Lantern Avenue Restaurant, Lucknow, India, Plan and Elevations

Walter Burley GriffinWW-1936-094989

1936·Ink on tracing paper·62.1 × 88.6 cm (24 7/16 × 34 7/8 in.)

<p>After spending the early years of his career in Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio, Walter Burley Griffin and his wife and partner, architect Marion Mahony Griffin, left the United States in 1913 to oversee the execution of their master plan for Canberra, the new capital city of Australia, eventually establishing practices in Melbourne and Sydney. In 1935, Walter left his adopted country for the city of Lucknow, in northern India, where he had been commissioned to design a new university library. Although the library project stalled, the following year he was invited to prepare a master plan for a major trade fair in Lucknow, including the exposition park space, pavilions, and two large towers. During the two years before his untimely death in 1937, Griffin created a large body of new motif and pattern for designs in India, including this drawing for the facade of a restaurant in the Lucknow exposition, which features a modern take on the classical Mughal arch.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1936
Medium: Ink on tracing paper
Dimensions: 62.1 × 88.6 cm (24 7/16 × 34 7/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Walter Burley Griffin

Artist

Walter Burley Griffin

Photography

Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and urban planner who designed the master plan for Canberra, Australia's capital city, in 1912. Working in the Prairie School tradition pioneered by Frank Lloyd Wright, Griffin developed an organic architectural vocabulary that integrated landscape, geometry, and civic vision. His plan for Canberra, organized around water features and radiating avenues, remains one of the twentieth century's most ambitious urban designs. Griffin also designed residences and public buildings throughout Australia and the United States, emphasizing the integration of architecture with natural topography.

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