John Parkinson always believed he was capable of great things. As a young boy growing up in England, however, it would have been hard to imagine the adventures that lay ahead of him or the monumental impact he would have on the skyline of one of America’s greatest cities. He would become the dominant architect of Los Angeles during a time when the city was inventing itself.
Unlike many other renowned Los Angeles architects Parkinson didn’t attend a prestigious university or apprentice under a prominent architect. He was the son of a millworker from the industrial northwest of England who became an architect almost by accident. He learned much about his chosen profession through reading books and architectural journals at libraries.
When he first arrived in 1894, Los Angeles was a modest outpost with just over 50,000 residents. By the time of Parkinson’s death in 1935, the population had surged to more than 1.2 million. In those pivotal years, the architect designed an extraordinary range of civic landmarks, modern office buildings, banks, hotels, apartments, and factories, reflecting the region’s rapid growth and emerging international significance.
His numerous contributions to Los Angeles’s architectural landscape include the Homer Laughlin Building, the city’s first steel-frame structure; the Braly Block, its first skyscraper; and the Hotel Alexandria, its first world-class hotel. Parkinson designed the Bovard Administration Building and other structures at the University of Southern California, as well as the iconic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, host of the 1932, 1984, and 2028 Olympic Games. He planned Los Angeles City Hall (in collaboration with John C. Austin and A.C. Martin), one of California’s most recognizable landmarks and imagined Bullock’s Wilshire, an Art Deco cathedral of commerce, as well as Union Station, the last great American train station.
The prominence of Parkinson’s buildings in the City of Los Angeles, both in volume and significance, has resulted in his works being well represented in the Los Angeles Public Library’s historic image collection. His architecture has become such a ubiquitous part of the city’s streetscapes, that this exhibition comprises images from seven different photo collections held at the library, a testimony to John Parkinson’s iconic vision.
Stephen Gee, author of Iconic Vision: John Parkinson, Architect of Los Angeles