In a recent poll of local architects, Irving J.
Gill (1870-1936) was named San Diego's greatest
deceased architect.
No great surprise.
Oceanside was and is blessed to have a number of
Gill designed buildings. Some have been lost and a
couple are in serious need of restoration.
Gill's work in Oceanside was in the last 10 years
of his life, and during the Depression, when
residential projects had almost ceased and the best
architects were hustling public building projects.
Gill solicited the attention of the city
governments and chambers of commerce in North San
Diego County, as he was living in Carlsbad at the
time. He cryptically promised the Carlsbad
community he would be founding the "Carlsbad Style"
of architectural design, which would make the town
famous. This was not to be as Gill apparently never
finished a building in Carlsbad. For the City of
Oceanside, however, he rendered large complexes of
city buildings, large even in a Los Angeles scale.
This served to hook interest and resulted in
commissions, albeit radically smaller ones.
Click
on a slide to see a larger image:
Irving Gill's Oceanside era work is more
personal than most. He was working with few, if
any, staff and so every detail was drawn from his
own hand. He was no longer interested in jumping
between proto-modernist and revivalist styles, but
stuck to the look he had developed. Unlike other
architects of his time, notably Frank Lloyd Wright
and Louis Sullivan (both of whom Gill worked with
early on), Irving Gill was reluctant to put into
words his design theories. His one major article
describing his taste and philosophy was almost
certainly ghostwritten for him. His comparatively
small number of surviving drawings are infrequently
displayed, and only a couple of handfuls of his
structures survive in a form he would approve
of.
So, what makes Gill's best work work? Some have
suggested, lines and shapes: others, soul. I'd add:
theatre: the orderly progression and focusing of an
all-media idea to its conclusion.
If one thinks of the word "theatrical" related to
design, one would not think of a minimalist like
Gill, but he brought a theatrical control to his
spaces that few can match. As a theatre design
student, I was taught "if the set looks finished
before the actors enter, you have failed." In this
way his work is a success.
No single exhibition, book or web-site can alone
convey the range of an artist's work. I encourage
you to enjoy the fragments we are able to show,
then visit the sites, read the books and look at
the photographs.
And when your head is full, eliminate all but the
essential.
Erik Hanson
Irving
J. Gill Collection, Architecture & Design
Collection
University Art Museum, University of California
Santa Barbara
