Monday, November 12, 2007

Walter Burley Griffin's Castlecrag

The_Crag_Castlecrag_1924-1938 Wanda Spathopoulos' book "The Crag: Castlecrag 1924-1938", about the suburb designed by Walter Burley Griffin, will be launched by Alan Saunders at gleebooks in Sydney 29 November 2007. The books isn't on Amazon.com yet, but you can buy it from Gleebooks.
This book tells a story of Castlecrag, the creation of Walter Burley Griffin, architect/landscape architect of Canberra fame, and his architect wife, Marion Mahony Griffin. Using her own recollections as a starting point, Wanda Spathopoulos gives an overall picture of life on Castlecrag during the first two formative decades. In drawing the various threads together she had attempted to present some kind of a coherent narrative, a chronicle of the events. The events and anecdotes themselves serve as the vehicle for conveying very simply some of the basic ideas of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, as the founders of Castlecrag. At the same time the reader becomes acquainted with the community, a vital and integral part of the experiment, which remained constant in concept but often changing in its composition.

From: Events, gleebooks, 2007

1 comment:

Tom Worthington said...

There was a very good interview with her on ABC Radio National "By Design" called The Griffins and Castlecrag", 15 December 2007:

Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin are best known as the architects behind the master plan for Canberra. But the capital wasn't their only Australian achievement.

In planning the Sydney suburb of Castlecrag the Griffins set out to create a community in harmony with itself and the environment. A new book offers rare insight into the Griffins' personality and beliefs and the early days of the social experiement which was Castlecrag.

Guests

Wanda Spathopoulos
Author

Publications

Title: The Crag: Castlecrag 1924-1938
Author: Wanda Spathopoulos
Publisher: Brandl & Schlesinger
Presenter

Alan Saunders


ps: Unfortunately the book still does not seem to be available via Amazon.com.