Walter Burley Griffin died 86 years ago on this day.
In Australia, he was a foreigner who wanted a better things for this land. He loved its nature and has seen huge potential for the continent.
Many projects of his have been lost through time and due to disrespect for his and Marion's vision. That includes his plans for Canberra that is largely unrecognizable from original plans.
North Arm Cove is preserved its heritage and planning potential. This is what Marion has written in her unfinished (auto)biography, about plans for then Port Stephens City:
"... look at the spectacle of a city completely beautiful, correct in its location, in its design and in its solution of its various types of buildings. There is no reason why the earliest buildings as well as the later ones should not be correct and correctly placed and all beautiful for as we have seen in our preceding studies beauty is not an expense but calls simply for the expenditure of mind and spirit which are not depleted by use but the contrary. In other words it calls for the use of human faculties — thinking, feeling and will (doing)." - from “Magic of America” by Marion Mahony Griffin
On anniversary of Walter Burley Griffin’s tragic death it could be worth having a look at a “paper subdivision” of North Arm Cove and explaining why North Arm Cove Initiative finds that heritage is crucial for future not only of that area.
Firstly - this is where Griffins have met Aboriginal people and truly understood and learnt to respect their connection with land and nature:
"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. 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." - from “Magic of America” by Marion Mahony Griffin
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Secondly - as Marion's biography reveals - Port Stephens City was a result of extensive search for ideal location for an urban community:
"The location of the eastern port of Australia as New York is the Eastern Port of the United States. Like New York, Port Stephens has sea level entrance to the interior of the continent. It is in close contact with vital mineral supplies and Newcastle is an already established industrial center near by. During that first year in Australia Griffin advised clients of the nature of this district between Sydney and Brisbane and they purchased this strategic promontory. He designed the city. It was surveyed, the allotments staked out and the whole was sold from the plan in the Sydney real estate office. This meant contour surveys were made in the course of which he became personally acquainted with Aboriginals." - from “Magic of America” by Marion Mahony Griffin
Third- also explained in Marion's unfinished book - layout of Port Stephens city was result of exceptional design efforts, thinking about problems to resolve, including designing urban environment incorporated in nature:
(In) "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." - from “Magic of America” by Marion Mahony Griffin
Finally, at times when we are searching for ways to create "better Places”, all of the above makes North Arm Cove a different kind of place than other subdivisions.
#northarmcove #NorthArmCoveInitiative #sustainability #circulareconomy
More than 100ha of public open space is envisaged as part of original subdivision