Marion Mahoney

Marion Mahony Griffin (Marion Lucy Mahony; February 14, 1871 – August 10, 1961) was an American architect and artist.

She was one of the first licensed female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School.

Her work in the United States developed and expanded the American Prairie School, and her work in India and Australia reflected Prairie School ideals of indigenous landscape and materials in the newly formed democracies.

The scholar Debora Wood stated that Griffin "did the drawings people think of when they think of Frank Lloyd Wright (one of her collaborating architects)."

According to architecture critic, Reyner Banham, Griffin was "America’s (and perhaps the world’s) first woman architect who needed no apology in a world of men."

She produced some of the finest architectural drawing in America and Australia, and was instrumental in envisioning the design plans for the capital city of Australia, Canberra.

Mahony was born in 1871 in Chicago, Illinois, to Jeremiah Mahony, a journalist, poet, and teacher from Cork, Ireland, and Clara Hamilton, a schoolteacher.

Her family moved to nearby Winnetka in 1880 after the Great Chicago Fire.

In her memoir, Mahoney vividly describes her mother carrying her as an infant in a clothes basket, as they escape from the fire.

Growing up in Winnetka, she became fascinated by the quickly disappearing landscape as suburban homes filled the area.

She was influenced by her first cousin, architect Dwight Perkins, and decided to further her education.

She was the second woman to do so, after Sophia Hayden, the designer of the Woman's building at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition.

Though highly talented, she sometimes struggled with her place in both society and the field.

She was unsure of her ability to complete the thesis required for her bachelor's degree, but her professor, Constant-Désiré Despradelle, pushed her forward.

After graduation, Mahony returned to Chicago, where she became the first woman to be licensed to practice architecture in Illinois.

She worked in her cousin's architecture firm, which was located in Steinway Hall at 64 E. Van Buren in downtown Chicago.

The space was shared with many other architects, including Robert C. Spencer, Myron Hunt, Webster Tomlinson, Irving Pond and Allen Bartlett Pond, Adamo Boari, Birch Long and Frank Lloyd Wright.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in 1894.

In 1895, Mahony, the first employee hired by Frank Lloyd Wright, went to work designing buildings, furniture, stained glass windows, and decorative panels.

Her beautiful watercolor renderings of buildings and landscapes became known as a staple of Wright's style, though she was never given credit by the famous architect.

Over a century later she would be known as one of the greatest delineators of the architecture field, but during her life, her talent was seen as only an extension of the work done by male architects.

She was associated with Wright's studio for almost fifteen years and was an important contributor to his reputation, particularly for the influential Wasmuth Portfolio, for which Mahony created more than half of the numerous renderings.

Architectural writer Reyner Banham called her the "greatest architectural delineator of her generation."

Her rendering of the K. C. DeRhodes House in South Bend, Indiana, was praised by Wright upon its completion and by many critics.

Wright understated the contributions of others of the Prairie School, Mahony included.

A clear understanding of Marion Mahony's contribution to the architecture of the Oak Park Studio comes from Wright's son, John Lloyd Wright, who says that William Drummond, Francis Barry Byrne, Walter Burley Griffin, Albert Chase McArthur, Marion Mahony, Isabel Roberts and George Willis were the draftsmen—the five men and two women who each made valuable contributions to Prairie-style architecture for which Wright became famous.

During this time Mahony designed the Gerald Mahony Residence (1907) in Elkhart, Indiana for her brother and sister-in-law.

When Wright eloped to Europe with Mamah Borthwick Cheney in 1909, he offered the Studio's work to Mahony but she declined.

After Wright had gone, Hermann V. von Holst, who had taken on Wright's commissions, hired Mahony with the stipulation that she would have control of the design.

In this capacity, Mahony was the architect for a number of commissions Wright had abandoned.

Two examples were the first (unbuilt) design for Henry Ford's Dearborn mansion, Fair Lane and the Amberg House in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Mahony recommended Walter Burley Griffin to von Holst to develop landscaping for the area surrounding the three houses commissioned from Wright in Decatur, Illinois.

Griffin was a fellow architect, a fellow ex-employee of Wright, and a leading member of the Prairie School of architecture.

Mahony and Griffin worked on the Decatur project before their marriage; afterward, Mahony worked in Griffin's practice.

A Walter Burley Griffin/Marion Mahony designed development that is home to an outstanding collection of Prairie School dwellings, Rock Crest – Rock Glen in Mason City, Iowa, is seen as their most dramatic American design development of the decade.

It is the largest collection of Prairie Style homes surrounding a natural setting.

Mahony and Griffin married in 1911, a partnership that lasted 26 years.

Mahony's watercolor perspectives of Griffins' design for Canberra, the new Australian capital, were instrumental in securing first prize in the international competition for the plan of the city.

In 1914 the couple moved to Australia to oversee the building of Canberra.

Mahony managed the Sydney office and was responsible for the design of their private commissions.