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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Beacon
2 History
3 George Washington Smith (architect)
4 Early life and art career
5 Architectural career
6 Some significant buildings
7 Influences and influence
8 External links

[edit] Beacon

The Beacon Theater is an historic [[New York City] [[theater] on upper [[Broadway (New York City)|Broadway] in [[Manhattan]. It is 2,800-seat, three-tiered live performance venue in a former [[movie palace].

[edit] History

Opened on December 25, 1929, it was designed by Chicago architect [[Walter W. Ahlschlager], architect of the [[Roxy Theater]. It was first operated as [[vaudeville] and movie theater by the [[Warner Brothers] theater circuit. It was not sucessful in this, due to the declining audiences of the depression era and the distance of the house from the Midtown theater district. Within a few years it had been taken over by the local Brandt Theater Circuit and operated as a double-bill neighborhood movie house until the 1960s.

In the early 1960's, the Beacon became one of the theaters participating in the "premier Showcase" program of the [[United Artists] company, whereby major first run movies were premiered in several theaters througout a city instead of one major downtown house as had been the norm in the industry until that time.

[edit] George Washington Smith (architect)

Unfinished article

George Washington Smith ([February 22]], [1876]]–[[]], [1930]])was an American artist and architect who was a leading figure in the development and popularization of the Spanish colonial revival style of architecture in California and the southwest during the second and third decades of the twentieth century.

[edit] Early life and art career

Born in the town of [East Liberty, Pennsylvania]], George Washington Smith was raised in [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]]. The son of a successful engineer, he developed an interest in both art and architecture. He studied painting at the [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts]], and later studied architecture at [Harvard University]]. Before he completed his studies at Harvard, his family faced financial difficulties and he was forced to leave school and begin working.

Unwilling to settle for the small income he was earning as an employee of a Philadelphia architectural firm, he moved to New York and began working in the stock and bond markets. His financial success was sufficient that, within a few years, he was able to leave the world of finance and move to Europe with his wife, the former Mary Greenough, to become a painter. An admirer of the works of [Paul Cezanne]] and [Paul Gauguin]], Smith traveled around Europe painting landscapes, as well as studying in Rome and at the [École des Beaux-Arts]] in Paris. The Smiths spent three years in Europe, returning to the United States only at the outbreak of the [First World War]] in 1914.

Establishing himself in New York, Smith began exhibiting with other painters of the era, including [John Sloan]] and [George Bellows]]. His work gained notice and was soon being exhibited outside New York as well, at the [Corcoran Gallery]] in Washington D.C., the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and at the [Chicago Art Institute]]. In 1915 Smith made what he intended as a brief trip to California, where his paintings were to be on display in the [Palace of Fine Arts]] at San Francisco's [Panama Pacific Exposition]].

After visiting friends from Philadelphia who had relocated to [Montecito, California|Montecito]], Smith decided to remain in the area until the war ended, at which time he could safely return to Paris. He acquired a piece of land there and built a combined house and studio of his own design, inspired by the rustic, white-plastered and tile-roofed farmhouses houses he had seen in [Andalusia]] during a 1914 trip to Spain. The building was completed in 1916.

[edit] Architectural career

Smith's new house, with its strong geometric shape and simple details was in contrast to the ornate Victorian and period revival houses which predominated in the area, and even to the cleaner-lined and more rustic [arts and crafts]] influenced [California bungalow]]s which had become popular in the previous decade. The striking Mediterranean style house caught the attention of well-to-do Santa Barbarans, and Smith soon found that, while there was some demand for his paintings, there was even more demand for houses such as that he had built for himself.

In 1917 he began designing Spanish-style villas, and as word was spread by the many visitors who passed through the popular resort town, by the early 1920s his work was being featured in popular design magazines of the day, and he received commissions for houses from clients not only in other parts of California, but in Arizona, Texas, and New York. The greatest number of his houses were built in the area of Santa Barbara, though, with clusters in a few other parts of California, especially around [Pasadena, California|Pasadena]] and the [San Francisco Bay Area]]. When Santa Barbara was devastated by an earthquake in 1923, Smith was the first choice of many residents to design replacements for their damaged or destroyed houses.

Though best known for his Spanish revival houses, Smith also designed dwellings in other romantic styles popular during the era, such as Italian, Norman French, and Tudor, and occasionally built non-residential buildings, including the 1924 [Lobero Theater]] in Santa Barbara. He also designed a house for film stars [Mary Pickford]] and [Douglas Fairbanks]], but it was never built.

[edit] Some significant buildings

[Lobero Theater]], Santa Barbara.[1]
[Jackling House]], Woodside.[2]
Brice house "Florestal", Hope Ranch, Santa Barbara, 1925.[3]
Clubhouse, Cypress Point, Pebble Beach.[4]
Casa del Herrero (house of the blacksmith), built in the mid 1920s for St. Louis industrialist George Steedman, is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is owned by the non-profit Casa del Herero foundation, and can be visited by appointment.

[edit] Influences and influence

In Europe, Smith had encountered the early work of [Le Corbusier]] and was much impressed by its simplicity and organization, though he found it a bit severe overall.

Various types of [Mediterranean Revival Style Architecture]] include the early [Mission Revival Style architecture|Mission Revival style]], the [Spanish Colonial Revival Style architecture|Spanish Colonial Revival style]] exemplified by [Bertram Goodhue]], and the work of the slightly earlier and more modernist [Irving Gill]]. In fact, one of Gill's best known works, the Walter L. Dodge House, was completed in 1916, the same year as Smiths first house, and was widely published in architecture and design magazines. Goodhue's [Churrigueresque]] inspired buildings for the [Panama-California Exposition]] held in San Diego the same year as the San Francisco exposition were also widely publicized. This was the milieu of ferment, experimentation, and Spanish-influenced work into which Smith introduced his first house.

Influenced: Reginald Johnson, Carleton Winslow, [Wallace Neff]], Myron Hunt, John Byers, [Gordon Kaufmann]], Roland E. Coate, Joe Plunkett, Francis Underhill, Mott(?) Marston, Garrett Van Pelt. His assitant Lutah Maria Riggs went on to a career of her own which lasted into the second half of the twentieth century.

Builder vernacular houses of the Spanish style ranged from spacious middle class dwellings with full tile roofs to small flat-roofed working class cottages with a bit of tile trim, an arched front window, and perhaps a small porch with an open arch. Such houses were erected by the thousands in every direction from Los Angeles, dominating entire suburban blocks developed in the 1920s.