Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Ain, Gregory and Garrott, James H.
- Extent:
- 49.5 Linear Feet (6 boxes and 13 flat file drawers)
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
-
Gregory Ain papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Gregory Ain papers span 49.5 linear feet and date from 1926 to 1972. The collection primarily contains correspondence, clippings, writings, photographs and architectural sketches and drawings. The collection also includes landscape designs by Garrett Eckbo and the works Ain produced in collaboration with the architects Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Gregory Ain (1908-1988) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of a Russian-born socialist. His family moved to Los Angeles in 1911 and for a year lived in the experimental farming collective, Llano del Rio, in the Antelope Valley. Ain attended UCLA and went on to study architecture at the University of Southern California. In 1927 Ain left without graduating, due to his frustrations with the school's Beaux Arts teaching methods. He worked for Schindler intermittently in the early 1930s and Richard Neutra between 1930 and 1935. Ain began his independent architectural practice in 1935. In 1940, he received a Guggenheim Foundation grant to study low-cost pre-fabricated housing. Ain worked frequently with the modernist California landscape architect Garrett Eckbo and with architects Joseph Johnson and Alfred Day, especially on housing tracts, such as his Park Planned Homes and Avenel Homes. Ain taught at the University of Southern California and in the 1960s became the Dean of the School of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University. Gregory Ain died on January 9, 1988.
- Custodial history:
-
Gift of Gregory Ain, 1978.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Furniture design
Dwellings -- Design and construction -- Economic aspects -- United States
Prefabricated houses -- United States
Architecture -- California
Modern movement (Architecture) -- California
Los Angeles (Calif.) Buildings, structures, etc.
Architect-designed furniture -- United States -- 20th century
Architects -- California
Architecture -- California -- Los Angeles -- 20th century
Architecture -- United States -- 20th century -- Sources
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- California
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- California -- Los Angeles
Correspondence
Specifications
Sketches
Photographic prints
Negatives
Architectural drawings
Architectural photographs
Blueprints - Names:
- Ain, Gregory -- Archives
Day, Alfred Waite
Eckbo, Garrett
Johnson, Joseph Leupp
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for use by qualified researchers.
- Preferred citation:
-
Gregory Ain papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Location of this collection:
-
University of California, Santa BarbaraSanta Barbara, CA 93106-7130, US
- Contact:
- (805) 893-2724