Frank Lloyd Wright and Marion Mahoney

Marion Mahony Griffin is best known for her work on the designs for Canberra, however the early years of her career are less well known. Mahony graduated as an architect in Boston in 1894, being just the second woman in America to graduate with an architectural degree. A year later she began working as a renderer in the office of Frank Lloyd Wright, translating his designs into broader landscape settings and finalising his sketches into scaled views. Her drawings were particularly refined and noted for their artistic sensibility.  

During these early years of his career, in his search for a uniquely American style of architecture, Wright developed his Prairie style, inspired by the broad sweeping plains of the Midwest. His houses were characterised by a strong horizontal linearity with broad, overhanging hipped rooves and semi open plan interiors. A particular feature were his leaded windows, or light screens, which he used to unify interior and exterior spaces, in the process developing a fully modern design language. Wright’s early windows are characterised by a geometric formalism and colour became an important feature with greens and yellows predominating – colours of the Midwestern prairies. 

Mahony worked for Wright for fourteen years and was deeply influenced by his prairie aesthetic. Ultimately though, it was the principles of Japanese design that profoundly influenced both their design approaches and had a lasting impact upon their careers.