Walter Burley Griffin

Walter Burley Griffin (1876–1937), an American, was the original designer of the capital city of Australia, Canberra. He won the Federal Capital Design Competition in May 1911.

Griffin had developed in a professional environment of radical European and North American architects. He was greatly influenced by the City Beautiful and Garden City movements that dominated town planning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars have also detected a strong classical influence permeating Griffin’s design of Canberra.

Griffin’s wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, also an architect, collaborated with him on the design competition entry, and is known to have prepared the design drawings that accompanied his entry.