Finding Aid for the John Beach papers, circa 1930-circa 1980s 0000108
Finding aid prepared by Chris Marino
The processing of this collection was made possible through generous funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, administered
through the Council on Library and Information Resources “Cataloging Hidden Special Collections and Archives” Project.
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: John Beach papers
Identifier/Call Number: 0000108
Contributing Institution:
Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
Language of Material:
English
Physical Description:
23.5 Linear feet
(21 record storage boxes and 1 flat file drawer)
Date (inclusive): circa 1930-circa 1980s
Location note: Boxes 1-19/Mosher - regular [Box 20 deaccessioned - camera] Boxes 21-22/Mosher - regular 1 Flat File Drawer/ADC - Flat Files
1 Board/Mosher - misc box of boards
creator:
Beach, John, 1937-1985
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.
Gift of Mary Harrel Beach, 1988.
John Beach papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa
Barbara.
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.
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.
Architectural drawings present in the collection
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Beach, John, 1937-1985
Architecture -- California -- 20th century