Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Jim Charlton papers
- Dates:
- 1938-1985
- Creators:
- Charlton, Jim, 1919-1998
- Extent:
- 3.5 Linear feet (1/2 record storage box, 3 flat file folders, plus 4 ADD boxes)
- Language:
- Preferred citation:
-
Jim Charlton papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The Jim Charlton papers span 7.5 linear feet and date from 1938 to 1985. Box 1 of the collection contains newspaper articles organized by architectural project, correspondence, speeches, Charlton’s business cards from Los Angeles and Hawaii, small sketches, photocopied pages from a scrapbook of Charlton’s projects, 3 x 5 in. color photographs of houses he designed in Hawaii, black-and-white 8 x 10 in. photographs of the De Mille house, and color photographs of a kinetic sculpture he designed in Hawaii.
The flat file folders contain perspective sketches of the Mutual Housing Association done in color pencil and dated 1948, architectural drawings of the De Mille house in Montecito, and color renderings of astronauts on the planet Mars.
- Biographical / historical:
-
James (Jim) Charlton was born in Reading, Pennsylvania on April 8, 1919. At State Teachers’ College, Charlton discovered the work of Frank Lloyd Wright at the school’s library. Inspired by Wright, Jim packed his bags and hitchhiked to Spring Green, Wisconsin where Frank Lloyd Wright was residing at the time. Charlton managed to arrange a meeting with Wright and later joined the Taliesin Fellowship. Charlton worked under Wright on building Taliesin West in Arizona. When WWII began Charlton joined the Air Corps and was stationed in England as part of a bomber escort. Out of the service in 1945, Charlton moved to Los Angeles and found work with John Lautner. By 1950, he was collaborating with architects Whitney Smith, Archibald Quincy Jones, Wayne Williams, and Edgardo Contini on the Mutual Housing Association, a 500-home cooperative financed by the Federal Housing Administration built in Brentwood, California. In 1956, Jim established his own practice. In 1962 Charlton and his wife moved to Hawaii where he began to design steel-framed houses. Charlton retired in 1990 and died March 28, 1998.
- Custodial history:
-
Gift of Jim Charlton, 1995. Two boxes of unsorted letters, manuscripts, printed material, photographs and publications added 2017, gift of Roger Friedman.
- Physical location:
- Box 1/ADC - regular 3 Flat File Folders/ADC - flat files misc.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
About this collection guide
- Sponsor:
- 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.
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2021-04-05T13:49-0700
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.
- Preferred citation:
-
Jim Charlton 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