Duncan House is a heritage-listed residence located at 8 The Barbette, Castlecrag, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. It was designed by Walter Burley Griffin. It is also known as Duncan House Number 2. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937)
Walter Burley Griffin was born near Chicago and trained at Nathan Ricker's School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1899. From 1901-1906, he worked as an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright at Oak Park. Griffin started his own practice in 1906 and within a few years established his reputation as an architect of the Prairie School. In 1911, Griffin married Marion Mahony, who had graduated in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked as Wright's head designer.Jahn, 1997, p. 221
Inspired by the designs by Frederick Law Olmsted (often called the founder of American landscape architecture) of New York's Central Park and his "green necklace" of parks in Boston, landscape design was the career Walter Burley Griffin would have pursued had the opportunity offered. He had approached Chicago landscape gardener Ossian Cole Simonds for career advice before entering the University of Illinois in 1895. Apparently unsatisfied with the lack of relevant curriculum, Simonds urged him to pursue architecture and study landscape gardening on his own, as he himself had done. Griffin took what classes he could and, like Simonds and landscape gardener Jens Jensen, shared an approach to landscape design through architecture, an interest in civic design, urbanism and planning.
In 1902 there were only six "landscape gardeners" (and no landscape architects) listed in the Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago.Chicago Directory, Chicago, 1902 pp 24, 35, 47 In 1912 only two landscape architects and 13 landscape gardeners were listed.Chicago Directory, Chicago, 1902 pp 1552 & 1693 Griffin's practice as a landscape architect was first featured in a public text in Wilhelm Miller's The Prairie Spirit in Landscape Gardening (1915), which included Griffin as an exponent (along with Jensen, Simonds and architect Frank Lloyd Wright) of his proposed American regional "Prairie" style. Simonds, Griffin and Miller had all attended the first national meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) in 1913 in Chicago.
By 1914 Griffin and his architect wife Marion Mahony had moved to Australia after winning the 1912 international design competition for the Federal Capital, Canberra with a scheme based on its topography, a distinctly non-prairie valley landscape of undulating hills.Stuart Read, in http://www.griffinsociety.org.au/lives and works/landscape_architecture cited 21 November 2008 This was a project they had worked on together.Jahn, 1997, p.221 By 1919, there were problems with the Canberra project and Griffin resigned his position as Federal Capital Director of Design and Construction. He then formed the Greater Sydney Development Association to purchase in Middle Harbour, which became known as Castlecrag. He devoted the next fifteen years to developing and promoting the area, while maintaining an architectural practice.
Griffin believed dwellings should play a subordinate role in the scheme of nature. His houses were small and intimate. He aimed toward the most natural use of land and the selection of indigenous plants. He also developed an economical construction system of pre-cast interlocking structural tiles, which he called "Knitlock", and used it widely, as well as stone, in the houses of Castlecrag. In the early 1930s, Griffin built incinerators for the destruction of household garbage in various cities and suburbs in the eastern states of Australia. They provided a canvas for experimentation with form and texture for the architect, but sadly few have survived. Two Griffin incinerators survive in suburban Sydney: the Glebe Municipal Incinerator (City of Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2000 local heritage item); and the Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator, Willoughby (State Heritage Register (SHR) listing #84).
Griffin's work took him to India in 1935 and he died there two years later of peritonitis.
Griffin's contribution to the development of the Wrightian / Prairie School style internationally has begun to receive attention from architectural historians in recent years. It is now increasingly acknowledged that Griffin contributed a number of fresh concepts to the Prairie School, most noticeably: his attention to vertical space (a development leading directly to the ubiquitous split-level style post-war houses); "open plan" living and dining areas dominated by a large central fireplace; and the extensive domestic use of reinforced concrete.Kirk, Andrew, "Prairie School Connection", cited 3 December 2007
Griffin is also internationally renowned for his work as a landscape architect, especially the innovative town planning design of Canberra and Castlecrag, Griffith and Leeton.
Griffin's design approaches to landscape and architecture informed one another. Landscape itself, for example, crucially served as a basis for architecture - a conviction first made explicit in the Canberra publicity, Griffin noting (in Chicago) that: "...a building should ideally be "the logical outgrowth of the environment in which [it is] located"." In Australia, he hoped to "evolve an indigenous type, one similarly derived from and adapted to local climate, climate and topography." In Australia the scale and number of his landscape commissions grew considerably, including a number of town plans. Griffin signed many of his drawings with the term "landscape architect".
Background and vision Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin came to Sydney in 1920 following his seven years overseeing the building of the nation's Federal Capital at Canberra, during which time they lived primarily in Melbourne. They had come to Australia after he won the capital design competition of 1912, this being a project they had worked on together. In the USA the Griffins had both worked for Frank Lloyd Wright. Marion was known for her drawings and interiors while Walter had become a respected practitioner of the organic architecture later known as the Prairie School.Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006
For the north shore of Sydney Harbour the Griffins envisaged a communal, ideal community without fences, without steeply pitched red roofs, and without the grid pattern which dominated the landscape in most of Sydney's suburbs. Mahony and Burley Griffin were visionaries and followed philosophical-spiritual movements such as Theosophy and Anthroposophy (Australian Dictionary of Biography). With a group of people, they formed the Greater Sydney Development Association (GSDA).
In 1921 this group (GSDA) purchased of undeveloped land along the waterfront of present-day Castlecrag, Castle Cove and Middle Cove.Walter Burley Griffin Society 2006 Here the Griffins could design their community with curving roads following the sandstone topography. Griffin had extensive experience at town planning, having designed estates and developed suburban areas in the United States as well as plans for other Australian towns.
They names the roads of the Castlecrag subdivision after parts of castles. Scottish castle themes in the area were already evoked in the Gothic stone bridge, built 1892, between the suburbs of Cammeray and Northbridge, and at the previously named "Edinburgh Rock" on the Castlecrag peninsula.
Indigenous background The indigenous people of the area were Kurinngai or Gurinngai speaking groups, probably affiliated with the nearby Cammeraigal community or the Gorualgal settlement at Fig-Tree Point close to Middle Harbour.Barani Indigenous History 2006 Kurinngai groups lived for thousands of years successfully utilising and managing the area's rich resources of fish, mammals, birds and vegetable products. Kurinngai communities suffered from colonial diseases such as smallpox, and drastically lost population after the arrival of Anglo-Europeans in 1788. Reminders of the Kurinngai's original occupation are evident in the landscape around Middle Harbour: middens, scarred trees, initiation sites, and especially dramatic rock carvings.
The government took over traditional Aboriginal land and eventually sold it as land grants. Some Kurinngai survivors may have integrated with colonial society. Governor Macquarie established "Bungaree's Farm" at Middle Head not far from Castlecrag to introduce indigenous people to European farming. Up until 1879 an Aboriginal group was living at the west side of Circular Quay, but at that time the people were relocated to La Perouse.
Castlecrag building The north shore of the Harbour was more lightly populated by settlers than the Sydney side. It was unsuitable for grazing, and the rocky terrain around Middle Harbour probably was deemed difficult to build on.
The Griffins' plans included retaining natural landforms and Australian bush plants, and planting additional native flora. Roofs were to be low, and views of the harbour maximised from all areas. Communal walkways and reserves were included, and community activities such as dance classes, concerts and neighbourhood meetings were encouraged. The Griffins lived in Castlecrag from 1924 to 1936. Designs within the estate had to have GSDA approval and Walter Burley Griffin designed the majority of them. Banks would not lend for his designs which made construction of the dream community difficult, and less than two dozen houses out of potentially several hundred were realised in the planned form.Birrell 1964 Apparently only thirteen houses remain.
The design of the houses emphasised use of stone and sand-coloured concrete, mostly low to the ground, mimicking and complementing natural earth forms. Griffin patented a material called knitlock concrete which is used in the Duncan House. It was manufactured locally, in moulded sections which join together in a kind of jigsaw fitting. Apparently the Duncan House, being the last Griffin designed house in Castlecrag to be built, benefitted from a later advancement of knitlock technology which included the galvanising process (zinc coating) in its iron-steel reinforcement. This technology contributed to its long-term success compared to some of the other houses which were built in the Castlecrag Estate between 1922 and 1934.Heritage Office file
During his time at Castlecrag Griffin was known for his design of many municipal incinerator buildings, executed with grand and monumental flourishes. Following 1935, Walter and Marion moved to India where he designed and built several buildings. He died there in 1937. Marion returned briefly to Castlecrag then to the United States.Australian Dictionary of Biography
The Duncan House Plan The Duncan House was built for Mr and Mrs Frank and Anice Duncan who had lived in other Griffin designed houses. Initially they purchased Lot 190 and commissioned a design for a split level stone house. The cost looked too high so they exchanged the lot for Lot 194 and the present house was built.Walter Burley Griffin Society News, October 1994. The design of the house played on gothic castle themes. Mr Duncan the original owner lived in the house for over 50 years until 1989.
The Depression had its hold over New South Wales in the 1930s. The square plan Duncan House followed Griffin's composition idea of a house as a nucleus which could be added to as financial strain was eased. Over the decades Frank Duncan and his family added some extensions to suit their needs: a bedroom, a garage, and loggia (outdoor covered patio area), modest in scale, and in materials harmonising with the original house.
Duncan House leads to founding of the Walter Burley Griffin Society