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Finding Aid for the Welton Becket papers, circa 1929-circa 1969
0000132
0000132
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Table of contents
Title: Welton Becket papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0000132
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
27.0 Linear feet
(24 record storage boxes and 1 flat file)
Date (inclusive): circa 1929-circa 1969
Location note: Boxes 1-20/ADC - regular boxes 22 and 23 are unaccounted for - incomplete extent Boxes 24-26/ADC - regular 1 Flat File Folder/ADC
- flat files misc.
creator:
Becket, Welton David, 1902-1969
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.
Gift of the firm Ellerbe Becket, 2001. Additional materials gifted by Vincent B. Buerge, 2001.
Welton Becket papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Welton Becket was born on September 8, 1902 in Washington State. He studied architecture at the University of Washington from
1923-1927 and at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, France during 1928. After school Becket returned to Seattle and started an architectural
firm with his former classmate Walter Wurdeman. In 1933, Wurdeman and Becket moved to Los Angeles and added Charles Plummer
to their team and became Becket, Wurdeman and Plummer. In 1939 Charles Plummer died and Wurdeman and Becket continued the
firm until 1940. From 1940 on, Welton Becket formed his own architectural firm Welton Becket and Associates and opened offices
in San Francisco, New York and Houston. In 1987 Welton Becket and Associates merged with the architectural firm Ellerbe &
Co. and became Ellerbe Becket. Over the course of Becket’s career he designed many corporate and civic landmarks in Los Angeles
and around the world. His more notable projects include: the Music Center in downtown Los Angeles, the Cinerama Dome, Capitol
Records, Los Angeles Sports Arena, the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and Los Angeles International Airport’s theme building on
which he collaborated on with Charles Luckman and William Pereira. Welton Becket died at the age of 66, on January 16, 1969.
The Welton Becket papers span 27 linear feet and date circa 1929 to circa 1999. The collection contains slides, both black-and-white
and color photographs, reports, correspondence, as well as architectural reprographic copies of the Computer Sciences Corporation
Aerospace Center Offices in El Segundo California dated 1962. The collection also contains photographs, project files, and
slides from both the Welton Becket and Associates firm (circa 1969-1987), the Ellerbe Associates (circa 1909-1987), and the
merged firm of Ellerbe Becket (circa 1987- circa 1999).
Related Archival Materials note
Welton Becket Architectural Projects, The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley.
Elliot Mittler collection of Welton Becket and Associates Photograph Archives (collection number 1325). Department of Special
Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA.
Victor Cusack papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Welton Becket architectural drawings and photographs, Getty Research Institute, Special Collections.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Becket, Welton David, 1902-1969
Photographic prints
Reprographic copies