Access
Custodial History note
Preferred Citation note
Biographical/Historical note
Scope and Content note
Related Archival Materials note
Title: Irving John Gill papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0000105
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
21.0 Linear feet
(4 boxes and 6 flat file drawers)
Date (inclusive): 1870-1936
Location note: Boxes 1-5/ADC - regular Box 6**/ADC - double oversize** 6 Flat File Drawers/ADC - flat files, note: no FF 16 (item moved to
box 6**)
creator:
Gill, Irving, 1870-1936 -- Archives
creator:
Gill, Louis J., 1885-1969
creator:
Hebbard, W. S.
creator:
Mead, Frank
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Custodial History note
Gift of Louis J. Gill, 1968. Additional material gifted by Mr. Joseph Musil, 1979 and Lauren Bricker, 1999.
Preferred Citation note
Irving John Gill papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum, University of California,
Santa Barbara
Biographical/Historical note
Born near Syracuse, New York, Irving Gill (1870-1936) was descended from Quakers and grew up in a family with ties to the
building trades; his father was a carpenter and a farmer. Gill trained in architecture through an apprenticeship with architect
Ellis K. Hall in Syracuse and, based on Hall’s recommendation, moved to Chicago in 1890 to work for architect Joseph L. Silsbee.
By 1891, however, Gill was in the office of Dankmar Adler and Louis Sullivan. Frank Lloyd Wright (who had earlier worked for
Silsbee) was working for Sullivan at this time and later claimed that Gill worked under his guidance. The Adler and Sullivan
office was engaged with the Transportation Building for the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. This early modern design
was one of the few buildings not in the classical style for which the fair became known and highly influential, and it is
likely that Gill may have worked on this project during his brief tenure in the office.
Reportedly because of ill health, Gill moved to San Diego in 1893. There he entered a short-lived partnership with Joseph
Falkenham, then established in 1896 an office with William Sterling Hebbard, which lasted until 1906. In the following years
Gill worked alone, though he collaborated with architect Frank Mead on a few projects between 1906-1907. Gill's nephew, Louis
Gill joined the office in 1911 and became a partner around 1914. Gill increasingly spent time in the Los Angles area, doing
work in Torrance and Los Angeles through the 1920s, with Louis Gill managing the San Diego office, until their partnership
ended. In the late 1920s, Gill designed several projects, many unrealized, in collaboration with San Diego architect John
Siebert.
Gill published several essays during his lifetime, in which he argued for a simple and authentic architecture, famously writing,
“[a]ny deviation from simplicity results in a loss of dignity.” Many of his projects show his social concerns for the poor
and working men and women, as in his houses for working men and single women, and his designs for the Rancho Barona Indian
resettlement village in Lakeside, California.
Scope and Content note
The Irving J. Gill papers comprise 21 linear feet and date from circa 1870 to 1936, though photographs taken at later dates
were subsequently added to the collection by Louis Gill before he donated the archive, and by the repository after the archive
was received. The collection contains a small number of letters, most written to Gill; a few diaries for selected years; photographs
that he collected and photographs of his architectural work; clippings and printed ephemera; and architectural drawings of
Gill's projects in Rhode Island, Maine, San Diego, Torrance, and Los Angeles. The collection includes very few personal items,
other than letters written to his wife Marian Brashears.
Related Archival Materials note
David Gebhard papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara; Collection 136.
Louis J. Gill papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara, Collection 137.
Historic American Building Survey records, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University
of California, Santa Barbara.
San Diego History Center, San Diego
Coronado Historical Society, Coronado
La Jolla Historical Society, La Jolla.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Architects -- California
Architectural drawings
Architectural photographs
Architecture -- California
Architecture -- California -- 20th century
Architecture -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th Century
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- California
Blueprints
Irving John Gill Collection
Negatives
Photographic prints
Sketches
University of California, Santa Barbara -- Buildings -- Pictorial works