It was designed in partnership between Walter Burley Griffin and Eric Nicholls and built from 1933 to 1934 by Reverberatory Incinerator and Engineering Company and Nisson Leonard-Kanevsky.

[1] Walter Burley Griffin was born near Chicago and trained at Nathan Ricker's School of Architecture at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1899.

In 1911, Griffin married Marion Mahony, who had graduated in architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and worked as Wright's head designer.

Apparently unsatisfied with the lack of relevant curriculum, Simonds urged him to pursue architecture and study landscape gardening on his own, as he himself had done.

[1] By 1914 Griffin and his architect wife Marion Mahony had moved to Australia after winning the 1912 international design competition for the Federal Capital, Canberra with a scheme based on its topography, a distinctly non-prairie valley landscape of undulating hills.

He also developed an economical construction system of pre-cast interlocking structural tiles, which he called "Knitlock", and used it widely, as well as stone, in the houses of Castlecrag.

In the early 1930s, Griffin built incinerators for the destruction of household garbage in various cities and suburbs in the eastern states of Australia.

[2][1] Griffin's contribution to the development of the Wrightian / Prairie School style internationally has begun to receive attention from architectural historians in recent years.

It is now increasingly acknowledged that Griffin contributed a number of fresh concepts to the Prairie School, most noticeably: his attention to vertical space (a development leading directly to the ubiquitous split-level style post-war houses); "open plan" living and dining areas dominated by a large central fireplace; and the extensive domestic use of reinforced concrete.

[6][1] Griffin is also internationally renowned for his work as a landscape architect, especially the innovative town planning design of Canberra and Castlecrag, Griffith and Leeton.

Landscape itself, for example, crucially served as a basis for architecture - a conviction first made explicit in the Canberra publicity, Griffin noting (in Chicago) that: "...a building should ideally be "the logical outgrowth of the environment in which [it is] located"."

[5][1] A number of forces resulted in local governments taking responsibility for garbage collection and disposal, following Sydney's 1901 bubonic plague epidemic, through to the construction of efficient municipal incinerators in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

[8][1] The designs for the incinerators vary widely and there is no doubt that Nicholls contributed to the conception of most, but it is clear that Griffin exerted himself in the Willoughby building, located not far from his residential subdivision at Castlecrag.

[1] The 1930s depression impacted significantly on Willoughby Council resulting in inadequate funds to install a second furnace or maintain the incinerator.

At this time the lease was sold to Design Six Properties Pty Ltd.[9][1] The Australian Bicentennary provided the opportunity to reclaim the adjacent tip through an ambitious project to create a major sporting complex and a lineal park linking Artarmon with Middle Harbour.

[1][10]: 4  In 2008 approvals were given for conservation works to restore the incinerator building and adaptively reuse it as a community hall, artist studio and cafe.

[1][10]: 4 The incinerator, constructed of local sandstone with a top hamper of painted stucco, carries panels of Griffin's geometric modelling and the building cascades down the hillside in a series of steps with acrobatic verve.

[1] A composite reinforced concrete steel and brick structure, it consists of four levels of roofed tiled pitched and skillion forms punctuated by a faceted flue tower.

[14][1] The SHR curtilage should be revised to correspond with that recommended in section 6.4.4 of Walker & Waters, 2001, encompassing the incinerator building and hoppers, rock outcrops, and brick shed (formerly part of the sewage dump operation) and all the land between the playground, bike path and road access to the Leisure Centre carpark.

This land should be managed to conserve and interpret the heritage values of the incinerator buildings and should remain free of any further above-ground structures.

[11][1] Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999 having satisfied the following criteria.

The Walter Burley Griffin Incinerator is of historical significance because it is associated with a move by Local Governments along the eastern seaboard of Australia to adopt a new technology, in the 1930s, for the disposal of waste in an efficient manner.

[1][16]: 22 The place is important in demonstrating aesthetic characteristics and/or a high degree of creative or technical achievement in New South Wales.

It is recognised as one of the finest of Griffin's incinerators, where he explored to the maximum his decorative designs in rendered concrete and rough cut stone faced retaining walls.

It is a marvellous architectural composition, clearly expressing the multi level functions of its operations as the building cascades down the side of a hill.