Trash Talk: Griffin’s Willoughby Incinerator Revived , by Alan Miller


Ornament is no crime at the Willoughby Incinerator (1934). Photo © 2011 Alan Miller.

Between 1930 and 1938, Walter Burley Griffin and Eric Nicholls designed thirteen municipal incinerators in various Australian cities. Built in the heart of the Great Depression, these odd little buildings must have been a creative and financial godsend for Griffin, an architect whose splendid dreams were too often thwarted by unsplendid clients. The incinerators, which often sat in suburban streets, were ‘green’ infrastructure avant la lettre, fascinating both as urban history and as a possible model for the urban transformations required by the 21st century.

Read the full article on the Berkshire Review, an international journal for the Arts!

Michael Miller