Modern Works

Pasadena Heritage is offering a great tour of Smith and Williams and Edward Durrell Stone's non-residential buildings and a lecture beforehand by Alan Hess. 

Pasadena Heritage will celebrate National Preservation Month by presenting Modern Works,  a lecture and architectural tour of modern, non-residential buildings designed by architects Edward Durell Stone and Smith & Williams on Saturday, May 21, 2011. An illustrated lecture by Alan Hess, entitled "Hiding in Plain Sight: Edward Durell Stone and Smith & Williams", will be presented before the tour. The lecture will begin at 1:00 p.m. at the Fran Norris Scoble Performing Arts Center of the Westridge School. Alan Hess is a distinguished architect, architectural critic, author and preservationist. He has been especially active in the preservation of post war architecture, including assisting Pasadena Heritage in nominating Bullock’s Pasadena (1947), and the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company (Edward Durell Stone, 1958) to the National Register of Historic Places.The guided motor coach tour will follow the lecture, departing from the lecture location at 2:30 p.m. The tour will include examples of the work of both Smith & Williams and Edward Durell Stone. Four stops will afford participants the chance to see and visit some of these buildings in more detail.

Featured stops that highlight Edward Durell Stone’s designs include the Stuart Pharmaceutical Company building, 1958. Pasadena Heritage fought valiantly to keep this important building standing when it was threatened with demolition in the 1990s and nominated it to the National Register of Historic Places. After a major preservation campaign, the building was purchased and adaptively reused as part of a luxury apartment complex now known as "The Stuart at Sierra Madre Villa". Many of the original details have been left intact including the famous Stone screen wall, original landscape features including reflecting pools and dramatic hanging planters, the large interior, two-story atrium with distinctive ceiling and floating staircase, and the original swimming pool and terrace, once enjoyed by Stuart Company employees and now by apartment dwellers. The tour will also include a stop at Beckman Auditorium, 1964, on the Caltech campus(pictured, left). Featured stops along the tour that highlight the work of Smith & Williams include the Children’s Chapel, nursery school and education building, designed in 1948 – 1956, of the former Neighborhood Church (demolished in 1974) and currently part of the Sequoyah School. Another stop will feature the architecture offices designed by and for Smith & Williams, themselves, in 1958. Participants will also visit three significant buildings (pictured left, Hoffman Gymnasium) on the Westridge School campus designed by Whitney Smith after he left the partnership.

Tickets for the lecture and tour: $40 for members, $45 for non-members Lecture tickets only: $15 for members, $18 for non-members

Tickets on sale now!