Walter Burley Griffin was an American architect and landscape architect. He has been credited with the development of the L-shaped floor plan, the carport and an innovative use of reinforced concrete.

Influenced by the Chicago-based Prairie School, Griffin developed a unique modern style, and he worked in partnership with his wife Marion Mahony Griffin (1911). Griffin attended Oak Park High School. He considered studying landscape design but he instead chose to study architecture. During his studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he also took courses in horticulture and forestry. In Chicago, Griffin was employed as a draftsman for two years in the offices of progressive architects at Steinway Hall (e.g., D. H. Perkins, R. C. Spencer).

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Louis Sullivan was influential among Prairie School architects and Griffin was an admirer of his work. In July 1901, Griffin passed the new Illinois architects' licensing examination and began working in F. L. Wright's Oak Park studios. Wright allowed Griffin and his staff to undertake small commissions of their own. The William Emery house in Elmhurst, IL, in 1903 was such a commission. From 1905 he also began to supply landscape plans for Wright's buildings. In 1906, he resigned his position at Wright's studio and established his own practice at Steinway Hall.

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From 1907 to 1914, several houses designed by Griffin were built on the far southwest side of Chicago in the city's Beverly and Morgan Park neighborhoods. In 1911, he married Marion Mahony, a former coworker in Wright's office.