Browse Items (856 total)

For office buildings for the Calor Gas Service company, White used simple corrugated metal sheets, which he folded around corners and edges of the buildings. White designed buildings in Merced and Susanville for the company, as well as designing…

In 1944, White built a 'Desert Dwelling' for his mother-in-law, Esther Breedlove in La Quinta. This small house is one of the earliest examples of White's work in the desert, and shows how his style was shaped by the environment. White used stand…

The house White designed for Miles Bates in Palm Springs was never built, but would have been a much larger residence than the one built for Bates in Palm Desert. The plan for the house included an experiment in overlapping circles and half circles,…

The Walter White archive contains a few photographs of White at various stages in his career.

Photo of staircase in the house of film director Vidor King and actress Eleanor Boardman in Beverly Hills, California by architect Wallace Neff.

Photograph of loggia with cherub fountain.

Photograph of exterior stairwell with driveway

Photo of exterior of house with chimney.

Photograph of entrance court in the Marion and Thomson House located in Beverly Hills, California. Architect Wallace Neff built this home for screenwriter Frances Marion and her actor husband Fred Thomson.

Photograph of the fountain and archway in the house built for scriptwriter-actor couple Frances Marion and Fred Thomson by architect Wallace Neff in Beverly Hills, California.

Photograph of patio at Eaton House with landscaping.

Photograph of patio at Eaton House, located in the Hope Ranch neighborhood of Santa Barbara, California.

Photograph of exterior of Eaton House and driveway, located in Hope Ranch neighborhood of Santa Barbara, California.

Photograph of the exterior of Eaton House with landscaping.

Photograph of the exterior and porch of Eaton House, located in the Hope Ranch neighborhood of Santa Barbara, California.

Photo of exterior of Eaton house with landscaping, located in Hope Ranch neighborhood of Santa Barbara, California.

Floor plan of the Eaton House in the Hope Ranch by architect Wallace Neff. Hope Ranch is an affluent suburb on the coast between Goleta and Santa Barbara.

Photos of main entrance to the library. The carved stone arch surrounding the entry door is modeled after the carved stone on the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City, Mexico. At the top of the arched entrance is a statue of Our Lady of Miraculous…

These photos feature the main garden space in St. John's Seminary, modeled after the garden at Edward L. Doheny's Chester Place home in Los Angeles, California. The south-facing facade of the E.L. Doheny Memorial Library overlooks this garden space.

Round display room hallway in E.L. Doheny Memorial Library.

Photograph of the exterior of the A.K. Bourne house from the street.

Photo of tiled courtyard at the A.K. Bourne House in San Marino, California.

Photo of the interior of the entrance hall.

Photograph of the side exterior of the A.K. Bourne house in San Marino, California.

Photo of exterior of the A.K. Bourne house from the lawn.

Photo of the exterior and patio of the A.K. Bourne house by architect Wallace Neff in San Marino, California.

A view of Campbell Hall, looking towards the northwest, from the library. The photograph highlights the landscaping and outdoor patio space for studying. This view no longer exists, due to the building of Ellison Hall and the expansion of the…

An aerial view of the campus from the early 1950s, the Carjola-designed library is in the center of the image. Numerous World War II era buildings are seen in the lower right corner of the photograph. This photograph also highlights the lack of…

An aerial view of the campus from the early 1950s, looking towards the ocean in a southwesterly direction. The first two University buildings constructed are seen in the middle-lower-right (the Carjola-designed library) and immediately to the left of…

An aerial view of the campus looking towards the northwest, with the foot hills in the distance at the top of the photograph. The residence halls Anacapa and Santa Cruz appear to be under construction in the front of the photograph, as well as the…

An aerial view of the campus looking west towards Isla Vista. Campbell hall is in the center, with North Hall and Robertson Gymnasium in the distance. Cheadle Hall is under construction due west of Campbell Hall. Some of the WWII era buildings seen…

The on-campus home for the Chancellor and his/her family, the University House is located at the edge of the lagoon, close to the original residence halls. With an enclosed courtyard, wide roof overhangs, and a patio with a view of the lagoon, the…

A rendering of the original University Center design. The UCen is situated with a view over the lagoon and towards the ocean, south of, and between the Music Building and the Arts Building. The UCen has had multiple additions and alterations, though…

This brochure is for the Assistance League of Southern California's benefit showing of the "Trousdale Quintet," a set of 5 estate homes by the Trousdale Development Company in Los Angeles, California. This brochure features four homes located on…

Magazine advertisement by Frojen Advertising Inc. showing five architects of the Trousdale Estates, including Rex Lotery, Richard Dorman, William Stephenson, Edward Fickett, and A. Quincy Jones. The advertisement describes the combined work of the…

This rendering for a shopping center was commissioned by M. Russell Davis and Philip Mackay Gordon, builder and business property developers. This early work shows influences of Streamline Moderne as well as a more Modern aesthetic.

This house was built in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles for a young family with many children, live-in maids, and a need to entertain large groups. The International Style house that Abell designed also worked well for the Siskin's need for…

The steel magnate Gustav Rich commissioned this house from Abell in 1966. The steel frame with stucco also contained long walls of glass and interior walls of walnut.
The house was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 2006, after…

Abell designed side-by-side duplexes for sisters Mary McKeen Niedringhaus and Christine Reber. Both houses had private views of the mountains and each side of the duplex also contained a rental unit.

This house was built for the Los Angeles Seventh National Home Show and Building Exposition. Abell designed a model home named "The Californian."

This commission from the Los Angeles School District for a classroom building at Mt. Vernon Junior High, was located in the West Adams neighborhood. It is now named the Johnnie Cochran Middle School.

The house was designed for Rico LeBrun, an artist and teacher. LeBrun requested a large art studio with an outside work area, inside work area, drawing room, metal shop, sculpture room, and large studio with darkroom and plentiful storage. The house…

For this axonometric drawing, Abell shows a cut-away of the Paramount Television Productions studio plant on North Bronson Avenue in Hollywood. Klaus Landsberg, a pioneering electrical engineer for the early television studios, is listed as the 'West…

For this shopping center in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Abell designed the business block for Philip M. Gordon and the Los Feliz Investment Company.

The Art Building complex at California State University, Fullerton is actually a grouping of four buildings connected by courtyards, loggias, and water features. The classrooms in the Art building were designed to be wide and long, to permit many…

The site plan for the Charnock Road Elementary School shows how additional buildings could be added to the site as enrollment grew during the population boom of the 1950s. This was a project for the Los Angeles City School district in the Mar Vista…

This elementary school was one of many schools designed by Abell. Located in the Culver City area of Los Angeles, this school is now a 'gifted magnet' school. The photographs by Julius Shulman were thoughtfully staged.

This house in the Bel Air Hills section of Los Angeles, was built for Dr. William S. Beck. Sited on a steeply upwardly sloping lot in a canyon, the house was placed close to the road to take advantage of the only flat portion of the lot.

In addition to private homes, Abell also designed schools, stores, and other commercial buildings such as this bank on Larchmont in Los Angeles. The clean and simple facade, overhanging roof, and ample off-street parking have survived the 40+ years…

This one-story house in the Hollywood Hills area of Los Angeles is sited on a flat lot, with a private pool and outdoor living area. Built with a distinctive roof line, the house allows for indoor/outdoor living through glass walls and atriums.

This house for L.B. Adelman is sited on a portion of the former Charlie Chaplin estate in Beverly Hills (the tennis court on the property is the original Chaplin Estate court). The post and beam design was designed by Abell and O'Neil Ford, a…

The Thornton Abell office building in Santa Monica highlights his architectural style for clients. The use of clean lines, indoor/outdoor living, and sliding partition doors were all features showcased in the photos by architectural photographer…

Thornton Abell designed this house on a very steep lot in the hills of Santa Monica for himself and his family. The three story home featured a rooftop deck, main level terrace, lower level drafting room, and a garden with a pool and guest house.

The Thornton Abell archive contains a number of studio portraits of the architect.

A photograph of the side of the house, taken from the driveway. The garage and service areas are to the left, with the terrace and balcony above to the right. A portion of the terrace was covered and enclosed by the Lappen family in the 1970s.

A non-technical plan of the second floor. This plan shows three small bedrooms which share one bathroom on the west side of the house, with access to the large south-facing balcony, which stretches the length of the house. The east half of the house…

A non-technical first floor plan of the house. The plan shows a large south-facing terrace, a motor court at the north side of the house with covered walkway connecting the service entrance and main entrance. Thomas Mann's study is located in the…

An architectural drawing of the north, south, and west exterior elevations of the house. Both the west and south elevations contain specific instructions for grading of the land and footings for the terrace.

This photograph of the front of the house with trees and landscaping was altered (possibly by Davidson himself) to add vines and leaves to the exterior walls and balconies of the house. In this view, the first floor terrace is not yet enclosed, and…

An architectural drawing of the east elevation, details, and sections for the Mann house. The east elevation shows the balcony adjacent to Mann's bedroom, and the sections show the east and west sides of the house. There are also details of the…

This is an early design of the interior floor plan for the Student Health Center. The building appears to have been designed as having facilities for 24/7 care, with individual rooms. Multiple versions of this floor plan exist as the needs of the…

This image shows the east elevation (facing El Colegio Road) and the west elevation (facing the bike path). Both entrances have changed significantly,

This architectural drawing of the west and south exterior elevations of Storke Tower and parts of the lower plaza. Partially funded by Santa Barbara News Press founder Thomas M. Storke, this is the tallest structure on campus, at 175 feet tall, and…

Two years after Killingsworth completed the Student Health Center, his firm began work on a 300 unit apartment complex for married students near the corner of Los Carneros Road and Mesa Road, just north and west of the main campus. The red tile…

A rendering of the building looking south through the plaza towards the lagoon. The building contained a 380 seat theater, speech therapy facilities, and regular classroom and office space. It was originally designed for the emerging fields of…

This photograph shows a model of South Hall, with Girvetz Hall in the foreground. Marsh, Smith & Powell designed Girvetz in 1955, shortly before Marshs' death. The firm changed its name to Powell, Morgridge, Richards, & Coughlin in the early 1960's…

In 1950, Santa Barbara architecture firm Soule and Murphy developed a master plan for the campus. Initially, the college was to be a small liberal-arts college (with a maximum enrollment of 3500 students), not a large research university. The Soule…

Case Study House #5 by Whitney Smith was an un-built project-- also known as the Loggia House. The central feature of this 1800 square foot house was the living room which could be expanded or contracted with the use of sliding glass walls and…

Case Study House #12 was an un-built project from architect Whitney Smith. This house, similar in some ways to his previous house project (CSH #5), was designed by Smith to house horticulturists. As such, a lath house was attached to the house, and…

For the long, narrow, 1300 square foot house for Leo Zwell, Smith designed a straight line of rooms, with each one having a full wall of glass facing onto the brick terrace. A "light trough" or linear skylight provided natural light to the…

The house for William B. Wilcox was designed by Whitney Smith and described as an adult house for informal living and entertaining. The kitchen cooking unit and the fireplace are back-to-back, making circulation between living, dining, and kitchen…

The Welborn Phillips Company was a developer of tract homes. Smith and Williams created a brochure which illustrated their philosophy on tract housing. They highlighted such details as exterior masonry planter boxes to give a pleasant view from…

The drive-in laundry used the canopy (33 feet wide and 48 feet long) to catch the customer’s eye as well as to shelter customers and the car hops who retrieved and delivered laundry for waiting cars. The triangular space frame truss is accented by…

The post office was designed to anchor a small suburban shopping center. A reproduction of a rendering in the archive shows that the decorative folded detail on the façade was to be carried through onto the fronts of the other buildings in the…

Of all Smith and Williams’s buildings, the union structures are the most modernistic. The glass, steel and concrete buildings present forthright, transparent façades to their members and communities. The materials also represent the sleek and…

As in many of Smith and Williams’s houses, the fireplace is set in a window wall. The architects bring nature directly into the house through views and by means of a stone wall that penetrates the living room from outside. A garden court sits at…

Wayne Williams and Robert Meyerhof, associate partner in the Smith and Williams’s office, designed a multi-level arrangement of decks and stair landings with an elaborate post-and-beam system that gives the impression of a tree house. The…

Whitney Smith, the partner in charge, designed a tent-like structure for a new sanctuary, in deference to the Methodist open door philosophy of worship. The interior furnishings, including the cross, communion table and rail, lectern and pulpit were…

Smith and Williams created, at the time, the longest unsupported plywood vaults for this church. The clerestories under the vaults are lighted at night, which makes the roof appear to float.

Smith had an opportunity in the Spencer house to realize some of the ideas in his Case Study House 12. The Spencer’s property contained a number of garden structures, including a Greene and Greene lath house. Sketches in the Spencer file show Smith…

Smith’s own house began as a garage on a piece of land that had been part of a larger residential property. He wrote about the house in a letter to an editor at the Ladies Home Journal in 1948: “The garden walls and landscaping positively define…

The first Smith and Williams office space was a converted structure on a property belonging to a Mrs. Armstrong, on South Los Robles Avenue in Pasadena.

The house for Dr. Daniel Siegel and his family uses a strong circulation element, in this case a ramp, to organize the living areas on a deep and steep lot. The entrance to the house is strongly marked with a long covered walk. Cobblestones are used…

The pavilion was designed by Smith and Williams in 1958, and contained walls which were inset with milk-white, blue, and translucent glass panels.

Whitney Smith described his design for the Santa Ana Woods tract development as one of his best: "a tract of 104 houses, set far apart from other neighborhoods by natural barriers. The exclusive atmosphere further emphasized by the stone entrance."

This medical building comprises four separate structures, connected by stairways and an L-shaped second floor. The round building, closest to Las Tuna Drive, originally was a pharmacy.

The Salet house was built as a mother-in-law unit on the same property, yet secluded from, the main house. The tadpole-shaped plan has a square, open plan living and dining zone, which separates living spaces from bedrooms. Opposite the entry is an…

The exterior is reserved but the inside is full of visual excitement. Wooden screens and colored glass separate reception from waiting areas, and animate the small space. As in their other doctors’ offices, the scale and materials create a…

Philip Roulac, a builder and contractor, became a frequent client of and collaborator with Smith and Williams. He built most of the houses that Smith and Williams designed in San Marino. When Roulac purchased land that included the 1934 pump house,…

Smith and Williams designed several schemes for Ralphs Grocery Stores. For the South Pasadena location, they designed a distinctive frame for the facade that faces the parking lot. The frame is made up of an expressionistic roof edging held up by…

The Port Holiday resort was never built, but was to be located in the northwest corner of Lake Mead's Boulder Basin, just outside of Las Vegas, on the way to the Hoover Dam. The client, J. Carlton Adair, commissioned the studies and conceptual…

Wayne Williams was the project manager for Community Facilities Planners on this unbuilt project in Lake Mead, Nevada. The development was to include homes, apartments, a mobile home park, hotels and shopping center, sporting areas, all clustered…

Robert Thorgusen of Smith and Williams was in charge of this exhibition house for the annual Orange County Home Show. Two identical rectangles—one for living and one for sleeping— are adjacent to a central court and surrounded by decks. Exposed…

The house for Dr. and Mrs. Bernauer Newton and family is considered one of their boldest designs for integrating inside and outside spaces.
The bedrooms for the Newton house are in separate pavilions connected to the living area by covered…

An associate architect in the Smith and Williams offices, Robert Thorgusen, designed a beach bath house with an undulating wall of sprayed concrete and metal lath. Thorgusen may have also designed the wooden lifeguard station.

The restaurant at Newport Dunes resort was commissioned by the Fred Harvey Company, which was known for hotels and restaurants that were part of train depots in the southwest United States in the early 20th century. The three story circular…

The Newport Dunes development was a planned resort destination in Newport Beach. The rendering and photographic aerial views show contrasting visions of design and reality.

Prior to 1966, the Neighborhood Church congregation used a sanctuary building at 535 South Pasadena Avenue that had been built in 1887 as the First Congregational Church. In 1946, the church expanded its facilities. Smith and Williams designed a…

In 1946, a group of four friends decided to pool their resources and buy land in the hills above Sunset Boulevard to build homes for their families. The group soon grew to over 400 interested parties, and the group became the Mutual Housing…