Finding Aid for the Kenneth Wing papers, 1901-1986 0000195

Finding aid prepared by Chris Marino
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Arts Building Room 1434
University of California
Santa Barbara, California, 93106-7130
805-893-2724
adc@museum.ucsb.edu


Title: Kenneth Wing papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0000195
Contributing Institution: Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material: English
Physical Description: 55.0 Linear feet (24 boxes, 7 boxes of drawings, 3 flat file drawers)
Date (inclusive): circa 1922-circa 1987
creator: Wing, Kenneth S., 1901-1986

Access

Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.

Custodial History note

Gift of Long Beach Heritage Coalition, 1996.

Preferred Citation note

Kenneth Wing papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.

Biographical/Historical note

Kenneth Wing was born on January 22, 1901 in Colorado. In 1918, at the age of 17, Wing’s family moved to Long Beach. He attended Polytechnic High School, and then went on to study architecture at the University of Southern California from which he graduated in 1925. Just out of school, Wing got a job with Meyer and Holler where he was assigned to design the Chinese pagoda and do the preliminary sketches for one of the interior murals for the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. A year later, Wing was hired as the chief designer at Lincoln Mortgage Company while simultaneously working for the Los Angeles Times designing a weekly sketch of a floor plan of a home for their home section. In 1930, Wing opened his own firm in Long Beach. Over the course of his career he designed numerous homes in the Virginia Country Club and Bixby Knolls area, as well as in Rolling Hills and Palos Verde Estates. He also did civic and commercial buildings, including: the Guild House Shoes and Accessories Store, Pasadena City College, the Long Beach Arena, Long Beach City Hall/Library Complex, Long Beach Memorial Hospital, and the Pacific Terrace theater complex. Kenneth Wing died in 1986, at the age of 85.

Scope and Content note

The Kenneth Wing papers span 55 linear feet and date from circa 1922 to circa 1987. The collection contains primarily photographic prints organized by projects, as well as, slides, and Polaroids. Photographs in the collection are either loose or placed within scrapbooks. The collection also contains presentation boards for the following projects: the Long Beach Transportation Center, the Edison Business Center, the Hillview center, the Methodist Church, and the Long Beach United Bank. Architectural drawing and reprographic copies also constitute a large portion of the collection, documenting over 100 of Wing’s projects.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

Wing, Kenneth S., 1901-1986
Architectural drawings
Photographic prints
Presentation drawings (proposals)
Reprographic copies
Scrapbooks