Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Examined in the Context of School Design in the United States

LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT, 1870 to 1969 Prepared by Sapphos Environmental, Inc. for the Los Angeles Unified School District Office of Environmental Health and Safety March 2014 LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT, 1870 to 1969 TABLE OF CONTENTS I Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Project Summary and Scope .......................................................................................... 2 Purpose of Historic Context Statements ................................................................... 4 Historic Resources and CEQA ................................................................................. 4 Focus and Parameters of the LAUSD Historic Context Statement ................................... 5 Project Team ........................................................................................................... 7 Report Preparation and Methodology ...................................................................... 7 Study Contents ........................................................................................................ 8 II Summary of Themes of Significance ............................................................................. 9 III Historic Context and Background ............................................................................... 17 A. Founding Years, 1870s through 1909 ................................................................... 18 National Context | Developments ....................................................................... 19 Effects on School Buildings and Campuses ............................................................ 21 Los Angeles City School Districts | Developments and Context ............................ 23 Formation of the Los Angeles City School Districts ......................................... 24 Early Currents of Change ................................................................................ 25 The Boom of the 1880s and Los Angeles City Schools .................................... 25 Civic Pride and the Turn-of-the-Century School .............................................. 27 B. Progressive Education Movement: Standardization and Expansion, 1910 to 1933 ........................................................................................................ 29 National Context | Developments ........................................................................ 29 Effects on School Buildings and Campuses ............................................................ 31 Los Angeles City School Districts | Developments and Context ............................ 39 Building Program ............................................................................................ 39 Alfred S. Nibecker Jr. and the District Architecture and and Building Department ............................................................................... 42 Building Code Reform .................................................................................... 42 The Roaring ‘20s and Enrollment Expansion ................................................... 43 Curriculum Shifts ............................................................................................ 44 Social Responsiveness and Broadened Mission for Public Schools ................................................................................................ 45 Legislative Reform and Public Education ........................................................ 46 Cover illustrations, clockwise: Reseda Elementary School (1936), Music Room, Orville Wright Middle School (1948-1952), and Chatsworth Senior High School (1963). Source: LAUSD and Sapphos Environmental, Inc. i SAPPHOS ENVIRONMENTAL, INC. LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT, 1870 to 1969 C. Era of Reform: Great Depression, Earthquake, and Early Experiments in the Modern, Functionalist School Plant, 1933 to 1945 .................................... 49 National Context | Developments ........................................................................ 49 Effects on School Buildings and Campuses ............................................................ 51 The Functionalist, Modern Movement in School Design ................................. 51 William Edmond Lescaze ............................................................................... 52 Richard Neutra ............................................................................................... 53 Franklin & Kump and Finger-Plan Schools ...................................................... 56 Post-Long Beach Earthquake: The Era of the PWA Moderne | Streamline Moderne ............................................................................... 59 Marsh, Smith and Powell ................................................................................ 59 Los Angeles City School District’s The Progressive Elementary School: A Handbook ................................................................................ 61 Los Angeles City School Districts | Context and Developments ........................... 62 Long Beach Earthquake and the Field Act ....................................................... 62 PWA Funding and the Post–Long Beach Earthquake Building Boom for Schools ............................................................................. 62 Early Experiments in the Finger-Plan School ................................................... 65 Great Depression and World War II: Curriculum Shifts ................................... 67 Los Angeles Public Schools and World War II ................................................ 68 D. Educating the Baby Boom: Postwar Expansion and the Modern, Functional School Plant, 1945 to 1969 .................................................................................. 71 National Context | Developments ........................................................................ 71 1930’s Reform Comes of Age: The Modern, Child-Centered School ............... 73 Educational Facilities Laboratories .................................................................. 75 Effects on School Buildings and Campuses ............................................................ 77 1940s: The Decade of the Finger-Plan School ................................................. 82 1950s: The Advent of the Cluster-Plan School ................................................ 87 1960s: The Open-Plan School ....................................................................... 93 School Construction Systems Development .................................................... 95 Los Angeles City School Districts | Context and Developments ........................... 97 The Building Program ..................................................................................... 97 Postwar Expansion and Educating the Baby Boom ........................................ 101 Formation of the Los Angeles Unified School District ................................... 105 Changing Times: LAUSD in the 1950s and 1960s ......................................... 105 Civil Rights and School Integration ......................................................... 108 Early Litigation ....................................................................................... 111 Summary: The Postwar Modern, Functional School ...................................... 114 IV Architectural Character ............................................................................................ 115 Late-Nineteenth-Century Victorian Era Styles ............................................................. 116 Early Twentieth Century: Beaux-Arts Classicism and Neo-Classical Revival ............... 117 Early Twentieth Century: Indigenous Revival Styles and Historic Eclecticism ............. 118 Mission Revival and Spanish Colonial Revival ........................................................... 119 Renaissance Revival Style .......................................................................................... 120 Gothic Revival / Collegiate Gothic ............................................................................. 121 Art Deco .................................................................................................................... 122 Streamline Moderne | Moderne ................................................................................ 123 PWA Moderne ........................................................................................................... 124 Early Modernism | International Style ........................................................................ 125 Mid-Century Modernism / Regional Modernism ........................................................ 126 Architects ................................................................................................................... 132 SAPPHOS ENVIRONMENTAL, INC. ii LOS ANGELES UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT HISTORIC CONTEXT STATEMENT, 1870 to 1969 V Themes of Significance ............................................................................................. 133 Context: Public and Private Institutional Development | Education Theme: LAUSD | Founding Years .............................................................................. 133 Eligibility Standards ............................................................................................. 133 Character-Defining Features ...............................................................................

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