This talk is part of the Online Winter Lecture Series 2025 called Victorian and Edwardian Women in Architecture. Follow this link to book all of the lectures.
Organised by Lynne Walker
The spring lecture series provides the opportunity to engage with recent, path-breaking research by leading experts which gives a fresh perspective on women’s diverse roles in nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture as designers, patrons, clients, philanthropists, and businesswomen, as well as their emergence as professional architects by 1900. In the broad context of Victorian society, this series considers themes and issues which both facilitated and limited women’s agency and contribution in a male-dominated world, most notably, family, social and political networks, widowhood and wealth.
Marion Mahony Griffin: ‘Stage 1’ of a remarkable career’,
by Anna Rubbo
Marion Mahony Griffin (1871–1961) had a career which spanned 50 years over three continents: the USA, Australia and India. ‘Stage 1’ includes her environmentalism and engagement with progressive ideas in Chicago, work with Frank Lloyd Wright, and her collaboration with Walter Burley Griffin on the international design competition for Canberra. The Stage 1 story ends with the Griffins’ arrival in Australia in 1914, and the publication of two articles by Marion on ‘Democratic Architecture’.
Anna Rubbo is a Research Scholar at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development in the Climate School at Columbia University, New York. Previously Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Sydney, she has published extensively on Mahony Griffin, and in 2016 co-developed the exhibition ‘Marion Mahony Griffin: In Her Own Right’ for the Elmhurst Historical Museum in Chicago.
All attendees will be sent a recording of the talk.
Image: Marion Mahony Griffin