspired a group of Australian capitalists amongst his professional clients, and
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 185 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . ERIC PRATTEN . SYDNEY . ENTRANCE FACADE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 186 ====]
That whatever of strength and power appeared in the early days succeeding the [Note: Louis] Sullivan influence in the office of one [Note: Frank Lloyd Wright] who trained in his office was due not to the man who, if he had lived in earlier times, would have been in his natural metier in illuminating books but to the co-worker in his office is evidenced by Griffin's work when he was practicing on his own.
The firm, one might say masculine, touch; the power in his structural conceptions; his reverence for rather than defiance of (as in distressingly projecting cantilever roofs) natural laws, we see again in this stone dwelling with its battered [Note: i.e., with an upward receding slope] walls. This building is a part of nature not an irreverent defiance of it.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 187 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 184]the magnificent amphitheatres passed into the hands of Greater Sydney Development Association Limited. This is literally a case where the last is the best, for here is the only Harbor frontage free from the threat of commerce and quite out of the field of industrial expansion now in evidence in every other direction. It is the only waterside development that can and will be protected against flats.
Twice as high as the Sydney observatory and the heights of the South shore of our Harbor, these narrow headlands rise above the mists and possess the bright easterly seaward aspect sheltered from the bleak winds. Their conformation in ledges is the ideal for successive tiers of stately homes, and the sandstone substructure of these ledges affords the most elegant of all building materials. It also constitutes a district free of wind and dust, also perfectly drained beneath as to water and above as to cooling currents of air, so that the temperature and humidity are the most equable - even precluding frost - all the conditions for the best health. Castlecrag, four miles from Circular Quay, is named from towering rock. It has become a scenic Suburb which surpassed any other in the Commonwealth, and ninety aesthetic dwellings in stone have been planned or erected.
As the dominant motif throughout has been the preservation of nature, emphasis may be justly placed on the treasures so carefully conserved. The flora is diversified and rich, representing possibly the most multifarious collections in any country. Ironbarks, flowering gums, cypress pines, sheoaks, pink ti-trees, flannel flowers, waratahs, croweas, boronias, acacias, geebungs, wooden pear trees, scarlet bottle brushes, honeysuckles, grevillias and heather, brilliant masses of wild flowers - these are noted at random in a stroll through the trees. More than 500 choice native plants are yearly planted out from the nursery.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 188 (table of contents) ====]
TERRACED DWELLING . CASTLECRAG
[Note: The illustration includes what
appear to be two photographic contact prints. The structure is the
Fishwick House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 189 ====]
Here again, no loveliness of this allotment was destroyed nor injured by the incoming of man. Indeed the stone of the lot itself built the house or you might say made way for the house which rests on the bottom of the quarry from which its walls were built.
This stone is so beautiful that it remained as the interior finish of the living rooms. No surfacing nor coloring was called for.
As the following illustration shows, like the precipitous rocks of this top terrace, its window openings and roof terraces command the valley views.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 190 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 187]Below are the silver shore-fretted waters of Middle Harbor - widening in ovals, narrowing in fiords - with yachts and other pleasure craft leaving tiny burnished wakes. In the distance is the ocean beyond Manly. Castlecrag looks down on Sailors Bay. Covecrag is above the main arm of the Harbor and Castlecove and Crag Cove sites [Note: the reading here follows the N-YHS copy] for the future Yacht Club and for a deep shark-protected bathing beach have been selected and set aside.
A plan has been approved for a scenic Marine Drive which will skirt the foreshores between the Suspension Bridge and the Roseville Bridge when the roads are connected up. The round drive will give twenty-four miles of perfectly graded enduring surface. Superb examples of the skill of surveyor and landscape designer are afforded by the many highways through the vast estates. These have made easily accessible many heights and valleys which at first must have seemed shut off from human habitation. At Covecrag, for instance, there is a gently sloping ascent - top gear to any car - and on its summit the visitor can look down 330 sheer feet at a flawless panorama.
The thoroughfares are carved out of bed-rock and are finished in bituminous concrete or rolled blue stone asphalt, with ample width for pedestrians and vehicles, with every now and again a circular terminal way to serve as halting place or turning point. So cleverly inlaid are the roads that when looked at from above they have almost merged into the foliage through which they pass.
In order to provide short cuts for pedestrians embowered lanes intersect the main highways, thus facilitating movement from crest to waterfront. As the services and utilities of all the homes are supplied from the rear of each, the roads are not disfigured by poles and wires nor is the splendid road surface continually dug up to provide conveniences for new homes.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 191 (table of contents) ====]
TERRACED DWELLING . COMMANDING VALLEY VIEW
[Note: The structure is
the Fishwick House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 192 ====]
Ample public reserves have been made throughout Castlecrag, apart from the innumerable small parks and play-grounds intended for the benefit of the houses immediately abutting. The gratifying way in which these little neighborhood reserves are made to play their part in the creating of a community spirit will be touched on when considering social interests.
In keeping with the idea of a Castle (Castlecrag) the roads and public reserves on that promontory have been given appropriate names - such as The Sortie Port and The Battlement in the case of Highways, and the Turret and Keep in the case of reserves. Other names suggest attractions peculiar to the areas. In the Gargoyle Reserve a rushing waterfall spouts out suddenly as it does in those old time fountains in which the mouth of a weird head serves as an outlet. Half a mile of creek frontage gives its title to the Watergate and a rockery lookout characterizes the Oriel. The Embrasure is surmounted by an overhanging ledge and forms a sheltered fern "loge" with a "parquet" playground, a waterfall and forest. Cool and restful the Retreat is the bed of a sylvan valley. Other reserves are distinguished by playgrounds, lookouts, pulpit rocks, grottos, cascades and glades.
All the recreation reserves form a single system and are connected throughout by a network of pathways, passes and shaded lanes. They are designed to perpetuate the delightful rambles which were a feature of Castlecrag before its development. An incalculable asset has been the segregation of four miles of water frontage, a common reserve to all the lot holders. Sports grounds, open air theatres, ovals, golf links, tennis courts, football grounds, etc. have been provided for by the wise foresight which has marked every detail of these Garden suburbs of Middle Harbor.
The Golf links, which have been established on Castlecove offer
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 193 (table of contents) ====]
THREE PROMONTORIES OF CASTLECRAG
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 194 ====]
a sporting course of 18 holes within 5 miles of the heart of Sydney. It is characteristic of the Company's determined idealism that tempting private offers to buy this land and lay out the links have been refused. It was typical again of the new spirit that both Castlecrag and Covecrag should have been made sanctuaries of native life, vigilant protection being extended to the birds, opossums, porcupines and soon, it is expected, native bears.
Community spirit is a rare and delicate plant but it has made vigorous growth at Castlecrag and its roots go deeper every year. This has been partly due to the unifying and binding power of a common ideal, partly to the lead given by Mr. and Mrs. Griffin and the first house builders, and partly to the co-operation (necessary for the control and improvement) of immediate residents. Naturally a friendly rivalry correspondingly stimulates a sectional camaraderie.
Generous provision has been made by the Company in connection with the Community Club. Two valuable lots near the entrance to the suburb have been set aside for Club purposes and a most ambitious Club house and theatre combined will be erected. This Club home will be circular and the theatre will have a revolving stage. In the building there will also be a kindergarten, gymnasium, billiard room, library, tea room, dancing floor, orchestra space and a roof garden.
The open air theatres in both scenic suburbs will also advance music, drama and education while serving recreational purposes.
Special care has been given to the planning of the area at Covecrag devoted to the future Civic Center for Local and Educational institutions, libraries, clubs, theatres, schools and churches. It is expected that the fruits of this care will set a standard for every suburb in Greater Sydney.
There are two monumental Shopping Centers provided for Covecrag forming the entrances to the exclusively residential areas from the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 195 (table of contents) ====]
INCINERATOR
[Note: The structure may be the St. Kilda Incinerator,
St. Kilda, Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 196 ====]
massive stone pillars, with effective electric lanterns.
Although the first few houses built at Castlecrag to provide needed accommodation were architecturally perfect and skillfully suited to blend with the landscape, they cannot fairly be compared with later handsome homes nor with even more ambitious dwellings approved for erection shortly. But they served three most useful purposes. They proved the absolute suitability and beauty of the sandstone on the estate and justified its stipulation; they pointed the way to obtain the greatest possible living room view of harbor and forest; and they introduced wholly delightful labor saving devices.
Castlecrag buildings are of native sandstone which has been quarried on the estate or taken from the allotment itself. The stone is generally rough hewn and random set in massive walls, with windows in batteries, protected by overhanging trellises and climbing plants.
So far as the future of these scenic marine suburbs is concerned, the progress made and the wide interest shown have already insured success. Four fifths of the land on Castlecrag has been sold, and the vast majority of buyers intend to put up their own houses as quickly as possible. With the Harbor bridge built both suburbs have become closer than most North Shore resorts to Sydney and far closer in distance and time than other popular and fashionable suburbs.
While there is no standard of comparison possible in the Commonwealth, similar developments in the United States have been financially and socially successful - often beyond all expectation. The following are outstanding and famous illustrations;- Forest Hill Gardens, Long Island; Mariemont, Cincinnati; Roland Park, Baltimore; Nichols' Country Club District, Kansas City; Palos Verdes, Los Angeles; Coral Gables, Miami. These have become the most exclusive social centers of their cities. It is certain that a similar judgment will be passed on Castlecrag and Covecrag.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 197 (table of contents) ====]
No. 12. TASMANIAN EUCALYPTUS . LEPTOSPERMUM SHRUBS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 198 ====]
There are practically no soft woods in Australia so not the temptation there to build houses of wood. You can't drive a nail into these woods. But many of them are very beautiful for cabinet work. Though Australia has no such autumn splendor as we yet when the rains come the gum tips, the new foliage, makes a wonderful show and everybody is out gathering gum tips for home decoration.
On the southern coast of Tasmania where alone in Australia they have winter as well as summer the flora seems to be especially varied. Only here can the children experience winter as well as summer, the 4 seasons, but still everything is evergreen. The plant life of the world having originated about the south pole in Australia still holds to the ancient custom of being evergreen through the year. We find broad leaved evergreens, the leaves of endless sizes and shapes. Stupid Europeans insist at times in planting deciduous trees in their midst but they go dead every year and spoil the landscape. In the wrong place and surroundings they lose the beauty they have in the regions to which they belong.
Here we see one of the lovely Leptospermum shrubs, the Persiciflorum, the peach blossomed Ti.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 199 ====]
The [Note: George] Elghs were homesick and had gone back to the States and the [Note: Roy] Lippincotts had gone over to New Zealand to carry out the work of construction of the University building for the design of which Roy was the winner in a competition. There he established himself in his profession and remained till the breaking out of the 2nd World War. They enjoyed the unique civilization of New Zealand becoming a happy part of it with their three charming daughters. New Zealand is as different from Australia as they both are from the United States.
Griffin had already revolutionized Australia in various realms. With Newman College he started modern plumbing. Not even the big cities had anything but the pan system collected from house to house each week.
With the Capitol Theatre he started the sky scrapers and with the theatre itself established a standard which still leads the world in unique design, indirect lighting and sumptuous beauty. The ten story building but broke the ice for sky-scrapers in the American sense.
With Leonard Chambers he defied the bureaucracy by running glass in pattern between the two corner piers of the building from the entrance canopy to roof level. The law required window sills 2'6" from the floor.
With the Cafe Australia and its sumptuous elegance - "real gold tile," etc. - competition forced the fly-ridden holes of restaurants to climb toward its standards.
With Mount Eagle Estate on the hill side he had defied the surveyors and attained a subdivision in accord with nature.
With Pholiota he had defied the municipal authorities and won his battle for a minimum cost dwelling - a standard not yet met anywhere else in the world - minimum cost with maximum elegance.
He had trained a number of young men in Architecture just as Mr. James Alexander Smith was continually doing with young engineers.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 200 (table of contents) ====]
QUO-MIN-TANG [Note: Kuomintang] CLUB HOUSE . MELBOURNE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 201 ====]
On numerous occasions the Chinese were Griffin's clients.
The Kuo Min Tang [Note: Kuomintang] was the first instance in Australia.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 202 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 199]They were winning competitions and establishing their practices, for Griffin had established a new form of partnership. Any draftsman who had reached a point where a client had come to him did not have to work on the sly with them but could become a partner in the firm, using time and office and any assistance the other partners could give on equal terms, the time measured on the rate of £7 a week. This safeguarded the quality of the output but the name of only the one partner was used on the particular job.
By the end of six years with the Federal Capital, when the plan was gazetted, i.e., no deviation could be made without an act of Parliament, Griffin's work was centering in New South Wales so he closed the Melbourne office and centered in Sydney. Pholiota that we had never thought of as a selling proposition was advertised one day and sold the next. When the owner's work called him to West Australia, Griffin released him from his contract. The house was advertised for sale and sold the next day.
Eric Nicholls came up with him and now, since Griffin's death in India, carries on the office and its traditions as the firm of Griffin and Nicholls. His story is remarkable too. As a blond youth just out of Manual Training school he dropped into the office looking for a job. A look at his lettering was enough for me, so I told him to come in again, I thought he could be useful to Mr. Griffin. "I think so," he said. He was. Nicholls was an exquisite draftsman. One day he was sitting out doors sketching the facade of the club house Griffin had done for the Chinese Quo Min Tang [Note: Kuomintang] in Melbourne. An old man came along and watched him, recounting to him what great artists the Chinese were, etc., etc. He finally could not resist saying Mr. Griffin of the Federal Capital was the designer of this intriguing facade. Our latest client was Mr. Kanevsky [Note: Nisson Leonard-Kanevsky], a Russian Jew, who had landed in Melbourne with one shilling. He wanted Griffin to be his architect for a clothing manufacturing industry. Would Mr. Griffin please
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 203 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . CASTLECRAG . Eric M. Nicholls . Architect
VIEW FROM DWELLING TO THE SPIT
[Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration reverses the order of the images given in the table of contents.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 204 ====]
Mr. [Note: Eric M.] Nicholls, an all around architect (architecture and town planning are inseparable) is carrying on the work of the firm Griffin & Nicholls, Sydney, Australia.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 205 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 202]lend him £500 for an option on a suitable allotment he had located in a side street in the heart of Melbourne. When the day came for this deposit Griffin was out of town so I drew the money from the bank. Before the option was up he had sold it for £2000 and used it to get an option on a site in the heart of the city one block from the central and only Railway station in Melbourne. Now he wanted to erect an office building on it. Would the Metropolitan Insurance Co. lend him the money for it. They would not. Sketches were proceeding in the office. He scoured around and came back with guaranteed tenants for all seven stories. The Insurance Co. assured him a solid sum. Mr. Abrahams, a wealthy money lender lent him enough more but at a very high rate of interest. The office was driving out the working drawings. Nicholls was established on the ground with a drafting table and stool and went up with the building. Everybody else in the office was too rushed to go near him.
Everybody on the building was on tenter hooks. The contractor fearing he had bid too low was trying to scrimp on the quality of the work, the money lenders scared they would lose all, everybody snarling at everybody but all centering around Nicholls. This infant sat there making detail drawings, settling every conflict, requiring everybody to live up to the letter of his undertakings, never ruffled and, at the end a perfect and perfectly finished building - a show building in Melbourne, the finest building yet constructed in Australia, and everybody his friend. What a thing it is to be born a Saturnian! Griffin had had a two years' fight with Melbourne's Municipal Council to get the drawings passed.
When at the other end of the story Griffin had gone to India leaving Nicholls in charge in Australia the first thing he did was to begin to collect back moneys due. Presently the list was closed and he wrote Griffin - "Is there anyone else that owes you money? If so send me the name and I'll clear it up."
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 206 ====]
But he had already cleared them up. And now that Griffin is taking a holiday in the supersensible realms Nicholls carries on - Griffin and Nicholls. In Castlecrag itself there is more than another man's lifetime's work to be done.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 207 (table of contents) ====]
56 THE PARAPET
[Note: The New-York Historical Society illustration
adds "Street Entrance" to the title. The "caption" to this illustration
may be on page 215. The structure is the Grant House.]
[Note: There is no page 208 in the Art Institute of Chicago's copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 209 ====]
56 THE PARAPET - STREET ENTRANCE
Set back from the street only far enough to make a bouquet of everblooming ground cover and shrubs, and entrance to the garage, to circle round to the kitchen door along the lot line, and around to the other side of the garage to the front entrance, a loggia. Four massive piers form a loggia from which three French doors and two windows open into the house which really has no hall, but a circuit around the fireplace. This arrangement made it possible one stormy night to give the whole of the Christmas play in the house very effectively, a play which normally filled the whole Haven Valley with its shepherds and kings and angels. The audience sat on the floor along the east wall of the whole house.
Three steps down from the street level gives a lovely bank around the entrance way, the rest of the front being a tiny patch of lawn surrounded by all-evergreen tree and thicket shrubbery concealing the house completely from the street, a bower of loveliness throughout the year. Once, before the fig climber on the wall had grown so large, I came home to find the whole facade studded with children standing on the projecting stones of the rough local sandstone, the baby on a low stone, the other youngsters all over all the way up to the top. They gave me a good laughing welcome home.
The succession of fruits and flowers here was wonderful as all over the place, practically all native except some herbaceous annuals and perennials, mostly the latter. The young Eucalyptus in the corner of house and garage became in a few years a tall spreading tree, no menace to a house with a concrete roof and whose floor is built solid on the ground.
ART AND NATURE or NATURE AND THE HOUSE. Walter Burley Griffin
A subject of such appalling scope requires a still further broadening to the fundamentals before considering the particular topic. Nature of course includes entire creation but, aiming its infinite subdivisions, one only is distinguished for a limited local self government not under control directly, and inasmuch as what is here undertaken
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 210 (table of contents) ====]
PLAN OF 56 THE PARAPET BUT IN KNITLOCK
[Note: The "caption" to this illustration may be on page 222.][Note: There is no page 211 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 212 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 209]involves the relation between this division and all the rest we can call it Man-Art, and to the remainder apply the name of the whole - Nature.
NATURE - In observing Nature we can see that she automatically obeys invariable laws which we study for inanimate things - physics and chemistry; for animate things - biology and instinct. And we can see that the result is invariably complete, perfect. It is physically reasonable to the intellect and to the higher senses ethically right and eminently fitting or beautiful.
ART - On the other hand natural manifestation through Man, called Art, depends upon man's limited perception of Law, Truth or the Spirit of Nature. He falls back on one or more of his faculties, his memory or the knowledge of accumulated experience, his intellect which attempts to reason and on his emotions which feel for the ethic or the aesthetic, or often apparently on chance circumstance alone, in ignorance of the use of his faculties. Needless to say the result is always defective in one or more of the phases, never perfect.
ARCHITECTURE - Realizing that Nature's works may be perfect for their purposes, yet man has not sought to reach perfection by taking nature as a model. His problems are different and characteristic of him alone. With tools he augments his physical ability - he moves on wheels, he eats his food cooked, in society he attempts to institute justice in place of force such as he can see in vogue among the ants and bees, and for his shelter, instead of imitating trees, hives, gopher-holes or nests, he invents a unique house.
DESIGN - In creating then the things for his own house man is thrown upon his own resources and his training should involve a knowledge of man's progress up to his time, the logical power of deducing principles from those facts and the intuitive faculty of feeling rectitude, fitness, beauty. Our recent modern development has, beyond doubt, terribly slighted the last phase - this emotional creative perception, and the first steps in bringing Art nearer to Nature's degree of perfection. In other words to harmonize Art with
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 213 (table of contents) ====]
INTERIOR OF 56 THE PARAPET LOOKING TOWARD THE DINING ROOM
[Note: The
"caption" to this paragraph may be on page 219.]
LAWN FACADE . VALLEY VIEW FROM ALL BUT ONE ROOM
[Note: The structure
is the Grant House. The figure talking to the woman in white may be
Marion Mahony Griffin.]
[Note: There is no page 214 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 215 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 212]Nature whose every aspect speaks to an open susceptible soul through the language of the feelings, to impress some Truth.
(CAPTION - with photo, PLAN in knitlock of 56 The Parapet which was built in stone.) The test of the pudding is in the eating. Our life and the life of the community in this dwelling was proof to the hilt. The house filled the 60' of the lot except for a 3' passage at either end. Every room but one had outlook to the valley view. One might call the house versatile since at various times it met perfectly totally different types of occupants - the normal type requiring 3 bed-rooms, ourselves requiring none, our successors using two bed-rooms. Perfect for each and all and on emergency tucking away for the night whoever might want to stay. With us there was no bed-room furniture. Box couches served for storing seasonal household things or dramatic supplies, these as well as the other things to Griffin's design; desks serving equally well as dressers, etc. The so-called maid's room was the office, the room opposite was the library, the 3rd bed-room was a music room to the South of the living room, the dining room to the North. The three formed one room. Endless cushions for use as well as beauty.
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy this paragraph is affixed to the verso of the illustration on page 207 (table of contents).]HANDIWORK - Man's handiwork should embody all the virtues omitting none in any example unless it be considered a temporary makeshift, and that under stress of circumstances it may be more important that an article be useful rather than beautiful. As between his habitation, its contents and its environment, the things he cannot get away from, that are an intimate and constant feature of his existence, there can be no such qualification. Furthermore in the furnishing, the decorating as well as in the structure and also in the surrounding land, the street, the entire city, the same sort of problem is presented and the same sort of training demanded of the designer.
There never was an essential partition of labor up to the time of [Note: Lancelot (Capability)?] Brown in the early 19th century when the lack of seriousness with which landscape gardening had come to be treated had in the search
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 216 ====]
for simplicity come to a theory that if wild nature could attain her ideal for her purpose man could by selection and refinement make his own ideal, and a school of practitioners sprang up qualified, through knowledge of nature's traits and tricks, to displace the native designer. This unfortunate distinction persists especially in America without all the old difference to be sure. But while city parks are fashioned on the lines of the wild grove only to be profaned by the incongruous throngs, it is plain that we do not yet sufficiently appreciate that the proper study of mankind is man. Architects must broaden to cope with the design of grounds, streets, and city or countryside where man is involved. The present landscape gardener must make his scope include the building and its furniture, even to book covers and tea spoons, for creative work can accomplish results by subordination, not by division of responsibility.
ZONING - The beginning of house design is in the group, and fundamentally the grouping of groups which has so rarely been attempted that we are at a loss to point out a single example. But for unethical systems of land tenure some classification might be self evident but speculative holdings and buildings have jumbled county and city together inextricably. It is possible however to contemplate what should and could be.
In the city proper at points in immediate touch with the business center and where concentration requires heights of more than two or three stories the flat apartments are the only type fit for hygienic private and comfortable life and for proper arrangement of them the block is the required unit.
The next zone of dwelling might well be that of the individual house on a 25ft. lot between party walls built preferably back from the sidewalk and designed in pairs at least.
In the third zone the 50ft. lot permits the 1st individual design and the 75 to 100ft. lot is the legitimate field for the first individual design standing free, a home worth bothering with a rapid
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 217 (table of contents) ====]
RIDGE QUADRANGLES . A SPACE SAVING SUBDIVISION
RESUBDIVISION . SAME
NUMBER OF LOTS PLUS PARKS
[Note: The caption on the New-York
Historical Society's illustration reads, "Building in pairs gives all
outlook on four sides [/] Same number of lots plus parks". Ridge
Quadrangles was located in Evanston, Illinois.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 218 ====]
To squeeze out the big park by putting a street through the middle is the kind of crime our so-called Town Planners are committing - going from bad to worse.
Single tax would squeeze out the incentive to do that and at the same time would provide funds for education throughout life if the land values were placed in the hands of the Abilities Organ and if the Equity (Political) organ was always on the watchout for - not equality but - equity.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 219 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 216]The 4th zone for which alone it should be necessary to submit to excavating Railway time schedules should aspire to country life with acre property, in places not less than 2 acres.
What the arrangements and systems of intercommunication for such groups as just outlined should be, involves as infinite variety as the analogous problems inside the building. If city streets were prepared for retirement with terminals at intervals on intersecting streets or even ranged as courts such as have occasionally been tried, one could build for a degree of quiet with certainty of freedom from encroachment of commerce of the thoroughfares.
CAPTION - with photo - Interior of 56 The Parapet - LIVING ROOM looking
toward dining room.
As soon as you enter the house you are out doors
again for the bank of 7 French windows across the east facade with the
magnificent view out to the valley and the harbor and the heads tempts you
to step out on the lawn, small you might say but large enough for all sorts
of outdoor living purposes.
THE FREESTANDING HOUSE - In the localities of the free standing house in the suburbs, roads would expect and recognize the presence of mankind and not affect wildwood meanders which each structure must insult by its intrusion while, in the country town, roadbeds not over 12ft. wide would suggest themselves in lieu of presumptuous avenues emulating the metropolis.
Granting that many of the fundamental evils are now ineradicable, practically it is still not too late to supplement our public surveyor with a director of public improvements capable of judging from the artist's as well as the engineer's point of view the incessant questions of grade, building line, street trees, etc.
DOMAIN OF THE INDIVIDUAL - Moreover whatever may be the obstacles to extending plan as architecture to street, square and parks and their grouping up to the countryside and interurban communication,
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 220 ====]
we can hope for an extension as far as the border of the individual's domain. Essentially the design of the house begins at the lot line for though either house or garden may excite interest, neither alone can impress, and it is in impression, with art as with nature, that its message is imparted.
No house is half complete without plant life. Flowers with their direct appeal are our most potent esthetic educators and need be dispensed with in no dwelling entirely nor need they be relegated to the exterior but included in the interior since, anywhere, sufficient light and air to sustain man's health will support the plant.
CAPTION - with photo - Central Court -
Atrium Villa with Chinese lantern
The central court of a house in a
moderate climate eliminates the need for any hallways. As gardens grow on
the garden side of the promenades they become as completely private as
desired. Such a court destroys all feeling of being shut in and can present
many charming features, garden, pool, lantern, statuary, etc.
COURTS AND ROOFS - Open and surrounded courts and the roofs of apartment buildings are available for growing plants. A house built across the lot of 25ft. frontage can have a small, a decorative, screen planting in front and a retired outdoor living apartment in the rear; while the plot of 50ft. frontage and those of 75ft. to 150ft. meriting the term suburban and where the house is properly built across the lot, offer opportunity for a street or approach court, part of the facade as it were, to give a domestic setting with a degree of privacy in front rooms and to screen from simultaneous view its inharmonious neighbors. When, as is general with us, custom has decreed open front yards the respectful treatment of this street court is as a lawn panel in the highway border, part of a tree lined avenue ornamented with such shrubs or plants in urns as are in feeling with the architecture. Walks or drives must be set to skirt the edges, near one or both sides, never to mutilate the panel with serpentine lines unless forced by natural obstacles.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 221 (table of contents) ====]
LAWN OVERLOOKING HARBOR . EVERBLOOMING GARDEN
[Note: The "caption"
to this illustration may be the last paragraph on page 222.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 222 ====]
CAPTION - with photo - Harbor front
of 56 The Parapet.
The outdoor half of the living room.
When we
went to India we left Mr. and Mrs. Maddocks and Deirdre there and the lawn
was the neighborhood kindergarten mostly though it was in and out with the
youngsters. This lawn was true living space added to the house. Hundreds of
people who came out to see the estate stood here realizing the majestic
beauty of the harbor as they had never before. The house gave scale to the
rest without disturbing it. At night with the moon rising, its wake in the
water, the magic enchantment took you out beyond the limits of your skin.
THE GARDEN - As for the house itself parallel to the avenue it expresses only the more public rooms on that front, opening more freely toward the rear to look on gardens of lawn, flowers and shrubs bounded by out houses, hedges or walls, elaborated either for use or for screening, into the tall plantings and trellises and cut through for neighboring vistas, if there are any, or with terraces tier after tier up to a background or down to a landscape view.
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy the paragraph above is the last paragraph in the chapter.]CAPTION - The landscape view over the harbor.
The edge of the lawn where
the rest of the lot terraces down into the bit of primeval forest is edged
with a flower bed of everblooming gorgeousness which gives a bit of
formality making it a real part of the living quarters of the house. It is
completely private for the lot lines on either side are planted with thick
shrub and tree, tall white-barked lemon scented gums, dense callitris
collumaliris [Note: columellaris], bamboos, pink blossomed ti-shrubs
blooming nine months of the year. And if you want complete escape you can at
any time drop to the terrace below which is kept completely wild if anything
in Australia can be called wild for the fairies have been tending these
longer than any other plantings in the world. The broad leaved evergreen
foliage of practically all Australian vegetation means you are in a world of
magic the year round. No wonder so many see the fairies there.
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy this "caption" paragraph is affixed to the verso of the illustration on page 221.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 223 (table of contents) ====]
KITCHEN ENTRANCE & GARAGE
[Note: The "caption" for this
illustration may be the third paragraph on page 224. The structure is
the Grant House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 224 ====]
PRIVACY - As to the problem of kitchen and clotherie and court these can be screened off at one side beyond the end of the building or behind a projecting wing, that is with screened walls which with terraces and verandas prolong its base line and contribute toward rooting the structure to the site.
THE PLACE - Finally that which, although now a rather rare problem but which is destined to become the prevailing one of the future suburb, is the place of 2 acres or more differing only in scale from the more ambitious estate or country seat. Even now the place is by no means necessarily an expensive proposition and, with rapidly multiplying transportation facilities, with the interurban electric lines cross hatching the map and shortly the automobile to lead everywhere, enough land is made accessible to maintain a large proportion of city workers with elbow room. Maintenance with but slight attention, only a small degree more expensive with our semi-suburban plots for actual useful lawn (none other is called for). A simple garden will help pay for itself. Here the driveway, and additional walk, can generally be omitted and should be restricted to utilitarian requirements, say a straight approach terminating in a circular turn at house or stable entrance.
CAPTION - The kitchen end of 56 The Parapet.
A
glimpse of the kitchen end of the house no less dignified than any other
part, the house embowered from the very beginning. Loquats and lemons and
bananas growing outside the kitchen door.
OUTBUILDINGS - The house itself, the stable, the conservatory or other outbuildings should be arranged in an organic scheme to make of them a single design with structural lines projecting along screen walls, verandas, terraces and flower bordered walks and common or related axes accentuated with appropriate architectural terminals - gates, steps, seats, vases, bird-houses and so on. Of useful features there are enough to grace the portions of the ground actually occupied for approach, kitchen, drying and stable courts, fruit, flower and
[Note: There is no page 225 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 226 ====]
vegetable garden, play ground and game lawn without resort to exotic sun-dials, formal figures, bad statues, antique fragments and tree-clipped fantasies of the several self conscious styles. It is sufficient to be gracefully simple and direct in character of the ground arrangement and adornment which have useful purpose preferably dispersed, not with a rigid symmetry of the Italians, French or English, but composed in a more subtle symmetry such as the Japanese know which is the apotheosis of order, by no means included in a generalization - "naturalistic." There may be, must be definiteness and formalism about man's touch but it need not clash into the landscape within four hard lines nor on the other hand be vignetted with the countryside after [Note: Lancelot (Capability)?] Brown examples with graduations of emasculated nature. Rather should it be made to fit in its proper place as clearly but delicately as a narcissus in the field.
Outside great lawns can better be meadows or pastures, the open grove a thicket to harbor the birds close at hand and to limit the intimacy of the neighbors or passers by where it might be objectionable and making of nature's own country the bounds of the place instead of a neighbor's distorted version of our progress, up to the present, toward civilization.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 227 (table of contents) ====]
No. 13. CASUARINA . EUCALYPTUS & PITTOSPORUM
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 228 ====]
PITTOSPORUM, EUCALYPTUS CITRIODORA, DILWINNEA
This is one of the tapestries woven on our Middle Harbor promontories. The varicolored and often elaborately sculptured rocks, the pittosporum almost as rich a green and as dense a foliage as the fig but spangled with white blossoms which fill the gullies with perfume. A wonderful shrub to plant along the approaches to your home, offering such a sweet greeting to your guests.
And all sorts of smaller blossoming shrubs mostly yellow and mostly pea shaped, the dilwinnea, the pultenea and endless others. The bluffs are bedecked with blossoming shrubs throughout the year. One of the marvels in the spring is the Lily of the Valley tree, clusters of cream colored lily of the valley blossoms, and holding its Prussian blue berries through the rest of the year. Grouped with these was the delicate and graceful Eucalyptus Citriodora, the Lemon Scented Gum. Most delightful the fragrance and also healing. They are being used more and more medicinally.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 229 ====]
CASUARINA . EUCALYPTUS & PITTOSPORUM
[Note: See the illustration
at the beginning of this chapter.]
AN UNDERSTANDING OF CLASS FELLING
With the coming of the Christ, races ceased to exist though physical characteristics hang over for the physical body is inherited, but a task remains for human beings to fulfill and that is the breaking down of classes as they now exist for they no longer have any real foundation but only a purely artificial one which is deadly in its influence on human nature. In its place there should now develop a far greater range of individuality even far greater than any difference that ever existed between races.
With a National Abilities Organization established, enabling abilities to develop to the utmost, individuals will naturally function in the fields in which they have ability but without the penalizing of certain types of ability as is done in our totalitarian states. The Equity Organization will see to that.
To bring this about the bitterness between groups must cease to exist in the understanding of the fact that a problem cannot be solved from one angle but only when all elements are given equal consideration and the problem solved to the mutual advantage of all parties.
With almost the first Christmas in Castlecrag, it became apparent that a little creative thinking was called for in the way of celebrating this most sacred festival. The people of Australia had already abandoned dealing with it as an indoor family gathering but, in taking to the outdoors on this universal midsummer holiday, it had entirely lost the feeling of a celebration with any significance. So, as there was as yet but a handful of children in Castlecrag itself, we decided to gather the youngsters of the environing district. To wipe out any possibility of hurt feelings, we sent out announcements that there would be an outdoor Christmas party to which all the children would be welcome, and suggested that parents desiring their children to take part should send a shilling for each child's present from the tree.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [229-2] ====]
The knitlock material also lends itself to the introduction of many striking internal conveniences. All the wardrobes, cupboards, presses, mirrors, and washstands are built into the walls. Kitchen and bathroom conveniences are uniquely arranged with the idea of economizing effort and labor. A great deal of the usual furniture is unnecessary in homes of this construction and design.
The ideal realized is to provide a comfortable, beautiful and enduring home with many added conveniences at a cost far below the prevailing rates of any other substantial modern building.
The aim is, however, not merely to give a more substantial building at a lower cost: The Company aims also at introducing a more interesting type of architecture, and a home building fitted up with many added conveniences.
[Note: Though numbered as page 230, this page comes before the illustration on page 230 in the New-York Historical Society copy. The text may be intended to be a caption for that illustration.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 230 (table of contents) ====]
VIEW OF CASE BONITA FROM THE HEIGHTS ABOVE & ITS VIEW ACROSS THE
VALLEY
[Note: The structure is the Mower House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 231 (table of contents) ====]
INTERIOR OF KNITLOCK LIVING ROOM
[Note: The caption on the New-York
Historical Society's illustration reads, "My former home in Melbourne".
The structure is Pholiota, Heidelberg (Melbourne), Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 232 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 229]This made it possible for us to know what our numbers would be and the age of the children.
For several years we used the rock terraces and the interior reserve between and below two of the stone residences, and chose as the Christmas tree a Banksia Ericifolia growing on these rocks, and decorated it, frosted it by dipping the tips in water and then in flour, and hung festoons and balloons on the bushes round about, had Santa Claus, songs, bonfires and children's dances on the rocky terraces, dramatic tableaus, and ice cream for all. They were spectacularly beautiful. Every year the numbers attending increased till we had over a thousand and found the children were beginning to come from distant suburbs to which the fame of these parties had spread. Then, but not really because of the numbers, though that made a big task for the handful of Castlecraggers who had been in charge but because of the wrong spirit manifested from the first, but which we had hoped to dispel, a feeling which was one of those many evidences of the insidious consequences of the existence of classes in a community. For instead of the feeling of camaraderie and the wholesome give and take of people who gathered together on even terms, it was always apparent, and we realized the method we were using would not break it down, that Castlecrag was looked upon as an over-lord, an upper class from whom you got or grabbed all you could. There was indeed no Christmas feeling growing out of it but only the increasing of a feeling of class bitterness. Again we saw coming to the fore that dominating spirit in Australia of eagerness to get something for nothing, which is the inevitable outcome of the existence of classes, naturally, as the most honored are those who get without giving. It can't be otherwise in an Imperial system.
One year we planned to have the celebration around a beautiful
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 233 ====]
specimen of the New South Wales native Christmas bush - the Ceratophillum Cummiferum with its acrescent blossoms some changing from white through pink to red. So we put up a sign, - "Please preserve for the Christmas Party." But they mangled and stripped it just the same, perhaps with all the more gusto. We were having terrific struggle to preserve the native shrubbery for on the whole Australians think they are doing a service to humanity in destroying everything that God and the fairies have created and for anyone to try to preserve it labels them as belonging to a different class so we could not but feel that much of the depredation of the succeeding years was done in malice though of course we knew that much was carelessness. Once we watched a man on the crest of the next promontory and 12 fires followed in his wake. No use to try to catch him. He would be gone before we could possibly get there even by car. Nor on the whole would it be wise to try to punish anything of this sort or the whole community back of us would join burning us up. So fifteen years have been spent in diplomacy, in chasing and talking with the private individuals who passed through, for our promontories really serve as a national park for the packed districts beyond our boundary line.
It has made a difference bit by bit in those years during which we nearly ran our legs off and fought fires till our hearts refused to function. Indeed Griffin gave his life to the preservation of those beautiful Middle Harbor promontories for one night after putting out a fire he stepped, in the pitch dark, over a precipice and fell on a rock his full weight on his right ribs and was put to bed for two weeks. Some time later he suddenly was caught with excruciating agony for which the doctors could get no clue for by every test he was a perfectly well man. The pain was just where the blow had struck and when they came to find if I had any clue I told them what I thought must be the cause. They operated and found a ruptured bladder [Note: gallbladder?].
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 234 (table of contents) ====]
KITCHEN FACADE . MY HOME ON RETURN FROM INDIA
[The structure is the
Mower House (Casa Bonita).]
THE ROOF A RECEPTION ROOM
[The structure is the Mower House (Casa
Bonita).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 235 ====]
Give minimum cost houses the style and beauty and individuality of the expensive homes and the consciousness of class disappears even in a small district in a great continent.
It did not take long for the climbers to drape the roof trellis.
Here this tiny establishment - kitchen, living room and two bed rooms - played host to many seasonal festivals and staged scenes of Goethe's Faust.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 236 ====]
We could see the Willoughby [Note: Sydney suburb west of Castlecrag] point of view and made it our chief effort to convince them that we were really safeguarding their interests in preserving the natural beauty for it would be preserved even after occupation which was difficult for them to comprehend since in the occupied districts all of the natural bush had been destroyed. In Willoughby, of the whole forest, not a tree remained. It was a weird idea to them but by the time the next generation came along it was easier for them to understand and now the streams of people that go through every week rarely have any flowers or branches in their hands. The ones who come to gather dead wood still set fires to replenish their supplies but at last after these many years the fire department will help put out bush fires thanks to the work of the Societies that have grown up through the increasing interest in the native flora, and our citizenry has increased so that on the whole fires are early reported and quickly put out.
The upper level had been reduced to absolute desert, for its natural resources had supplied the whole of Willoughby with timber and firewood and building stone and sand and soil till it was stripped bare. One could see why a people trained to think it was man's right to get things for nothing would be resentful of anyone's coming in and presuming to prevent their helping themselves. But now through chasing cows and chasing people and planting hundreds of seedlings, it is beginning to vie with the lower terraces in loveliness. No wonder the fairies occasionally show themselves to Castlecrag children.
The class feeling showed itself again in the pulling up by the roots of our street plantings almost as fast as we could put them in, but we gradually learned to put them among other bits of native stuff where they wouldn't catch the eye.
Although the word "class" is used in America, an American really has no idea of the meaning of the word. Class feeling arises only when
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 237 (table of contents) ====]
ENTRANCE VERANDA OF CASA BONITA
[Note: The structure is the Mower
House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 238 ====]
Case Bonita too can tell a story of how people can live in a minimum cost house. You can take your choice between two ways.
First it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Junge with their son Theo, truly a gift of the Gods. Theirs was a quiet life. Each had the soul of an artist which expressed itself in each detail of their living whether en famille or in entertaining their friends.
Due to the castellated form of the columnar structural members of the knitlock house and the way they were treated above the roof in the formation of the parapet this tiny house from across the valley looked as important and as interesting as a castle, as the stone castle on another of the promontories which was photographed and used as the ancestral homestead in England for an Australian moving picture, "For the Term of His Natural Life."
The whole allotment on which Casa Bonita stood is a series of rocky terraces. In building no injury was done to any of the natural features.
The garage was built, naturally, on the level of the street. It is a pleasant room itself with a bay with a bank of windows opening to the East, and during the day Mrs. Junge used it as a work shop for her weaving and metal work. When I lived there it was my drafting room with a huge drafting board in the bay. When we were giving dramas it was the dressing room. The group of windows on its East side gave it fine light and a beautiful outlook.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 239 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 236]there is an established upper class, recognized by law, as a consequence of which certain elements in the community get advantages arising purely from their positions. However different it may have been in ancient times, in the present time there is no service rendered as an equivalent for such privilege. Today titles are usually given or at any rate offered as bribes to play the game with officialdom. Then there truly arises a working class (in contradistinction to an upper class) who feel greater and greater bitterness that they have to work for what they get while the most honored and respected elements in the community are heaped with benefits for which they give nothing in return. As this feeling was deeply repugnant to us the Christmas parties were abandoned. Of course one finds snobbery in America as well as elsewhere but it has no significance. It has no power.
Again in the Progress Association, we had a similar experience though we never gave up the fight there and now after some fifteen years have to a certain extent broken it down in connection with ourselves. The mere fact that Griffin was controlling the development of a considerable area, and that it was apparent from the beginning that he was developing it on lines that would prevent it from becoming a slum, to our surprise, was like waving a red flag before a bull. The covenant did not require expensive houses, indeed several of them cut under the cost of the usual slummy types, but they were all beautiful and harmonious with the local materials and colors.
Since in the early stages we were necessarily only a part of a municipality because of lack of sufficient population and could not form a municipality of our own, though our area was sufficient, there were some of the essential things which we had to submit to the Willoughby Council. For, although we paid for the construction of our roads in this 700 acreage, there were within it already some Council
[Note: "Progress Association" - a group organized to promote improvements to the community. The Castlecrag Progress Association was formed in 1925.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 240 ====]
roads though still unpaved, as for instance Edinburgh Road on the crest of the first promontory which was the only possible entrance to it. So our citizenry inaugurated a Progress Association to include a considerable area already thickly settled, extending West to the north and south thoroughfare - High Street.
These meetings of the Progress Association were a curious experience to us in those early days. A fair number rolled up to the meetings which promptly developed into a real one-sided class war for the mere fact that men lived in our part where pleasant and sightly houses were being built and where every pain was being taken to preserve instead of destroy the native bush, meant that whatever was suggested was looked upon with suspicion and fought by those who considered themselves as "working class people." You see in America people don't look upon themselves as "working class people."
These self-styled working class people did not think of themselves simply as citizens of the district with common needs for paved thoroughfares, electric lighting, sidewalks, gas supply, transportation, etc., but continually complained that it was always Castlecraggers who were given the official positions as if their interests were different from ours. They threatened to pack the meetings for elections to which we of course replied - "Go ahead; bring as many members as you wish, the more the better. That's just what we want. Get your majority and use it to select whomsoever you please." But that never happened. One might say only the rambunctious, fiery individuals would come to the meetings at all. Our persistence, however, during fifteen years has made the Association effective in bringing about various improvements advantageous to everyone in the community, such as the completion of a new North and South thoroughfare (to which Griffin dedicated free of cost 200 feet of Castlecrag frontage, the Eastern Valley Highway, which will enormously improve transportation facilities for the whole district. The Association continue to function for the district and the class feeling is not
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 241 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . 183 THE BARBETTE . THE HOUSE FITS THE LAND
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 242 ====]
In this case the house is approached from the road below. The garage therefore is dug into the hillside.
Its roof becomes a fine terrace off the living room and commands the harbor view. Exterior stairs lead to the Veranda on the roof.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 243 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 240]quite so much in evidence. Give us time and we'll make democrats of those Australians yet. The method I hope to make effective is by making the United States into a democracy to serve as an example, by making it trinitarian instead of totalitarian.
Another instance, but significant, was amusingly illustrated by a minister who, each week-end almost, for a long time used to bring friends of his up to see what was going on and always stood for a while in front of our house to dilate in loud tones so that we would be sure to hear, on the absurdity of such a building. His profession gave him great versatility and picturesqueness in these diatribes. Of course, to us it was apparent that he must have found our buildings very interesting or he would not be coming to see them over and over again. About two years later after a lapse of his visits, he came again with a group of his friends and, being in the yard myself, I asked them if they would not like to come in and see the house from the inside. So in they came and I showed them around. He said to me that he used to come to see these houses and didn't like them at all but somehow he had grown to like them, which I explained to him by saying we quite understood that anything different was always a shock to the human mind and in our business, which was pioneering, we took that for granted but we realized also that if a thing was the right answer to a problem it was not long before the people realized that and began to approve.
Bertha Merfield, one of Australia's finest mural decorators, told me of the contemptuous way the English were in the habit of treating "colonials" when they visited England. She did not like it. But one of her rich friends when I asked her how she enjoyed her visit there said - "Very much." I asked how she liked the way they treated Australians. She said - "O! They didn't know I was an Australian." She had managed to conceal that fact. I asked her how she felt about having to conceal her nationality in order to be treated
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 244 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . KNITLOCK . MR. FOSTER
[Note: The structure is the
Jefferies House according to J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins
in Australia and India" (1998) p. 217.]
DWELLING . THE PLAN
[Note: The structure may be the Forster House or
the Foster Salter House. See J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins
in Australia and India" (1998) pp. 195-196 (Ambrose Foster House) and
pp. 206-207 (Foster Salter House).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 245 ====]
decently. She said - "Oh! That's necessary in order to maintain the morale."
A little incident happened to me once in the early days which gave me, an American, a great shock. I had been introduced in her shop to a woman who was a florist, by a friend of hers and had gone to her shop and had chatted with her on various occasions. One Sunday, as Mr. Griffin and I were taking a walk through the botanical gardens, I saw her coming toward us and I am sure she saw us but, as she came nearer, she turned away and didn't look at us. I could see that it was deliberate and realized that she, a shop keeper, looked upon herself as belonging to an inferior class, resented it but didn't take the risk of bowing to us and being snubbed by our not returning her greeting.
I met so many people at Castlecrag that I made a habit of bowing to most of the passers by. But no friendly return greeting unless there had been a formal introduction. But I preferred that to the risk of appearing to snub someone I had met. - Typically British! Class! I had found that even in Australia, which is supposed to be democratic, it was quite the custom for people to manifest their own feeling of superiority by such snubs. I experienced it once myself. I had met Lady Somebody-or-other at a garden party in Adelaide at the time of a Town Planning Convention. Some time later, in Sydney, as I was waiting for the elevator to go up to the office, a group of women came in, amongst them this "lady." I felt quite proud of myself that I remembered her and bowed. I got nothing in return but a cold and stony stare. I was amused inside realizing that one would naturally conclude that a woman in an office building at nine in the morning would usually be a stenographer and that I was being put in my place.
As we all got in the lift, the "lady" who was going up to a Charitable Association (you see charity becomes a pure insult under
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 246 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 247 ====]
With stone no expense is entailed in the using of curved walls which give greater floor area for the same periphery of other geometric forms.
The flat roofs are usable living space or garden space.
The house is entered from the park path to The Oriel Reserve.
A minimum hall space serves for access to vestibule, stairway and kitchen - just four openings.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 248 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 245]such a system) on the 5th floor where our office was, made the association of the office with my face and spoke to me saying – "Oh! You are Mrs. Griffin," with a glimmer of apology which I attempted to turn by saying I was always so bad about remembering people that I was always a bit relieved when someone forgot me. But as I talked her face grew cold and stony again. You see - these incomprehensible Americans! They will not understand the proprieties which are the foundation of British Imperialism. An American takes these things with a laugh but they embitter the souls of the people who are "subjects."
The Communists and others are always insisting that class is as strong in America as anywhere else but Americans don't know the meaning of the word - it lies outside their experience. There is a natural difference of interest in the Economic Realm between manual labor and spiritual labor, each wanting, naturally to get the other's products as cheaply as possible but this is a thing that can be handled if the Political and Economic Organizations are two separate things. It has no connection with class as it exists today.
These seem trifling things but they are enormously important. The Europeanizing of America that has been going on since the beginning of the last war is a heartbreaking thing to witness when one sees, as one who has had the double experience can see, that the European system is a soul destroying thing.
The fact is that Australians are quite as European as the Europeans and the antagonism between classes is really bitter. The consequence of this is that the ideal over there is quite different from the ideal in America. It is to put themselves on even terms with the most respected element, those who do nothing and get everything. Their ambition for themselves is, not to work but to get as much as possible for nothing. Whereas in America, so far as my experience has gone, the ideal is to achieve, to do work, to give quid
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 249 ====]
pro quo for value received. The difference in spirit is amazing. In the latter we find enthusiasm, joyousness and wide interests. In Australia - no interests, no enthusiasm, the result of which is that the community on the whole turns to gambling, the only spice to add to the pure physical comfort so easy to attain in that wonderful continent and climate of Australia.
The difference in the spirit of the people is strongly marked in their so-called white Australia policy, another of those clever British misnomers, for it is directed against everyone and if anyone does come in by chance he is fought tooth and nail by everyone with astonishing unanimity.
I had many talks with a very dear friend, Miss Mathews [Note: Susan Mary Matthews?], a supporter of the Labor Party, who was sent by them for a six months' investigation in the United States. I had continually stressed with her the fact that many of the measures being taken, all of them supported by the Labor Party, some of which were being put into effect by the opposing party, were having a disastrous effect on the character of the people. I told her how we felt that the turning of charitable work over to the government was destroying the soul of the people, was hardening their hearts, and though there is still much private charity work done, the effect on the attitude of the people as a whole was very apparent to us, coming in from the outside. Why should anyone do anything for anybody? Let the government do it.
We told her how the fixing of hours of labor by the government and the minimum wage had brought about an attitude which discouraged all interest in training oneself for high skill achievement so that it was practically impossible in Australia to get skilled labor. Why bother to train yourself when a wharf laborer would either get as much pay as a skilled laborer or not so much less as to make it worth
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 250 (table of contents) ====]
ENTRANCE . ERIC NICHOLLS'S HOME
[Note: The structure is the Johnson
House.]
GRIFFIN HOME . READY FOR THE FANCY DRESS PARTY
[Note: The structure
is the Grant House. A difficult to read inscription on the verso appears
to identify the pictured individuals, dressed as "The Ancient Maya
Gods," as, left to right, Hal Kershaw [?], Walter Burley Griffin, Marion
Mahony Griffin, and Eve Felstead.]
WALTER BURLEY GRIFFIN HIMSELF
[Note: A difficult to read inscription
on the verso suggests Walter Burley Griffin is dressed as “Father of
Gods”.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 251 ====]
the bother? For that's the way it worked out. And why do anything but loaf on the job? One was a fool to work hard when the loafer got just as much pay and was just as sure of holding his job. I called her attention to the desperate position of the architect for instance who could not get work done on his buildings either swiftly or well for if anyone showed any signs of superiority he was discredited by his fellows, and if you dismissed a man for inefficiency, the next man made certain that he was equally inefficient. Only when the Political Organization has been freed from connection with the Economic Organization can such measures be taken without disastrous results.
She could not see these things and during a time after her return I was very cross with her when I learned that she had been trying to instill the same ideas into Americans she had met, the general line of her argument to them being - "Why not get your government to do this? It's your money." And on her return she was still putting up the same arguments. But before six months had passed after her return she came to me and said that only after coming back and witnessing the attitude and spirit in Australia in the light of her new experiences had she come to realize that what I had been saying was true. There was no such spirit in Australia as she had encountered in America and she could now see how the differences in the system were the cause of this soul destruction.
I am sorry I was not able before her death to pass on to this able and energetic woman the knowledge of the technique necessary for the solving of these problems, which can be put into effect through the triple instead of our totalitarian organization of our communities. I think she died of grief.
We see the logic of the dictatorships of Europe in attacking religion for one of the primal tasks of a Christian is so to organize his community as to be able to maintain Equity in the realm of rights. This can be accomplished only through recognition of the basic concept of Christianity - the concept of Trinity.
[Note: In the Art Institute of Chicago's copy the words in the last paragraph after "in attacking" are handwritten. In the New-York Historical Society's copy the entire paragraph has been typed and runs on to page 252, which also contains the last illustration in the chapter.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 252 (table of contents) ====]
ELL SHAPED DWELLING . CASTLECRAG CAPE ESTATE CIRCULAR COURT &
ROOF PROMENADE
[Note: The structure may be the Wolfcarius House or
the Hilder House. See J. Turnbull and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in
Australia and India" (1998) p. 262 (Wolfcarius) and p. 272
(Hilder).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 253 (table of contents) ====]
No. 14. TASMANIAN COASTAL MELALEUCAS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 254a (typescript) / 254 (table of contents) ====]
No. 14. INITIAL CAPTION
MELALEUCA . TASMANIA
And speaking of seeds, there are almost no edible fruits in Australia - oh, a few that you can nibble at, very tiny and almost tasteless. Most all the fruits are wooden, a riot of shapes, weird often animal like or hobgoblin shaped, and there is quite a business of using them in combinations to make weird creatures for sale as curiosities. The wooden pear is one of the largest. You see there were no human beings on earth at that time to need the fruits of the earth for their maintenance. The plants who do not need food but transform minerals into food did not at that time have to concern themselves with charity for human beings. And only later when certain strange animals developed, all of them vegetarians, did they manage to live on this strange plant life so stiff and hard and heavy with oil that no stranger could possibly eat them.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 254b ====]
In his Town planning work Griffin would never allow the surveyors to follow the custom of putting the district to the fire nor cutting swathes through the trees no matter what their majesty. He made this requirement of the men surveying Port Stephens. Then he was up there he made the acquaintance of King Billy, an aboriginal who worked with the surveyors. Finding Griffin sympathetic King Billy talked freely with him and gave him much interesting information about the native plants. Through him Griffin learned how precise was their knowledge for King Billy could identify at a distance even a dead tree. The aboriginals were interested, as Griffin was, in the character of the form rather than in the minute distinctions which the botanists as a whole center on which in fact gives them the ability to attach names but does not give them real knowledge of the plants they are listing.
When Griffin asked him what he thought about the surveyors' setting fire to the bush before they surveyed it he said - "That is because they are cowards. They have no right to do this because it belongs to the birds and the animals as much as it does to them." The surveyors wore heavy leggings. King Billy went bare legged through the bush and had no fear.
Contact with the ancient peoples should awaken us to the fact that they use a different kind of thinking from ourselves an experience which, if we were open minded, would lead us on to the investigating and mastering of that kind of thinking, to take as much pains as we have taken in the mastery of rational thinking in these modern times. The 19th Century transformed the thinking of European peoples. It is not too much to ask that the 20th century accomplish as much. With 45 of its years gone this transformation is overdue.
Mrs. Anna Ickes was one of the few Anglo Saxon people who in her study of the American Indian recognized that there was a radical difference in kind in their thinking. By the scientific investigation of
[Note: Anna Ickes, social reformer and Illinois legislator, was the daughter of Mary J. Wilmarth, a reformer and suffragist, and the wife of Harold L. Ickes, an activist and New Deal political figure. She wrote "Mesa Land: The History and Romance of the American Southwest" (1933) and "He-Who-Always-Wins and Other Navajo Campfire Stories" (1934).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 254c ====]
these different types of thinking we might be able to extend our exact knowledge beyond the mineral kingdom for the very things they can do show they have a knowledge in the realms of life which is out of the reach of our physical scientists who are beginning to acknowledge that they have no knowledge of life.
It is possible for us to develop in ourselves, in full consciousness, the kind of thinking which these American Indians make use of intuitively by means of which they can do remarkable things with animals as in their snake dances and ceremonials.
I stood in the sun in an open doorway. In moving my arm I noticed that as the shadow on the floor approached the shadow of the door jamb a great lump, almost the size of my fist, lifted up on the shadow of the arm and reached out contacting a similar lump approaching it from the door jamb. I have asked many materialists to find an explanation of that but I think the answer will never come from that source. In an astronomical account of the observations of a recent transit of Venus great preparations had been made to note from various strategic points of the world the exact moment of the contact of the edge of Venus with the edge of the Sun. Such data would be used for important undertakings in the starry realms. But, the author said, unfortunately as the moment drew near a dark nexus developed which made it impossible to observe the exact moment of contact of the two circumferences. They hoped for better luck next time. My observations would lead me to conclude that what had happened between the darkness of Venus as seen from the Earth and the darkness beyond the Sun was exactly what happened between the shadow of my arm and the shadow of the door jamb and would always happen.
From spiritual science known intuitively to primitive peoples we can learn that light is not a mode of motion and that darkness is not a negative thing - the absence of light, a fact that is obvious to anyone who stops to think for we can see darkness and it is not possible to perceive nothingness. Now in substances this phenomenon is quite well
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 254d ====]
known. The reaching out of a liquid, for instance, toward another liquid as it approaches. I think it is called osmosis. To an unprejudiced mind the conclusion of such an experience would be that darkness, far from being nothingness, is substance and subject to the laws of substance. Attraction caused the nexus.
Of the Aboriginals Mr. [Note: William?] Hatfield says:-
"Whilst no one would predict for the Darwin area a future comparable with that of the more favored northeast coast of Queensland, there certainly exists here a vast field for development, and so far nothing has been done about it. The richly timbered Cairns hinterland is immeasurably more fertile and suffers no long dry spell between copious downfalls in the wet season as does the Darwin back-country, but the areas along the northern rivers are capable of growing most tropical products. Many there are who argue that to enter that field means we cannot compete with Eastern countries with their supply of cheap labor, our white Australia policy forbidding the employment of the colored races. One indelible fact is therein lost sight of. A colored people exists there already and unless the white Australia advocates mean to exterminate it with fire and sword, always will. The ground is so productive that the aborigine can have a varied vegetable diet without cultivation of any kind and once he is shown how easy it is to secure a far higher standard of living by a little preparation of the land he will respond and that in spite of all that has ever been written about his shiftlessness and indolence. Indolence! The spectacle of hundreds of our indigent whites preferring to sit down on the dole when votes are taken regarding relief work proves that indolence is no matter of color after all. Intelligence and patience will be needed but the black fellow can be trained to be a useful citizen."
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 255 ====]
INITIAL - TASMANIAN COASTAL MELALEUCA
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
Then the struggle to establish a high class residential suburb began with all the forces against anything that savored of progress gathering greater and greater strength till Heaven only knows how it will end.
The general plan on modern town planning lines for the first valley was put before the Council for preliminary approval and months of delay and endless conferences finally ended in the Mayor's deciding he would sponsor the scheme and the plans were signed with the approval of the Council. But it was with their fingers crossed as became apparent later. For the Councils are petty dictators with small powers for constructive action for in Australia municipal affairs are largely controlled by the state, but with absolute power to prevent change from time honored ways which have come down through the centuries and millenniums.
The system of requiring the construction of roads before selling the land is a recent one in New South Wales consequently the thousands of pounds in rates that the owners of this land are paying is all being expended in road construction in remote districts of no use to Castlecrag while at the same time we have to pay some [Note: £?]40,000 a mile for our own roads for these bluffs are very rugged offering quite an engineering problem and much structural work.
The previous method of subdivision left this estate isolated from the main thoroughfares connected only by a council road not even formed, jagged rocks and deep holes, and only after three years pleading would they consent to construct this, though the way was lined with houses on either side, but only on our advancing taxes to cover the total cost of this street not on our estate. The rest of Edinburgh Road is still unpaved. Castlecrag is on its south-eastern side. The village of some 50 families on beyond us goes on deputizing the Council for pavement, or electricity or gas as it has been doing for the past 50 years.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 256 (table of contents) ====]
INCINERATOR
[Note: The structure is a pyramidal pyre type
incinerator, one of three schemes proposed for Essendon, Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 257 ====]
America could learn an important lesson from Australia and do a great service to the community if it would follow the example of burning its rubbish.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 258 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 255]There have been others who have tried to take a fling at town planning but they have not been sufficiently equipped to overcame the obstacles so there has been none and probably never will be till Australia has overthrown her bureaucracy, an extremely difficult thing.
With the completion of the roads as planned and specified and to which they had given their approval in the beginning, there began a systematic delay of final acceptance of subdivisions which, since no title could be passed and no building constructed until the streets were approved and received a department number, had a most destructive effect on the carrying out of Castlecrag. A fence was required here and when built, after another long delay, an alteration of a gutter was required there, and when this was done something else somewhere else; in some case three or even more years elapsing before approval was given. This was accompanied by a systematic campaign of defamation. Reports of the bankruptcy of the company were spread broadcast. Every sort of lie was spread such as - one was not allowed to do this that or the other; one had to be a vegetarian; one could not plant a tree; - nothing was too outlandish to be broadcast and believed.
The district immediately adjacent was deeply insulted by the fact that houses different from their own were being built and spread all sorts of statements they would take their oath to:- that they were extravagantly expensive, that one couldn't live in them without becoming ill, etc., etc. They also came through in great numbers and ring-barked the trees. If they found one such bandaged in hopes of its surviving they tore off the bandage. When trees were planted along the road side we would frequently find them torn up and tossed to one side.
Finally a reform council was elected. The former engineer was dismissed, convicted of endless corruption, and in the early days of the reform idea those of our roads already completed were passed. But it was not long before things tightened up again.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 259 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [260] ====]
The preservation of natural beauties suffices to give elegance and prestige to those who dwell amidst such surroundings, though the lots were bought for a fraction of the cost in other suburbs and the dwellings undercut the cost of the cheapest city dwellings.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 261 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 258]You see that politicians really whether they are members of Parliament or aldermen in councils have no real power and are soon taught that. The permanent officials, the civil servants, who are there always while the politicians are transients, are all powerful and nobody can touch their power, and they care not a hang what anybody thinks or says or does.
Luckily in those early days of the reform Council and with a new incoming engineer before he had got onto the ropes, the general road scheme of the second promontory, Covecrag, was submitted and accepted. Heaven only knows what act of Providence will enable the third promontory to get that preliminary hurdle over with. But the Golf Links are already there.
After a seven year fight there was achieved the official Deposited Plan of the subdivisions of the first valley. The fight now became intense in the construction of the houses. Since all officialdom stands together as a unit and as the State Banks hog the game of house loaning, the banks refused to loan money on Castlecrag houses; as one of them told an applicant - "We do not do anything for Castlecrag at present." To our knowledge they advised four clients against building. Of course one reason is that they are in cahoots with the brick trust, have been given stock in the brick trust, for Sydney which is underlain with a perfect building stone of which the whole city should have been built has become a desert of red bricks and tile, spreading over one lovely promontory after another.
Castlecrag houses are being built in stone or concrete both of them taboo. It is only an occasional client that has the patience to hang on to the finish of the long fight which Griffin goes on fighting, or who has the requisite to finance himself. The Marseilles tile are not appropriate for the horizontal storms of Sydney so nearly every house in Sydney leaks yet the council refuses to pass the flat reinforced concrete roofs. The ingenuity of Griffin makes reservoirs of these roofs by sloping them to the center, plugging the down pipe in the center and flooding them for the first 28 days so that they are
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 262 (table of contents) ====]
ONLY DEEP CUTTING ON THE WHOLE OF THE 3 PROMONTORIES
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 263 ====]
In Covecrag, Griffin succeeded in getting the council to widen the boundary road, forecasting to them what has happened - that it would become a Greater Sydney thoroughfare.
Those who bought lots on this frontage bought them along with Griffin designed shops; and central and ample space was determined for a Civic Center for community structures.
Covecrag is the central promontory of the group of three.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [264] ====]
[Note: Continued from page 261]not subjected to changing temperatures while setting and so do not get even hair cracks, makes them entirely watertight even without any waterproofing material. Now that Aquella is available and Vermiculite the waterproofing of any stone or concrete structures is solved as it was with the Maginot [Note: Line] defense structures.
This is usually thought of as a warm climate but real discomfort comes not only from the cold during the four months of winter when the whole community rich and poor suffer intense discomfort in the houses, but frequently during the other seasons. With one voice all who come from other climates say they have never suffered with the cold in their lives as they do in Australia. The solution to this, removing all the discomfort of the climate, is a simple device used by the aboriginals - to take advantage of the much lesser range of the temperature of the ground, at least 20 degrees less than that of the air. This is practically all that is needed in this wonderful climate to make living comfortable. With doors and windows closed on nippy days the warmth of the earth comes up and fills the whole house and on the coldest days a bit of a fire in the fireplace with a warm floor for a start and the whole house is right. Such a little thing and a whole civilization can be transformed, but do you suppose a Municipal Council would permit it? By no means. The case was put, the reasons given, but reason doesn't interest councilors. It wasn't done and that's final. The gods helped us by sending the Bubonic plague to Australia. So we were permitted to build rat-proof houses.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [264-2] ====]
[Note: The text on this page, which appears to be crossed out, is repeated on the following page (265) and has not been reproduced here.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 265 ====]
DWELLING . LEO PARER . ERIC M. NICHOLLS ARCHITECT
On a superb allotment, this time on the lower terraces close to the water front, this Parer house shows the combined use of local stone and brick of the same color. These natural terraces in this case as with the Fishwick house call for a romantic type of plan. The photos taken immediately after the completion of construction show again the careful preservation of all the native flora and believe me this means a terrific fight with everyone concerned, even the banks that lend money whose experience with shabby construction leads them to require the removal of all nearby trees. But where there is a will there is a way. Such achievements permit the development in the family of joy and health and genius.
LIVING VERANDA . DWELLING . LEO PARER
[Note: In the New-York
Historical Society's copy this illustration appears at the bottom of
this page. The structure is sometimes called "Morella."]
[Note: In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 266 ====]
Article by Nora Cooper - Sydney - Morella
Dwelling - Mr. Leo
Parer - Eric Milton Nicholls, Architect
Sydney - Australia.
There are so many interesting things to talk about in the Leo Parer's house on Sydney Harbor that it is rather difficult to know where to begin. For instance there is the famous Parer family with its ancestral dash of adventurers' Spanish blood. Then there is the architecture of Burley Griffin always an interesting topic in which tradition the house itself has been designed. And lastly there is the beautiful locality itself which at first glance seems just the same as it always was, and yet not the same. Its leafy frontages have been invaded by a certain amount of new building. A lovely roadway winds its tree-shaded way along the water's edge, unrolling at each turn its always fresh pictures of blue water, framed between Middle and South Heads, with a spreading expense of ocean beyond.
The front door is unadorned by porch or portico, its only emphasis being a heavy flat stone lintel projecting from the wall immediately above. Directly above the lintel is the long narrow staircase window which carries the vertical line of the door above the roof line. There are few windows on this side of the house so that the effect of the staircase window is unspoiled. Its simple upward sweep has a dramatic quality which seems to impart life and vitality to what would otherwise be a rather heavy brick wall.
On the bed room floor a large square landing over the main hall opens out on the sun deck above the loggia. The bedrooms are grouped on either side, most of them having windows facing the harbor. Each bedroom is provided with built-in clothes cupboards with trays and hanging space.
[Note: "Morella" is later described in an illustration caption (page 270 in the table of contents) as the name of a "new house."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 267 (table of contents) ====]
STREET & ENTRANCE FACADE
[Note: The structure is the Parer
House (Morella).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 268 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 269 ====]
The firm of Griffin and Nicholls is carrying on his work and tradition in Sydney.
Viewed as a whole the house is a highly stylized individual composition which shows off with fine effect a flair for handling masses of material. There is evidence of a free play of imagination, an unexpectedness of grouping at certain points which, combined with the intensification of wall texture by the use of raked cream bricks, invests the whole building with a quality of vivid, graceful aliveness. This is notably apparent in the chimney treatment on the south side of the house.
The plan grew into being as a natural development of the possibilities of the site adapted to the needs of the family. The utmost use has been made of the view over the harbor and consequently the front door opens into what is really a rear entrance corridor beyond which a large square main hall opens out onto the loggia. The staircase has a hall all to itself opening from the rear corridor.
Lounge and dining room are set to right and left of the main hall, with windows facing the view, and sliding doors on the inner wall of the lounge communicate with a small study with windows facing the back garden which can be made part of the lounge if desired.
Servery [Note: i.e., a room from which meals are served] and kitchen with meal alcove adjoining are set behind the dining room. A cloak room, fitted neatly under the staircase which is compactly set so as to take up as little room as possible, is provided in the stair hall.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 270 (table of contents) ====]
SIDE ELEVATION . BALL ROOM ENTRANCE
[Note: The caption in the
New-York Historical Society illustration adds that the side elevation of "of
'Morella,' a new home."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 271 ====]
VERANDA
[Note: The New-York Historical Society's illustration is
placed at the top of this page.]
An immense circular lounge is built out from the central hall facing the water. Its short pillars support an equally huge open sun deck reached from the bedroom above. Then beneath this, for the site of the house slopes steeply down to the water, excavation has been made for the building of a ball room across the entire front of the house. The ball room is to be finished after the war, in time for the children who will then be grown up. Meanwhile the excavation is concealed behind an imposing row of pillars, the effect of which already gives some idea of what the future ball room will look like with wide glass doors opening direct into a dusky-scented garden bathed by some future Sydney moon.
[Note: In the Manuscript Facsimile the scanned image for this page is from the New-York Historical Society copy because it contains an illustration which the Art Institute page does not. Otherwise the texts of the two copies are comparable.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 273 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 274 ====]
No. 15. INITIAL CAPTION
THE CABBAGE PALM
There are also many varieties of palms, the cabbage palm very common along the coast often crowding the valleys or decorating the hill slopes in masses.
In between season, old leaves dropping and new leaves forming.
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society's illustration the second paragraph on this page is part of the title of the initial caption, coming after "The Cabbage Palm."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 275 ====]
INITIAL - TASMANIAN PALMS
[Note: See the illustration at the beginning
of this chapter.]
If one starts right it is not a difficult thing to do. And starting right means solving the problem before starting the construction. Getting in the habit of doing this brings one into touch with the source of information before the solving of the wider problems, for there are natural laws in the spiritual realm as there are in the material realm, and humans can learn them and work in accord with them if they are inclined toward construction or contrary to them if they are bent on destruction.
In our profession starting right means control of the land which makes town planning possible. Well these conditions held at Canberra, Australia's capital, but the control was political so that was no good, although it did make possible the establishing of the ground plan though it was a terrific fight and much money was wasted.
Next time the enterpriser [Note: Griffin] got control of 700 acres of one of Divinity's most perfect works, the foreshores of Middle Harbor, Sydney, three promontories rising to 330 feet above the water level, five miles of water frontage, a climate perfect the year around, never a frost, and in the midsummer never a hot night. A perfect summer resort and a perfect winter resort. If as noon passes the heat gets a bit trying one says, "Well it's about time for a southerly buster," and shortly, not a storm but a lively refreshing breeze from the ocean sets things stirring and a lovely coolness reigns. And not the desert of our idolized California but the most perfect work of the Creator, a perfectly balanced garden, trees and shrubs all evergreen, most of them with showy blossoms, some blooming for nine months of the year; and nothing in the nature of a weed.
This area is sufficient for a whole municipality so that after a while this community will be able to manage all its municipal affairs and will be in a position to arrange for the necessary separate functioning of the social affairs. From its inception there has been a strong movement in Castlecrag to keep the children out of the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 276 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 277 ====]
The stepped oblong ceiling of this very deep auditorium conceals the colored lamps which are played as a color organ from an enormous switch board behind the scenes so that a grand color orchestral program is given with each performance. The sound of the music organ comes through perforations of this stepped motif on both sides of the proscenium.
The whole theatre is mysterious and magnificent, unique in the world.
The auditorium seats of the main floor are entered from a center aisle and from the two side wall colonnades whose heavy piers conceal the lights whose reflections are shown in this photograph.
When the theatre was being planned Griffin said to the owners - "What a marvelous thing it would be if we could build a theatre like a crystal cave." The idea revolved in his mind, and inquiries were made in Belgium into the possibility or cutting crystal or glass to give effect to the idea. The cost was estimated to be in the vicinity of £600,000 and was rejected.
But Griffin clung to his dream and finally carried it out in fibrous plaster, like the old triangular crystal with the drop removed.
Inside each V shaped box, highly ornamented, he arranged rows of lights representing all the primary colors of the spectrum. From a master switch the lighting is slowly changed so that the whole effect is that of the varying color changes of a revolving piece of crystal.
Griffin carried out his motif throughout the theatre. Thus the Capitol Theatre today although about 23 years old is still one of the most unusual theatres in the world and a fascinating study for architects.
(quotation from a Melbourne paper)
[Note: "... about 23 years old ... " - The Capitol Theatre opened in November, 1924.][Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 278 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 275]standardized schools. But even before this breaking away from the old municipality to which its acres belong, one feels when coming upon it as I overheard a mother say to her daughter with hushed breath, - "One feels as if one had dropped suddenly into a totally different world." The homes emphasize this for they too are different from anything seen elsewhere. They are a part of the landscape, harmonious with it in material, color and form.
The combined practice of town planning and architecture by the enterpriser, and the position of managing director with a controlling vote in the company owning the district, make it possible for the layout and construction of roads and buildings to be carried out on such lines as to destroy none of the natural beauties so that instead of man's occupation reducing these bluffs to deserts here, with just as intense occupation, one will be practically unconscious of man's presence though he will be there enjoying all the most modern conveniences. Since it is one of Sydney's closest suburbs residents have the combination of all rural delights and all urban advantages.
Its a joyful thing to tramp these slopes with Walter Burley Griffin in any of the stages of road determination and see how the entrancing rock formations which would be the envy of any national park are noted and preserved, how the spectacular outlook spots to the magnificent views across the harbor through the Heads to the Pacific are thrown into permanent reserves for access to all and how the lovely trees are carefully preserved even if it takes two or three revisions of the surveys to accomplish it without injuring the perfect grades for motor traffic that prevail throughout these steep and precipitous terraced formations of Castlecrag. But if you love nature she yields herself to you, and these terraces in the end, after the roads have been built, seem have been created for the very purpose of ideal human habitation.
Then the buildings. An architect who is a town planner isn't so wrapped up in his architecture that he must have it conspicuous. He is
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 279 (table of contents) ====]
HOME OF ERIC M. NICHOLLS . CASTLECRAG
[Note: The structure is the
Moon House (House of Gables).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 280 ====]
One of the early buildings illustrating the use of the local stone. This upper level, a desert when the property was bought, is now a garden paradise.
It is the home of Mr. Eric M. Nicholls.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 281 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 278]willing to make it his foundation principle that the buildings shall be inconspicuous, yes, invisible. And that is what the ultimate answer will be at Castlecrag. For as you stand on the heights and look over the valleys it will always be all garden and the brightest spots in the garden the roofs of the houses for they are made of reinforced concrete and can be covered with eight inches of soil and planted with lawns for games or with the most cherished flowers of all. These roof gardens! They make one feel suddenly bigger, make one grow bigger, for one commands the whole panorama and in the home which is one's own he realizes that the whole world is his. He commands it to the very horizon, and this without infringing on the equal rights of every other citizen to do the same, utterly unconscious of others as they are of him.
To accomplish this means the solving of many problems but when all the means for solving the problem are in the enterpriser's hands it becomes possible, one might almost say easy such is the joy of it. The buildings are constructed of the local stone, in this case an ideal building sandstone, easy to cut and glazing afterward, sometimes pure white at others buff or pink or brown so that if one does catch a glimpse of them as may happen, especially when first constructed, though often with the native garden so luxuriant and always preserved it is impossible even from the beginning to get a photograph from any point, the house appears only as a bit of a garden feature or a bit of the natural rockery. And so built the house is no longer an enemy of the garden but is on friendly terms, intimate terms, with it encouraging the familiarities of bush and climber and without the fear of falling branch of stately tree. The first requirement of religion, especially of the Christian religion through which we should now be fully conscious of the relation of the Christ, as experienced by the Eucharist, to the Earth, is respect for the works of the Creator. Through spiritual knowledge we are aware that the North is the body of the Christ since the event of Golgotha, and that the ethers which
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 282 (table of contents) ====]
HOME OF ERIC M. NICHOLLS . LIVING ROOM
[Note: The structure may be
the Moon House (House of Gables).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page ====]
One can walk right around the fireplace. Sometimes it serves as a partition between the living room and an entrance lobby, or perhaps to screen the way to bed rooms and kitchen. Sometimes it carries recesses for books or china or perhaps its "face" may be entirely plain according to the style of the room. But in all Burley Griffin's houses it is a commanding feature. We took a photograph of one of these chimneys. The face of this particular chimney was not absolutely plain, but had two small three-cornered glass cupboards built out from it. So narrow was the supporting frame-work of these cupboards that they appeared to be completely of glass, magically resting on the stone chimney front.
The photography was a joyous business. Everyone took a hand, suggesting this or arranging that (for people who live at Castlecrag are a happy colony for a common artistic interest which, without being in the least bit "posey" or unnatural, delightfully enriches ordinary friendly intercourse), and when we thought we had got it about right and were just going to shoot, there was a stir in the doorway and in came Burley Griffin himself, his rosy cheeks wreathed in smiles but his blue eyes alight with purpose nevertheless.
"No not like that. We cannot have that." Swiftly a chair was moved here, another banished there, a jar altered in its position on the shelf, and behold a transformation.
"Now," said he, "You can shoot."
[Note: "Miss Cooper" - Two of Nora Cooper's articles are quoted in Section II, No. 15, page 233ff and Section III, No. 14, page 266ff.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 284 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 281]are his gift to the world are the cause of the transformation by so called Nature of water in the life process through the vine to the grape and the wine. Christ teaches us this fact when at the marriage of Cana by the direct use of the ethers he transforms water into wine.
And except where the precipice of one natural terrace has drawn a bit too near the precipice of the terrace below, all the homes are grouped around interior reserves giving space for play and festival, grove and garden. No child is ever naughty at Castlecrag, anyhow I never saw one. There is too much to do. And the pale lilies that come in from outside turn to roses though they are really just as close together as before but they don't know it. The dwellings staggered so that you look into the neighboring gardens and feel them as part of your own, unconscious of the buildings or boundaries.
Then what happens when the people are really living there? Well the Mrs. has something to say to that for she had been saying for years that she was bent on starting a civilization in which children could be happy and had been assuring her angel that she was willing to pay whatever price was necessary to accomplish that end. With the happiness of adults we need not concern ourselves. That is their own affair and often unhappiness is the best thing for them. Through unhappiness one can develop faculties. Our own concern for them was to give them beauty. For humans can endure hardships and grief and disasters but they cannot endure ugliness. Ugliness destroys their souls. But children have a right to happiness. They require it. And they require all sorts of opportunities and experiences which are dependent on the very wide interests and activities of their elders. So the feminine element began to work like yeast and everybody just naturally began to ferment.
The very fact of the town plan, the very fact of the preservation of the natural beauties, recreated the neighborhood as a reality, which has entirely disappeared from our cities with such disastrous
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 285 (table of contents) ====]
KNITLOCK DWELLING & FUTURE EXTENSIONS
[Note: J. Turnbull and
P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 242
identifies this structure as "Project House (No. 1), The Rampart." A
similar image, entitled "Minimum Cost House & Future
Extensions," is found at III.22.406.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 286 ====]
Afterward we went away down the hill to a little rocky outcrop looking out over Sailors Bay there was one of his most lately-built houses, snugly set on the edge of a huge boulder, half hidden behind trees, and with wild flowers clambering up to its very doorsill it seemed the embodiment of all the fairy tales in the world. Its concrete walls, deepened to a lovely weather stained yellow, fitted naturally into their woodland surroundings. From behind its long glass doors one could imagine nursery rhyme children peeping, or elfin folk scampering in and out between the concrete lanterns on the flat roof, from which the house takes its name.
The occupant of the house was away pro tempore, but we wandered unchecked through the happy little sunfilled rooms, with their walls of soft gold and blue, past the little fireplace in the living room corner, also molded out of concrete, with built-in bookcases beside it, past two little quiet bedrooms, each with its built-in wardrobe, and a bath room with an egg-shell-blue tile floor, until we found a wee kitchen with built-in dresser and servery [Note: i.e., a room from which meals are served], and a twin sink finished in German silver. Here the Queen of Hearts might have made her tarts on almost any day.
[Note: "Miss Cooper" - Two of Nora Cooper's articles are quoted in Section II, No. 15, page 233ff and Section III, No. 14, page 266ff.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 287 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 284]consequences. From the very beginning with only a handful of residents things began and they went on and it soon became evident that every man is naturally a genius and every one hungry to express his genius.
First the obvious thing - a Progress Association - which as it worked out was the most difficult of all because it meant the breaking down of class boundaries which really can't be done in a community which has a group of people legally authorized as superior which fills the souls of people with bitterness and malice. But we played a bit of hob with the idea anyway. The difficulty instantly arose from the fact that we included within the boundaries of the association the neighboring thickly populated workman's district (the term is theirs not ours) because the main North and South thoroughfare was there and seemed a natural line of demarcation. But no. The invisible line between the ordinary thing and the something different that was being done constituted an impassible barrier in the minds of the already settled district, one that could not be crossed except on the basis of warfare. Americans, though they use the word, have not the slightest idea of the meaning of the word "class." The nearest they come to it is a conception of snobbery which is a totally different thing.
Thus it was when, with our innocent American minds, we organized a children's Christmas party. These parties! Unforgettably beautiful things.
Within the boundaries of Castlecrag anyone could buy a lot. Anyone could build a house. But one couldn't be in Castlecrag long before one became a Castlecragger and with no external pressure, just the attraction of what was going on.
In the Progress Association Mrs. G. [Note: Griffin] had charge of the Junior Branch which showed tendencies of swamping the club so a suggestion was made that there should be an age limit. Mrs. G. agreed and suggested that 75 should be the limit set. Her suggestion was carried by acclimation, perhaps more truthfully described as shouts of laughter.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 288 (table of contents) ====]
SANDSTONE DWELLING . CONCRETE WINDOW MULLIONS . MRS. MADDOCKS
[Note:
The structure is the Wilson House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 289 ====]
That was the only age limit ever set to anything and that didn't hold.
The Ballet was inaugurated. Some of us did the simpler things in the ballet but Louisa [Note: Lightfoot] went ahead with enthusiasm and industry even with the surprising feats the Russians do. At the end of the season we were showing Sydney things. The Ballet became a permanent thing at Castlecrag and a lovely feature in nearly all the social life and frolics, one of them a lovely thing around a bonfire in the lower valley under the full moon among the wondrous smooth red-barked and white-barked gum trees. Later on we took a moving picture of this Arabian dance, a capture of the ladies of the Harem, our leading lady being carried off along the winding path down the valley, high up in the air on the hand of the bandit chief. It was screened in the metropolitan theatres.
A youth had a longing for the drama. He had spoken his pieces at some of our parties. Mrs. G. [Note: Griffin] told him he could use her house any time he wanted to, so the dramatic club was formed - The Dais. It soon appeared that one of the young women was a very fine ingenue and the family's enthusiasm led to their home being used for the meetings and sometimes for the performances. But always in emergencies 56 The Parapet was available. The young founder developed a fine capacity for decoration and stage setting and everybody joined The Dais. Stodgy old fat fellows proved geniuses in comedy. Their wives at times in tragedy. A woman who had had humiliating experiences bucked up and took a role and displayed such talent that it helped to remake her life and gave her status again. Club members began to write plays and these and other performances were at times given in the city. Castlecrag individuals and groups got the habit of taking prizes in metropolitan affairs. Professionals were invited out and came with a bit of haughty feeling but waked up with a new idea before the evenings were over.
Fancy dress parties became frequent, each house offering a new stage setting that put everyone on his mettle with the new effects to be achieved; in the jewel box, the tiniest and the cheapest house in
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 290 (table of contents) ====]
SANDSTONE DWELLING . MRS. MADDOCKS
[Note: The structure is the
Wilson House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 291 ====]
any city of Australia (except our Pholiota in Heidelberg) but an exquisite thing; in another very small house, so perfect and dignified, ample because all the rooms could be thrown together; or the home around an open patio where the flowers bloom the whole year through, where 60 people in Spanish costume had the time of their lives.
The early dwellings in Castlecrag were not large but the architect's basic principle was that the one essential in a home was a good sized assembly room and then anything more you could afford. And the numbers that used to roll up for those parties! And sometimes a party spilled over into the house next door and stunts were doubled and laughing processions passed each other going from one house to the other. All Sydney would have come if we could have accommodated them. The finest musical talent of Sydney and many visiting artists came and sang and played for us. And many a one on leaving has said, "I'll be glad to come any time you want me Mrs. Griffin." Always the feeling that they were getting as much as they were giving. A hundred, a hundred and fifty was not unusual and the charming events and fun without any need of artificial stimulants kept them going till the wee small hours. And "How do you get such people together," was a frequent comment. Or, "Nowhere do we find such gatherings as these."
A young couple was shy but wanted to do their bit so took up a suggestion of Mr. Herbert's and started a Neighborhood Circle on cultural lines with lectures and discussions, and again everybody came not because they were asked but because it was too interesting to stay away from. Outsiders as well as Craggers were welcome to all the functions. And the pick of the lecturers were ready to come to talk to Castlecrag. Castlecrag was being looked upon as important and there were not more than ten dwellings there.
Mrs. Felstead was doing beautiful needlework, so backed by Mrs. G. [Note: Griffin] she formed an Arts and Crafts Society. Castlecraggers gathered together their handiwork and old enthusiasms were fanned to life. All these
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 292 (table of contents) ====]
KNITLOCK DWELLING . ON TOP LEVEL
[Note: The structure is the
Felstead House.]
INTERIOR COURT
[Note: The interior may be the Felstead House.]
LIVING ROOM . LANDSCAPE WINDOW FRAMES MIDDLE HARBOR VIEW
[Note: The
interior may be the Felstead House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 293 ====]
In the house with the inner court we found delightful things to photograph, for instance, the central open court around which the living and sleeping apartments are grouped. This was gay with stag ferns and begonia, sun-dappled, and musical with the sound of running water. In this gracious natural atmosphere, the Chinese fountain, the strange and restless molding decorations on the glass doors, seemed almost human. The living room opening from this court is a delightful place, with a great window framing a perfect view of Middle Harbor and the Heads beyond. The walls in this room are rough finished, in small square tiles, beautifully toned in blue and gold.
Miss Cooper [Note: See the references to "Quotation from Miss Cooper" on pages 283 and 286 (above).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 294 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 291]things meant rejuvenation. Children, young folk and parents were in everything. A two month's exhibition was arranged in Mrs. F.'s [Note: Felstead's?] home and a stream of visitors from the other suburbs continued through the whole of the time.
A young new-comer starts a weekly group to study economics. The whole citizenry organize a Castlecrag Community League to put themselves in legal form to safeguard for all time the ideals and natural beauties of the prospective municipality.
The point is that all these affairs were a part of the everyday life of everybody. You didn't have to go into the city nor to remote suburbs. Things were easy, at hand, under your nose. They just happened.
Trying things have happened of course but let them simmer in the varying lights and shades of this interplay of nature and humanity and as a rule they come through in a very satisfactory way. And always there is the feeling of things growing and building up. And more and more is enthusiasm rising, ever more and more opportunities offering to each and every individual. And all the time there is right at hand the infinite peace of stillness and utter seclusion when one wants it in the midst of perfect beauty. Always the intimate contact with nature that is absolutely essential to the education of children (who cannot be educated in our cities as they stand) and that is so healing to the sick soul.
Men and women must work together in practically all fields. But it is true that there are certain things women can do that men cannot. The essential man's function is to conquer nature. Woman stands timid and frightened before that requirement, whereas man registers joy and enthusiasm at the very thought of it and at every opportunity that offers. Woman's function is to see to it that man does not destroy what he has conquered. Today man is conquering and destroying the world and woman is failing to perform her function.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 295 (table of contents) ====]
MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN
[Note: The structure is the Clark Memorial
Fountain in Grinnell, Iowa.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 296 ====]
One of these great conquests, the solving of the problem of the technique for a healthy society, is exhibited in the Threefold Commonwealth. Would we women but take the initiative in launching the National Cultural Organization, the Abilities Organization, taking education, the cultural affairs, out of the Political Organization where they cannot exist except in diseased form, we should indeed have started a civilization suitable to our present time.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 297 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 298 ====]
No. 16. ACACIA MELANOXYLON - INITIAL CAPTION
There are some 400 species of Wattles in Australia. Their blossoms are mostly small balls of stamens often in great clusters shading from pale buff to pure gold. Usually spherical balls but sometimes small cylinders like trees of goldenrod.
Their leaves may be anything from phylloids to needles to pinnate but I think their cotyledon leaves are always pinnate. And the acacias run all sizes from small open shrubs to stately trees such as this Melanoxylon. On the whole they are not long lived as they are especially subject to insect pests. Their bark is used for tanning.
There are great treks to the bush, for that is what Australians call the forests, in wattle blooming time, different seasons in different districts for there are wattles for every one of the 12 months of the year. Some of their leaves are pure silver so you can do marvelous things with them in landscape work. This was the big brush with which Griffin loved to do his paintings.
The Wattles are the Golden Rod trees of Australia, over 400 varieties, whose flowers run the gamut of the yellows from pale cream to deep gold, and there is never a time when some of them are not in bloom. So with proper selection you can have superb masses of bloom every month of the year and forms from the daintiest of shrubs, the perfumed Suaveolens, to the stately Melanoxylon, the foliage of every conceivable shape but always evergreen. Would that some true philanthropist would plant our desert western slopes with Wattles.
[Note: All text except the last paragraph was typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 299 (table of contents) ====]
A ONE UNIT KNITLOCK HOUSE
[Note: The structure may be the Gumnuts
and Marnham Twin Cottages (Frankston, Victoria) or Pholiota (Heidelberg
(Melbourne), Victoria).]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 300 ====]
INITIAL - ACACIA MELANOXYLON
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
BUILDING
A METHOD OF CONCRETE WALL CONSTRUCTION
By JAMES
PEDDLE, M.I.A., F.R.I.B.A.
A proviso to clause 23 of Ordinance No. 71 reads - "Provided that the Council may permit the erection of dwellings not more than two storeys in height of concrete, with walls of less than the prescribed thickness, if satisfied that such proposed dwellings are hygienic and structurally sound."
The members of the Ordinance Conference recognized that it was impossible to foresee developments in the use of concrete and unwise to embody anything that might, by its restrictions, hinder the progress of building science, involving the use of this material. The Conference did the only thing possible, it placed upon the Councils the responsibility of investigating any design of concrete construction submitted and of allowing or disallowing its use upon its merits.
While reinforced concrete construction has proved to be both sound and economical for large buildings, efforts to adapt it to the special requirements of residential work have not been very encouraging. Some years ago, it will be remembered, Mr. [Note: Thomas Alva] Edison was credited with the statement that he had almost perfected a scheme for casting cement houses in one piece with floors, roofs, pipe ducts and chimneys, as well as baths, sinks and other fixtures, all part of the house. The molds for these were to be set up in a few days, the pouring was to be done in a few hours and after another week or thereabouts, the molds were to be removed and the "home" was to be ready for occupation. Fortunately this was one of the abortive efforts of the wonder-man inventor, for the possibility of having whole streets - of having whole suburbs filled with these cast monstrosities is shocking to contemplate.
In many of the schemes for using concrete in small house construction the claims made for its economy as compared with brick have not been borne out by experience and, generally, the increased size of the
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 301 (table of contents) ====]
CASA BONITA . GARAGE ONLY ON STREET LEVEL
[Note: The structure is
the Mower House.]
CASA BONITA . ROOF GARDEN & VIEW OVER VALLEY
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 302 ====]
From across the harbor this tiny house looks like a castle. There is no excuse for the cheapest houses being any less charming than the expensive ones.
A miniature can be as lovely as a mural.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 303 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 300]units as compared with that of bricks has made adjustment to the numerous and varied breaks, both in length and height, which seem necessary or desirable in residential work, impossible.
In brick-work the unit of vertical measurement is 3 inches and the unit of horizontal measurement, 4 and a half - a half brick, and these small units permit of a variety of architectural design that is almost infinite........
A method of concrete tile wall construction has come under the notice of the writer that is interesting. It possesses in a large measure the advantages of flexibility possessed by brick, the unit being 6 inches, the width and length of a half tile, vertically and horizontally, and although the cost of the wall per superficial foot may be equal to that of a brick wall, there are other economies effected that favorably affect the total cost of the house when this method is used.
There is first a saving of space, the walls being only 2 1/2 thick, including finish, as compared with brick external walls, plastered 12 in. thick, and brick internal walls, plastered, 6 in. thick. This means that an area which is only sufficient to build a cottage in brick work of five rooms would be large enough to build a cottage in concrete tiles with six rooms.
The thin walls are possible because the system of construction is columnar, the walls being curtain or enveloping walls only, with all loads carried by the columns, and the structural design of the tiles and method of treatment in the building makes damp penetration impossible.
Each tile is one foot square, so that half tiles are 12 in. by 6 in., and this is the possible unit of measurement vertically and horizontally. The tiles are 1 3/4 in. thick and the back is grooved. The wall is made up of two tiles placed back to back, interlocked, with joints broken so that no through joint exists in any part of the wall;
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 304 (table of contents) ====]
AN EXTENDED VERSION OF THE CASA BONITA PLAN
[Note: The structure is
the Mower House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 305 ====]
the tiles are made with a face practically impervious to moisture but they have their interlocking surfaces dipped in bitumen so that there are two waterproof membranes in the center of the finished walls. It will be seen that contact is made only at the positions marked (a) so that the wall is cellular and is protected against the transmission of heat or cold. Each tile has two strands of reinforcing wire running horizontally. The tubular cells provide channels through which electric conduit, small service pipes, etc. can be taken.
Columns are formed by the use of quadrant and tangent interlocking tiles. These columns are spaced at convenient distances governed by the design and position of openings, but the curtain or enveloping walls will easily span a distance of 16 feet between columns. The columns are hollow and the larger service pipes for conveying roof water and sewage to the drains can be taken inside so that they do not appear on the outside wall faces.
These walls meet the requirements of the proviso to Clause No. 23 they are structurally sound - tests show them to be as strong or stronger than 9 in. brick walls in lime mortar - and they are hygienic, being damp-proof and cellular.
Floors and roofs are carried on plates supported by the columns, or if flat concrete roofs are used, by reinforced beams spanning from column to column.
As the tiles are interlocked back to back the walls have a finished face on the inside as well as outside and no plastering is required. With some slight stain or tint sponged on the inner face, the effect has all the charm of a textured tile wall. The outer face has a surface like rubbed sandstone, the color varying with the sand used. This color may be uniform or the tones may be mixed to give vitality and texture; the joints are defined so that the face is divided into 12 inch squares, a very pleasing scale and these can again be divided into four by the lighter marking on the tile when it is used for the inside faces.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 306 (table of contents) ====]
CASA BONITA . WAY TO ROOF
[Note: The structure is the Mower
House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 307 ====]
Quotation from AUSTRALIAN HOME BEAUTIFUL
On Middle Harbor, Sydney, where the sites are forested cliff edges overlooking the most beautiful of natural flower gardens, and the rock-bound reaches of the famous estuary, a different expression is required of the architecture. At the growing suburb of Castlecrag, at any rate, with the stereotyped hybrid English pattern or spec-built nondescript, "mod. brk. bung." [Note: modern brick bungalow?] out of the way, or at least at arms length, a human size scale is indicated to preserve the beautiful illusion of vast distances created by the fine texture and irregular outlines of the diminutive flora and of the tumultuous hills that seem mountainous.
In Southern California, Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright has recently carried out houses on a scheme having tesseral [Note: i.e., composed of a small square or tablet (tessera)] elements of the same facial size and similar appearance, though quite different in structural significance, since they form cavity walls in the ordinary sense, stable because of their mass rather than through specialized columnar or concentrated supports, and there are no vertebral segments. Internally segmental houses possess the advantage over all other finished types of house requiring no veneer of tiles, plaster, textile, paper, enamel or paint. The tesseral faces of hard dry concrete in any desired degree of smoothness or roughness are susceptible of stain or tint or any color, but without it they are of an acceptable finish in themselves, at the same time conveying the sense of strength and endurance which only the sincerity of solid homogeneous structure provides.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 308 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 305]The construction results in vertical projections in the wall where the columns occur curved outward in section, with a narrow flat face suggestive of Gothic design, dividing the wall into panels with a very pleasing effect. The construction also results in concave internal angles which are hygienic as well as pleasing in appearance.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 309 ====]
A building is not just a facade, nor a plan. It is a detail in its natural setting, it is a unit among its neighbors, it is an interior fitted to meet its social functions and obligations. It is a note of emphasis in a natural setting taking its place harmoniously, a note in a melody, a chord in harmony. Anything less and it has no right to exist.
Some houses are so dainty you can hardly believe they are for humans. Casa Bonita is an absolutely minimum cost house. On this rocky and jumpy allotment which drops steeply down into the valley there was room for only the garage on the street level. Well sometimes it was a garage, sometimes an artist's studio, sometimes a drafting room with a huge drafting board in it under the two windows facing east, fine for laying out perspectives. It is as attractive as any part of the house because with knitlock there is no such thing as a lack of finish. The inside is the same as the outside. Color can be added but it is beautiful without, the tesserae vary somewhat in color as they come from the factory so at a little distance one gets the impression it is marble. Side windows were included in the garage for here again they don't run up the cost. With the front garage doors wide open it was a picture to see Mrs. Junge sitting there weaving richly colored rugs and draperies for her doll house which from across the valley looks like a castle.
The house drops lower, the top only 4 feet above the street level. A bridge across a bit of a chasm takes you under a trellis bower to the roof. What a view! Raking up and down the valley! The parapet wall needs no coping but a gracious note was added by perforating the top structural tiles as they were made which gives a graceful and quite Indian touch. Then down the steps between the rocks and the veranda to enter the front door. No shrub was allowed to be destroyed as the building was constructed though it took battles with masons and
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 310 (table of contents) ====]
CASA BONITA . ENTRANCE VERANDA
[Note: The structure is the Mower
House.]
CASA BONITA . ROOF ONLY 4 FEET ABOVE STREET LEVEL
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 311 ====]
plumbers to prevent it. Consequently from the moment it was finished it was a bower of loveliness - yellow banksias, orange callistemon, pink ti shrub, golden darwinii as well as stately trees and clumps of Christmas bells and endless other native things.
Here Pakie [Note: Augusta Macdougall] and I lived when I returned from India, and here we gave a dreamlike production of the last scenes of the 2nd part of Faust. Such a tiny house can do such grand things when man works with nature.
THE SETTING - The audience gathered on the flat lawn terrace below the level of the house. Only the color movies could rival the settings of this Paradise play.
The action took place on the terraces on the levels of the house and the veranda and on the various rocks and paths up and down and through shrubs and trees circling from 60' away to the various boulder and terrace levels including the roof of the house - a succession of lovely and superb settings, rich and varied and with the background of the bluff above across the street.
FAUST - (condensed to give the picture)
Holy Anchorites and Echo from roof and from various rocks below and to the right.
CHORUS AND ECHO -
Billows the forest on,
Lean then the cliffs
thereon,
Grapple the roots thereon
...............
PATER ECSTATICUS - from pulpit rock below
Endless
enraptured fire
Glowing love-bond entire
...............
Pass
with earthly all.
Shine the endless star above
Core of immortal
love
PATER PROFUNDUS - from rock among shrubs
As at my
feet, the gaze entrancing
Rests rocky deep on deep profound,
..................
Heralds of love are they, forthtelling
What aye
creative round doth roll.
...............
Oh! God! appease the
thoughts of anguish!
Illumine Thou my needy heart.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 312 ====]
PATER SERAPHICUS - from intermediate rock
What
morning cloudlet hovers
Through the pine trees' waving hair
...............
Youthful spirit-troop is there.
CHORUS - having descended from the roof and come through the house
to
veranda and now moving up and across and calling from
forest to right and answered by the anchorites.
Father tell us whither go we
Kindly tell us
who we are.
...............
PATER PROFUNDUS -
Boys at midnight hour, the gateway
Half-unclosed
of sense and mind
...............
These are trees and cliffs and
whirling
Torrent plunging down in spray
...............
BOYS UNSEEN -
'Tis a spectacle astounding
...............
PATER SERAPHICUS -
Seek in higher spheres your station
...............
Revelations of Eternal
Love that unto bliss
unfoldeth
BOYS - having circled onto top terrace - move across and
disappear.
Hand in hand cling ye
...............
Soar ye and
sing ye
Songs of divine delight.
...............
ANGELS - come from both directions onto top terrace
Freed is the noble sion [Note: scion?]
...............
Him we
can serve that tireless strove
Ever to higher level.
YOUNGER ANGELS - swing down steps to veranda level and out
to right and disappear amidst shrubbery.
Woman-penitents, love hallowed
...............
Shout for joy, it
is achieved.
MORE PERFECTED ANGELS - from roof
Still doth some
earth remain
...............
'Tis not all free from stain.
YOUNGER ANGELS - from top rocks to the right
Wreathing the rocky heights
...............
Mist-like there meets
my sight
Spirit existence.
...............
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 313 ====]
BLESSED BOYS - from same level
Him in the
pupa-stage
Gladly receive we so.
...............
With blessed
life fair and great
E'en now he shows him.
DR. MARIANUS - from pulpit rock
Here is the prospect
free
The soul uplifted.
...............
Crowned with the
star-shine,
See I high Heaven's Queen.
CHORUS OF PENITENTS - come down the steps to the left and move on through the banksias to the right.
To the heights
art soaring
Of Realms Eternal
Hear us imploring
...............
Moving, Appearing, disappearing.
MAGNA PECCATRIX -
St. Luke VII 36
By the love that for a precious
Balsam poured
forth tears of yearning
...............
MULIER SAMARITANA - St. John IV
By the well that erst did water
Abraham's herds, with cooling gifted,
...............
Through all
worlds around us streaming -
ALL THREE -
Thou, to women greatly sinning
...............
In
thy grace vouchsafe to let her
Share, thy pardon most bestowing.
A PENITENT - GRETCHEN -
Ah! bow
Thy gracious brow,
O peerless
Thou,
And radiant, on my peerless bliss!
...............
BLESSED BOYS - drawing near in circling motion
Great
limbed already he
Grows, us transcending
...............
GRETCHEN -
Girt by the glorious-legion
Scarce the new-comer wakes,
scarce knows
His life renewed in this pure region.
MATER GLORIOSA -
Come, soar to higher spheres! Divining
Thee near,
he'll follow on thy way.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 314 ====]
DR. MARIANUS - prostrate, adoring
Tender penitents, your eyes
Lift
where looks salvation.
...............
CHORUS MYSTICUS -
All things corruptible
Are but reflection.
Earth's insufficiency
Here finds perfection.
Here the
ineffable
Wrought is with love.
The Eternal-Womanly
Draws us
above.
Penitents and boys below
Chorus and Holy Anchorites in spectacular
positions
Angels above
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 315 (table of contents) ====]
No. 17. MELALEUCA & EUCALYPTUS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 316 ====]
No. 14 [Note: 17] – INITIAL CAPTION
Primeval forms still hold in Australia, though time has hardened them. Not only the elemental things but in the whole animal and vegetable life. All primeval conditions have been retained somewhere so that men can get knowledge of evolution. Unless we call to mind that the earth was liquid before it was solid it is impossible to understand the vegetable life in Australia, even the trees.
In America I was taught that I must observe the laws of the growth of these and realize that the trunk grew smaller as it sent off its branches, tapering to the top. But many Australian trees pay no attention to these human theories. One of the Sterculias of Queensland is such a one. It looks just like a sea cucumber. Its trunk swells out and then narrows up at the top just like a cucumber and all its foliage spreads out like a circle of tentacles.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 317 (table of contents) ====]
ROAD DOWN TO LOWER LEVELS
[Note: The caption to the New-York
Historical Society's illustration adds to this title " . . . and the
Harbor."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 318 ====]
INITIAL MELALEUCA & EUCALYPTUS
[Note: See the illustration at
the beginning of this chapter.]
THE PRESERVATION OF NATURAL BEAUTY
The necessity of preserving the life of the earth becomes a prime duty in every field of life. The following is a sketch of the application of this principle in one realm.
While I played around with the architect with whom I was working in the picturemaking business in which we both took such pleasure, Burley Griffin took things more seriously for there was the same difference between Louis Sullivan and many who followed him that there was between Griffin and myself. It is one thing to be a painter of lovely pictures. Sullivan thought in terms of construction as did Griffin, inventing and solving problems. New styles arise through the solving of the problems for new civilizations. Griffin turned out new methods of construction & new forms of materials & hardware, and so on. Many a time did someone seeing his indifference to patents ask permission to patent a thing, something he had worked out. To prevent this he did at times patent a thing to protect his clients. His only interest was that of the clients.
The baked tile form and construction was remodeled to meet his demands, for stability and weathering. They did it but made an awful fuss over the trouble it was, vowing they would never do it again, but shortly they were doing nothing else. He invented an interlocking concrete tile construction, most lovely, and the last word in economy in concrete residential work. The superficial appearance of this seen in pictures has been copied in some California houses [Note: by Frank Lloyd Wright?], more copybook architecture resulting in absurdities from a structural point of view.
Starting every problem from the point of view of landscape architecture meant, at least in Griffin's hands, that every characteristic of a location was carefully considered and taken advantage of and no natural loveliness destroyed. Not only was there careful consideration of the location on the lot but even total transformation of customary plans to save this, or to get maximum effect from that. The invention of this
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 319 (table of contents) ====]
KNITLOCK HOUSE EASILY EXTENDED BY ENTRANCE & 2 ROOMS ENCLOSING
COURT
[Note: The New-York Historical Society caption to the
illustrations reads, "Extend Knitlock House With 1 or 2 Rooms By
Enclosing Court With 1 or 2 Rooms & Veranda."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 320 ====]
interlocking tile came from this double outlook of the town planner and the architect for by this he could get color in harmony with stone and also a material impervious to storms and to the menace of plants to use in a stone district and at the same time undercutting even the cost of bricks.
Griffin's double profession gave him an advantage in tackling the problem of developing the suburb of Sydney - Castlecrag - enabling him to show that the unique loveliness of Australia did not need to be wiped off the earth in the process of occupation but that 750 acres of natural garden with its wonderful variety of flowering evergreen trees and shrubs could be occupied as intensely as other suburbs, now hopeless deserts, and still remain 750 acres of garden. And so it could be with the development of the whole continent. Man's interests are not necessarily in conflict with nature. He doesn't need to be a destroyer in order to live.
The system he established, contrary to custom, was to make the buildings as inconspicuous as possible, to construct them of local stone, an ideal building stone underlying the whole of Sydney. What a pity Sydney itself was so held by the throat by the brick trust backed by the bankers, doubtless shareholders. If only the municipalities of Sydney had been built of this stone which is so desirable that when Melbourne built important buildings it brought the stone all the way down the 400 miles from Sydney.
The banks would not lend money except on brick and Marseilles tile roof houses both materials entirely unsuited to the climate. Griffin fought them to the end. One lawsuit cost each of the parties $10,000. We have many reasons for believing it was instigated and even financed by the brick trust. It became too unsavory for the judge to be willing to give a judgment against Griffin so he demanded a compromise. Of course one understands that a councilman takes his life in his hands if he passes a building that differs in any particular from the routine
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HOUSE OF 7 LANTERNS . KNITLOCK . CASTLECRAG
[Note: The structure is
the Creswick House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 322 ====]
thing for his enemies can say he has been bribed to authorize anything so different from the established custom of the British Empire and it will be obvious to all good Britishers that he must have been, and the whispers will go the rounds and out he goes at the next election. This is inescapably the answer if politics is allowed to interfere in the economic realm.
However Griffin never gave up his fight with the councils and bit by bit his methods of construction became convincing, since they solved all the problems of hot climates, minimum cost, permanent and fireproof construction, an asphalt pavement under the whole house with sleepers set in it and the finished floor of wood laid on it with no air space so solid floors (a thing which our imitator in the U.S. didn't do in the California house & which [Note: N-YHS reads "whose floors"] consequently had to be ripped up later); and cellular concrete roofs - termite and vermin proof and moisture proof keeping the house cool in summer and warm in winter. The Marseilles tile roofs are not satisfactory in this country of driving storms. Practically all of them leak. After one typical storm a telephone inspector told us that everywhere else in Sydney every house he had been in was leaking, some of them quite flooded, furniture damaged and so on. So he [Note: Griffin] invented a concrete diagonal roof tile which successfully kept out the storms. These horizontal Sydney storms also frequently blew the rain right through even hollow brick walls.
So the brick trust is responsible for the denuding of Sydney's luxuriantly foliated gullies. With brick walls and the usual tile roofs the subtropical vegetation is a menace to the type of construction used throughout Sydney. The fig and bignonia [Note: begonia?] vines and other wall climbers work into the joints and play hob with them. Great branches of trees fall and smash such construction. I myself know a little girl killed by a storm broken roof. With Griffin's construction there was no danger at all. The trees even but two or three feet from the wall could be left undisturbed making unnecessary the requirements of the banks that all shrubbery shall be cleared away to
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 324 ====]
a distance which is about the total area of an ordinary allotment. This was another of the fights as Griffin knew it was not necessary for his type of buildings. I remember the cry from the heart of the owner of a building in Brisbane whose pink Bougainvillea was one of Australia's "sights" of which I had heard from many travelers, when she saw Castlecrag houses. "Oh, if my house had been built like that I shouldn't have had to cut down my Bougainvillea!"
In Australia people complain of the heat and suffer with the cold. When they came into my house which stretched across the lot and opened up with a colonnade of windows to the lawn and the valley view, they would step out onto the lawn and feel the cold again, come back and look to see where the heat came from. It came from the floor, so this ideal under floor heating system of Mother Nature's keeps the house warm as in summer it keeps it cool. Then with the cellular reinforced concrete construction for the roof the house was kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer - as with an icebox. Here again however since everything is under control of officialdom every obstacle was put in the way. There was a state law requiring floors to be 18 inches above the ground. With the first C.C. [Note: Castlecrag] house Griffin argued in vain with the council for a solid floor. The law was intended to prevent dry rot, but with no air, floor in bitumen, there is no dry rot which is really rot from moisture.
So with the second house Griffin decided to defy the council. He built it with a solid floor but fortunately (for councils are ruthless) before the house was completed the angels came to his rescue and sent the bubonic plague to Sydney. At Griffin's instigation (for he missed no chances) several doctors wrote to the papers saying it was a strange thing that in a place subject to bubonic plague it should be against the law to build a rat-proof house. Pressure was brought to bear and the law was repealed. So no longer could the law impede this step. But except for Castlecrag don't think for a moment that a general change
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TERRACED KNITLOCK HOUSE
[Note: The structure was designed for The
Bastion at Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 326 ====]
in building followed. In a bureaucratic community the spirit is well broken and nobody is inclined to attempt any changes. Griffin's houses continued to be the only houses in Australia that were comfortable winter and summer. Elsewhere dank, smelly, verminous spaces under one's house, scorched shins and shivering backs and chilblains in the winter - the dance hall or movie or bed the only warm places.
The tile roof with its ventilated air space served somewhat in keeping the house cool in summer but in winter, since heat rises, it promptly let all the heat out whereas with cellular reinforced concrete construction it functioned like an ice-box keeping the warmth out in summer and in in the winter. But the fight against the flat roofs was perpetual though almost all the big modern buildings in every city in the world are flat roofed. Such are the absurdities of bureaucratic rule.
This going to the root of things enabled Griffin to solve the architectural problem of the design of flat roof houses which I had seen struggled over in the offices where I had worked but never solved. Of course there is always the packing box type but that is no solution. "It doesn't take an architect to design a packing box." (The Chicago Sun) That is no solution. Beauty and character are essential elements of architecture as versus engineering - flesh as well as bone. It was well solved in the dwelling of Mr. Melson in the lovely bit of river valley in which as landscape architect he [Note: Griffin] enabled his clients to preserve the beauty, although occupied, in his Mason City group scheme. When asked what style of architecture the Castlecrag houses were his answer was - "Early 20th Century Australian Architecture."
He looked for and foresaw the greater and the smaller needs of individuals and communities so that five miles of foreshore with all its richly varied flora and rock grandeur were reserved for all time, an unheard of thing because the big money came from the sale of water frontage, all else selling as rubbish and going always to slumdom. But he could show his shareholders that by doing this the values of
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 328 ====]
all the other lots were enhanced so that there would be no financial loss but the whole suburb would remain permanently high class. This was a revolution in Australia, and Castlecrag may be of continental importance there where one at present sees nothing but utter destruction of nature going on and the best districts rapidly going to slums. Elsewhere ultimately high apartments will be built all along the water's edge shutting off all harbor views, whereas on a covenanted estate such buildings could be placed on the hill crests and the beauty and outlooks retained for all time.
PLANTS - Walter Burley Griffin
Without doubt all plants have their particular significance to men and the real objectiveness of their qualities has been borne out in the quite independent appeal of certain types of plants to certain classes of people. Children and amateur gardeners for instance are first drawn to flowering annuals perhaps because with these the will can be exercised to get immediate results. Age and experience bring wider interests but so important to the Briton is the functioning of his will that his appreciation of nature finds its greatest scope in gardens, even to "Garden" cities.
The limitation of this objective is that the gardener's standard of judgment is the perfect specimen plant instead of the comprehensive group entity. The architect's ideal is often somewhat similarly confined but he is less concerned with the facility of cultivation than the forms appropriate to architectural settings, whereas the landscape architect sees in all plants the possible adaptation of their texture, color and silhouette for the enhancing of effect of perspective and scale necessary to induce sublimity, serenity, freedom or other feelings, appropriate to any given situation.
In appraising Australian flora, on my arrival twenty years since, the Myrtaceae generally and certain particular species of other plant families suggested immediately vast and unique opportunities for
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page [329-2] ====]
CAPTIONS to 4 AUSTRALIAN COLOR PHOTOS
Springtime carpets West Australia
Vast fields are often covered by a
single variety. National Park in the October. Blue
Leschnaultia is one of the state's most popular wild flowers.
Christmas bush bursts aflame in December summer.
This
spectacular plant inhabitant of New South Wales gains its name from the
period of its flowering and owes its red coloration to enlarged calyxes
rather than to the actual petals. The inner petals are white and soon
wither.
Salvation Jane is South Australian.
Its blossoms resemble hooded bonnets
worn by the Salvation Army. Cattle have survived by feeding on this
nitrogenous pest - Echium Plantagineurium
[Note: Plantagineum?] - known as "Peterson's curse." The plant is akin
to the blueweed of the Shenandoah.
Western Australia's Floral Emblem
These oddly shaped flowers are "kangaroo paws" so named because the flat, unopened buds
suggest the feet of Australia's equally strange animal. Several differently
colored kinds of these plants grow in the state.
[Note: This page is not found in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 330 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 328]landscape architecture. Richness of color and exquisite texture they certainly had, parallel with the best of the northern flora, but additionally this almost exclusive ligneous and evergreen plant world possessed at the same time the grace of form of nude deciduous woods, and the penetrating sunlight with the deep-set shadows picked out the most lace-like sculpture that could ever give pattern to formal backgrounds of walls or pavement.
Luxuriousness was exemplified in the smooth angophora, strength in the Port Jackson fig, delicacy in the lemon scented gum, whilst a subtle balance of perfectness was to be found in the prickly paper-bark ti-tree. The final word in stateliness however was left for a specimen of multi-columnar cypress pine near the north lagoon of the Melbourne Botanic Gardens then labeled Callitris columellaris. All these trees demanded preference in planting plans but no nurseryman nor gardener could ever produce this last named plant. The botanical reference classified it only as a variety of a North Coast species whose illustration indicated a totally different character of tree. Subsequently the specimen in Melbourne was renamed correspondingly though evidently it has never borne cones to verify its identification. In the grounds of a sanitarium called "Penquite, Doncaster Road," North Baldwin, Melbourne, is to be found a hedge of this species, thirty to forty feet high from which seeds can be procured as they are freely bearing. Dr. Scougall has done vital service to the topmost branch of art - Ground Planning, Ensemble Planning - in bringing to notice the 50 or 60 grand examples of this superlative tree which have been 60 to 80 years maturing in the old Grace Yard garden of Gladesville. These now known cultivated specimens already explain many things and will furnish the necessary clues to cultivation and, since one of then is seed bearing, will certainly re-establish the species in horticulture. Its sure adoption in suitable locations all over the world will follow because it is unmatched amongst fastigiate [Note: i.e., sloping or tapering to a point] trees.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 331 (table of contents) ====]
No. 18. SASSAFRAS TREES . TREE FERNS & GIANT WHITE EUCALYPTUS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 332 ====]
More ancient than the seed plants are those with spores. The ferns in Australia have through the millenniums developed into trees growing to 20 or 30 feet in height, scattered through the forests, their fronds often having a spread of 15 or more feet - a number of varieties all exquisitely beautiful.
The fern gullies are fairyland itself. The moisture in the atmosphere encourages all sorts of moss and lichens to grow on the barks and on the rocks making everything rich and glowing in color. Here from a bowed ancient tree fern trunk innumerable seed have sprouted and a sassafras has sent streamers down to the ground some 6 feet below and established an enduring trunk. The interlacing of colors is impossible to portray. Back a bit we see a giant [Note: N-YHS adds "white barked"] gum shooting up into the sky, smooth as a telegraph pole. A bit of sky-blue above and its reflection in a wee stream below give us our composition.
The Fern Tree gullies! Nothing like them in all the world. Moist the year around. Luxuriant with an infinite variety of growth from the Fagus Cunninghamii, the Australian beech, with leaves shaped and arranged like our Maiden Hair Fern, to the fern covering of dripping rocks. The leaves of the Sassafras itself are a bit fern-like. And the moisture of the gullies turns the bark of all these smooth barked trees all the delicate moss and lichen colors. So many of the Australian trees, unlike ours, have showy masses of blossoms that pilgrimages to the fern gullies in the Spring time are not unlike the Japanese pilgrimages to the flowering cherry and plum.
[Note: The first two paragraphs above were typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 333 ====]
INITIAL - SASSAFRAS TREE, TREE FERNS & WHITE GIANT EUCALYPT
[Note: See illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
Being of a sanguine temperament, an airy temperament, though I never spent more than the five minutes between recitations in studying any lesson yet I always stood high in my classes in High School. Such is the advantage of the sanguines always have over the other temperaments. Showy they are and Jacks of all trades and just as well it was for it made me a most convenient slave for that husband of mine. If I did owe him a debt from a previous incarnation, I surely did my best to pay it in full. It is as well I had no idea of that as the driving force, for the joy of those wonderful years with one of the most important men of his generation would surely have flown if there had been any admixture of obligation in the services rendered. Only in late life could the two angles be reconciled and the circle complete. How wisely do we, in planning for a new life, blot out the remembrance of those past debts until such time as bonds shall be so strong that nothing can matter.
His was a Will temperament which lent itself to no nonsense from teacher nor wife nor bureaucracy. Yet no one ever saw him angry. When the war was on he drove ahead regardless of specious pleas of altered circumstance. Nor did he concern himself with the war until the destruction of the cathedrals began when from his indifference to the loss of life (which I must confess shocked me a bit for his nature was sweetness itself in his human relations) he became incensed at such outrages and insisted the Germans should be wiped off the face of the earth. When I objected to his inconsistency (for through that war, from our Australian vantage point, we were more pro-German than pro-ally) he brushed aside my arguments saying men could easily be replaced but how could one ever make up for the lost cathedrals.
It was later, after several years of the fight for Canberra, that he remarked as we were crossing the paddock one day on route for the office - "It is evident that the Lord isn't interested in architecture,
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CAMPBELL DWELLING
[Note: An inscription on the verso identifies the
structure as "Residence [/] A.C. Cameron [/] Killara" in New South
Wales.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 335 ====]
He's interested only in making men." It was just too incredible to him that the Lord should have such a strange preference. He himself came straight from the stars just that way with an absorbing interest in form and color. As a baby he never picked a flower. He went around the garden patting them, loving them, and when in his college days Bailey's [Note: Liberty Hyde Bailey's?] encyclopedia of plants came out he read the whole thing through, later recognizing plants when he ran across them. Even in Australia he could identify flowers he had never seen by his remembrance of what he had read years before in Bailey. He had full use of that absolute memory that most of us evidence only in a state of hypnotism.
That first year, when he was already driven day and night with both his public and private work, Saturday was always kept free for those walks in the outlying districts of Sydney, anything up to 20 miles, with Miss [Note: Constance Mary?] Le Plastrier, the botanist, identifying trees and shrubs and flowers, for Canberra must be planted right away and, except for the Botanical Gardens laid out to continents to make possible the study of world groups, it must be planted to Australian natives and it must be planted to color, segregation and combination done in full consciousness for Griffin always painted his pictures with the big brush. Nature was his handmaiden.
And other [Note: another?] of Australia's best known botanists Miss Le Plastrier brought to walk with us - Mr. Hamilton [Note: Alexander Greenlaw Hamilton?] and Mr. Cheale [Note: Edwin Cheel?] - and they never resented the 7 and 8 hour lectures he got from them on relationships and soil conditions and habits for it was for Canberra and the need was urgent. By the end of the year he knew more than anyone in Australia of what was significant for a landscape architect, and could recognize plants more accurately from near by or far away. Only the aboriginals could beat him at that. It was their picture value that he was primarily interested in but he loved them so he could always speak to them by name.
As for me, I spent much time for several years in listing plants and all details concerning them in tabulated form for use in any and all planting schemes - Newman College was already on the boards at
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KNITLOCK HOUSE WALLS & ROOF
[Note: The structure is the
Paling House in Toorak (Malvern), New South Wales.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 337 ====]
that time. It was a very compact form, tabulated to show different growth requirements, as soil, moisture and so on; heights and shapes of growths; color of flowers, foliage, berries and barks. There were those who thought it might become a work of national importance. It is now being carried on by a couple of young Anthroposophists who are working in the new 20th Century methods of agriculture as established by Rudolf Steiner, methods which increase instead of depleting the fertility of the soil. They are looking forward eagerly to a development of Australian flora comparable to and going even further with their flora than the achievements in other countries. The results will certainly be unique.
It is interesting to know that in Germany where Anthroposophy is banned (where if three people come together to converse on the subject in any of its many fields, the many fields of 20th century science, they may be handled as traitors) Anthroposophic agriculture is required (or was until they overran the broad fields of their neighbors) for they realized the need for a type of cultivation which will produce fine crops without reducing the fertility of the soil. There were some 35 centers for distributing the knowledge and materials required and thousands of acres were planted bringing forth crops superior to those under the chemical methods which are really destroying the fertility of the soil - killing the earth.
Australia is rapidly being awakened to the fact that there is something radically wrong with the present methods. Scarcely a week passes without a column or half-column article about the serious condition of the soil, about blights of the products and the diseases of the animals fed from the large quantity production methods attained by chemical fertilizers and other materialistic scientific methods some of which are denuding the districts, some creating growing deserts whose dry sands are sweeping on, constantly increasing the desert area, some of which are reducing the fertility of the soil till it is becoming a pasty concrete-like substance, its fertility lost. It is a pity
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BLUE VALLEYS OF THE AUSTRALIA MOUNTAINS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 339 ====]
The Australian mountains - The Blue Mountains - are so named from the color which fills their valleys. This is no mist. I am convinced that, ancient continent that it is, the blueness is that of the ether which brought about the pre-earthly condition of matter, i.e., the liquid condition.
Just so the rings of Saturn are known, even by our materialistic scientists, not to be substantial since the movements within them of the satellites is not retarded. They are one of these primeval conditions which hang over to enable men to conceive of evolution, like unit cellular [Note: unicellular?] living entities. The four rings of Saturn record the four formative etheric forces which have now manifested their created conditions - warmth, gas, liquid and solidity.
Australia is our oldest continent. The chemical ether, blue, records, as do the curious vegetable and animal creatures, the pre-solid condition of the earth.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.][Note: There is no page 340 in the Art Institute of Chicago copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 341 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 337]that they cannot be openminded as the Germans who have accepted the evidence before their eyes of the spiritual-scientific methods - Bio-dynamics.
In Australia almost all the residential gardening consists of completely destroying all the natural growth and then putting in European plants, the consequence of which is that no matter how beautiful a garden might be when made when, as always happens sooner or later, the home passes into other hands it entirely disappears, for such plantings require constant attention without which they cannot last through the long dry seasons, so that on the whole the towns and suburbs are barren deserts compared with what we are accustomed to in America.
Griffin's method of planting together according to color gave his plantings a splendor one rarely sees, and for seasonal ensembles too. To attain these ends he supplemented the flora somewhat, especially with South African plants whose local conditions closely resemble those of Australia and in which individual flowers are larger usually. So interested was he in losing no foot of planting space that on the whole he urged the building of flat roofs of reinforced concrete which, as occupation became more complete, could be covered with 8 inches of soil and planted with the choicest and gayest of flowering things. Thus occupation need not diminish the acreage of garden existing before man's invasion. Especially desirable is this on sloping or terraced ground where one looks down on the buildings which thus become garden features in the midst of greenery, the roads below hidden by the tree foliage.
During the early years in Australia it was impossible to comprehend the strangeness of the manner of growth of the mysterious flora. I myself in my study of drawing had been taught that trees grew just so; that the trunks grew smaller and branched out and towered upward. But no rules could be laid down for the forms of trees in Australia.
The Angophora is usually called the red gum because in its general growth it is very like the gums but it is not a true eucalypt. This word means "I cover thee." The seed pods of the gums are almost spherical,
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[Note: ==== Beginning of page 343 ====]
like fairy kettles with a lid which the fire-fairies lift for the blossoms' coming out party. Not so this precursor of the gums, the most conspicuous tree of the bluffs of Sydney Harbor and growing nowhere else. With its evergreen crescent leaves and its deciduous bark it has a loveliness that chains the attention, with its brilliant red leaf tips in the new season, its masses of white blossoms and the complete peeling off of the bark in the spring leaving exposed a delicate, flesh pink skin as smooth as the check of a child the color of which gradually deepens, becomes henna, flecked and shaded with a pale but brilliant blue and ends the year with deep crimson flashed with red.
But the weird enchantment one feels arises perhaps more from the shapes of the trunk and the branches and the connections with the ground. They flow and swell and contract, twist and turn in ways that are so well illustrated in the drawings of Mr. Eric Saunders, which show the ever recurring voluptuous feminine forms. They are not vegetable forms as we know them. They are more animal or human. Your mind cannot cope with the problem they present till you search back and back beyond the research of physical science into spiritual science which reveals that before Australia, was Lemuria. And you feel a great light has flooded your soul for you begin to know things that cannot be learned through physical senses but which nevertheless the earth reveals to us and proves.
We see before our very eyes forms hardened into physical conditions of today that existed in a previous condition of the earth, before geology was, before rocks were, when all creatures, [Note: the word "man" erased] (Adam not yet descended from Paradise), animals, plants, were liquid, living in a liquid or viscous earth, mobile, fluid, changing, when the whole earth was under the control of the chemical other of the formative forces, the force which brings about the liquid condition of matter. In these trees we seem to be seeing muscles extending and contracting, the trunk pours itself out over the rocks seeming to attach itself to them by viscid masses and
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SALTER DWELLING INTERIOR . A KNITLOCK HOUSE
[Note: The S.R. Salter
House is in Toorak (Malvern), Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page [344-2] ====]
[Note: Supplied title: V.G. Griffin House, Heidelberg
The previous
illustration, "Salter Dwelling" p. 344 (table of contents), has been
affixed along one side to its backing so that the illustration can be
turned to reveal its verso, the Vaughan Griffin House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 345 ====]
even in the leaves we find the type of water in manifestation, the waves, the half or crescent moon, a type of leaf which we find nowhere else. Then one can understand these strange animal forms.
The great bottle tree of Queensland, the Sterculia, is another instance. Its huge branchless bottle-shaped trunk, topped with an umbrella of leafy branches looks just like a gigantic sea cucumber. Such understanding, as always, established more friendly relations and we wished it could be attained by more of the European invaders so many of whom had a real antipathy to this vegetation so strange to them. From the first we had been very enthusiastic, feeling that the archangel who had painted this continent was the greatest artist of them all. I myself had done much architectural exhibition rendering work and had come near to creating some of these types to meet the requirements of architects who would insist that their buildings should be very such in evidence in my renderings of them. So I had strained a point in the veracity of the trees I used, but here nature itself accomplished the decorative character required, for many of the trees were so open in their foliage that the structural members - trunks and joints and branches were always well in view, and their trunks with their endless range of color and texture and markings were exquisitely decorative too. It needed no stretch of imagination to make mural decorations of these trees. In my ever busy life there was always a minor strain because I was not able to make a set of at least a hundred of these wonderful decorations so lavishly put forth by the fairies of this ancient continent, the Gnomes dissolving the rocks for tender rootlets, the Undines carrying up the sap, the Sylphs forming the flowers, and the Fire Fairies the seeds.
A few I have recorded, The Eucalyptus Urnigera growing along the coast of Tasmania, a slender tree, vivid red, shooting like a flame straight up into the sky. Elsewhere it is the blossoms that set the forest afire, as with the Eucalyptus Ficifolia in West Australia where blossom time is a riot and the usual white flowers of the Gum trees turn to every color of the rainbow and many shades that no respectable
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WATERGATE CASCADE RESERVE . CASTLECRAG
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 347 ====]
rainbow ever indulged in. Stately avenue trees too so that whole streets can be planted to the unbelievable henna flame or pink or yellow. Not blue. There are Blue gums but it is the exquisite blue of their young leaves that gives them their name, not the blossoms. Think of the slopes of the Rocky Mountains planted to masses of this color, not too far above the frost line! Well why not? Come on, let's.
And the Banksias with their candle-like blossoms, some small, some three inches in diameter and eight inches high growing upright on the branches. No wonder we chose it for our Christmas tree. And their strange bark, the [Note: Banksia?] integrifolia a contorted tree with a bark like the thick and deeply incised hide of a prehistoric reptile, endlessly fascinating to me always a lover of tree barks, a lover of pattern anywhere, still a faithful disciple of the Spirits of Form though I did service to the Spirits of Motion too in my love of the dance. One of these rusty banksias closed the vista of my living room in Casa Bonita as I looked out across the veranda and down the path of my rocky terraced garden.
And the fern tree gullies! Nothing like them in all the world. Moist the year around. Luxuriant with an infinite variety of growth from the Fagus Cunninghamii, the Australian beech with leaves shaped and arranged like our maiden hair fern, to the fern covering of dripping rocks. The leaves of the Sassafras tree itself growing there are a bit fernlike. And the moisture of the gullies turns the bark of all those smooth barked trees to all the delicate moss and lichen colors. So many of the Australian trees, unlike ours, have showy masses of blossoms that pilgrimages to the fern tree gullies in the spring-time are not unlike the Japanese pilgrimages to the flowering cherry and plum. A pity these Anglo-Saxons have not the reverence of the Japanese in making their tea-houses beautiful expressing thus their recognition of the spiritual beings who have set forth such beauties for them to enjoy.
Wherever I have been in Australia, and I think it is a general
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INCINERATOR & CONCERT LOGGIA IN PARK
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 349 ====]
characteristic, the individual species of trees are very closely confined to a particular district. One can see therefore how disastrous it is when by fire or otherwise the trees of a region are destroyed. In all probability these same can be found nowhere else. With the various members of our families visiting us at not wide intervals, we took a number of trips and often noted how, even in the course of one day, we would go through several remarkable distinctive types of forest. The change might be quite sudden with some slight unnoticeable difference in circumstance. The Eucalypt was the prevalent tree but its completely different types ran into the hundreds; the lovely spotted Gum silver gray with quite formal rounded spots of a deeper shade; or Rubida, pure white with towering trunk; some of them running to the height of our California tallest trees though not so great in girth; or in the cooler regions at a higher level, the twisting white trunks of the Snow Gum; or down the valley, dark, rough, patterned bark of the Mess-Mates named for their habit of growing in pairs. One did not need to have been trained as a painter to be able to make marvelous mural decorations of these trees with their surrounding undergrowths often saprophytic [Note: i.e., living on decayed vegetable matter], that curious and unknown relationship, or shall I say unknown except to those who carry on their scientific investigations by direct perception in the realms of the four formative forces, the life forces. It is a relationship somewhat of the nature of that of the citrus fruit trees to the nasturtiums which if planted around them prevent the ordinary blights to which the citrus fruits are subject in our artificial way of growing them. One could copy literally the forms and colors as they were handled in nature itself arranged just as one is taught to do with pigments to get luminous effects by juxtaposition of color against color instead of the amateurish way of trying to present color directly and imitatively. In Australia you could imitate and still get the reputation of being an artist.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 350 (table of contents) ====]
No. 19. LEPTOSPERMUM . NEW SOUTH WALES . TI TREE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 351 ====]
No. 16. [Note: 19] INITIAL CAPTION
The Leptospermum, the Ti-tree of New South Wales, is weird beyond words. It carries to the extreme all the characteristics of Australian forestry. It seems a very part of the rock formations and yet it emphasizes in even the trunk that spiral which is the great mathematical deity at the base of all plant life. The hyperboloid, the leaf form. That archetype which [Note: Johann Wolfgang von] Goethe saw, the ego back of all plant life, the idea which Goethe explained to [Note: Friedrich von] Schiller who after a while said - "Oh you mean your idea." "Well," said Goethe, "If it was my idea I saw my idea." This hyperboloid is one of the creations of the Great Primeval Creative Spirits, the hyperboloid which in the plant kingdom spirals its way from the finite to the infinite. The tree by its nature is immortal, forever young as its living part lies between the external bark and the interior core, as young after centuries have passed as in its early days. We see this movement in the twining vane, in the spiral, sometimes compacted into a circle, of the arrangements of leaves on the stem, and if you want your dreams to climb out of their grotesqueries into the infinite send your soul as you go to sleep up this mounting curve. In the plant kingdom it can't go so high but expands and contracts in three great cycles - leaf to stem, blossom to pistil, fruit to seed.
The leptospermum grows in dense masses, an almost impenetrable low forest, grey in stem and branch and leaf, though an occasional single tree gets left behind as the grove moves across the sandy seacoast over which it spreads its roots wide in search for water. For though the plants create the minerals we find as crystals and rocks, the plants themselves arise from the kingdom of liquidity.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 352 ====]
INITIAL - LEPTOSPERMUM - NEW SOUTH WALES TI TREE
[Note: See the
illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
For many years there had been the opposition of the councils since any specifications for residences deviating from those laid down by the Roman Empire were not to be tolerated. And there was the united front of Australia against anyone coming from the outside for the open door to immigration has never been the policy of Australia, that open door policy that made the United States the richest country in the world. So that in addition to the refusals of the banks to lend money except to the routine spec builders and their clients, and their requirement that the building should be brick since they had holdings in the brick trust which prevented the whole community from building with the beautiful local stone, the opposition was supported by the whole legal profession. Naturally individuals negotiating for the purchase of a lot would refer the matter to a lawyer for technical advice, contract form, and so on. I think without exception the lawyers of Sydney did not limit their advice to such points but unanimously discouraged their clients from purchasing land at Castlecrag. Of course the point they made openly was the covenants but the real reason was that Griffin was a foreigner. But we kept on keeping on. Covenants were not new to the British Empire.
After several years Griffin noticed a suspicious advertisement in the paper. In undertaking this enterprise he had done all the so called promotion work. He had discovered the property and bought it himself, making the first deposits, and forming the company had sold the shares. He took no promoter's fees for any of this work but made it clear from the beginning that what he needed and would take as a substitute would be a managing director's control, for a unified management would be essential for the carrying out of the planned and covenanted development. It was written into the original articles that the first three shares which he owned should have a special voting power which would give him this control.
In the early years he never used this power but the share-holders always knew it was there and finally decided they would "put one over"
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 353 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . BATTERED STONE WALLS . ERIC PRATTEN
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 354 ====]
on him. An advertisement appeared in the Sydney papers. This suspicious paragraph was an advertisement for a manager of an estate, the wording of which sounded much like Castlecrag. Griffin immediately looked into the matter in order to prevent a possible fait accompli. The situation resolved itself into a lawsuit between Griffin and the company to establish the status of the special voting power of his shares. This dragged on for months piling up costs into the thousands of pounds for both parties for the British law is the Roman law based on the protection of the citizens against the foreigner and the judge was evidently very loath to give a verdict for Griffin though he accused the shareholders of flagrant dishonesty in the evidence they gave. You see there were too many covenanted properties in the community for him to want to outlaw covenants. He finally hit on an ingenious way of distinguishing between the three shares and gave his verdict that two of them carried the special voting power but not the third. No one hearing the case could tell whether Griffin had lost or won. As it happened he had enough other shares to maintain his majority vote. How disgusted the judge must have been.
Now a curious thing happened. For some time I had been dilating to the young folks who passed through my hands on a pet theory. I think something of Louis Sullivan's I had read put the notion in my head. It was that emotions are real forces. If a thing can bring about deeds it must be a force, so why waste such forces? If one was tempted to fly into a rage why should one just suppress that force? Why not instead divert it to some special use as with electricity one can turn on a current to illuminate a room or to heat a flat iron. So my advice to the young fry was to divert such forces from direct explosions into acquiring a house and lot, or a horse and buggy. We had much fun over it but when this serious situation arose I definitely undertook to divert my many opportunities for wrathful explosions, or for soul development, to the end of bringing it about that, if it was really of
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 355 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING & GARAGE . ERIC PRATTEN
[Note: The caption to the
New-York Historical Society illustrations adds to the title "No Let Down
In Out Buildings."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 356 ====]
The idea of slumping in the quality of minor buildings is as shocking as the false fronts in Urban buildings.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 357 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 354]value to the community Griffin should be enabled to carry on this work which seemed to us so desirable.
Some of the share-holders had been going around quite openly bragging that they didn't care whether they won this first suit or not; that it was the company's money against Griffin's private resources and they would take the case from court to court until they bankrupted him. However, when the verdict was given against the company, nothing happened. It had been a long drawn out affair. But one day when Griffin was down in Melbourne, our lawyer rang me and said something had happened and would I come down to take lunch with him to talk the matter over. He started the conversation by saying, "Now don't get excited." He was, by the way, one of those to whom I had aired my theories. And then he told me that the lawyers on the opposite side had come to him asking as a favor of courtesy of the profession that he should grant them the privilege of appealing the case. He had consulted with his partner on the matter and the partner, a considerably older man, had said that in this particular case where the personal venom of the opposing party was well known, he should not acquiesce in such a request without the permission of his client.
What had happened was this. On our side we had one solicitor and one barrister, a requisite in the British courts. The Company opposing us had two solicitors and four barristers, the most renowned company barristers in Australia, all experienced and knowing the technicalities in these questions thoroughly. But the Powers that be had apparently put them all to sleep just long enough for, if a case is to be appealed to the higher courts, the intention must be put before the court before a fortnight has passed, and a deposit of 100 pounds laid down as evidence of sincerity. The fortnight had passed. It was required that if a case were to be taken to the Privy Council this intention must be put before the court within three weeks. The three weeks had just expired when suddenly they woke up to the fact that no longer was it in
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 358 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . DAVID PRATTEN . ENTRANCE LANTERNS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 359 ====]
their power to take the case as they had planned to the High Court, the Supreme Court or the Privy Council. This latter would itself have entailed very heavy expenses before the legal proceedings could even begin.
In my own diversions I had repeatedly said I wished these men no harm, but what human imagination could have conceived of putting into effect such forces as these to safeguard this undertaking in this emergency? Naturally I made every attempt to get in touch with Griffin in Melbourne to warn him. I did not succeed but, amiable as his nature is, though they had all been buzzing around him saying heaven knows what to commit him to something that would make it possible to carry on the legal action, he did not get caught in any of their traps. He did not know what had happened till he got back to Sydney.
As time went on, a doctor came to this community with the intention of making his home there and of building a private and convalescent hospital as well. With all its rural loveliness, we were so near the center of the city that the doctor could get to his urban office in twelve minutes by using a doctor's privilege of speeding when he chose. From its initiation, with the purchase of a building already constructed as a nucleus, this enterprise was very successful. Consequently he bought further property adjacent for an extension of the hospital and, across the street, for a separate dwelling. From the beginning he was delighted with the type of development and with the charm and advantage of the flat roof. He called upon Griffin as architect in these further structures but instead of calling for tenders as was Griffin's custom, he preferred to use a builder who had previously done work for him. We are now convinced that the brick trust took advantage of this to influence Dr. Rivett to defy the covenant which required that no construction could be carried our without the consent of the Company's architect. One point after another was brought up to alter the structure from ways with which the doctor himself had been
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 360 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . STONE . DR. RIVETT . ACROSS STREET FROM HIS HOSPITAL
[Note: The structure is the Rivett House at Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 361 (table of contents) ====]
PHOTO . MARION MAHONY GRIFFIN . PHOTO BY KOEHNE
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 362 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 359]in entire sympathy. Griffin acquiesced in one after another of these but also the builder was constantly on the alert to slip something over without Griffin's knowledge, and presently we saw that construction was being pushed ahead for a sloping tile roof instead of the flat one as on the working drawings. It was not that Griffin would not authorize tile roofs or had not at times done so where the client desired and no disadvantage would result from obstructing the view of the neighboring dwellings and this house was on the top level but, if such construction was effected without his approval, it would make it impossible to enforce the covenant, since it would be a defiance of the covenant, and would establish a precedent. He made every possible speed to place an injunction to prevent proceeding with this roof, but the builder drove ahead working day and night and Sundays to complete it even after the injunction had been placed. Again we were in the courts.
The costs for each party ran up to $10,000. The judge was finding it difficult to get a foot to stand on for giving the verdict against the foreigner but finally, in preparing to sum up the case, he hit upon a bright idea and brought up a trifling point to which even the opposing barrister rose to say he didn't put any weight on that particular piece of evidence. The judge, however, waived him aside and gave the decision on that point alone against Griffin. Consideration for others makes it impossible for me to state what the point was, but it sufficed to give the verdict against Griffin without implicating the covenants. To have established a precedent for defying covenants would have menaced important imperial interests and would have discredited him in the profession so we did not reap the technical advantage of having the covenant issue established but the suit was so conspicuous that it really did establish it in the eyes of the community.
Before we could appeal the case, another suit had arisen with the extension of the hospital unit in which a supposedly reputable architect was caught perjuring himself. He swore that a certain
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 363 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . SEGMENTAL REINFORCED CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION
[Note: The
structure is the GSDA [Greater Sydney Development Association] Manager's
Quarters.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 364 ====]
drawing had been approved by Griffin and brought the plan as evidence showing Griffin's signed approval on the drawing. As it happened, when this drawing had been submitted to Griffin with a particular form of construction, he had signed his name in approval but before returning it and sent it over to be blue printed so that when he produced the blue print it became apparent that the document had been altered after his signature. Curiously enough no one in the court stressed this fact but when the architect looked confounded and distressed about it everyone used every means of quieting his nerves and placating him, even our own lawyer (an Australian of course), so no weight was given to this fact. However by this time the judge was getting a bit jittery and gave very strong instructions to the lawyers to get their clients together in a mutual agreement that would remove the case from the court. An agreement was arrived at and that was that.
Griffin had entered these cases only because the whole of his undertaking would have been brought to an end if he had not taken action. We already knew the ways in which foreigners would be handled in the courts. We learned that from an experience of my own in the early years of our stay in Australia. I had for some years before been practicing architecture either on my own or in partnership and took it as a matter of course that if anything worked that way I should continue in my profession. A residential job was brought to me and I carried it through. When the construction was completed the client refused to pay any fee. I myself was inclined to do nothing about it but Griffin thought that was improper, that in a way an architect owed it to his profession not to accept such a situation. So it was taken to the court.
Now one does not need to say that judges as a whole are corrupt. In an ingenious system such as the British Empire they need only a few, or perhaps only one, to manage the situations that may require a corrupt judge. The method is the following one and was used in my case. When the listing of the cases was published my own was far down on the list, 20 cases
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 365 (table of contents) ====]
DWELLING . ADOLPH MUELLER . MARION MAHONY & HERMAN VON HOLST .
Architects
[Note: The Adolph Mueller House is in Millikin Place,
Decatur, Illinois.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 366 ====]
ahead of mine, so far away that my barrister put off looking into my testimony on the day when we went to court. Not the regular judge but a different one was on the bench. Evidently the barristers as a whole when they saw the judge who was sitting knew something was up and one after another of them made some sort of a plea for the delaying of their cases till mine was left the first on the list. Just why my own lawyer made no such attempt, I don't know. This judge had shortly before been used for a similar purpose in a Parliamentary case. My client had been brought to me by a civil servant, i.e., by an enemy, of our acquaintance. When the newspaper reporters came in the following session before court was called I heard one of them say, "Well what mischief's up now." The response was simply a lifting of the eyebrows. Curious eyes were turned on me. The evidence was taken on both sides and stress laid on such points as my having used undue pressure on my client to induce him to accept my advice, one of the evidences being that I had given him pains-taking and very complete and attractive looking drawings. Also that the absurdity of having a heating system had been forced on him. The discomfort of the winter season was in fact one of the things he was anxious that I should solve, counting on my American experience to accomplish that. The client himself was a civil servant and I am sure they must have had him in the bag in some way for quite evidently he had been told not to worry, to say anything he wanted to, that nothing he said would prevent his winning the case for, much to the astonishment of my lawyers when he took the stand, white as a sheet, he expressed satisfaction in all his dealings with me, complete satisfaction in the house and particularly expressed his satisfaction in the comfort of the heating system. The verdict was given against me all costs to be borne by me.
However in these cases of Griffin's he had no option and had to go into the courts willy-nilly.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 367 (table of contents) ====]
METROPOLITAN INCINERATOR
[Note: An inscription on the verso reads:
"Incinerator - Alternative Design [/] Pyrmont" in South Wales.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 368 ====]
The circuit court is perfectly arranged to facilitate corruption. This does not mean that it is necessary that all or many of the judges need be corrupt except that the consequences of the system must be apparent and that they acquiesce in being a part of the system.
When a case is up in which the predetermined decision is desired the judge in the particular court can be sent to another district and another judge, one of the chosen for this kind of work, can be placed on the bench. The lawyers may become used to the consequences under such judge and as in the case of an architect versus a Civil Servant for fees, they may ask for postponement of their case. The lawyer of the predetermined case may or may not ask for postponement. If he does the judge won't grant it.
There are no official notes taken. The client may ask for such and pay for them but in all probability he will not know anything about the court system or requirements or privileges. His lawyer may or may not advise his client on this point. In this case he did not and the client knew nothing of this right.
The judge then is the only one who takes any notes. He takes down what he pleases and leaves out what he pleases; in this case the client noticed and her barrister afterward commented on the fact to her that he took down none of her statements but only those of the opposite side. The judgment was for the Civil Servant and included extreme accusations of the architect though the defendant in his evidence had so completely admitted everything the architect had said that her lawyer said, "Well there is no need of cross-examining this man," and his lawyer said afterward to one of the architect's witnesses that it was a rotten judgment. It is supposed to be possible to appeal but this is in fact not possible as the architect's lawyer made clear to her since the higher court takes no evidence and can base its decision only on what the judge shows it. Since no stenographic notes had been taken there was nothing to put before a higher court.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 369 ====]
In Royal Commissions we find a most curious state of affairs. The government is helpless before the judiciary and this in the affairs that are supposed to be of most vital concern to the community. There is no court or judge before whom they can take their cases so they have to go from pillar to post asking this judge and that if they will be so kind as to take on this case. Frequently every one of the supreme justices will refuse to take on a Royal Commission. Then sometimes no State judge will act, then the Government goes hunting about for a barrister who will be willing to act. Naturally in a case that looks bad for the officials it will be extremely difficult to find anyone willing to take it on as, if a judgment against the officials is rendered, it means the end of that judge's career and if the truth is plain to the public it may be very trying to have to render judgment in their favor.
The system is one which presupposes that one will not be inclined to accept the position unless is has been made worth his while by one side or the other. As a rule all the favors are in the hands of the bureaucrats. Again the system is one that promotes corruption.
FIREPLACE . SAME BRICK AS EXTERIOR
[Note: In the New-York
Historical Society copy this illustration is located at the bottom of
the page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 370 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 371 ====]
Hanging to the high rock. The trunk of the Angophora may be round or it swells out in one direction and then narrows up to a slender oval in section at another according to its passing mood and the branches pay no attention to the laws of gravity, reaching out, twisting and contorting as if they were in water, indeed in every way often resembling water animals. This pink barked tree often resembles a great octopus with outreaching twisting and contorting tentacles.
This is because this vegetation originated in the Lemurian times when the partially solidified parts of the earth were still bathed in heavy mists so that the vegetables as well as the animals were still sea creatures. The platypus ornithorhynchus [Note: duckbill platypus] is an example in the animal kingdom.
In my drawings I did not choose these extremes being fascinated with the beauty of those trees that were not quite so strange to my western eyes for our America gives us much later forms for America is dominated by the life ether, the last that has functioned in the evolution of the solar system.
This magical tree is quite restricted in its habitat to the Greater Sydney area of which our three wonderful Castlecrag promontories are a part and here they are being carefully preserved. A visitor said 2 men had discovered Australia, Captain Cook to possess it and Burley Griffin to preserve it.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 372 ====]
No. 20 INITIAL - ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA
FROM A NATIONAL TO A WORLD ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION AND PEACE
In a Chicago University Round Table discussion, Col. Knox suggested that the solution of the European problem would be for them to have a Union, not Political but Economic. This is a constructive idea for which type of concept we have urgent need. But it is not enough that we suggest what Europe should do, we should set her the example. The founders of our constitution gave a sound definition of the function of government - an organ to maintain Equity. No other country has been so favored as to have a correct concept. It definitely established the political government to meet the moral requirements of human beings in a community. Everywhere else welfare is the basis, and that means grab anything anywhere you can get it. It rests on the concept that might is right.
The century following the foundation of America has developed an economic life which is essentially a community affair since it is based on the division of labor. It is now plain that economic problems cannot be solved by individuals. To meet the bodily needs is now a community affair and requires a community organization. (See the Delaware River transformation.) This can function wholesomely only if it is independent of the political organization. Its laws are entirely different. Business cannot be run democratically. There can be no efficiency in business run by majority votes. Its law is mutuality, mutual advantage, not equity. An Economic Organization should consist of the total citizenry, not organized democratically but consisting of multitudinous economic associations, and which in its totality would have exact knowledge, based on experience, of all sides of economic affairs.
With the liaison of the political and economic organizations broken down, the political organ could then function freely in the maintaining of equity as it does in the problem of the traffic in our streets.
[Note: Col. Frank Knox, editor and publisher of the Chicago Daily News, was a participant in a radio round table program "Can We Protect America?" on March 24, 1940.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 373 (table of contents) ====]
ONE UNIT REVERBATORY INCINERATOR
[Note: J. Turnbull and P.
Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 302
identifies this illustration as a Joss Tower type Incinerator, one of
three schemes proposed for Essendon, Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 374 ====]
The concept of a United States of Europe or of the world is fantastic since different groups of people do not have the same moral standards. Human beings are different and would not be human beings if they were not different. But mutual advantage in business is a sound economic principle. Where is the easiest place in the world to put that concept into practice?
Though we must have different political units, at least until the peoples of the world are better acquainted with each other than they are at present, when it comes to the economic organization we can, without confusion, have different units as was suggested - Europe, the Orient, the Americas - or a world Economic Organization, which would be the soundest of all for then we should have that type of organization where things are made and sold within one and the same boundary of which the United States was an example, in contradistinction say to England, and which of itself tends to the maximum efficiency and the highest standard of living of the community as a whole.
Now we Americans are the favored of the Gods at the present time. Such favors entail obligations. Nowhere would it be so easy to establish a National Economic Organ as in America and indeed we need it as much as Europe for the rate at which we are being Europeanized is terrifying. Law or no law we are building up interstate tariffs or exclusions on one subterfuge or another. Another decade and internal warfare will be well established here. But at present there is less animosity between individuals and groups here than anywhere in the world. The bitterness between classes in other parts of the world is something beyond the imagination of Americans.
To effect the separation of these two utterly different fields would not be difficult here, at least comparatively speaking. Organization is the peculiar genius of Americans. But now the whole tendency here is to follow Europe's example and have the Government take upon itself more and more control of community affairs and this no
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 375 (table of contents) ====]
SWASTIKA FLAT BUILDING . SYDNEY . ERIC M. NICHOLLS . Architect
[Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration adds
to the title "Anderson Flats [/] Services In Center".]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 376 ====]
matter which party is in office. Lacking other national community organizations it cannot do otherwise. It is so apparent that something must be done. And since we like all other communities are totalitarian, having but one organ to attend to community affairs, we throw up our hands even if we do not approve and say well the government must intervene. Even the big business men, who certainly know that any minute the government wants to it will take over their business and leave them paupers, have no constructive suggestions to make whereas it is they who could expedite the formation of an economic organ if they would extend their thinking to broader lines. There should of course be no trying to bring this about by political means. We cannot expect a King to cut off his own head.
Economics is the realm of buying and selling so money, whose concern should be just that, should be in the control of the economic organ where it could not be played with as we have seen all our communities do since the first world war with such disastrous results. Any attempt to do so would be a crime and would be dealt with as such by the political organ which under such circumstances could work with clean hands.
The concept of a Threefold Commonwealth has been well worked out by Rudolf Steiner - one organ to effect liberty, one to effect mutuality, and one to effect equity, the three needs of human beings in a community. That these three completely different functions cannot be carried out by one organ is axiomatic - as impossible as for the individual human being to carry our his three functions of digesting, circulation and thinking without the stomach, heart and brain organizations. It is equally obvious that there should be no central organization. Each must function independently though the fruits of each are used by all.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 377 (table of contents) ====]
VICTOR CROMER SANITORIUM [sic]
[Note: This structure was located at
Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 378 ====]
VICTOR CROMER MEDICAL INSTITUTION
The location for this medical institution is the top level of a minor promontory of Covecrag so that it commands the whole panorama away from the street frontage. The great circular lecture hall and library and other public functions are located in the main quadrangular structure. The patients' rooms rise from terrace to terrace of the natural slopes of the terrain each room opening onto a veranda whose flat roof forms an open sun terrace for the room and veranda above. Its natural advantages make it a rest home and convalescent establishment as well as a hospital.
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy the words "Medical Institution" have been crossed out and replaced with "Sanitorium" [sic].]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 379 ====]
FISHWICK DWELLING . TERRACED HOUSE ON TERRACED LOT
[Note: In the New-York Historical Society copy only the "Fishwick Dwelling" appears on this page. Though there is an entry for the "Victor Cromer Sanitorium" [sic] in the table of contents, there is no text for this item on this page in either the New-York Historical Society or Art Institute of Chicago copies. There is a "caption" for the Cromer Sanitorium [sic] on page 378.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 380 ====]
THE FISHWICK DWELLING [Note: This line is crossed out in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
Where, in these terraced regions stepping down to the waters of the Harbor, a road takes a curve to a lower level the lot takes a fan shape, narrow on the street frontage. A sharp turn as here would make the street frontage quite narrow. As shown in the photo the only street level entrance is out through the rock; to the left under the bedroom above is the garage, to the right, already on the level of the street, is a gate to the kitchen yard, straight down through a tunnel between the walls of the garage and the kitchen between beautiful gold-tiled walls one reaches the handsome illuminated front door. Above the garage the housekeeper's suite as shown in the photo is open on three sides to fine views especially grand to the Southwest.
The front door opens into a great reception hall with intriguing prospects on every side. To the left a short flight of tile-patterned masonry steps takes one to the bedroom floor. The two main bedrooms are to the east both with direct access to the roofs of the main rooms below and stepping up to the higher roofs, with awnings when desired, and grand views on every side over the valley and harbor.
To the right of the reception room is a colonnade of openings into the dining room which in addition to its valley view is lighted night and day by a large fish-pool in its ceiling with glass bottom.
To the left through a broad opening a wide flight of steps down, for the room is under one of the bedrooms above, brings you to the library, its high windows to the East.
On ahead from the reception hall to the East is a grand central stone fireplace with opening in center between its flues so that you see on beyond into the living room with its windows sweeping around the further side to the East and North and South. Thus the house is terraced to fit the allotment and when the home was filled with guests you found them even on up to the top roof terraces from which
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 381 (table of contents) ====]
TOTAL STREET FRONTAGE OCCUPIED BY DWELLING'S 3 ENTRANCES
[Note: A
caption beneath the illustration reads: "Street Frontage of Fishwick
Dwelling". In the New-York Historical Society copy the following is
handwritten at the left of the illustration when it is oriented
horizontally: "Even a single little tree might be a [/] determining factor in
establishing the location [/] of a dwelling, it and its shadow might
[give?] it a feeling[?] [/] [of?] completion[?] from the start".]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 382 ====]
Sometimes the maximum outlook from all the rooms in the house is attained not by courts or semi-courts but by terracing the house. The nature of the allotment on which it is to be built determines the type of house. The Fishwick house at Castlecrag - from its roof the one a half story above the other - commanded two valleys one to the South, the other to the East and North-east. The residents here spent much or their time and entertained their guests on these superb lookout terraces, and supplemented their garden with showy, blossoming plants annual and perennial.
A path down the valley leads directly to the open air theatre but before plays had been given there the dwelling itself had made charming settings for plays. In this case the living rooms are on the lower level, the bedrooms half a story above and the library a half story below.
The allotment is kite shaped, the only street frontage is on a circular drive with an interior monumental rock garden circle in the center, just sufficient to give the triple entrance to the dwelling, in the center the gold tiled walls of the front entrance, to the left the garage opening, to the right the entrance to the kitchen yard and the kitchen.
This is the only stub end street on the Crag and arose from the fact that the Council had forced a steep road down to the next level to give entrance to a boating reserve so the Castlecrag lower roads diverged from that.
This dwelling gets superb views in all directions.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 383 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 380]they got a breathtaking view around the whole horizon including the Pacific Ocean.
Here were held musicals, for madam was a musician herself and, as customary in such town planned communities, each family centered on its particular field and genius in its often even grandiose affairs of hospitality. Here, before the valley theatre had yet been made available, was presented Goethe's "The Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily" - his only fairy story. It is impossible to describe the loveliness of such a production. The guests packed the house including the areas of the windows outside. It was given in German this time. When presented in the valley later on it was in English and miraculously lovely.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 384 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 385 ====]
The Blue Gum of New South Wales is named from the gleaming blue color of the leaves of the young tree which is quite bushy and the leaves almost circular. They lose this color as the tree shoots up into the sky and become narrow and sharp pointed.
Material science has no explanation for the power of the sap to rise to such heights. Only spiritual science through its perception of forces can explain it for neither the pumping power of the weight of the atmosphere nor osmosis can lift liquids to such heights. But those who can see the four elemental formative forces can see the rising of the blue chemical ether, which creates the liquid condition of matter, every morning as the living earth breaths out carrying the vegetable saps upward and rising high in the atmosphere where it builds the clouds.
In the perfectly balanced flora of Australia we find many saprophytic [Note: i.e., living on decayed organic matter] plants as in this case. The tree and this bush are interdependent.
[Note: The paragraph above is crossed out in the New-York Historical Society copy.]The Rubida is one of that group of white barked Gum trees some of which rival our Sequoia Gigantea in height. Surrounded by these white skinned trees, smooth as satin, one can hardly believe it is true. The dwelling place of the fairies indeed. It is not then hard to understand that "in this kingdom the spirits are ever active transforming the invisible into the visible, the realm of time into the realm of space." The white bark of the Rubida does not need to be interpreted through the artist's technique. The flashes of yellow and blue and pink are there to make it living light even in the depths of the forest.
[Note: The first three paragraphs above were typed on a separate piece of paper which was then pasted onto this page.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 386 ====]
INITIAL - EUCALYPTUS RUBIDA.
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
AVENUE TREES - Walter Burley Griffin
There seems to be a general impression that Australia has almost no satisfactory trees for the streets of her cities when, in fact, she has an amazing number of perfect avenue trees with beauties and advantages hard to match anywhere in the world; yet an expression of appreciation of the exquisite native growths is apt to be met with ridicule. And not only are these trees evergreen and in perfect foliage all the year round but many of them have a long season of luxuriant and lovely bloom - white, orange, scarlet, yellow, blue - and the color of their barks runs a gamut surprising to one coming from a cooler climate.
To know how to plant the streets of Sydney or Melbourne one needs only to go tramping about the environing country where one would find in perfect condition the beautiful growths that covered the sites of the cities before they were devastated by the human grasshopper. Now, it is high time we were repenting of our sins and getting to work to replant these same trees. It is impossible to conceive a more beautiful tree that the Angophora Lanceolata, one of the most common trees about Sydney and of which beautiful specimens can be found in Melbourne; and the exquisite color of its smooth bark varies with the seasons from a warm gray to a lovely rose and cinnamon, becoming really brilliant against the rich tone of its foliage, so beautifully massed, setting off but not concealing the branches which grow in a curious liquid fashion quite contrary to the rule of thumb for drawing trees which I was taught - very picturesque. This is one of the old trees of Australia, the precursor of the Eucalyptus. Two other Angophoras are superb for avenue planting.
Ideal too are the Eucalypts. Occasionally we find some of these trees along the roadside where we can get an idea of their perfection
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 387 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 388 ====]
for this purpose. The Haemastoma, the white bark, the Eucalyptus Teretecornis of which I have seen a specimen 4 feet in diameter, a wonderful tree with all the ideal requirements for avenue planting, its bark banded with white and soft grey like a lovely drawing, its branching open, showing clearly through the foliage, its delicate foliage giving ample soft shade yet letting the breeze through. This, as many others of this family, as the rubida, the saligna and regnens, is perfect from an architectural point of view. While relieving the severity and coldness of the buildings it still leaves them visible as it does its own beautiful branches.
A short walk on the outskirts of Melbourne will bring one to splendid specimens of the Banksia, perfect in form for street planting. Among the Melaleucas, the dream tree, Styphelioides and Leucadendron. If you want dense shade, the splendid Eugenia Ventenatii or Ficus Rubiginosa or one stately and loss spreading Syncarpia, or for needle like delicacy of foliage the Casuarina. We can find native trees varying from the wide spreading to slender vertical forms; from dense mass to open growth; from deep rich greens to lovely grey or russet tones; from thick leaves to the daintiest possible, as in the Casuarina like a lovely mist.
If we take pains to go out to where they are still growing in the immediate environs, we can see what are their preferences in matters of exposure, soil and so forth, and plant accordingly; but we need not limit ourselves to the re-planting of trees native to the immediate locality, for where individuals have been interested enough to experiment with others, we shall find many thriving beautifully which we have no right to deny at least a trial on our streets.
Among these the superb Tarietes, 3 quite distinct types, and the Cryptocaria Triplynervis, and Obovata, stately as possible with tall trunk same 80 feet high and a splendid spreading top. The Stenocarpus Sinuata, a miracle of a tree which we can see aflame in the gardens.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 389 (table of contents) ====]
CLUB HOUSE . INTERIOR
[Note: The interior is of the Felstead
House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 390 ====]
Imagine the startling beauty of an avenue of them.
There is no limit to the variety of our arboreal material for a variety of effects. In marked contrast to the Eucalyptus is the stately vertical trunk of the Agathis, a broad-leaved conifer growing to a hundred feet in height. If one wants to alternate trees of contrasting height and type, conceive the beauty of an avenue of the splendid Grevillea Robusta alternating with Callistemon Viminalis. The Grevilleas grow to a great height, ridged black bark, wonderful rich foliage, as graceful in manner of growth as the much talked about American Elm, with the added miracle of a season of gorgeous orange blossoms, alternating these with the multiple stemmed, ragged barked grey trunk, the new foliage red leaved and beautiful blossoms lasting a long season. In fact the long blooming season of most Australian trees and shrubs is an amazing thing to one accustomed to seeing the quickly disappearing blossoms of other regions.
Among other trees are the Castanospermum Australe, Flindersia, Fagus Australe, Lagunaria, covered in its season with tiny crab-apple like blossoms. Among the small avenue trees the Eugenia Touhmani and Tomlinsi, solid foliage from the ground up, Panax Elegans with its graceful stem and spreading top, or the lovely Archontophoenix Cunninghamii, smaller than but just as graceful and beautiful as the Royal Palm. What a stately colonnade these would form planted on either side of a lane, not too far apart, the straight grey shaft and the graceful capital; an endless number of trees perfect for avenue use.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 391 (table of contents) ====]
TERRACED DWELLING
[Note: The structure is the Hosking House.]
TERRACED DWELLING VIEW OF MIDDLE HARBOR TO THE SPIT
[Note: The two
illustrations on this page in the New-York Historical Society copy
reverse the order of the images given in the table of contents. The
order given in the table of contents is followed here.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 392 ====]
PAINTING THE PICTURE WITH A BIG BRUSH - CASTLECRAG
by Jane
Sydney
On a canvas of seven hundred acres a picture is being painted in the Greater Sydney area which already, in its very early stages, catches the eye and arrests attention.
On the foreshores of Middle Harbor, than which nature never created anything lovelier, a picture is developing whose painter uses not brushes and pigments but trees and shrubs and all the growing things, mostly native flora, and the local stone; knowing that a painter achieves his great effects by a restricted palette, thus achieving harmonies comprehensible and therefore acceptable to the human mind.
Wherever human communities have succeeding in leaving group structures that delight the soul for all time it has been by using a single material indigenous to the locality - the palm-thatched villages of the tropics, the adobe and cliff dwellings of the Pueblo Indians, the hill cities of Italy whose stone structures seem an absolute unit with the hills themselves.
Sydney has used its beautiful stone to a considerable extent in its city buildings, but what a shock do the nerves receive when we look upon the great stretches of residences, and by far the greater part of a city is composed of residences. The raw odour of crude bricks, the chaotic hodge-podge of varied forms, the startling red clumsy roofs sloping to shed the snow where snow never falls, the impounding paling [Note: i.e., wooden stake] fences - one after another the lovely ever-blooming slopes of Sydney's harbour are thus transformed.
But one spot, by a man of destiny, has escaped this type of development which so wrings the heart of everyone who has known Sydney's loveliness and returns - after an absence of ten or fifteen years.
The prevalent road systems of Sydney's foreshores take the street from the high point to the low point, like a knife slashing a canvas, leaving an ugly scar that never can be concealed, while at Castlecrag the roads of easy grades sweeping along the bluffs are invisible
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 393 (table of contents) ====]
SUSPENSION BRIDGE . SAN FRANCISCO . SCARCELY VISIBLE
[Note: A
printed caption to the New-York Historical Society illustration
indicates the structure is " . . . THE NEW SAN FRANCISCO AND BAY BRIDGE"
also known as the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 394 ====]
except when you are right on them, and then flow in curves which please the eye.
The dwellings in this new suburb are in accord with that most fundamental of nature's laws. They are inconspicuous, destroying none of the natural harmonies and, when under the protection of the present management nature has had time to recover from the devastation of fire and axe, which has gone so far already toward making a desert of Australia, they will nestle into place so that these slopes, even when as intensely occupied as the already developed suburbs, will be as completely garden as they were before they were touched by the hand of man.
A natural acropolis, three hundred feet above the water, on the central peninsula, Covecrag, is the civic center. A sports field surrounded by public and semi-public buildings, is entered from the business thoroughfare through a semicircular colonnaded gateway. This center comprises such buildings as Churches, Clubs, Assembly Halls, Schools, Libraries, Hotels and Theatres.
Two natural amphitheatres are located - the Cove theatre on the water frontage, the Glen theatre at the head of the valley. On the 3rd peninsula one hundred acres have been allocated to Golf Links, and a sheltered cove will be used for a Yachting Club.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 395 (table of contents) ====]
INCINERATOR FOR THE GLEBE
[Note: The structure is the Glebe
Incinerator in Sydney.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 396 ====]
INCINERATOR FOR THE GLEBE
The Sydney Morning Herald
Tender
for £10,960 accepted
Much of the criticism regarding the pollution of ocean beaches by inwashing garbage has been directed against the Glebe Municipal Council which has up till now dumped its garbage at sea at a cost of £2500 per annum. After watching the success of the new incinerator at Randwick and learning that the cost of disposal of Randwick's garbage has been reduced to 2 shillings & 9 pence a ton, the Glebe Council has decided to adopt the same method thereby reducing its annual expenditure on this work to £1500. The Council has accepted the tender of the Reverberator [Note: Reverberatory] Incinerator and Engineering Co. Pty. Ltd. of Sydney for the construction of an incinerator at a cost of £10,000.
The construction of this incinerator will permit garbage to be tipped from closed-body trucks or waggons from a tipping-room, reached by a ramp, into three hoppers, one each for the two furnaces for which provision is made (though one furnace is omitted pending increase of the population). The hoppers are separated from the truck dock by continuous steel covers and are ventilated through individual exhaust ducts operated by electric blowers into the combustion chamber of the furnaces. The battery of furnaces occupies a lower terrace story in front of the hall, and the garbage in these hoppers is directed through steel doorways from gantries over the furnaces which are charged from the hoppers generally, and directly operated by the individual stoker at each furnace by means of gear-operated hopper doors. Instead of the garbage being introduced directly to the fire, however, it is first received on a sloping drying hearth grate and passed through a blast of air heated to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. At the lower end of the sloping hearth is a residue chamber into which the clinker and ash are drawn by the stoker from a rear port, and the residue is tipped, as accumulated through horizontal revolving hopper doors into steel ash skips in an enclosed tunnel beneath, whence, free of all dust, the skip carts are withdrawn.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 397 (table of contents) ====]
THE CRAG . TOWER RESERVE . CASTLECRAG
CANTILEVER BRIDGE . SYDNEY . DWARFS THE CITY
[Note: The caption to
the New-York Historical Society illustration adds to this title,
"Natural Conditions Right For Suspension Bridge [/] Really Should Have
Been A Tunnel". The structure is also known as the Sydney Harbour
Bridge.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 398 ====]
The actual combustion of the gasses and the precipitation of all dust particles therefrom is effected in the combustion chamber of the furnace. In this the temperature reaches 2000 degrees Fahrenheit and all smoke is consumed, leaving only the finally oxidized gasses to pass through the flue tower, 50 feet high.
The site is flanked by the railway viaduct on one side and by the tramway depot building on the other, the incinerator building crowning the rise between them. The structure is of brick and reinforced concrete. Yellow sand supplies the color for the textured external walls. Paving bricks cover the furnace floor, and the tile roof is supported by steel trusses.
The architects are Messrs. W. [Note: Walter] Burley Griffin and E. [Note: Eric] M. Nicholls.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 399 (table of contents) ====]
No. 22. EUCALYPTUS HAEMASTOMA & SAPROPHYTIC SHRUB
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 399b ====]
In Australia nothing is like anything anywhere else. The Blue Mountains is a misnomer - they are the blue valleys, with a blueness I fancy to be found nowhere else. Australia is not to be understood unless you understand Greek science with its classification of earthly things into 4 elements instead of the 19th century's science with its 90 or more, which theory the 20th century has broken down with the discovery of radio-activity which has already transformed some 60 elements into each other.
This blueness is not at all like a mist. No one knows how to explain it. You can come close to it. It seems as if you could touch it, but you cannot feel it as you can the air. It is very beautiful. In seeing it you are seeing something not material as you are when you see a rainbow.
Now the Greeks recognized 4 conditions of matter back of which, creating them, are the 4 creative elements or spiritual forces by means of which material things are brought into existence and shaped. These are -
Warmth Ether | creating | Fire | red |
Light ether | creating | Gas | yellow |
Sound ether | creating | Water | blue |
Magnetism Life ether |
creating | Solidity | lilac |
These function in the Earth radially and tangentially and also one, the Life Ether dominates the Northern hemisphere, the other, the Sound Ether, dominates the Southern hemisphere, the water hemisphere.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 400 ====]
INITIAL - EUCALYPTUS HAEMASTOMA
[Note: See the illustration at the
beginning of this chapter.]
Many men gave much thought to democracy but one man, Thomas Jefferson, put it over. So it is always. A thing to be done has to be done by one man. Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century established a democratic organization on a sound foundation with Equity as its basis.
The following century brought about a development in another field beyond the reach of the imagination of proceeding periods. This was in the economic field. Where is the man who will take the next step to follow Jefferson's, necessary for health in a human community? For like man himself a human community is a living thing. It cannot stand still, it must grow and develop. A hundred years have passed. The next step is urgent.
There are plenty of men with the ability but where is one with the courage to establish an Economic Organization?
World economy is already here. It needs but a crystal to be thrown into the vat to crystallize it into an instrument for lack of which the world is perishing now - a World Economic Organization. America's appropriate task is to build the nucleus around which that world organization can crystallize. There surely cannot be a business man in our community now whose eyes have not been opened by the events of the last two years to the fact that anytime the government wants to it will take over his business and he will be a pauper among paupers. Totalitarianism goes that way of its own momentum and we are totalitarian.
All our governments are organized as power instruments. To maintain equity it must have power, as is apparent in the traffic police problem. They will use that power indiscriminately so long as there is but one instrument to attend to community affairs. Its power can be defined, limited, only if instruments are provided for meeting other community requirements than that of equity, not only for the present generation but for those to come - conservation of the earth for example.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 401 (table of contents) ====]
KEITH DRYGOODS BUILDING . MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is also
known as the Keith Arcade.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 402 ====]
Material science came to its flower in the 19th Century. Through it a new technique has been developed in the material realm, that of providing for our bodily needs, that of Economics. It is in America that the practical effects of Jefferson's discriminating thinking gave the freest rein to economic life the consequences of which are continually being brought to our attention these days in statistics and publications of the wealth, ingenuity and enterprise of America compared with other communities - on which all the others are showing themselves to be more or less dependent at the present time.
It is for America to take the lead in solving these problems we are faced with now. America is the land of adventurers. Most of the adventurers of the world now have come here, for nowhere else were the doors open to them. Deeds are in the nature of adventures. Is there no one now among these men of deeds who will take the initiative in building up an Economic Organization? To do that one should not look for assistance from the political organ. It needs no new legislation nor need we bother our heads about old legislation. We cannot expect the political organ to diminish its own powers. But entirely outside of politics we can build up a complete Economic Organ which when established will stand on an equal footing with the political institution and, consisting as it must of the total citizenry, will quietly attend to its own affairs, that of buying and selling, leaving to the government only the task of maintaining Equity. Our efficiency would be enormously increased thereby and the further step of making it a world-wide organization would come of itself.
My prophesy would be that India would be the first to follow suit, India which has savvy enough to realize that Dominion status is no good. Mexico next I think and China and also Ireland who has refused dominion status. And the dominions would begin to wake up and Canada and South Africa would follow and even Australia and New Zealand. And then the more perfected totalitarian states would begin
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 403 (table of contents) ====]
PALAIS PICTURES . MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is also known as
the Palais Picture Theatre.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 404 ====]
The proscenium of this suburban theatre was as spectacular in its way as that of the metropolitan Capitol Theatre - indirect lighting - rectangularly stepped, highly ornamented with geometric pattern from which the red glow so impressed the imagination that there were no further complaints of cold from the patrons.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 405 ====]
[Note: Continued from page 402]to lose their charm because there is a concomitant to this movement which would be an eye-opener to even the most perfected of these States, to even the cleverest of them.
It is perhaps peculiarly American, but in fact there is not in the United States much interest in building up, in endowing families. In fact the usual parent feels a bit proud of having built up his own business or wealth and would love to be able to take pride in his son for doing the same himself. Out of this there has arisen the curious fact that over half the wealth in the United States is in the hands of women. Men would rather pass their wealth to their wives than to their sons. There quite likely are the "sixty families" but that is a bit ridiculous to the American. In consequence they have become the magnificent givers, their donations functioning all over the world. And that is as it should be. Now this method is one of the most important factors in a wholesome Economic system for as in a living being the getting and eating of food is a minor factor compared with the necessity of eliminating, at least one can live longer without eating than be can without eliminating, yet we have not been in the habit of considering the complete, absolute consumption of capital as being as necessary as its production.
Indeed this is the essential difference between the mineral and the other kingdoms. Entities in the mineral kingdom can accumulate, can get and get. In fact one of our astronomers, Mr. Chamberlain [Note: Thomas Chrowder Chamberlain?], based his ideas of the universe on this accretion theory. Shame on him! He's no true American. Americans believe in living. He belongs with the imperialists. The principle of subtraction, of discrimination, of elimination, is the essential of living kingdoms and our Solar System is a living thing.
Our real problem today is not one of poverty, but one of wealth. How to dispose of our wealth! This cannot be solved by the ordinary concept of distribution but only by a proper method of circulation,
[Note: "Sixty families" probably refers to Ferdinand Lundberg's 1937 book "America's 60 Families," which claimed that America was owned and dominated by a hierarchy of sixty of the richest families.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 406 (table of contents) ====]
MINIMUM COST HOUSE & FUTURE EXTENSIONS
[Note: J. Turnbull
and P. Navaretti, "The Griffins in Australia and India" (1998) p. 242
identifies this structure as "Project House (No. 1), The Rampart." The
top section of this image, entitled "Knitlock Dwelling & Future
Extensions," is found at III.15.285.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 407 ====]
a totally different thing. America is probably the only place today where the problem of an economic association can be tackled (because of its sufficient area and population) and solved because of an interesting fact. In the United States there is not the bitterness between employer and employee that exists elsewhere. You have to see it to believe that such venom can exist even in Australia which is supposed to be a workman's paradise. No month passes that some expression does not come before us in America of a realization on the part now of the employee, now of the employer, of the fact that the problem cannot be solved from the outside but that the solution must meet the necessities of both elements. Now in 1944 we are beginning to see the working together of labor and management to solve the economic problems, no longer so bitter a warfare.
There are only two possible kinds of economics. And there is only one way in which the conflict can be completely solved. In the one the manufacturer sells without his boundaries, in the other within. There is a whole world of difference. If one sells one's products beyond the boundaries he has no interest in his employees except to get the articles made at the cheapest price so his whole effort is bent on keeping hours long and wages and standard of living as low as possible.
If a man wants to get rich and cannot sell except within the boundaries he (and the whole manufacturing group) must see to it that the employees, which for the most part constitute the purchasing element, must have an increasingly higher standard of living, must be able to purchase everything that is manufactured in the community and must have time enough to use them.
Does this require the isolation policy so fashionable today? By no means. You see our feelings lead us astray. We must have correct concepts. The great mistake of President [Note: Woodrow] Wilson was his advocacy of the self-determination policy. The need of today is for all sorts of people to find a way to live together. If Austria had solved that
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 408 (table of contents) ====]
THEATRE . MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is the Ascot Theatre in
Ascot Vale, Victoria.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 409 ====]
problem for the many peoples within her domain before the war she would have cured the world of its sickness and herself would not be in the pitiable plight she is in now.
It requires the diametric opposite of isolation, for to attain this latter form of economy the Economic Organization should be not national but world wide, should not be concerned with national boundaries but entirely independent of them. With the whole world united in its economic affairs in one organization, with the National government connected with it in no way except to maintain equity within its own boundaries, with an end put to the interfering of the governments in economic affairs, it will be possible for economic life to be carried on in accordance with its own nature, that of mutual advantage. National economy, the concept "for the benefit of the citizens" cannot but result in war. With World Economy established the way will be open for the maximum differentiation not of races or peoples but of individuals which humanity is ripe for now.
The states will express themselves in different standards of morals and efficiency which does not entail conflict so long as the Political Organ is independent of the Economic Organ.
As soon as America has taken this next step which will bring democracy down out of the clouds by giving it a body to function with, it will become apparent that patriotism does not mean a bond to a locality but to a soul conception. Strictly speaking that is the definition of a Political Organ. At present the United States is the only considerable country which has established itself on a moral concept. Since that is the only function of the political branch of a community the destiny of this concept is that it will become recognized as the basis for migration. People's allegiance will tend to take them to the terrestrial region where the moral standard as expressed in the Political Organ conforms with their own. No other
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 410 (table of contents) ====]
INTERIOR OF THEATRE . MELBOURNE
[Note: The structure is the Ascot
Theatre.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 411 ====]
definition of patriotism has a leg to stand on. Nowhere except in America can one give an intelligible definition of what is called nationality, elsewhere they are tying the word up with matters which have no national significance. The boundaries of neither the economic nor the cultural organization need to conform to the national boundaries.
When we look deeply into this matter we find that the United States is the community that has graduated from the dominion of the Folk Soul. To place herself under such a domination would be the greatest catastrophe. The next evolutionary step is to recognize humanity as your people, to become conscious of humanity as an entity and no longer be concerned with your well being or the well being of your particular district but only with the wholesome development of humanity which must, because of the nature of man as a distinct kingdom, be so constituted as to make possible the free development of the abilities of individuals, for each man constitutes a species, and must so function as to be able to adjust himself to the increasing diversity consequent. The communities who take this line will be carrying on evolution, the others will be retarding or dropping out of the stream of evolution.
All the major groups of Europe are now concerned with the question of power. Each is hell-bent on making its prince the prince of the world. The Parliamentary form of government is the cleverest instrument ever yet devised to bring about that catastrophe.
It is not America's function to back any such pretensions. Americans as a whole are people who have escaped from Europe. The chief escape has been from a fixed idea. At the present moment the whole trend of the so-called conservative element in American activities is the reestablishment in America of the European system. There is hardly a one who has not supported the movement for Civil Service reform. The results of a perfected Civil Service are showing themselves now
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 412 (table of contents) ====]
DAVID PRATTEN SENIOR . DWELLING PERSPECTIVE & GROUNDS
ERIC
M. NICHOLLS . ARCHITECT
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 413 ====]
in Europe. The alternative to such a system is a threefold organization which limits the use of power to the maintenance of equity and does not require an extensive officialdom.
This means that it would not be difficult for the business executives and the industrialists to adjust their minds to the advantage of having the use of capital, not the hoarding of it, all they need for their economic adventures without the handicap to themselves, their children and the community of the ownership of capital. The only point in fighting for private ownership is to prevent State ownership which means dictatorship. With this prevented by the barring out of the Political organ from any participation at all in economic affairs, the whole advantage of a system based on the right of individuals to use capital to whatever extent it is necessary for maximum efficiency becomes apparent.
Americans owe a debt to [Note: Thomas] Jefferson. They cannot pay it by praising or quoting him, but only by seeing to it that his life was not futile, that he did not lay the foundation of a healthy community in vain. Living things die if they remain fixed in form. This country must take the next evolutionary step.
The genius of the people of the United States for organization was shown in the response made to President [Note: Franklin?] Roosevelt's recognition of the propriety of the Economic realms' solving their own problems when he called for codes. Unfortunately neither he nor the business men understood the basic significance so the movement was not taken advantage of to carry to completion the building up of an Economic Organization, this and a reactionary Court.
The democratic concept of Economics arose in Western peoples through the mysterious working of Christianity into their blood through which they are able to see things from the other's point of view, a faculty which does not rest on moral foundations but derives from the non-moral instruction of the Christ, "Do unto others as you would
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 414 (table of contents) ====]
DAVID PRATTEN SENIOR . DWELLING PLANS & ELEVATIONS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 414b (N-YHS table of contents) ====]
Boys' Club . Perth . West Australia
[Note: The table of contents in
the New-York Historical Society copy and that of the Art Institute
of Chicago's second copy (AIC2) indicate an illustration entitled
"Boys' Club . Perth . West Australia" should be added at page 414b.
This illustration is not listed in the Art Institute's first copy
(AIC1). The structure is also known as the Young Australia League
Club Premises.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 415 ====]
that they should do unto you." This is purely practical advice and rests on the fact of its being advantageous to do so. It is the Christian foundation stone of the Economic organization. The basic principle of our present form of economics rests on mutual advantage to buyer and seller in its transactions.
We must learn that the loftiest motives if put to work in the wrong place or in the wrong way have no virtue, may even be disastrous in their effects. Only through correct concepts in time and space can we solve problems.
We see our people bewildered in many problems; railroading for instance where it is now apparent that unification is necessary if the railroads are to survive and yet the Political organ has passed Anti-trust laws to prevent unification. Unless we clear up our thinking it will almost certainly end in government ownership though it is still apparent to most that such cannot be efficient. Witness the railroads in Australia.
Such undertakings require men of business capacity and experience. If we could but recognize that the government's job is to maintain equity and if the easy way, the lazy way of taking over the business was out of court entirely, these railroad concerns could come together as a business association, employer, laborer, patron.
Just as the traffic policeman does not have to work out the problems of motor car construction and sale, nor of trucks, nor does he have to equalize speed and power of the various types of transportation in order to maintain equity but has only to stand and see to it that all forms of transportation, whatever their power, vehicular or pedestrian, have equal opportunity to cross the streets, even if one of them be a cripple and so exceptionally slow. So with its task understood government could maintain equity without undertaking or managing business.
The railroad group would form one Economic Association, the motor
[Note: The illustrations listed as being on page 416 in the table of
contents:
SALTER DWELLING . MALVERN . VICTORIA . KNITLOCK WALLS
& ROOF
and
SALTER DWELLING . PLAN . INTERIOR COURT
are lacking in the New-York Historical Society copy, and the entries for the
illustrations in that copy's table of contents have been crossed out. ]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 416 (typescript) ====]
Dwelling . Mr. S.R. Salter . Malvern . Victoria
The house of Mr. Salter demonstrates now within the restrictions of economy established by other modes of house construction it was feasible to provide all the rooms with at least two external walls and secure sheltered, cool cloistered central court garden which has proved in use in other countries of windy latitude and climate comparable to that of Melbourne.
Mr. and Mrs. talked over their requirements, gave us the location of their lot in the outlying districts of Melbourne and told us to go ahead. Griffin solved the problem and I made the sketches. It was a rude shock to them both. Mr. Salter brought us the sad news telling us his wife said those Griffins were mad. Griffin chatted with him and he went home not quite so huffed. After a week or two he was back again saying they had gone over the plans again and again and always, to their surprise, found that in every detail it met their requirements perfectly. They found that the knitlock construction had enabled them to have bigger rooms and the court thrown in for nothing since its 2 1/4 inch walls required so much less area for construction and - mad or not - we were to proceed with the construction.
They realized too that the elimination of all trim to openings, interior or exterior, was not only a saving but an advantage for durability. A light wash of pigment, wax and turpentine would give them all the interior finish needed and they could do it themselves if they wanted to. Inexpensive as it was it would hold its own in Melbourne's swank suburb, Malvern. The court enabled all the rooms to have at least two external walls and so windows and would of itself create a draft that would keep the house cool on hot days. And the heat is about all
[Note: The text on this page is not in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
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anyone can find to complain of in Australia, at any rate Britishers, who have so accustomed themselves to Britain's cold that it never occurs to them to complain of that in Australia.
[Note: The text on this page is on the verso of page 416 (typescript).][Note: There is no page 418 in the Art Institute of Chicago or New-York Historical Society copies.]
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[Note: Continued from page 415]transportation another, the water carriers another and so on. Then there would be another association, that of transportation as a whole and so on through the whole economic realm. This will be enough of a task for One Organization without its undertaking the handling of moral problems as well. Mutuality is its task, morality is the task of the Political institution. When the latter has no favors to grant it will not be open to bribery. Its concern would be equity in the realms of nature and of labor as the value of neither of these is measurable.
The foresight too of the framers of the constitution in writing into it that there shall be free trade between the states is proving of no avail. Just as between Australia and New Zealand potatoes are kept out on the pretense of blight but really because of the protective tariff obsession, so in the States are the barriers being built up in ways the National government can't deal with. We shall have warring little states as in Europe. It cannot be prevented by the Political Organ. It requires a National Economic Organization to deal with such problems.
With these practical problems correctly solved our present civilizations will be able to express themselves in beauty as did all the ancient civilizations before man was individualized and given the individualized Ego and Free Will.
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By this method of incineration matter is practically reduced to primeval elements - heat, light, sound, magnetism.
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PYRMONT INCINERATOR - ALPHA OMEGA
THE FINAL EXPRESSION AND DISSOLUTION OF MATTER
Most of us do not realize that the motifs of the Greek architectural decoration as well as those of earlier civilizations were not imitations of nature but religious symbols. So in the decoration of this building the motifs of the decoration are not conventionalized physical forms but are rich expressions of the basic forces back of all nature.
This was Griffin's last work in Australia. In this he established firmly the interlocking of Town Planning and Architecture. One could not ask for a more telling monument to his work in this ancient continent. In the basic arts of architecture (in its broadest sense) and music (which is now making one with speech and motion) Australia is now ready to lead the world.
The 4 formative forces which have already manifested in nature express themselves in 4 basic forms or movements, the circular, triangular, wave and rectangular. Through these non-material forces all forms (matter) have been brought into the fixed forms called matter. These are the motifs of the decoration of this building. Within this building, a powerful expression of substantiality, matter reverses its steps moving from solid to liquid, to light to heat, and disappears. It would be absurd to say that something has been destroyed (other than form or appearance). That which had manifested is at the moment not manifesting as is the case with latent heat when water [Note: "becomes steam" crossed out] passes from steam to latent heat.
So here we find architecture expressing these spiritual facts not through the feelings, as in the past, but by emotion controlled and directed by the trained intellect which, through discipline, can move on to conscious imagination and inspiration. After Griffin's death I saw a photograph of light. I don't know how it was made but it proved that light manifested in triangles. It was an exquisite and incredibly elaborate pattern of triangles and one could see in it how and in what manner light would progress and not necessarily in a
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PYRMONT INCINERATOR . VIEW FROM STREET 40 FEET BELOW
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The Sydney Incinerator erected on the high rock promontory of Pyrmont will stand, we think, as an historical record of 20th century architecture. It is as beautiful, as majestic, as unique as any of the historical records of the past. Historically it records the basic fact of the 19th century civilization later emphasized by the smashing of the atom.
The ornament is the record of what remains when matter is destroyed - warmth which manifests in the material world, in the spherical form - the only form of matter when the solar system came into material existence, the Saturn period; the triangle when the gaseous condition came in the Sun period (see photograph of the sun's rays); the crescent or wave form of the Moon period when there was the liquid condition of matter; and the rectangle, the controlling form of the solid condition as seen in the human being's blood crystals.
When the atom was smashed there remained only warmth, light, sound and magnetism.
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[Note: Continued from page 422]straight line. This detail of Griffin's suggests the richness of these a elemental forces.
The warmth ether manifests in spheres. We glimpse here the origin of the solar system - nothing but the warmth condition of matter - the manifestation of the warmth force. This is the basic factor in incineration which takes all the refuse of the great city and reduces it to elements. Because of this method an incinerator can be placed anywhere, in a park or wherever a monumental building will emphasize a beautiful landscape. It can be right in the center of things for there is no unpleasantness in the process. Municipality after municipality realized this and adopted the method. The cost of the building was always included in the bid. Griffin was the architect of the company so every municipality had to accept the architect with the method, and the company so invariably won that the other competitors gave up bidding.
The light given off is represented by the triangular motif, very charming as used here but by no means as elaborate as light photographed. This is the creator of the gaseous condition of matter. The sound or chemical ether creates the crescent, the wave form. It is the force that brings liquidity into existence. We catch the connection of liquidity to sound in the wave movement which sound sets up and in the great increase of sounds in liquids. The wave form we see in the restless seas. The fire and liquid motifs are combined in the pattern of the outermost panel.
The life ether manifests in rectangles and we see the square and the rectangle are the base of the third panel. This is the form of the human blood crystals and also of the solid earth though erosion has rubbed off the corners of the primeval form.
The whole building is ornament yet in this decadent period when the ideal of the whole community is cheapness Griffin did what he had said once long ago - the only time in his life he ever made such a
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PYRMONT INCINERATOR . DUMPING FACADE
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remark - "I'll jam it down their throats." For here as in all his work he proved that the beautiful was less expensive than the ugly thing. In a time when people feared beauty, were suspicious of it, made a virtue of the lack of beauty he still gave it to them on their terms. The contractors themselves said this building was cheaper than if it had been built of brick in the usual way. The secret lay in the larger units, the saving in the erection.
The scientists of today do not understand what they have done in their so called breaking down of the atom, though the answer is clear before their eyes in the process that takes place. They never find the atom for there is no such thing but they witness matter moving from solidity to illumination (light), to heat with tremendous violence. In other words they transform matter into forces, a natural thing since all matter is created by forces, by Beings who use forces to bring things into manifestation. The so-called atom has no matter in it, only forces - magnetism, sound, light and warmth.
So the Greek knowledge has in the 20th century been proved correct. The forces are not vibrations of matter, but are the predecessors, the creators of matter. They were right in feeling that forces are credible but that matter is incomprehensible. The 4 which we experience today are warmth, light, sound and life. When we Westerners realize this which we have proved, the West and the East will have met. The created world will grasp the reality of the creating world and the creating world will acknowledge the created world. That is our task today and the health of the world is dependent on the understanding of this duality.
This was Griffin's message in architecture to the West as he went to the East to carry his message to them leading them beyond the Greek concept which was being imposed by Britain, and breaking down other barriers. No other language speaks so clearly and truly as architecture. Its history of humanity is no "fable convenu."
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No. 23. ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA & GRASS TREE
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This is one of the Angophoras on our 5 miles of foreshore reserve, a gift of Burley Griffin to the people of Sydney. This tree is one of the 8 columns supporting the Heavens according to the beautiful mythology of the natives of Australia, the bush men. A grand one in our open air theatre valley played a great role in the play we gave - Mirrabooka - The Southern Cross - when the whole valley came to life with the blossoms and birds who were the characters in the aboriginal story of creation.
The Grass Tree is a very ancient form. They tell us it takes a hundred years for the trunk to grow an inch. Black boys they call them for they live through all the fires, their trunks, hard wood, surviving the heat and putting out new leaves. From it they make lacquer equal to the Japanese. From this sprang the first woman.
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INITIAL - ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA & GRASS TREE
[Note: See the
illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
The basic truths of the mystery schools are to be found even in the most ancient and most primitive lore as we students of spiritual science learn through our own experiences and through our studies whether of Greek or of aboriginal Australian mythology.
Then came the momentous decision to have the Anthroposophic Festivals, to awaken a greater consciousness of the significance of the seasons, at Castlecrag. Miss Mitchell, the General Secretary [Note: of the Anthroposophical Society] of Australia, approved. Lute Drummond, later to succeed Miss Mitchell, had translated into lovely rhythmic prose the Mystery of Eleusis by Edouard Schure. The Senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] had set aside the Haven Valley for an open-air theatre and Mrs. Griffin was aflame to produce a play in the valley. The Castlecrag Dais [Note: the Castlecrag dramatic club] had done creditable work for some years and had given one of Yeats' Cuchulain series - The Only Jealousy of Emir [Note: Emer] - among whose characters were Spirits of the Moon - in the metropolis of Sydney. In her introduction she had, through Anthroposophic information, been able to relate the play to the realities of the moon realm and received the compliment that her introduction was as delightful as the play. But though it had been talked about, it had never been produced in the Valley.
So the valley was astir for weeks with Castlecrag "Bees," Griffin working like a navvy [Note: i.e., a construction laborer] along with the others, to his great delight, for if he had not been destined for architectural realms his choice of occupation would certainly have been digging ditches and breaking stones. A stretch of the west side of the valley was terraced and faced with great stones to form seats for the audience; the other side and the head of the valley, a hundred feet above and down a hundred feet and more to the harbor, was the stage the loveliest ever seen. There were coastal Angophoras great and small with their ever-changing colored bark, one of the eight pillars of heaven in the Australian Natives' lovely lore and a magical succession of blossoming trees, shrubs
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and climbers through the year. No man-made imitation of indoor theatre here but every fairy creation carefully, religiously safeguarded; wattles, different kinds, so golden blossoms for each month in the year. There was the Christmas bush, its blossoms acrescent, starting tiny white, growing and glowing through pink to rich red; and yellow gonpholobium, blue hardenbergia, red waratah and lily-of-the-valley trees holding their vivid blue berries for the rest of the year; a greater variety of blossoms here in the Middle Harbor district, the botanists tell us, than in any other spot in the world - Australia the world's most ancient continent.
And the rocks! The Iphigenia rock! That top promontory where Iphigenia gave her invocation to the sea - with its precipitous drop; and the cave below where in a later play Everyman was laid in burial. The winding path down around the huge leaning tree on whose great sloping boll the aboriginal goddess of the honey sweet grass-tree slept till man, redeemed, found her and all nature came to life again, and around to the Demeter rock, on the terrace below, where in this same aboriginal play the Bat, full of Satanic fervor gloated over the fall of man as he yielded to temptation after the Stream led him down the valley to the South.
The path forks to the west down to the Prometheus rock where that mighty Being poured out his defiance of the Gods and his message to man giving him the gift of anger, the fire through which he could learn to re-enter the realms of spirit; and to the north around to the head of the valley where in this first play we gave were laid the main scenes of the Mystery of Eleusis:- At the foot of a high stone wall was laid the royal scene of the Queen-mother of Triptolemus, the great initiate who, coming from his fields, refused his mother's demand that he should go to the Agora and claim his dead father's throne but who listened instead to Demeter's
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ANGOPHORA LANCEOLATA LOSES ITS BARK EACH SPRING
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In Australia everything is evergreen, broad as well as narrow leaves, and all sorts of shapes. Instead of losing their leaves seasonally many lose their bark every year. This is especially conspicuous in the angophora. Each year the outer bark peels off completely leaving a pinkish cream, flesh colored bark smooth as satin. This gradually passes through several colors, a rosy silver grey becoming streaked with deep pink and gradually turning to a vivid crimson. This then splits and drops off at first exposing bits of soft flesh tone and then drops off entirely. The tree is a constant excitement the whole year through. Its masses of white clustered blossoms come according to the mood of the individual tree almost any time during the transition of one of Australia's seasons to the other for Australia has but two seasons. There are no native weeds in Australia, a perfectly balanced flora, but from month to month the fairies recarpet their domiciles with ever-changing colors and designs.
[Note: The word "Caption" is at the top of the page in the New-York Historical Society copy.]
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[Note: Continued from page 431]plea that he go down into Hades to rescue Persephone from Pluto. This scene took the lower part of the Valley and was followed by Olympia on the terrace above the wall with the mystic dance of the rainbow Aurora goddesses and the return of Demeter in wrath till the cry of Persephone is heard and Olympia is still while the whole of the Heavens and Earth and Hades below are lighted up in a superb tableau. The demons low in the valley have gathered about Pluto standing by the thrones, one of which Persephone has left to follow Hecate and Triptolemus up to the Higher realms, and the hermits in their wide-flowing lilac robes gather in lovely movement and form at the foot of the great wall, imploring. The valley becomes engulfed in darkness as Triptolemus brings Persephone before the throne of Zeus and, in a concentration of light, Dionysus appears from among the gleaming goddesses - the new god who succeeds Zeus - that prevision of the ancient mysteries of the coming of the Christ.
Such times we had at those first rehearsals, for all were very earnest! Our Zeus kept calling across from the audience banks that they couldn't be heard, I telling them that they were not to strain their voices, that they would be heard all right. Finally I asked him who was producing that play anyway, he or I. He granted that I was, so I said then I was the one to do the worrying. On the evening of the play you could hear the softest sound. The valley was a perfect megaphone and our Anthroposophic knowledge - that sound is a function of the darkness as color is of light - was proved.
As I sat with my prompter's book as the play began, a drop of rain fell on my page. I wondered whether Ahriman [Note: an evil spirit in the ancient Middle East] or the fairies would win but we were guarding their haunts and they drove the clouds away. Later, on one or two occasions, they put our spirit to the test with a rainy evening but we took it well, knowing the many duties of the Undines, and they rewarded us during the years to come - over five now - by giving us perfect nights, with but one exception, for all our
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plays in that most fickle climate of Sydney where the so-called dry season has just about as many rains as the wet and where the weather-man has no chance of being accurate in his prognostications. After the play was over we Anthroposophists fell on each other's necks, it was so unbelievably beautiful. And so it was the following seasons.
At Christmas time always a nativity play. There was always a changing personnel, never a pretense of dramatic technique (though usually there were one or two of dramatic experience with us) but always from the heart. The work was neither professional nor amateur. We achieved that truly wonderful thing, an unsophisticated drama. To our first Mary, with her perfection of beauty, when she first read her lines, I said - "You can't read these lines from the head. They must be read from the heart. I know you haven't got a heart but you must lay aside your intellect. See what you can do." A few days later she rang me on the phone saying - "I have a heart!" "Well show me," I replied. And show me she did. And so with all the young folk. They sprang to the opportunity of expressing themselves spiritually, simply thrilled just to be in and a part of great spiritual work. The audience would sit the two hours long on their hard stones and no backs, breathless, enchanted. "It doesn't seem real," you would hear.
The Jerusalem women from below watched the Angel Gabriel float in his golden gown, lily in hand, above the wall to speak from a lonely boulder to Mary led in by angel children and praying at her prie-dieu; the shepherds climbing the slopes from below and building their bonfire; the kings with the rich color of their robes making a striking tapestry against the lovely composition of shrub and lofty tree; then all gathering at the feet of Mary and Joseph, the whole hillside above gradually lighted up with the angelic hosts, twenty, thirty, in groups of three here, five there, on up and up in their rainbow robes; and high over the hill-top the star of Bethlehem. One Christmas there were five groups of the Hierarchies on the upper hillside each with one
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Archai holding a circle aloft, two Archangels with triangles back of the head and three Angels with wings. In each group an Angel set off a Roman candle. The topmost group was silhouetted against the sky, the star of Bethlehem above their heads. Gradually they moved down the hill taking formations as they came down till they all grouped on top of wall and down the double flight of steps seeming in the mysterious shadows of the valley to be indeed walking on air. The music - flute and violin - played by angels. The cherubs clustered around Mary, and the speech chorus, who had spoken first from the east valley crest and then from the top of the wall, now knelt in the lower valley below the Holy Family, the Kings and the shepherd group, each with a candle lighted by the five boys, the acolytes who had previously set off the Roman candles for the Angel Gabriel. And then the chorals invisible.
One friend of a friend, brought somewhat reluctantly to see Grimm's fairy tale, "Die Kugel aus Kristal," [Note: "Die Kristallkugel"?] given in German, rang next day to say - "One wouldn't have a chance to see a thing like that once in a hundred years."
It was wonderful indeed the variety of effects one could get in this valley. Those who saw this fairy story felt they were living in fairyland itself. It wasn't a drama one was watching. It was a new experience in life. The old witch mother giving her incantations over the bonfire on the extreme western rocks and driving her disobedient sons away with curses when they brought her flowers instead of herbs; their wanderings and adventures across the valley and encounters with fairies dancing among the shrubs and gnomes from the gnarled roots of the great trunked tree, and the perfection of the illusion of the final battle of the youngest son with the fabulous bull in a rocky crevasse watched and screened by the circle of Egyptian mummies with their incantations. His victory in this last adventure marked his final conquest over himself, man over his lower nature, so that now he could see the vision of the
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castle of the Sun whose daughter came out with her Sun-maidens to receive him. Griffin himself had directed and helped in the building of this really tiny structure which gave the impression of a great castle for the knitlock material, which needs no mortar however complicated the forms, was used and the structure placed just over the crest of the hill with a strategic bit of tower here and there so that one felt there was in fact a great castle just over the hill.
And so with one play after another. In Euripides's Iphigeneia, the temple of Diana illumined by a superb full moon, shining so brightly on the waters of the harbor below that it became a vital part of the scene, whence Orestes came and found his sister.
On the day that Iphigeneia was given my telephone bell rang and a man's voice inquired about the play to be given in the evening. I learned later that it was Dr. Kakatakus, the newly arrived Greek Consul-General. He had come to Australia with quite the European concept that it was the land of wild barbarians and was astounded to find in the hotel bulletin the notice of the production of one of his country's great plays. To direct anyone in Sydney is not easy and he evidently was a stranger so I suggested he take a taxi, but if he didn't want that expense to take a bus to our shops where there was a shopkeeper who would taxi him down to the theatre. He followed this latter suggestion telling the lad to have the taxi wait at the door of the theatre. Of course there was no door, the theatre being the valley, so Joss brought him down around the valley road and presently heard the exclamation, "My God!" and as he went on, again, "My God!" The Consul was perhaps fearing for his life on this lonely way with precipice on either side. But a few moments and he was in the midst of the gathering and fell into the hands of Miss Lute Drummond, who is music personified and the founder of opera in Australia. Since she was about to start around to give her always charming preliminary esoteric introduction to the play, she passed him on to Miss [Note: Ida] Lesson, Librarian of Australia's
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ORESTES FINDS IPHIGENEIA IN THE TEMPLE OF TAURIS
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Mitchell Historical Library, who was collecting the shilling entrance fees from those who gathered. His enthusiasm knew no bounds, thrilled to have found such appreciation of his own people and enraptured by the beauty of the production. For months after he introduced into all his speeches before any of the public functions he addressed vivid appreciation of this experience of his life.
The Torian temple, more severe than even the Doric, on the terrace above the wall, was reached by a double flight of stairs from the terrace below, and Iphigeneia's attendant women, approaching from either side, mounted this stairway as she herself swung around the temple terrace to her sacrificial ceremonies. [Note: Edward] Burne-Jones' picture of the Blessed Damosels descending the stairs can give a hint of the loveliness of these movements. Orestes and his friends who had been tossed on these unknown shores were addressed as they approached the foot of these stairs by Iphigeneia above, surrounded by her priestesses. Here in this temple forecourt the enraged King of Tauris was appeased by the appearance in the temple forecourt of Diana herself, and the wonderful procession was formed to follow Iphigeneia carrying the sacred statue down the steps with maidens and soldiers following, wending their way across the valley and up the hillside, across the top terrace and down disappearing as they made their way to the water's edge. Surely it is in such ways as this that our young people should become familiar with the majestic literature of these earlier civilizations. We all became worshipers of Diana and the moon that night.
Oedipus Colonus we gave there, the second of Sophocles's great trilogy, and Antigone too. Some day we will give the whole trilogy in sequence starting with Oedipus Rex. In this second part of the trilogy, which we gave, is summarized the life of one who though innocent committed all human crimes, and expiated them - a superb role.
When the time had come for the death of this grand old king,
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Oedipus Colonus, the two angels came and led him and the young King Theseus around the foot of the precipitous rock, the messenger returning to tell from the top of the rock that no one except Theseus had been allowed to go on to see the way of his death - this new kind of death which opened the way to men's mind for a comprehension of the resurrection to be learned later through the Christ. At this moment a brilliant falling star swept in a magnificent curve down over just this spot so that some of the audience even wondered how we had managed this effect. I had returned alone from India and felt that the Archangel Michael himself had lent the senor [Note: Walter Burley Griffin] one of his meteors so that he could do what he had so often reached [Note: reach?] over a draftsman's shoulder to do with that firm hand of his - sweep in a form just where and as required - so that he could give our work in these plays in which he was so interested that final touch of perfection.
Then came Antigone, the third of the trilogy, a really modern play, a play of today - with its lesson so important to our time - the individual's defiance of tyranny, of dictatorship, expressed in that greatest of women's roles - Antigone, the eternal feminine.
The Sydney Herald commented:- "The choruses took up their groupings among the bush and greenery with complete confidence. At times the effect of all the illuminated figures in eloquent poses was dream-like and almost incredible like that of a highly imaginative painting. One thought of Fra Angelico and his multitudes of angels. The acoustics of the dell were remarkably good. Every word carried clearly even from the most distant crag. Some of the distinctness, of course, was due to the excellence of the speaking. All the actors, and the chorus too, realised the large scale of utterance and gesture which such a place and such a play demanded, a play with singular aptness to present-day Europe with its ideological struggle between democracies and dictators. Creon's sudden outbursts, when they came, were memorably intense; and their effect was redoubled by an eerie echo which the contour of
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A friend writes:- "Just a line to thank you and all your people for the great joy and excellent performance of last night in that delightful setting. It was a great effort and certainly inspiring and very beautiful. Could there be any greater gifts to mankind than what you wonderful people are doing. We all bless you and yours."
And the praise poured in. "Better than the open air theatre in Regents Park, London," they said. I laughed and said, "Oh, but we have the valley." But no, "Better in every respect; diction, costume, grouping," and "Better than Reinhart [Note: Max Reinhardt]" from those who had seen the same plays given in Germany. But we didn't need this. We knew we were doing something unique, as the Passion Play is unique. We knew that we were giving our young folks a chance to cross the boundaries, to express their own spiritual natures in great ensembles with their fellow beings. We saw what was their hunger for this in their thrill in taking even a tiny part in these great works:- "Sakuntala," the Indian play, Goethe's "The Green Snake and The Beautiful Lily," Everyman," the Medieval Miracle Play:-
This last is perhaps the best known of the old church plays. It was surprising to all of us to find what a complete and perfect drama it is and how one could almost speak of it as the most popular play we gave though the continued strain of piety in it is very foreign to most of our people at present. We had a curious experience with the youth who took the part of Everyman. Greek-like himself in face and figure and quite a bit of dramatic experience and quite equal to the handling of the great role (he had done Orestes with us) but when we had but two or three more rehearsals ahead of us he came to us and said we'd better drop the play; he couldn't go on with the role - he couldn't learn it. Of course I said it would not be possible to drop the play; I'd find someone else to take the role. Such situations may always arise in nonprofessional work. I would have taken the role
[Note: "The Recognition of Sakuntala" is a drama by Kalidasa, a Sanskrit poet of the fifth century AD.]
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A YOUNG GRASS TREE . AN AUSTRALIAN PHOTO
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myself had there been no other way out as Lute Drummond did once when the leading lady in Mirrabooka was hit in the eye with a tennis ball on the day of a performance. But after leaving him a few days I suggested he come in and have a chat with me. He said he simply could not memorize the lines. I told him I quite understood, the reason was that this was an initiation play and he was out of sympathy with the Christian initiation but that it would be a great experience for him if he conquered this antipathy and that I would undertake to drill the part into him. So for the next two weeks he came to me every day and I rehearsed him line by line until we had broken down the inhibition. He gave a superb performance of, one of the richest and most varied of roles, in which Everyman depicts the whole range of every man's soul life.
And there was the Australian Aboriginals' mythology, their Mirrabooka - The Southern Cross - set to poetry by Australia's young Shelley, Sylvia Brose - one of our actresses, herself a perfect Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Two of our young girls, Sylvia [Note: Brose] and Bette Ainsworth, under the inspiration of our work and our study and our encouragement had taken upon themselves a nine months' pains-taking study of the native lore of Australia which is truly very beautiful and which, illuminated by the knowledge which Anthroposophy gives, reveals itself as being full of deep significance grounded as it is in the same methods of thinking as of all those pre-Christian peoples who had direct experience in the supersensible realms through imagination, inspiration and intuition, words which have lost their meaning during this materialistic age but which we are beginning to comprehend now at the close of that period which really ended with the smashing of the atom. They found the story of the origin of man checking with the knowledge we obtain from other occult sources, including the Bible, but presented of course in their own unique way and very beautifully expressed in terms of nature. The girls brought these myths together
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in most lovely form. The personification of native trees and flowers, the butterflies and bird and bat. And the desolation that came after the descent out of paradise, and though they, being pre-Christian, had not experienced the Christ event, the girls introduced the events of the nativity of the Christ in the form of a vision, after which all nature came to life again - the resurrection as expressed in this ancient mythology. The play stood on even terms with the other great works we produced.
If we would but wake up to the reality of the causal realms! If we would but take the pains to open our etheric eyes and ears as Anthroposophy shows us how to do, so as to perceive in the causal realms; what wonderful opportunities we could give our young people. How we could then feed their hungry souls the starvation of which is leading them hither and yon, frantic, unsatisfied. Why are we so afraid to cross the boundary beyond which we can experience the causal realms with the same precise, checkable knowledge that has mastered the mineral kingdom during the past five hundred years? Only so can we master the three other kingdoms of vegetable, animal and man.
Just out of their teens, stirred by the thoughts with which Anthroposophy surrounded them, taking part in the great dramas of past civilizations which through spiritual science they could understand, eager to reach deep into the significance of the lore of the ancient people of their own continent, these two girls studied with seeing eyes the Mythology of the Australians. Out of this was born the genius of a young Shelley. The play, Mirrabooka, was presented in the Haven Valley where long ago this ancient people had dwelt and where one of the eight great supporting columns of Heaven, the Angophora, stood majestic, the dwelling of Yaraan.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 445 (table of contents) ====]
PLAYS GIVEN IN THE HAVEN VALLEY
[Note: The caption to the New-York
Historical Society illustration adds the word "Theatre" to the above
title. The list is transcribed below.]
The setting aside of the spectacularly lovely valley in Castlecrag as an Open Air Theatre -- The haven Scenic Theatre -- made possible the presentation, under Mrs. Griffin as producer for the Anthroposophic Society, of many of the world's magnificent dramatic works, productions which stood on a par with the great presentations elsewhere.
The Mystery of Eleusis
Edouard Schure
Iphigenia [Note: Iphigeneia]
Euripides
Oedipus Colloneus [Note: Colonus]
Sophocles
Everyman
A Medieval Morality Play
Die Gruene Schlange Und Die Schoene Lilie
Goethe
Die Kugel Aus Kristal [Note: Kristallkugel?]
A Fairy Story
Grimm
Sakuntala [Note: or Shakuntala]
An Indian Play
Rabindranath
Tagore
Mirabooka [Note: Mirrabooka]--The Southern Cross
Australian
Mythology
Sylvia Brose and Bette Ainsworth
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 446 ====]
The first play given in the Valley Theatre
A Mystery Play in based not on a world concept but on knowledge of origins of things and events through contact with the Spiritual Beings who have created them. It is not the invention of fertile human fantasy.
The Eleusinian Mysteries are those of Agriculture and Initiation, are celebrated in the Spring and the Autumn and are concerned with the origin and evolution of men and the Earth-body, soul and spirit. Initiation comes through participation in the fate of the bereaved Mother and the Lost Child.
Demeter, the Earth Mother, the Being of the highest physical wealth and the deepest spiritual poverty, has lost her spiritual part, Persephone, and spends her life in mourning and search. But Persephone, with her sun-light nature, can be rescued from the dark realm of the passions only by the God in Man - Dionysus. He, who has been torn to bits, experiences life through all Mankind. He is Hades, the darkness that waits for the light and can therefore receive it. Man can be raised from Hades to the Empirian [Note: empyrean] Heights only by the Divine in himself. Persephone, in calling for him, brings this to his consciousness and she gives to him the clairvoyance by which, united with her, he can find his way back to Olympia.
The two beings borne as one in the womb of Demeter through Cosmic Understanding, which is Zeus, find each other and become one.
The division of the others, which brings about the dualism of Man and Woman, come into equilibrium in the individual, and become Unity as brother and sister, or in the divine marriage which is the completion of the individual.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 447 (table of contents) ====]
COVECRAG
[Note: The caption to the New-York Historical Society
illustration adds that Covecrag ". . . Also Had A Valley Reserved For An
Open Air Theatre."]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 448 ====]
One of the earliest private works of Griffin in Australia was the layout of the City of Port Stephens which will ultimately become the New-York of Australia. It was surveyed, plotted and all the lots sold and there it rests. England does not want it to come into being but wants to hold this superb port in the control of the British navy. Beautiful Australia, pathetic Australia. Almost without exception probably the American who goes to Australia goes with the conviction that it is a democracy, perhaps even more of a democracy than the United States, but it takes but a very short time to find how far this is from the truth, and a long stay invariably fills one with dismay at the hollowness of this outward pretension. These conditions are not the result of war but were entirely fixed and apparent before the war.
Instead of finding oneself further west after the trip across the Pacific one finds oneself in an atmosphere more European than Europe, nowhere a feeling of equality between man and man but the most amazing class feeling. We learn that in America no one knows what the word class means as understood in Europe and Australia, and in the latter country a bitterness of feeling difficult to comprehend. One rarely hears a conversation that does not express class animosity. One searches for causes underlying and touches on such revered customs as that of granting titles, an acknowledgement that they believe it is right for certain subjects to consider themselves superior to others and the root of this disease forthwith poisons the whole community. We stand amazed at the consequence of things we are in the habit of considering lightly but we no longer laugh at those forefathers of ours who destroyed this germ in the growing country of the United States.
Economically we understood of course how the wealth of the people of this beautiful continent is poured into the coffers of the British "back home." The early monopoly of the land made that simple. Whatever one undertakes he soon becomes aware that England is running Australia
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 449 (table of contents) ====]
A YOUNG CALLITRIS COLUMULARIS [Note: Columellaris]
[Note: The
structure is the Grant House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 450 ====]
and makes sure that the profits of all undertakings flow to England. It is a vassal state existing for no other purpose than the aggrandizement of the men "back home." Australia has a navy you think but though built by Australians' money the moment it is launched it becomes English and is no longer under the control of Australia. A man who has civil rights under the laws of Australia as long as he keeps his foot on land but the minute he is on the water he is no longer under the Australian law but under the English law. And now that the war is on though Australia has refused conscription he can under those circumstances be conscripted. Australia decides to build a Parliament House but English architects want the job so the international competition for it is stopped. The requirement for this came directly from England. A tenant wished to remodel a building and must wait months for permission and approval of drawings by the owner in London. The statistical statement of the wealth of Australians shows practically no rich men and but a few well-to-do men. Australia's wealth is drained into English pockets.
If we are to deal with first things first, in Australia we must consider the aboriginals - their civilization - and we have it pictured in the play written by two young Australians girls still in their teens, Sylvia [Note: Brose] and Bette [Note: Ainsworth] depicting the mythology of the first settlers of Australia who migrated from Paradise to the Earth.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 451 (table of contents) ====]
WITH PROTECTION THE UPPER LEVELS SOON GO NATIVE
[Note: The structure
is the Grant House.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 452 ====]
What absurdities we Westerners are taught. In schools we have been told that the Australian aboriginal is the lowest type of human being with so little intelligence that he can count only to three. But human beings cannot be so segregated. The Australian natives are the Paradise people. Man's history up to the present time has been a descent into matter. We have become almost mechanical. It is up to us now to start the ascent into the spiritual.
During our first year in Australia we learned of Mr. David, a full blooded aboriginal, who had just completed his university course in higher mathematics and received his degree in the University of Sydney. A jolt like this breaks down the whole structure of one's prejudices. It prepared us for realizing the fact that no longer are there real distinct races though certain physical characteristics remain temporarily in groups, for the physical body is to a certain extent still dominated by heredity. With the coming of the Christ races ceased to exist for the Christ gave that "light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" to all men and this light, which is the Ego, makes all men equal in that it wipes out all limitations to their powers to develop their individual selves.
Our conclusions were shortly to be confirmed by Miss [Note: Zonia] Baber, a professor of Pedagogy and Geography in the University of Chicago, who had been traveling the world over at various times. She visited us this same year of our arrival having now completed her circuit by a visit to New Zealand and Australia. She told us she had always asked the teachers she encountered whether they had ever been able to distinguish any difference of mental capacity in their pupils which they could attribute to difference of race, and the universal answer had been in the negative.
This was again confirmed in "The Biography of a Beechcomber" [Note: E.J. Banfield's "Confessions of a Beachcomber"?] where the author described his experiences in the education of his children along with that of a little adopted aboriginal girl while he was living
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 453 ====]
on one of the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. It was Susie who was quickest to learn and who helped his own children with their lessons. It was strange to find what seemed to me a lack of capacity for a white person to understand someone of another race when he later in the book told how Susie had gone back to her people as if she had sort of reverted to the aboriginal when it seemed to me so apparent that she had slipped away from her adopted parents out of thoughtfulness for them because they had been obliged to barricade their home and maintain almost military defenses against the determination of Susie's people to get her back to marry her to an old man to whom the tribe had allotted her. It seemed to me that Susie deliberately gave herself up to them to put an end to this trying situation for the family of her beloved friends.
The barbaric treatment of the aboriginals by the Europeans has by no means come to an end though there is not the same bravado as in the early days when European property owners at times, dwelling on opposite sides of a stream, made a sport of shooting the black folk as they swam to the shore on one side and then, when they swan back in desperation to the other side, shooting them again as they approached the opposite shore, back and forth, back and forth - "great sport" like Kipling's in Africa.
The whites have continually taken possession of more and more of the land after having dedicated it to the aboriginals always driving the natives out if in the barren districts to which they have been allocated they happen to find a mode of livelihood, as by discovering good oyster beds. Then again the whites take possession and drive them further on in consequence of which naturally it is bound to happen that in the need for food the aboriginal occasionally steals from the neighboring whites. The method generally used under these circumstances is that the white people put out where it can be found flour with poison in it. The natives finding this and taking it die. This is still done though in some groups the natives have come to realize that it is not
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 454 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 455 ====]
At one time I spent a fortnight in Tasmania with three other artists on a sketching outing. One was a poet and I found that she was well versed in aboriginal lore. I checked with her a story Mark Twain told, already confirmed by a Melbourne Doctor, that the aboriginal problem had been disposed of in Tasmania by sterilizing them. This story was of how a warlike group was approached by a kind hearted man, and courageous - Mr. [Note: George Augustus?] Robinson, who won them to confidence in white folks and brought them down from the hills to enter into a treaty on a promise Governor [Note: George?] Arthur had made to him. They were greeted by pomp and ceremony by the Governor and people and amicable arrangements were entered into. This friend so far confirmed Mark Twain's story [Note: in "Following the Equator"?]. So I asked her what happened afterward - what became of the aboriginals. She said - "Oh, they petered out." We had been discussing the question of the superiority of one race over another and she had been very positive in her feeling for the superiority of the whites, I arguing for the dark-skinned people. So I asked her if the aboriginals had been sterilized to which she answered. "Yes." Then I said, "Do you think that is evidence of the superiority of the white folks," She said - "Oh yes; the blacks would have done the same if they had been smart enough to think of it first." We did not continue the discussion.
One morning in Castlecrag a man and his son came to my door enthusiastic over having found a cave on the estate with important records of the aboriginals. He said he had heard we were giving Greek plays on the other side of the valley and thought it would be interesting to have in the publication he was about ready to get out a photograph of the Gods as we were depicting them in that same valley, the home of the aboriginals. We had one of Diana appearing before the temple to persuade the King to let Iphigeneia and Orestes return to Greece, which I gave him. He was very enthusiastic over the records he had found showing the mathematical understanding of these people. He said, "They tell us that
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 456 (table of contents) ====]
THE MYSTERY OF ELEUSIS
[Note: An inscription on the verso of the
illustration indicates the photograph was taken at the "Michaelmas
Festival" (i.e., late September?) in 1934. The structure is the Haven
Valley Scenic Theatre.]
THE VALLEY'S EASTERN TERRACE . MOUNTING HIGH TO THE NORTH
DROPPING
LOW TO THE SOUTH
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 457 ====]
the Greeks invented this, but I have found evidence that they got it from the Australian natives; and that the Egyptians were the first to comprehend this other thing, but they got it from the Australian aboriginals. I knew that he was more correct than the others but that all these early peoples got such knowledge from the same source, not from each other - from inspirational or intuitive thinking, direct from spiritual sources. Quite recently those who are investigating sympathetically - that is without preconceived conclusions - are finding continued confirmation of the native Australians' power to do many things quite beyond the reach of our modern civilization which more and more limits its perception to material things letting other perceptive organs atrophy. There are things that we would do well to investigate without prejudice and things that we should learn how to do. I am not a student of the aboriginals nor is this the place to go into details on the subject, but it is well authenticated that when groups of natives find life under the present circumstances unendurable their leader will announce that on a certain day the tribe will die and on that day they die not through physical means; and that when groups of white adventurers are in perilous situations, when supplies are gone, the black guide may tell them that help is coming, in two days it will be there - in two days the help has come.
A little less arrogance, a little less cruelty, might make it clear that there is no such thing as racial superiority today and that apparent differences arise not from difference of faculty but from difference of circumstance and that advantage to all will derive from a social system which will see to it that all men have the opportunity to develop their individual abilities.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 458 (table of contents) ====]
No. 24. CASUARINA (SHE OAK) & FICUS
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 459 ====]
The Casuarina is one of the very old species, like our Equisitum whose needle like leaves are jointed and can be pulled apart at the joints, only this horsetail is grasslike whereas in Australia the Casuarins is a tree. Its clusters of needles are lacelike against the sky, and in the forest are like a mist floating about among the other trees. They are almost black-barked, grow along the coast and some species grow right in the salt water. In this they are like the mangroves which are common in Sydney Harbor.
FICUS. - My first rage in Australia was the destruction of an avenue of Ficus Macrofolia. Port Phillip of Melbourne has its characteristic Fig Trees as has Queensland and so has Port Jackson of Sydney, both huge and grand trees and more shrubby types. Such a contrast these make with the casuarina. In Australia the shrubs and trees just tell you they can do anything. They can even live through long droughts without turning a hair so to speak. In perfect condition they just stop growing and then when the rain comes, a year, two years, they rush their growth at top speed. This I think is because of their oils.
The fig is a sort of rubber plant and it pours its roots fantastically over the rocks till the gnomes make some entry open in the rocks for then to enter. The gnomes don't bother with them till all the other plants have been attended to. The fig foliage is a solid mass. It lets no atmospheric moisture pass it by but makes use of it all. That is where the Undines are at work. In the waterfalls is where they play.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 460 ====]
INITIAL - CASUARINA (SHE-OAK) & FICUS
[Note: See the
illustration at the beginning of this chapter.]
ABORIGINAL MYTHOLOGY IN THE VALLEY
DESCRIPTION OF THE SETTING IN THE HAVEN THEATRE
Let us first glimpse the valley itself, over 200 feet of its height in view - the water of the harbor below with often the wake of the moon, and sometimes the whole play illuminated by the full moon.
The West slope of the valley - the audience seated on terraces faced with the local stone, no backs, the audience sitting through two hours unconscious of that fact, entranced by the plays. Sometimes a shooting star in the Eastern sky timed, it seemed, to fit some dramatic point.
The rest of the valley is the stage, trees and bush and blossoms and rocks to meet any dramatic requirement. To the North a steep rock wall with a long terrace - a road in fact above the eye running East and West. Above it terrace on terrace of spectacular rocks and shrubbery and grand trees. To the East a flat terrace above the eye so scenes can appear and disappear across it, mysterious or spectacular. Then the little stream flowing down to the sea, its head and its further bank offering a rich range of settings - terraces, huge boulders, exquisite varied shrubbery - dainty Lily of the Valley trees and majestic Angophoras and so on. It fitted the aboriginal lore perfectly, completely.
Description of the setting of Mirrabooka (The Southern Cross)
Chorus of the Waratahs and the Wattles - "The air with music shimmers, since In us the Instrument."
20th century science which with the atomic bomb has exploded the atomic theory and proved that there is no matter, only forces (which are not material) enables us to comprehend the ancient mythologies. We know now that the nervous system is a musical instrument and that through music Apollo taught the European peoples to think, not just to remember as ancient peoples did but to think, to rationalize.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 461 (table of contents) ====]
HAVEN VALLEY . PANORAMA . LOOKING NORTH
[Note: The structure is the
Haven Valley Scenic Theatre at Castlecrag.]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 462 ====]
And now we know that clairvoyance was natural to pre-Christian peoples. Humanity had to lose that faculty temporarily in order to be able to reason - to think, and to function with free will. That accomplished we must, through our wills, learn again to perceive in the realms of forces, in the realm of spiritual beings. As Europeans have discovered, the aboriginals in Australia still have this faculty.
Chorus of the Flowers -
"No earthly senses veil our sight,
We see
the forms that weave in light."
The actors were all in imaginative characterizations of nature, flowers and birds, butterflies and flowing waters. From the heights the Flowers bring the Sleeper - man's spiritual other half - for like all primitives the Australians knew of the creation of Adam - a history of which only now the study of language is proving the truth - a common origin of all humanity.
Chorus of the Flowers -
"until
In thine own spirit shall forever
shine
The true Sun's mighty ray."
The Christ Spirit which dwells in man as the Holy Ghost, the Ego.
No one who saw the play, written and produced by two young students of Aboriginal mythology - Sylvia [Note: Brose] and Bette [Note: Ainsworth], - could ever belittle the civilization of those most ancient people of the world. They are the immediate descendants of the dwellers in Paradise (which the continent Australia still is) - the Paradise before Adam and Eve left it to come down into materialization, into Atlantis whence people spread to all parts of the world as is now proved by the students of languages who find the common roots in all languages instead of in just the so-called Aryan ones.
These people recognized the truths back of the Southern Cross - Mirrabooka - the fall of man into the fourness [Note: i.e., four-ness] of materialization, into the North and South, the East and West, which is expressed so beautifully in the Stupa temples of the Hindus - the great dome with
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 463 (table of contents) ====]
HAVEN VALLEY . PANORAMA . LOOKING EAST
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 464 ====]
four entrances and the mythology connected therewith.
Would that words could convey the beauty of the scenes in the Valley theatre. The great Angophora tree whose bark turns from flesh pink each Spring to blood in the closing year - a yearly sequence - stands on the middle terrace of the Valley Theatre. In its heart dwelt
The Sleeper lies on the great roots of the rough barked tree on the top of the East terrace.
The illusive scene illuminated by the shimmering concealed flares opens with the dancing steps of
Telopea, Queen of the Flowers, comes with her chorus of Australia's wonderful
Sleeping Spirit of Man, the Holy Ghost awakened only when Man has traversed the vale and turned back to his origins longing now for something beyond the material.
The Bird alights on a great rock to tell Telopea that
Streamlet as she flows down the valley, and
Nerida whose guiding star is Love tells Telopea that in her pool she had dreamed of the coming of Man, and that he knows not the
Sleeper, yet her form fills all his thoughts. Nerida found in her pool a crystal that she will give to him.
Streamlet flows on and Man following her streambed awakens to the fairy loveliness of the valley. He calls to Streamlet to pause a bit that he may know this sanctuary, the Temple of Nature. She tells him of her adventures toward the Sun as Mist and her return as Dew. Then the
Bird comes to him and tells him he must appeal to
Yaraan - the heart of the Tree - who alone can inform him as to the secrets of the Valley. And
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 465 (table of contents) ====]
THE PLAY IN THE VALLEY . NORTH
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 466 ====]
Yaraan in his trailing henna robes, the color of the Angophora tree, appears at the foot of the great Angophora tree as the
Chorus of Flowers warns him of Goonear and Bigaroo - good and evil - between whom he must choose and
Nerida gives her crystal to him as guide in the regions below.
Then enchantment catches your breath as from here and there among the flowering shrubs the Butterflies appear - children from 5 to 7 years old and perfect actors as they flit from flower to flower and chant their messages of light glowing in their wings. But they shrink and fold their wings about the
Bat approaches from the further side of the Valley and lights on a great isolated rock below the terraces of the Flowers.
He scorns their hope that Man will lead them to a higher life and soon brings them word from down below that
Man has lost the crystal and is creeping back a pitiable thing.
All Nature's creatures are stunned by this word but as
Butterflies, the Beings of Light to guide him and they lead him to the foot of Telopea's rock whence she pleads with him, who alone has the power of will, to exert himself. As he fails the
Butterflies pass with dropped wings to their bower and
Yaraan again appears to plead - "Is this indeed the end? Now when space and time are one must we sink into nothingness? Is there no power to flood the Cross of Death with radiant Life?" and the
Bat answers - "Earth hath not found it! Now comes sickness, desolation, death." And blackness shuts out the scene.
Here the authors Sylvia [Note: Brose] and Bette [Note: Ainsworth], introduce the news of the Christ event. On the long terrace to the North the Angel Gabriel appears and on the wooded heights above, the Angels sing -
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 467 ====]
"He comes to fill Earth's heart
With His divinest Love."
With the passing of this vision the Valley awakes -
The Butterflies chant - "Thou poor Bat now is thy little season ended."
The whole Valley is awake, the crystal is found, Man's Sleeping Spirit is awakened, the threefold crystal of Thinking, Feeling and Will shines from her brow. So does the Valley Theatre bring understanding between these ancient peoples and the peoples of today.
The Cast - (The word Mirrabooka means - The Southern Cross)
Telopea - Waratah, Australia's shrub with the great red peony like blossoms.
Yaraan - The Spirit of the Tree - the Angophora - The Living Tongue
Wahwee - Beloved - the Christ -
Willy Wagtail - (an Australian bird) Mercury
Byamee - Guardian Angel - (cherishes the Sleeper)
Bullimah - Nirvana (where all desire perishes)
The Cross of Death - The Southern Cross - Mirrabooka
Bigaroo - The True Snake - (of healing truths)
The Butterflies - Immortal Memory
The Bat - Creature of Twilight begotten of darkness and fear
Part one is the Aboriginal lore
Part two and three are the Christian sequent
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 468 (table of contents) ====]
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 469 ====]
MIRRABOOKA - THE SOUTHERN CROSS
by
SYLVIA BROSE AND BETTE
AINSWORTH
Scene Ghiraween, "Vale of Flowers" and Temple of Nature.
Enter Telopea
Come softly, flowers of lovely
form,
That in Byamee's Vale were born
And link this land of
glowing youth
Back to its ancient home in truth.
A lovely life in
our temple dwells,
Breathes in the winds, through the streamlet swearls
[Note: swells?].
It flows through our hearts that know not
fear.
Winds! Bear my voice that the Earth may hear!
Enter Waratahs, Chorus A., and Wattles, Chorus B.
Chorus A. -
Byamee from his crystal rock
To
Ghiraween hath sent us,
Our fadeless forms a symbol sure
Of his
eternal care;
Our never-dying colors speak
His blessing here
below.
Chorus B. -
Lovely the forms
Where divine life
flows,
Pure the channel
Of spirit to man.
Chorus A. -
From the Sun our life comes
streaming
And from the Earth our Strength;
The air with music
shimmers, since
In us the instrument.
No earthly senses veil our
sight,
We see the forms that weave in light.
Yaraan, Nerida and Birwain are seen approaching.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 470 ====]
Chorus B. -
Softly they come
Who, faithfully
loving,
Fearless of Wahwee,
Have conquered forever.
Enter Yaraan, Nerida and Birwain who lead the Sleeper.
Nerida
From the loveliest haunts of peace we
come,
Where softly blow the winds through dappled shades
Where
gentle is the still green life of trees
And all unearthly sweet the
bird-notes through the glades.
There, where small Tuckonie peer from
ferny roots
And feather-light the phantom voices fall
On listening
ears, we found her, found the one
To whom the lost stars sang their
ancient songs
That wove a mystic girdle round her heart. She
sleeps,
Until the living thought shall wake her with its fire.
Birwain
The living thought will touch her dreaming
eyes,
Thought, born in a heart that seeks for truth,
That holds
its search divine and casts away
All weakening fears, in strength to
guard the flame
Of love within it. Even as thou, Beloved,
To
Wahwee's gloomy depths descended, and rose again
Through love. One
comes, who darkly gropes to light.
Telopea
Then in this Ghiraween she too shall
rest,
That, sleeping, to herself may gather
All this land's hidden
wealth of slumbering song
And unborn beauty. Beneath the branches
Of yon sacred tree, leave her, that its leaves
In brooding quietude may
bless her.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 471 ====]
Nerida and Birwain leave the Sleeper (the Life Spirit) and
Telopea turns to see the Willy Wagtail
See, the
little bird approaches,
His steps eager with suppressed desire
To
cry his message from afar.
To his ears are whispered words
No
mortal ear has heard; his eyes
Have gazed on other worlds.
Enter Willy Wagtail
Telopea, I bring you news of
Man
Who soon must pass this temple. His mind,
Waking from its
dream-like sleep, leads him on
To seek a Bullimah on earth.
Therefore,
In your ancient duties pause to help him
Who follows
his appointed path.
Telopea
Since it is you who speak, I listen,
O
favored of the Gods, and also
In the air, there is a hush of
waiting;
In leaves of trees the voice of Heaven speaks
Of things
to come. Yet tell us more of Man.
Whence comes he? What forces gave him
birth?
Chorus A. and B. -
Born of the earth and the air and
the water,
Out of the Flame and the Thunder he came,
Formless he
was till a mighty Designer,
Created a Word that has molded his frame.
Willy Wagtail -
There was a time when darkness
brooded
Over space and cold and Earth,
But in the stillness slept
the lovely one,
Goddess of light and life. The Spirit
Wakened her
and at her breath the still air
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 472 ====]
Moved in harmony. She rode upon the wind,
The light her chariot, and all
creation
Evolved upon the Earth. And yet Mankind
Unmanifest
remained. Then through the world
Was the concept of an order new,
Belonging to the old and yet by it
Not bounded, aspiring beyond its
confines.
Then in the storms that swept the land with fury
Was
born a formless being; I first
Beheld the brightness. I felt his
presence
And through me he spoke to those that knew him not.
Chorus A. and B. -
Three pillars of smoke were there
by day
That ringed round the watching hill,
And swift transforming
to a watery cup,
From the sky received the thunderous bolt
That
drew in its wake the flame of fire
Enfolding within it the form of Man.
Nerida -
But O Telopea, when heavy and chill
The
waters of Wahwee's pool upon me lay
And night gloomed darkly, a
wandering ray
Of moonlight slid softly down the still
Green depths
to solace me, and whispered thus
Of the age-old heavenly birth of
man:
"Long ago, O little loving Nerida,
When the morning star
dwelt in bright beauty
Here upon the Earth, the Lady Moon
Down
glided dream-like, on her own soft light
To wed him. From this noble
union sprang
The race of man." O Messenger 'twixt world and world,
Was this not truth I heard?
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 473 ====]
Willy Wagtail -
Yes very truth, but know you not
that truth
Has many faces? Man himself is manifold.
Chorus A. -
The children of these two now shine
As stars. And thus high is the aim
Of their descendant Man, who
now
Must find the source from which he came.
Chorus B. -
O little Streamlet whose clear voice we
love,
Hast seen the Wanderer on the hills above?
Fleet thy flow
past rock and glistering wood
And swift must be the one whom thou dost
lead.
Streamlet -
Swift indeed is he who follows me -
A Pilgrim to the Perfect Land. For I,
Who love my path that lies along
this vale
Where sunlight makes my clustered bubbles
Glance and
froth in happy laughter, I sang
Sweet music, that told of shadowed
pools,
Like dove grey veils of evening, where little winds
To my
water spirits whisper, and of the tender plants
That drop in delicate
grace above me.
And then I told of Ghiraween and her
Whom Nerida
and Birwain have found.
Willy Wagtail -
He who listened it is he of whom I
spoke.
Telopea - (indicating the Sleeper)
I think 'tis her
he seeks.
Nerida -
He knows her not -
And yet her form
fills all his thoughts.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 474 ====]
Birwain -
The desire of the bound for the
infinite.
The return of the spark to the fire.
Streamlet glides on. Flowers retire leaving the Sleeper alone on the rock. Man enters attracted by the glitter of the water and does not see the flowers.
Man -
What faerie vale is this where I am led?
In shadow dim as some vague memory.
In sunlight greenly glowing and
serene.
Here perhaps, where all things seem to live
May live the
very shape of my desire.
On this fresh glade a stillness lies and
yet
Something is that makes me greater than myself.
Surely here
has every plant a life apart
And beautiful. O that I could release
The force that swells within me, to wing my soul
That it might grasp
the lofty heights whose state
I dimly guess at.
(Advances further
toward Streamlet)
Swift slips the stream whose voice I long to
hear.
Wilt stay a little, Streamlet, I know not
Whose sanctuary
'tis I near?
Streamlet -
All this, O Man,
And more is thine,
if thou will have it so.
This Ghiraween, where Nature forces be,
Holds timeless, lovely things in trust for thee.
Man -
Is't Ghiraween? Byamee's temple blest?
Then here at length I name the nameless quest
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 475 ====]
That sent me forth to seek an unknown Good.
Knowest thou of this O
Streamlet?
Streamlet -
Some part
Indeed I know - that part
which I myself
Have felt and striven for. So canst thou read
The
story of thy quest in this I give thee.
Once the wise Sun Mother lived
among us
In endless day, and all our ways were love;
Yet for this
earth too fine her gentle spirit,
And when she left me, far away to
dwell,
I thought my empty heart must break for grief,
For grey,
unlovely loneliness; and muted
Was the voice of these pale waters.
Despair
Lent me strength, and Oh so much I loved her,
My Sun
Mother, that I left my narrowed bed
And rose and rose, far up beyond
the earth,
Now palled in darkness. But who can span
Another's
destiny? I could not reach her.
At last, worn out with grief, forlorn I
fell
To rest on every bush and flower
In glistening tears of dew.
Then, as a blossom
Bursting into bloom, the sky filled with her
light,
And her warm love transforming me, lightly
I floated up as
vapour. Thus easily
That great heart throbbed across the void of
earth
And Heaven! O Pilgrim, thus thy fate,
To seek and strive and
still to fail until
In thine own spirit shall forever shine
The
true Sun's mighty ray.
Man -
What brings these thoughts
To life? What
power gives thee utterance?
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 476 ====]
Willy Wagtail - (coming forward from the Flowers)
Yaraan can tell of that, for in this tree
The great tongue lies as a
God entombed
That thou must waken.
Man -
How speaks this hidden tongue?
Willy Wagtail -
Thou thyself once heard those sounds
unutterable
Until the gross earth wrapped thee round and closed
Thy delicate perception. Now must thou
Seek for the heavenly voice in
all the forms
Of Nature. For these eyes saw the mighty tree trunk
Split and riven even to the ground, and then
From the secret sky the
living tongue
Dropped down, and round about it closed the tree.
In
vain for man to call upon the dead;
Nepelle's self is silent too. So
must thou
Look outward for the Gods whose presence is
In every
bush and bird and flower.
It speaks in wind and rain and thunder
And in the low clear call of summer sea.
(Turning to the Angophora
tree)
Yaraan, Yaraan, whose pitying branches
Drooped o'er the
first earthly death, whose leaves
Sheltered the yellow-crested
Monyi,
In kindness yield thy wisdom unto Man.
Man -
Yaraan, great gum thee, where shall I turn my
eyes
For light to find my dream? O speak to me.
Yaraan -
Thou man of mighty destiny, from starry
space
The light shines forth. Star-cold the cross of death
(Mirrabooka)
Must palely glow until thou find the power
To make it
flame with hope for thee.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 477 ====]
Willy Wagtail -
He has
No memory, Yaraan, of
that far time
When the Cross of Death in Southern skies was hung.
Yaraan -
Remember, then, how in forgotten
dream-time
Across the parching plains man fled to me -
Fled with
strife and ugliness behind him.
Lifeless he fell at my feet and I
mourned
Till my bark dropped great red tears of blood.
Then in the
land of sunset Death came
And raised the fugitive to rest within my
boughs.
So lest he should be utterly forgotten,
I set these eyes
and those of Death to shine
In heaven.
Willy Wagtail -
But thy passing to the Land
Of
Sunset is not so. Yet wake thy sight
And call on her who guards this
valley -
Telopea will tell the pilgrim's way
To Bullimah where all
desire dies.
Chorus A. -
He seeks the city of the blue-white
walls
That the Pilgrim sees by his own soul's light,
But darkness
deeply on the traveler falls
E'er he finds wisdom and strength and
sight.
Chorus B. -
The chasm unfathomable
Deep as
despair
And the rolling stone
Threaten him there.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 478 ====]
Man (aside) -
Their voices are fresh as the
Balbalmas
Their forms have Bralgah's grace - and now I see her -
Telopea, her movements like the wind
In fronds of she-oak. (Moves
toward her)
(To Telopea)
Thou, whom Byamee blest
And in whom
his wisdom dwells, Oh teach me.
Telopea -
Thou seekest the perfect Land, O
Pilgrim,
Where all things move and breathe in harmony
And where a
higher self awaits thee.
Outside the city two cone-shaped crystals
stand
And round their bases coil the serpents
Goonear and Bigaroo.
The first
Is evil and him thou must beware
Lest he should lure and
blind thy mortal sight.
The other is the great physician, that
heals
All earthly imperfections. For him,
For Bigaroo, thou must
prepare, and when
Before thee the spired city gleams
And fragrance
fills the air, his voice discern.
Yet gentle are the words of false
Goonear
And so our Nerida, whose guiding star is love,
Would help
thee now that thou may'st choose aright.
Man -
Of Nerida I know who saved her people
And
found in Wahwee's pool a way to life
Nerida -
In Wahwee's pool O man I also found
Among the cold dank woods, a flawless stone
Whose generous rays made
the treacherous wave
Lucent and calm. In this, three principles
Have fused in perfect balance and only
Goonear's evil glance can dim
its lustre.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 479 ====]
Willy Wagtail -
Take the crystal Pilgrim, it will
lead you
Safely to the true Bigaroo;
And I myself if so thou dost
desire
Will be thy guide along the narrow ledge
From which hath
fallen many a hapless soul
To wander in impenetrable depths.
Man -
Thee Nerida, I have no words to thank,
For
with the stone thou gavest me some virtue
And firm within me is my
purpose.
(To Willy Wagtail)
O messenger and kindest friend, I
cannot
Take thy care. My way is solitary.
As the hawk rose
god-like in a flame of fire
To float serenely splendid, beautiful,
Above the lightning and the storming winds,
So too will I ascend to
shining heights
Though I must be my own relentless goad,
As Wahn,
the crow, pursued the eagle-hawk,
Outwear within me all ignoble
things
And rise triumphant, bird-like, to the skies.
Chorus A. -
Farewell thou pilgrim who hast little
space to stay,
The air grows cold with shadow of approaching
gloom,
We who love thy questing would speed thee on thy way
And
pray thou 'scape the darkness and Goonear's doom.
Man -
I thank the Gods that wrought thee, gentle
beings
That gladly gave me of your hidden light,
And say farewell
to thee with sadness,
Who brought the brightness to my spirit's night.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 480 ====]
Chorus B. -
Farewell, Farewell,
And may thou
be
Forever faithful,
That we grow in thee.
Telopea -
Now hath he gone - and here entranced
still
Sleeps she for whom he treads his lonely way;
And yet not
one of us could take man's thought
Back to his ancient state and the
world
That he once knew.
Willy Wagtail -
Only the butterflies,
That bear
immortal memory, that with
The life earth renew themselves, only
they
Could have told Man of the spheres that cradled him.
Telopea -
I see them now; their wings are filled with
light.
Chorus of Butterflies -
All colors of earth are ours
to hold,
Glimmering and lovely, fold on fold,
Like skies' deep
blue or sun's bright gold;
Blossoms are we of the heaven's making
Born of light in its first glad waking.
1st Butterfly to Telopea -
We come to the sleeping
child of wisdom
From whom man turned away, to ring her round
With
that soft shadow of divinity
That clings to us, who know the gates of
Death.
Telopea (Pointing to the Sleeper) -
Approach her,
whom Byamee cherishes.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 481 ====]
(Butterflies circle around Sleeper)
2nd Butterfly. -
Even as thou liest dreaming, lovely
one,
We dreamed of sun-bright life and yielded
All our earthly
form. In a little sleep
The mystic rhythm of the heart of Gods
Was
ours and here we leave it to unfold
Within thee and to crown thee as
with joy.
Bat enters and Butterflies shrink back.
Willy Wagtail -
What evil brings you, Creature of
twilight,
Begotten of darkness and fear?
Bat -
In this valley, Bird, is a creeping Death,
Remorseless, inevitable, cold with Hate.
I see the long grey fingers
stretching out.
The very air rocks of his presence.
Willy Wagtail -
Away with you, bearer of ill. Some
spirit,
Haunting the shadows of Eleonbah Wondah
Inspires you with
hideous foreboding.
Here is no Death, but only nature, love
And
sunshine. I tell you one is gone from here
On Holy Quest and from his
Soul enwrought
With all this Temple's wisdom, shall be born
The
eternal, divine, unconquerable spirit
In whom we all, that are in man
complete,
Shall know the solvent touch of Fire and grow
Unto a
state of life imperishable.
Bat -
This man to lead you to a higher life!
This man, that even now is creeping back
A broken pitiable thing! He to
whom
The dark-eyed Nerida gave her flawless stone
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 482 ====]
Is crushed and blinded, and the crystal
He will never find again. He
went
Down the steep path and by the narrow ledge,
And ever, as the
outer voices called,
He listened and so the quickening love was
stilled
And left his soul no quality responsive
To the healing
truths of Bigaroo;
And therefore death is here for all of you
And
him, and all creation. For that one,
By the shining three-fold
crystals, passed
Near to the evil coils of Goonear
Who promised
him all earthly strength and might.
And lo! I, who in Goonear's
presence dwell
In twilit dark and Fear made palpable,
I saw the
crystal cloud, even as his eyes,
Filled with Goonear's evil glare,
could bear
The baleful glance no longer. Back he started
In a
blind agony, and clasped those orbs
That would not look on ill and, as
he did,
The stone fell from his aching fingers
And it rolled far
in the rocky chasm.
Then he, uttering the desolate wail
Of the
lost, stumbled back toward this place.
He who went forth in the pride
of his spirit,
Lower than the lowest, here returns to die
Where in
constraining earthly force must perish all.
Nerida (hushed) -
In this true? How gloomily faints
the wind
In the moving tree-tops.
(Looks toward the valley and
sees Man returning)
He is coming.
What grief is here! He is beyond
all pity!
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 483 ====]
Could I but find a great-winged love to heal him.
Bat -
No plea can reach above. No ray of light
Can pierce through the crowding doubts and fears.
Now returneth
half-remembered agonies,
And all thy heart's pure cry is silenced.
Telopea -
I will not hear nor fear thee Bat. Not
once
Have we made supplication vain to him
Whose life is in
us.
(Man enters)
(To Butterflies) Beings of light, very
gentle
Be thy care of him whose steps unwitting,
Blindly bear him
back to you. His hurt is ours,
And still within his heart's deep shrine
of pain
There burns the tiny flame of holiness.
Willy Wagtail - (Watching him)
He speaks not. In
desolation
Silence is, profound and toneless.
(Butterflies lead him to foot of rock. Telopea,
Chorus A. and B. gather
on top around Sleeper)
Chorus A. & B. -
Byamee, Byamee
Thou
kindly spirit hear!
On Ghiraween cold shadows lie,
We cannot feel
thee near.
(All kneel except Telopea, Bat and Sleeper)
Telopea -
Thou whose being is
Where a Will
divine flows through
Enchanted heavens, of thy strength
Yet aid
us. - Darkness shrouds thee! -
Byamee, art thou not great enough
To make an attribute of that new life
That would unfold in Man?
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 484 ====]
Telopea
Alas, it is no use. I feel the air heavy
And my words fall back upon my head, unblest.
One door is closed,
another hath not opened.
Blind are they to the earth's slow pain,
Deaf to the voices that wildly 'plain,
Helpless to aid when the two
paths meet.
(Butterflies pass with drooping wings back to their bower)
Chorus -
Thou, Ghiraween, our lovely place of
flowers,
Here we wove thy beauty through the dreamlike hours,
Here
purely dwelt when Time itself was young,
And in our happy hearts the
Infinite has sung.
From Bullimah came sweet that living breath.
Now from our being comes the moveless form of Death.
(Chorus sinks down overwhelmed)
Yaraan -
Is this indeed the end? Now when Space and
Time
Are one, must we sink into nothingness?
Is there no power in
realms of mighty air
To flood the Cross of Death with radiant life?
Bat -
Earth hath not found it.
Now cometh
sickness, desolation, Death.
(Blackness shuts out the temple where only the Sleeper and the Bat are left standing.)
(Darkness over Ghiraween. Angel Gabriel appears on wall.)
Angel Gabriel -
Swifter than the eagle's flight in
rushing Space.
Widely, across the gulf of life, the light
Hath
borne me. Ye sleeping things the hour has come
For which the world hath
known mortality.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 485 ====]
The starry shapes on their timeless orbits pause,
And feel a newer life
that from heaven
In endless beauty flows, even as the sunlight.
For the voice that cried in darkness, rising
From thy soul's dim
solitude as a last leaf
Greyly falling from the Tree of Life,
Hath
not been cast regardless on windy caves
Of silence. A power there is.
One cometh
And of his kingdom there shall be no end.
Blessed is
she whom He doth overshadow
Purer than a flower's breath her life hath
been.
Forgotten ages and centuries yet to be
At her feet lay the
jewels of their years.
The choirs of Heaven's host break forth in
music
The waiting world gives back the holy sound
To men, of good
will, Peace! A glory gleams
Upon the sea, and on the mountains there is
joy.
Lift up your heavy heads, the darkness is no more.
Angels sing. Enter Mary
(Hark the herald angels -)
Angel above Mary.
He comes to fill Earth's heart
With His divinest love,
And open wide the gates
That closed on
man, above.
Though he is clad in flesh
In answer to man's
cry,
Yet all created things
He thus doth sanctify.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 486 ====]
For such high harmony
Lives in His body's shrine,
It joineth earth
with heaven
Links human with divine.
Last carol is heard from distance and singers are not seen. Butterflies enter from bower and while music lasts flutter in and out among the flowers, etc. All stir except Man but only Bat stands near place where he entered. When carol dies away Butterflies gather around Bat.
1st Butterfly -
Thou poor Bat, now is thy little
season ended.
Back to thy native haunts thou must soon fly,
And in
the shadows, in which thou dost delight,
Live out thy span of ill and
know thy doom,
Till in the farthest dawn of time, in thy heart
too,
Shall greatness wake.
Bat -
Yaraan foresaw this.
In him the great
tongue dwelt and when he spoke
Of the Cross of Death he waited
ever
To see it flame with heavenly life. Thy presence
Stifles me.
Alien thou art.
What hast thou found to break Goonear's power?
2nd Butterfly -
Thou alone who keepeth tight-walled
hate
Around thy heart, hast neither seen nor heard
The splendor
that has filled the earth and sky.
Senseless we lay, as though the
Eternal Good
Had cast us out forever into causeless space,
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 487 ====]
When softly through the air from very far away
There came a sound of
singing as though the birds
Of all the world, of all its ages
long,
Would break their hearts in the one lovely paean.
Then in
the curtained dark shone out a star
More splendid than the Sun, and in
our souls
There crept a peace that evermore will bless,
And the
night was glorious with a love
That made the whole earth tremble back
to life.
Bat -
Upon this love I lay not hold in fear.
Doth the abyss then yawn for me alone?
Now were death welcome but that
it cannot change
The evil principle to good. So must I live
To
shatter it. I pass, O happier than I,
Now is your darkness ended, Mine
begins.
(Exit Bat in direction of Goonear.)
Butterflies have awakened flowers who are now around the Sleeper.
Chorus A. -
There where Goonear's heavy glance doth
fall
On drying flowers and birdless trees, he dwells
And ever sees
a dauntless race advance
That know the ill - yet pass it greatly by.
Chorus B. -
And so attain the Form
Where shines
the hidden Sun
For she that dreaming, slept,
Now wakes to lead man
on.
Telopea to Willy Wagtail -
As Butterflies, the
heaven's memories
Exquisite, have linked us with lost worlds,
Now
come thou, Bird, that bearest noble thought,
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 488 ====]
And loosen Man from Earth's too close embrace
To see this Child of
Wisdom. So shall he
Then understand the Bullimah within her.
Willy Wagtail - (waking Man)
Ages past, Byamee blest
the barren land
And it leapt gladly into fruitful life,
Now hath
another clad the earth with love
And thy soul liveth in its gentle
breath.
Wake thou! The veiled Light before thee glows,
On every
side a thousand voices call -
"Arise! Thy strength is counted and thy
task decreed!"
Man -
The light of a lovelier dawn hath
scattered
From a dead past the mists that sealed my sight.
All
beauty hath been born of sacrifice,
And hour by hour I hear,
unceasingly,
A thousand voices, in alien tongues they speak.
Bewildered I in these strange realms of sight and sound.
Yaraan -
Wert thou not dead and hath not
infinity
Encompassed thee? See there the one that God
Enshrineth,
and in the power that fills the earth
Now toil, till all contending
voices shall
Resolve themselves in one. From heaven the Tongue
Once fell and diversely filled creation.
Now comes the Word divine,
through countless years
Evolved. Sound it and the universe is thine.
Man -
Yet hath Goonear seized upon the stone
That Nerida found and gave to me, and I
No longer see the vision of the
end.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 489 ====]
Telopea -
Fear's frozen mantle from Earth's glad face
is reft
Thy doubts but hinder thee. The Great Heart reigneth now.
When but a little while ago, upon us lay
The sabled darkness and we
entangled were
In filaments of evil that bound our thought
To
Earth, then, when misery made the whole world mute,
I seemed to stand
upon an ancient forest floor -
And thou and all of these were of my
life
And part of me - A tide of feeling rippled
Through the green
ghost world. The trees bowed stately heads.
A little fleck of sunshine
that lost itself
Within the raptured woods, touched my dancing
feet
With beauty. Far-off a bird sang, so sweetly
That almost life
itself had ceased to be
To make its life immortal. My breath
Caught itself upon the listening quiet
And froze into a tracery of
still,
Uncaptured loveliness, a starry Form
For thee to fill with
substance,
My heart, faint with an unknown tenderness,
Yearned
upward to the heavens, and Gentle Hands
Caught mine. Silver threaded
mist clung closely
To that Shape of Love, and I that ever longed
To link myself with Beauty's inmost grace
Now found delight and those
dumb dreams
That never would have known an earthly waking,
Soft as
the morn's first sigh, around me winged
Radiant, into the limitless
light of heaven.
Through airy avenues of skyless space
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 490 ====]
The Gentle Hands drew me. At length, downward
We fled and countless
stars flashed in our wake,
And plunged into the unresting
multitude
Of Ocean, and its crested waves, piled high
With
feathered foam, in homage spent themselves.
My feet now trod the smooth
sea bed, then faltered
Within a cavern boundless, of that
blackness
Where no ray of light has ever touched the gloom.
But
the Gentle Hands still guided me and suddenly,
Brighter than the stars
that followed us from Heaven
I saw the crystal shining,
translucent,
Lovely, and I put forth my hand and plucked it
From
its strange sea setting.
Then was calm at once around me and I
Was
here in Ghiraween and Nerida's stone
With that same beauty, shone upon
the forehead
Of the one that here doth wait for thee.
Nerida -
It is not lost, O man. Upon her brow
In
threefold purity the crystal shines.
As into ever widening seas hath
fled,
Into its depths, thy growing aspiration.
Birwain -
There is the light to find thy dream.
In her attainment lies the Perfect Land.
(Butterflies and Willy Wagtail form a chain between Man & Sleeper)
Telopea -
Thought and memory now raise thy heart to
her.
The power, that now within her dwells, transforms
The cold
and shadowed cross. Thou canst not fail.
The heavens are the witness of
thy deeds.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 491 ====]
Willy Wagtail -
Unseen was she when thou went through
this vale,
She slept, in whom lies thy complete fulfillment.
(Exit Butterflies and Willy Wagtail)
(Streamlet flows up from the valley)
Streamlet -
Pilgrim, even as mine, thy efforts
failed
To trace the circle, but the Sun's great heart
Hath
compassed universal space and thee,
And Earth is drawn into the
heaven's soul.
Consciously thou standest in the forward stream
Of
all creation and thyself doth make its end.
Chorus A. & B. -
To the children of the stars
is given
The force to mold their lives' design
Till truth for
which the years have striven
And sunbright wisdom shall within them
shine.
Telopea -
Quietly shall beauty lead them by the
hand
And serene thought uphold them. A will divine
Shall point
their pathway to the skies.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 492 ====]
Man -
(to Sleeper, led to Sleeper by the
Butterflies)
In thee at last do I behold the essence
Of
Immortality. What vision dost thou bring?
Lo! in a southern land, where
the waters
Of a strange sea sweep about its shores
In constant
turmoil, lieth the earth's crown
Of high endeavor. Its sanctuary
Is hidden in unyielding bitter wastes
But there are some that dare its
fastnesses.
Within it, for centuries uncounted,
A sacred flame
hath burned, unsullied,
Of the first primeval purity. There
Lieth
littleness. The children of the Sun
Are one in an eternal
brotherhood.
The portals of the shrine shall open wide
And the
world have vision of a land afire
That makes of worthless aims a
holocaust -
Afire with purpose never lost, but overcast
In long
years of denser life.
(to Sleeper)
As a torch
Thy figure
shineth in dark places.
Who knows thee not, who cannot find thy
light,
Though the salt earth preserve his frame, his spirit,
Yet
aspiring, shall on a new earth find redemption.
For me, lead thou. My
soul shall seek no other guide.
[Note: ==== Beginning of page 492b ====]
Their conformation in ledges is the ideal for successive tiers of stately homes, and the sandstone substructure of these ledges affords the most elegant of all building materials. It also constitutes a district free of wind and dust, also perfectly drained beneath as to water, and above as to cooling currents of air, so that the temperature and humidity are the most equable, even precluding frost - all the conditions for the best health.
Some years ago the genius of Walter Burley Griffin, architect and town planner, saw the amazing possibilities of the three virgin promontories on the western side of middle Harbour with their glorious four miles of water frontage. His enthusiasm inspired a group of Australian capitalists amongst his professional clients, and the magnificent amphitheatres passed into the hands of Greater Sydney Development Association Limited.
This is literally a case where the last is best, for here is the only harbor frontage free from the threat of commerce and quite out of the field of industrial expansion now in evidence in every other direction. It is the only waterside development that can be, and will be, protected against flats.
[Note: The paragraphs on this page extract (and rearrange) text which appears in Section III, No. 11, pages 184 and 187 (above). This page is not in New-York Historical Society copy.]