Gustave Albert Lansburgh (January 7, 1876 – April 1969) was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930.

Life and career

Lansburgh was born in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Co ...

and raised largely in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

. After graduating from that city's

Boys High School Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in separate buildings or schools. The practice of ...

in 1894, Lansburgh enrolled in the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. While a student there, he worked part-time in the offices of prominent San Francisco architect

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

. Upon graduation, he moved to Paris, where in 1901, he was enrolled in the prestigious

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

, earning a diploma in March 1906. Lansburgh returned to the Bay Area in May 1906, one month after the region had been devastated by the

San Francisco earthquake At 05:12 Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (''Extreme''). High-intensity sha ...

and subsequent fires. First in partnership with Bernard Julius Joseph for two years, then in his own practice, Lansburgh designed numerous buildings in the recovering city. Among these were four of the seven Carnegie branch libraries for the city ission (1915); Sunset (1918); North Beach (1921); and Presidio (1921)ref name=SFPL> and his first theater, for the San Francisco–based Orpheum Theater Circuit. In his long career thereafter, Lansburgh become known primarily as a theater architect, designing more than 50 of them, many for the Orpheum Circuit and its successor firm,

RKO RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...

. He continued to design other buildings, including Oakland's Temple Sinai in 1914. Rosenbaum, Fred (2009). ''Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area''.

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facult ...

. p. 89.

Family

Lansburgh's son was director Larry Lansburgh.Lawrence M. Lansburgh
by doug Galloway; in ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

''; published April 4, 2001; retrieved October 8, 2018

Partial list of theatres designed

* Palace Theatre, Downtown Los Angeles, 1911 * Orpheum Theater (New Orleans), 1918 * Martin Beck Theatre, New York, 1924 *

El Capitan Theatre El Capitan Theatre is a fully restored movie palace at 6838 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood. The theater and adjacent Hollywood Masonic Temple (now known as the El Capitan Entertainment Centre) is owned by The Walt Disney Company and serves as the ...

, Hollywood, 1926 * Orpheum Theater, Downtown Los Angeles, 1926 *

Shrine Auditorium The Shrine Auditorium is a landmark large-event venue in Los Angeles, California. It is also the headquarters of the Al Malaikah Temple, a division of the Shriners. It was designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument (No. 139) in 1975, and ...

, Los Angeles, 1926 * Warner Hollywood Theatre, Hollywood, 1928 *

Wiltern Theatre The Pellissier Building and adjoining Wiltern Theatre is a 12-story, Art Deco landmark at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, California. The entire complex is commonly referred to as the Wiltern Center. Clad in a ...

, Los Angeles, 1931

References

External links

Biography at Encyclopedia of San FranciscoCinema Treasures' partial list of theaters designed by G. Albert Lansburgh
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lansburgh, G. Albert 1876 births 1969 deaths Architects from California American theatre architects American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design alumni

Life and career

Family

Partial list of theatres designed

See also

References

External links