The John Beach papers span 23.5 linear feet and date circa 1930 to circa 1980s. The collection is primarily composed of architectural magazines, newspaper clippings, notebooks filled with handwritten notes and sketches, correspondence, photographs and postcards of California architecture, presentation boards, maps of California, architectural drawings, charcoal drawings, and watercolor paintings.

John Beach was born in Tahlequah, Oklahoma in 1936. As a teenager Beach visited and sat in on architecture lectures at the University of Oklahoma. There he befriended professor and architect Bruce Goff. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Beach attended the University of Oklahoma and studied architecture. After two years at the University of Oklahoma he left college and served in the Army. Once Beach’s service in the military was over, he found his way to Los Angeles where he worked for David Gebhard on one of the first surveys of the work of R.M. Schindler. In 1968, John moved to Berkeley where he conducted architectural surveys, wrote Bay Area architectural histories and guides, and gave tours and lectures. Eight years later, in 1975, Beach moved back to Los Angeles and began to teach architectural history at the University of California, Los Angeles. John taught at the University of California, Los Angeles for three years, from 1975 to 1979. In the early part of the 1980s, Beach wrote for Architectural Digest. Beach’s interests ranged wide, but the majority of his work focused on the late 19th and 20th century Bay Area architects, such as Bernard Maybeck and Ernest Coxhead. John Beach died at the age of 48, in 1985.

23.5 Linear feet (21 record storage boxes and 1 flat file drawer)

Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.