Jack Allen Charney (born 7 October 1919 - 2002) was an American mid-century architect who designed a number of significant buildings in various cities across

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, including Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Long Beach. His designs include the 32-story

Sierra Towers Sierra Towers is a residential 31-story high-rise condominium building in West Hollywood, California, United States. located at 9255 Doheny Road, adjacent to Beverly Hills. It was designed by the renowned Beverly Hills mid-century modern archite ...

in West Hollywood, from 1965.

Life and career

Charney was born in

San Francisco, California 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 ...

. While working as a licensed general contractor, Charney attended the Art Center School where he studied

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

under Rudolph Schindler and

Richard Neutra Richard Joseph Neutra ( ; April 8, 1892 – April 16, 1970) was an Austrian-American architect. Living and building for the majority of his career in Southern California, he came to be considered a prominent and important modernist architect. He ...

. By February 1955 Charney had won the construction contract for the second rebuilding of landmark Hollywood restaurant

Perino's Perino's was a restaurant located on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. The original location at 3927 Wilshire Boulevard was opened in 1932 by Italian-American restaurateur Alexander Perino, immediately becoming popular with Hollywood's ...

, at 4101 Wilshire. The architect was Charney's sometime collaborator Alfred March. Charney later opened his own solo firm, Jack Allen Charney AIA Associates, based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Like his mentor Neutra, in residential designs Charney was known for an open-concept plan, with indoor/outdoor living areas, sliding glass door walls and light-filled rooms. It was Charney's philosophy "to take maximum advantage of views of city, mountains and ocean". In his public buildings, Charney was known for impressive, mid-century architectural conceptual designs for apartment complexes, commercial and office buildings, and restaurants across

southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

—in

Beverly Hills Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Bev ...

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

and

Long Beach Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

. His largest single project was the

at 9255 Doheny Road in

West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...

, which remains a prestigious address, the tallest building for miles, condo units held by an array of celebrities, and an appearances in Grand Theft Auto Online as ''Eclipse Towers''. Charney died in Los Angeles County in 2002, at 82.

Buildings

* San Francisco Redevelopment Authority Diamond Heights Housing Project #3,

Diamond Heights, San Francisco Diamond Heights is a neighborhood in central San Francisco, California, roughly bordered by Diamond Heights Boulevard and Noe Valley to the north and east and Glen Canyon Park to the south and west. It is built on three hills: Red Rock Heights on ...

, with landscape architects Eckbo, Dean & Williams, 1963 *

, West Hollywood, California, 1965 * Pacifica Hospital, Los Angeles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Charney, Jack Allen 1921 births 1992 deaths 20th-century American architects Modernist architects Architects from Los Angeles