Descriptive Summary
Biographical/Historical Note
Administrative Information
Separated Materials
Scope and Content of Collection
Indexing Terms
Descriptive Summary
Title: Franklin D. Israel papers
Date (inclusive): 1967-1996
Number: 2009.M.6
Creator/Collector:
Israel, Franklin
D.
Physical Description:
659.2 Linear Feet
(360 boxes, 410 flatfiles, 23 boxed rolls)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
Business Number: (310) 440-7390
Fax Number: (310) 440-7780
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: Los Angeles-based architect Frank
Israel contributed substantially toward the architectural discourse of the 1980s and early
1990s, and served as a key link between the modernist generation of California architects
and the work of current practitioners. The archive comprises about 8,000 original drawings
and prints, 38 models, photographs, articles, and extensive office records and
correspondence files that encompass Israel's design process while also providing insight
into the establishment of firms and modern architectural business practice.
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Language: Collection material is in
English.
Biographical/Historical Note
Franklin D. Israel was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 2, 1945. He received his
architectural training at Yale University and at Columbia University, where he earned his
master's degree in 1971. Two years later, Israel was awarded the Rome Prize. His two year
stay in Rome proved extremely important not only because of his studies of the Italian and
Northern European Baroque, but also because of his introduction to the work of the Italian
architect Carlo Scarpa (1906-1978) and his encounters with American practitioners, such as
Richard Meier, and architectural historians such as James Ackerman. Israel moved to Los
Angeles in 1977 to teach architecture at UCLA and start his own architectural design office.
He was soon employed in the film industry, working as a set designer for several movies
including
Star Trek: The Motion Picture. This time spent in the film studios
enabled him to secure a number of early projects from clients in the entertainment industry,
including actor Joel Grey and film director Robert Altman, for whom he designed houses. He
also designed office buildings for film and record production companies in Hollywood.
Israel's earliest work is decidedly postmodern. Having studied with Robert A.M. Stern and
Romaldo Giurgola, two leaders of the postmodern era in New York, Israel was well trained to
look at historical precedent and adopt details from buildings created in the past into his
own designs. His Clark House (Hollywood, 1980, unexecuted) is probably the best example.
Based on Vignola's Villa Farnese in Caprarola (1559-1573), the house is – as is the
historical example – pentagonal in shape with a circular court in its center. The
proportions of all rooms around the court were determined by those of the Villa Farnese. The
facades, however, were loose adaptations of the 16th-century example and were designed to
frame the view from each side of the building.
Israel began to study the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Rudolph Schindler, Richard Neutra,
and other modernists in the region soon after his arrival in Los Angeles, where Southern
California modernist architecture as a whole became a rich source of inspiration for
Israel's design work. Historical references to the classical architecture of Italy and
France soon disappeared from his studio and a new formal language took root in which one can
recognize details borrowed from architects he admired but integrated into solutions entirely
his own. Engaging with the conflict between organic and tectonic architecture, he sought to
combine the two, to give his buildings a solid structure and then add a skin that, rather
than being no more than a wrap around the space (as was typical in the work of early
20th-century modernists), instead draws attention to the form and makes the abstract
structure more intimate. His buildings always combine a smoothly surfaced concrete, steel,
or hardwood structure with wood and stucco shapes painted in intense, Luis Barragán-like
colors. Colorful and playful, his buildings are rendered warmer and more palatable than the
sterile white, modernist architecture of the periods immediately before and after the Second
World War, and it was these characteristics that increased this profile and brought him
numerous clients.
Though he had moved away from the use of specific historical precedents, Israel remained
interested in history, making distinctions between perpetuating traditions and creating
memorable spatial patterns based on universal scenarios he saw as being used repeatedly
throughout history. Placed in former industrial buildings or warehouses, offices such as
those for Propaganda Films or Virgin Records are organized as small villages or, as Israel
himself liked to call them, "cities within." Israel connected the various elements of an
office (meeting rooms, workstations, and editing rooms) through streets and plazas. In the
Propaganda Films office, there is even one meeting room that looks like a baptistery placed
on a piazza next to a ship- or church-like group of executive offices. Such references to
memory and historic precedents presented within a modern context are perfect examples of the
architectural debate of the period, when alternatives were sought for a modernism that had
lost all its glamour for a younger generation.
Frank Israel died June 10, 1996 due to complication from AIDS. At the age when most
architects are still trying to find the ideal client and job, Israel had already created a
substantial body of work, had had two monographic exhibitions at major art museums (the
Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, 1988, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles,
1995), and counted the most renowned architects in the United States (including Richard
Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, Richard Weinstein, and especially Frank Gehry and Philip Johnson)
amongst his greatest supporters.
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers, with the exception of the unreformatted audio-visual
material and computer files. Due to privacy issues, Boxes 231A-231D and 325-328 are sealed
until 2062.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Franklin D. Israel Papers, 1967-1996, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession
no. 2009.M.6
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa2009m6
Acquisition Information
Acquired in 2009.
Processing History
In 2012 with grant funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR),
Laura Dominguez and Mitchell Erzinger processed the collection and created the inventory
under the supervision of Ann Harrison. The descriptive notes were derived from curatorial
records.
Separated Materials
Several water-damaged periodicals without a clear connection to Israel's work were
deaccessioned:
Architectural Digest: 1979, March, April, May, September;
1980, June, October, December; 1981, May; 1982, August, September, December; 1983, January,
June, August
Architectural Digest, Italian edition: 1983 April
Vanity Fair: 1983 July
GQ: 1982 June
House & Garden: 1983, January, February
California: 1982 February
Scope and Content of Collection
The Franklin D. Israel papers detail the brief but substantial career of the Los
Angeles-based architect and his design firm, encompassing design processes while also
providing insight into the establishment of firms and modern architectural business
practice. The archive is an important resource for researchers wishing to study the
developments in California architecture after modernism had fallen out of fashion.
Series I contains project drawings and records, with the bulk of the material comprising
architectural projects from the late-1980s to the mid-1990s. Original drawings, prints,
models, photographs, and extensive documentation and correspondence files form the core of
this series. Most of Israel's creative output is represented here, from private residences
such as the Goldberg/Bean House (Hollywood, 1991) and the Drager House (Berkeley, 1992),
both of which received "Record Houses" awards, to the business offices of film and record
production companies such as Propaganda Films (Hollywood, 1988) and Virgin Records (Beverly
Hills, 1991). Other notable projects include the art pavilion for Frederick Weisman (Beverly
Hills, 1991), built to house one of the largest private collections of contemporary art in
the world. Instances of Israel's non-architectural design work and consulting, including
furniture and interior design, are also represented.
Series II documents the professional career of Frank Israel. The bulk of this series
includes extensive administrative and financial documentation of Israel's design firm,
Franklin D. Israel Design Associates (FDIDA), and materials related to exhibitions,
articles, photographs, and publication files, including production materials for larger
publications such as Rizzoli International's 1992 monograph surveying the work of Frank
Israel. Documentation of other professional activities, such as service on competition
juries, and lectures are also included along with files relating to Israel's education and
teaching career, awards and honors, articles and ephemera written by Frank Israel, and
general correspondence.
Series III, a small series of personal papers, completes the archive.
Arrangement
Arranged in three series: ; ; .Series I. Project records, 1972-1996
Series II. Other
professional papers, 1967-1996
Series III. Personal papers, 1973-1996
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Topics
Interior architecture
Architecture, Postmodern
Architecture, Modern -- 20th century -- California, Southern
Architectural firms
Architectural practice -- United States
Architects -- California -- Los Angeles
Genres and Forms of Material
Architectural drawings (visual works)
Architectural models
Architectural drawings -- United States -- 20th century
Contributors
Israel, Franklin
D.