Newman College, University of Melbourne, Australia, Perspective View

Marion Mahony and Walter Burley Griffin’s commission to design Newman College came soon after the couple moved to Australia in 1914 to work on the new federal city of Canberra. The architects’ scheme was modeled on a Gothic Revival quadrangle, with a central, domed administration building and two wings of student housing. The Griffins drew on eclectic sources for the building’s design, including a round dome and abstract towers that recall Gothic spires and crystalline forms found in ancient non-Western architectures from India and Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. This atmospheric drawing emphasizes the connection between the low, spreading form of the building and the lines of the Australian landscape, a feature celebrated in Marion’s landscape design for the project.