PUBLIC LECTURE: Reconstructing a Masterpiece

In 1902, soap manufacturer Darwin Martin commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to design his new home at Buffalo, New York. Wright responded with nothing short of a tour-de-force: an integrated complex of a main house with a pergola connecting it to a conservatory and carriage house with chauffeur's quarters and stables, the Barton house (a dwelling for Martin's sister and brother-in-law) and a gardener's cottage (added in 1909). An avid gardener, Martin also insisted that the precinct's surrounds be comprehensively designed. Wright's landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin, rose to the occasion and produced a garden design no less magisterial than his employer's architecture. Tragically, Martin suffered devastating blows in The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and shortly after his death in 1935, his family abandoned the property. Eventually, three of the buildings were demolished and the remaining structures grew ruinous. In 1992, The Martin House Restoration Corporation (MHRC) was formed to champion the house's restoration. Today, the architectural restoration works (including even the reconstruction of the razed structures) are nearing completion. The MHRC has now focused its gaze upon recreating Griffin's landscape design. Project sub-consultant Christopher Vernon will overview the research and methodology underpinning the reconstruction of Walter Burley Griffin's American masterpiece.

Christopher Vernon is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts (ALVA) at The University of Western Australia. Vernon is a leading authority on the lives and works of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, widely lecturing and publishing on the subject. More broadly, his research focuses upon architecture and landscape as collective expressions of identity, especially within the context of designed national capitals such as Canberra, New Delhi and Brasilia.