Ascot Theater, Melbourne, Australia, Perspective

As American expatriates in Australia, Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin transformed their Prairie School training in the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright into a highly imaginative, new local idiom. While building on their Chicago roots, the Griffins’ work in Australia took on elaborate geometries, reflecting a large range of influences from Gothic architecture to ancient Mayan temples. Nevertheless, it is also possible to understand their work as a contribution to the international Art Deco movement during this period. Like their realized Capital Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, the Griffins’ Ascot Theater project includes dramatic lines and crystalline molding surmounting the entrances. This drawing is one of many of the highly skilled architectural renderings by Marion Mahony Griffin given to the Art Institute after she returned to the United States following her husband’s death in 1937, enriching the museum’s strong holdings related to the Prairie School.