Anthroposophy

Walter Burley Griffin, the designer of Canberra, was more than a very talented architect. He was also an advocate of alternative religion. Can hidden esoteric principles can be traced in his work?

See link below to transcript of Compass: Beyond Architecture
http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1089982.htm


Anthroposophy, a philosophy founded by Rudolf Steiner, postulates the existence of an objective, intellectually comprehensible spiritual world accessible to direct experience through inner development. More specifically, it aims to develop faculties of perceptive imagination, inspiration and intuition through cultivating a form of thinking independent of sensory experience,and to present the results thus derived in a manner subject to rational verification. In its investigations of the spiritual world, anthroposophy aims to attain the precision and clarity attained by the natural sciences in their investigations of the physical world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthroposophy


The Griffins were designing and planning cities with a holistic approach; the ideal city in which spirituality is inextricable linked with the urban landscape and the built form. As described in the definition above, this type of spirituality was an investigation into the natural sciences.

from Compass: Beyond Architecture

NARR:

Using Marion Burley Griffin’s original drawings as evidence, Professor Proudfoot concluded that the plans were based on sacred crystals and the principles of sacred geometry or geomancy including the Chinese version known as feng shui. This all served to carefully place buildings , roads and objects in the landscape

Graham Pont:

Now if you look at what you've done there, and on this smaller drawing I've marked it a bit more heavily, you've got that red circle, what you might call the generative or fundamental circle of Canberra. The two axis crossing. That resultant symbol or diagram or mandala is no other than the Egyptian hieroglyph for a city or a town. And I think that's fantastic.

They saw architecture as a kind of supreme art, as a cosmic art.
They were dealing with a particular kind of client. I think that if they had exposed their philosophical background they would have lost control of the project even more quickly than they did.

James Weirick:
I think unfortunately the esoteric interpretation of the Griffin plan correlates with the idea that in fact Canberra is a secret world. That the inner chambers are places which we will never get to. So I think that the Griffins were totally opposed to those views, and the fact that Canberra has been built in denial of their values its fundamental problem.


Jillian Roe:
They were not just building houses and suburbs. They were building a new world with new people in it, who had whole new spiritual insights.
They didn't perhaps get very far, but in that idealistic sense we can understand their hopes.

Jillian Roe:
What we do know is that Marian took to anthroposophy with great enthusiasm. She joined the Society in 1930 and Walter shortly after. And somehow or other it chimed into their environmental attitudes.
The notion that there was harmony between the natural and the human world. And that the human beings could, along with the natural world, evolve. It was all one life.


Graham Pont:
They wanted to create an ideal work of art for an idealised or improved society. Philosophically that's impeccable