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Cusack (Victor) papers
0000125
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Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Title: Victor Cusack papers
Creator:
Charles Luckman Associates
Creator:
Pereira and Luckman, Architects, Engineers and Planners
Creator:
Hertzka & Knowles, Architects
Creator:
Cusack, Victor A.
source:
Cusack, Victor A.
Creator:
Luckman, Charles
Creator:
Pereira, William L.
Identifier/Call Number: 0000125
Physical Description:
9 Linear Feet
(6 boxes and 1 flat file drawer)
Date (inclusive): 1915-2005
Date (bulk): 1940-1989
Abstract: Victor Cusack is an American architect who spent most of his professional career in the offices of William Pereira & Associates,
Pereira and Luckman, and Charles Luckman Associates. His papers contain biographical material, including his unfinished memoir
about his year with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin and photographs taken during his time there. Also included are reports,
printed materials, and drawings for assorted designs in his own practice, and for William Pereira, Pereira and Luckman, and
Charles Luckman, as well as for Herzka & Knowles. Projects at Pereira for which Cusack had design responsibility include the
California Federal Savings and Loan Building in Los Angeles, the Lockheed Corporation headquarters in Calabasas, the west
terminal (now called the Bradley terminal) for the Los Angeles International Airport, and several master plans and reports
for other projects,including campus planning for the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Language of Material:
English
.
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Gift of Victor Cusack, 1999, 2010, 2013.
Victor Cusack papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Victor Aubrey Cusack was born December 13, 1915 in Ramsey, Bergen County, New Jersey and grew up in Yonkers, Westchester County,
New York, where he was raised from early childhood by his maternal grandparents. He graduated from the Charles E. Gorton High
School in North Yonkers in 1934.
A publisher and editor of a financial newspaper, his grandfather expected Victor to work for him on Wall Street rather than
attend college. Victor, however, had independently taken the New York State college entrance examinations and passed with
honors. His objective was to apply to Yale University's architectural school, a five-year course. Encouraged by Yale's offer
of a scholarship and a tuition loan as well as assistance in finding employment in New Haven, Victor entered Yale in September
1938.
Victor's course at Yale was interrupted in 1936 when a lecture by Frank Lloyd Wright, in which he condemned the beaux-arts
principles of architecture then taught at Yale, inspired Victor to try to join Wright's apprenticeship program in Wisconsin.
Victor approached Alexander Woollcott, the critic and playwright and a confidant of Wright, for advice. Woollcott wrote to
Wright on Victor's behalf and encouraged Victor to personally show up at Taliesin, Wright's workshop in Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Wright accepted Victor for a work study apprenticeship.
Victor apprenticed with Wright from October 1938 through December 1940, working kitchen and farming assignments in Wisconsin
and assisting with building work at Taliesin West, Wright's desert camp then under construction outside Phoenix, Arizona.
Wright sent Victor to New York City in December 1940 to help install the retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern
Art. Cusack's unfinished memoir about Taliesin includes photographs of his time with Wright and the Fellowship and describes
several of the apprentices he met there, including Edgar Tafel, James Thompson, and George Nelson.
By the end of 1940, worried about his eligibility for the war draft and by Yale's threats to foreclose on his tuition loans
if he did not return, Cusack knew that he would have to leave Taliesin and return to Yale. Wright, understanding Victor's
predicament, wrote to Dean Meeks at Yale asking for leniency, but to no avail. Wright's wife Olgivanna Lloyd Wright, irate
when told of Victor's decision to leave, demanded that Victor leave immediately. On Christmas day 1940, Victor found himself
on a Greyhound bus from Phoenix bound for New York, with fare offered by the architect George Nelson who was at Taliesin preparing
a special issue of
Architectural Forum on Wright's work.
Back in New York, Cusack found that working as a draftsman at the U.S. Navy submarine base in New London, Connecticut would
give him an exemption from the draft for a year. There he was put in charge of designing camouflage for ships and submarines.
At the end of 1941 Victor enlisted in a U.S. Navy program that allowed him to return to Yale University and complete work
for his degree.
While he was in Connecticut, Victor worked briefly for James Thompson, a wealthy architect based in Hartford who Victor had
met at Taliesin and for whom he designed two residential projects in Connecticut: the Ellsworth house in Simsbury and the
Jack Ross house in West Hartford.
In 1942 Victor decided to volunteer for the U.S. Navy Construction Battalion (C-Bs) but instead was assigned to U.S.N. officer
training school in New York City, followed by radar training in Florida. When the war in the Pacific was over and Victor was
able to resign his commission, he found himself in San Diego and decided to stay in California and move to Los Angeles, determined
to work for the best modern architect in the city.
He applied repeatedly to the office of William L. Pereira (1909-1985), finally obtaining an interview after the socially prominent
father of a friend asked Pereira to see him. Cusack joined Pereira's office in 1949 and worked for Pereira for 28 years. He
has said that he owed a lot to Pereira's influence, more so than to Frank Lloyd Wright, his first architectural mentor.
Cusack described Pereira as a "great verbal conceptualizer," who liked to explore the conception for every project with his
designers over long discussions. Cusack worked on many of Pereira's commissions, including the prize-winning design for the
Union 76 Oil Company office headquarters in Los Angeles, 1949-1950, and the Los Angeles International airport (LAX), beginning
circa 1953.
In 1950, Pereira invited Charles Luckman (1909-1999) to join the firm. Luckman, trained as an architect at the University
of Illinois where he and Pereira first met as classmates, had become a noted businessman at a young age and was the president
of Lever Bros. in New York City when Pereira approached him. Luckman brought considerable marketing skills and business contacts
to the partnership. Cusack worked as Senior Designer for Pereira and Luckman in Los Angeles until 1954, when he was sent to
Spain for the firm to work on designing U.S. air force bases near Malaga. During his time with the firm, Cusack also worked
as chief designer on the master plan for the UC Santa Barbara campus, where Pereira and Luckman were the consulting campus
architects.
Cusack returned to the United States from Spain at the end of 1955 and decided to try to find work in San Francisco, a city
he preferred to Los Angeles. Between 1956 and 1959, Cusack was the chief designer for the established city firm, Hertzka &
Knowles. While there he designed offices, stores, and hotels in San Francisco and Oakland.
Charles Luckman and William Pereira held increasingly different views about the future of the firm and ended their partnership
in 1959. Luckman was interested in building a large international practice; Pereira wanted to maintain a firm that allowed
him to meet with all his designers around a single table. Pereira was social; Luckman was a businessman. Luckman bought out
Pereira's interest in the firm, including the Los Angeles airport commission and rights to all other projects that were then
in the Pereira and Luckman office.
Subsequently, Luckman established Charles Luckman Associates and convinced Cusack to return to Los Angeles to join the firm
as Chief Designer. Though reluctant to leave San Francisco, Cusack agreed and only after he returned to L.A. did he realize
that he would be one of several "chief" designers. Cusack worked for Charles Luckman Associates from 1959 to 1964. During
that time he designed, among other projects, an American Pavilion for the 1964 World's Fair in New York (unrealized), and
the California Federal Savings and Loan headquarters building at 5900 Wilshire Blvd.
Always eager to travel, Cusack left Luckman in 1964 for a yearlong sabbatical and world trip. When William Pereira was awarded
the commission to design an international terminal (now called the Bradley terminal) for the Los Angeles airport in 1965,
he asked Cusack to rejoin him and serve as chief designer for the project. Cusack created the initial design concept, which
included the idea of having the wide-bodied planes dock at the west face of the terminal. Although this idea was not implemented
then, it finally was incorporated in a recent remodeling. Due to the complexity of the project, the international terminal
became a joint venture with other architects, including Welton Becket and Paul R. Williams. To Cusack's dismay, Daniel Dworsky
was made the design partner for the joint venture, which he headed with Pereira. In compensation, Pereira assigned Cusack
the Lockheed Company Headquarters project to design and supervise.
In 1971, Cusack took a leave of absence from William L. Pereira's office to travel, returning in 1972 to become Vice-President
of William L. Pereira Associates. Cusack retired from the firm only after William Pereira died in 1985. Scott Johnson and
William Fain, both of whom had worked in Pereira's office, founded the successor firm of Johnson Fain.
In 2005, Cusack, Harrison Lewis Whitney, and William A. Schoneberger wrote and published the book,
A Symbol of Los Angeles: The History of the Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport 1952-1961. In February 2012 the Los Angeles Conservancy's Modern Committee designated Victor A. Cusack a Modern Master.
Victor Cusack died in Los Angeles on September 1, 2020.
The Victor Cusack papers span 5 linear feet and date from 1932 to 2004. The collection contains personal papers relating to
Cusack's biography and training as an architect, including his apprenticeship with Frank Lloyd Wright (1938-1940), his service
during World War II (1945-1946), and some family history. Photographs and an unfinished memoir document Victor Cusack's experience
with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin. The bulk of the collection documents Victor Cusack's architectural design work in his
individual practice and as a designer for William Pereira, Pereira and Luckman, and Charles Luckman. Several projects record
his work as chief designer for Herzka & Knowles in San Francisco, during 1957-1958.
Materials include clippings and publications, master plan reports, printed ephemera and publications, photographs, drawings
and sketches, and a video recording. Photographs, sketches, and an unfinished memoir by Cusack describe his time at Taliesin.
Publications, manuscripts, a sketch, ephemera, and a video recording relate to William Pereira as an individual and as an
architect and planner.
Master plan reports, architectural drawings and sketches, and photographs document projects on which Victor Cusack worked,
in his individual practice and his work as designer in other firms, primarily for William Pereira and Charles Luckman. Design
projects include houses, corporate headquarters, and commercial buildings, as well as planning studies for the Los Angeles
International Airport and designs for the West Terminal (now called the Bradley Terminal) at LAX. Also in the collection is
the book that Cusack wrote about the history and design of the LAX Theme Building. Other significant designs represented in
the collection include the Lockheed headquarters building in Calabasas, the Union Oil Center building, the California Savings
and Loan Building in Los Angeles, and designs for the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The papers are arranged in three series: Series I. Personal papers; Series II. Papers relating to William Pereira; and Series
III. Architectural projects.
Welton Becket papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Reprographic copies
Architectural drawings
Photographic prints
Architecture -- California
William Pereira Associates
Pereira and Luckman, Architects, Engineers and Planners
Falkenstein, Claire
Hertzka & Knowles, Architects
Cusack, Victor A.
Cusack, Victor A.
Luckman, Charles
Pereira, William L.