Name

John Parkinson

Designation
Architect
Born
1861
Place of Birth
Scorton Lancaster
Location
Los Angeles
Died
1935

John Parkinson was born on 12 December 1861 at Scorton near Lancaster but moved to Bolton at the age of nine when his father, Thomas Parkinson, obtained employment as an engineer in a new cotton mill. His working life began at the age of thirteen when he became an ironmonger's errand boy in Bolton and for a time he was the office boy in the offices of the Bolton Guardian. In March 1877 he signed a six year apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner with Mr John Roberts, a building contractor in the town. It was during this period that he attended Bolton Mechanics Institute where, for five winter sessions, he attended classes on building construction and design. Here a fellow pupil was J. B. Gass of the future prolific Bolton practice of Bradshaw Gass & Hope.

On completion of his apprenticeship in 1883, Parkinson left England for an extended visit to North America. He sailed from Liverpool to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and travelled from there to Winnipeg where his friend Evan Hughes was living. At the time Winnipeg was a new town, part of Canada's expansion westwards aided by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Settlers were establishing themselves along the route of the line and with them came the developers, land speculators and craftsmen. At Kildown, a village three miles south of Winnipeg, Parkinson was employed as a fence builder but after two months the work dried up. In the summer of 1883 he left Winnipeg and crossed the American border to the nearest large settlement, Minneapolis. Here he found work as a staircase builder in Johnson and Hurd's Mill. Parkinson proved a diligent worker and by the end of the year he had been promoted foreman. After an absence of eighteen months he left Minneapolis for England, sailing from  New York. On his return, he applied for a job as foreman stair builder at Marsden's Mill, the largest saw mill in Bolton, but was rejected on the grounds of his youth and inexperience. Disappointed and frustrated at the lack of opportunity offered in England he immediately planned a further visit to America. Although he suggested to his parents that this would be another temporary absence, he suspected that it might well be permanent.

At the age of 23 he returned to the United States, settling in Napa, California in May 1885.  Here he again obtained employment as a stair builder for Solomon Chapman Corletts. Solomon Chapman was also on the board of the Bank of Napa and following discussions about an extension to the Bank, asked Parkinson to prepare preliminary drawings. These were of sufficient quality that the Bank appointed him as architect for the project, a two storey brick extension, described as in the "modern" style in the local press. In December 1888, filled with Self confidence at the success of his first venture, he quit his job at the saw mill to set up as an architect.

Parkinson went north to Seattle, where his friends from Napa, the Craig family, had already moved. Attempts to obtain work in established architects' offices were unsuccessful so Parkinson set up his own practice with an office in the Squire Block. It was here that he met Cecil Evers, a gifted and talented producer of perspective drawings of sufficient beauty to win competitions. Despite the lack of commissions, Parkinson immediately offered him a partnership. However, Evers proved to have little interest in, or talent for, architectural design or the production of working drawings.  As the workload of the practice increased, the strain on Parkinson became intolerable and after eleven months, he dissolved the partnership.

On 6 June 1889 Seattle, like Chicago before it, was largely destroyed by a disasterous fire which laid waste an area of 25 blocks in the business district of the city. Parkinson had high expectations of obtaining windfall business in the construction boom which would inevitably follow, commenting dryly in his memoirs that "We appreciated the situation thoroughly". However, the hoped-for commissions never materialised, the older established practices being favoured for the bulk of the work. The Seattle National Bank, designed in a Romaneque revival style, popularised on the east coast by H.H. Richardson, was to be the only major commission that Parkinson obtained during the boom years. From 1891-4 Parkinson also served as School Board Architect, designing thirty-two school buildings. Four of the buildings still survive and only in 1978 did the last school ceased to be used for its original purpose. In spite his appointment to the School Board, Parkinson continued to have difficulty in obtaining sufficient work and was still struggling to establish himself.

By the winter of 1893, Seattle was suffering a serious economic depression. Faced with the prospect of no work, but having just won a prize of $1000 in the competition for the University of Washington, John Parkinson decided to return to California. Avoiding San Fransico which, like Seattle, had too many prominent architects for his liking, Parkinson moved to Los Angeles where he set up his architectural office in Spring Street, between Second and Third Streets. The period between 1894 and 1902 thus became the most intense in Parkinson's professional life as he worked hard to establish himself as one of the leading architects in Los Angeles.

Homer Laughlin, a developer from the East Coast, also had ideas of building the first steel framed office building in Los Angeles and had intended to appoint an East Coast or Chicago architect familiar with this form of construction. However, as part of the land deal, Laughlin was forced to accept John Parkinson as architect for the development. Worried by Parkinson's total lack of experience in the design of steel framed structures, Lauglin insisted that all steelwork drawings were to be submitted to Pitkin, a Chicago structural engineer for approval. Working entirely from two textbooks written by William Buke Myer and the Carnegie Steel handbook, Parkinson produced the necessary drawings and with some trepidation forwarded them to Pitkin. In the event, his concerns were unfounded, Pitkin's report to Lauglin being highly complimentary. Parkinson thus gained the trust and respect of the small number of developers active in Los Angeles at the time and effectively established his reputation. Initially, the office blocks and skyscrapers Parkinson designed for corporate clients and property speculators in downtown Los Angeles were mostly in a Beaux Arts style. While his work in the construction of staircases had given him a strong sense of three dimensional geometry, and the classes at Bolton had provided a thorough knowledge of building construction, Parkinson had little formal design training. He also lacked experience in American architectural practice and relied almost entirely on professional and trade journals. Through their published works he was most influenced by H.H. Richardson and the New York School particularly McKim Mead & White, rather than Sullivan and Adler in Chicago.

In 1920 he took his son Donald into partnership. Donald had trained at MIT and considered himself more of an artist. Extended the range of the practice to include interior and furniture design, offering clients a total package. Donald's arrival also marked the beginning of a significant shift away from revivalist styles to Art Deco and moderne. In the 1920 and 1930s the practice was to become one of the most important modernist architects working on the West Coast of America. Streamline moderne and zig zag moderne.  From the mid 1920s Los Angeles became a decentralised city, the traditional Downtown area being just one commercial centre. The impact of the motor car was becoming increasingly apparent and the design aesthetics of commercial buildings were modified as a result. Ornamentation that could only be appreciated by pedestrians was lost, Now it  was the whole building glimpsed from the passing automobile which had become a structural sign to convey the required message of institutional strength.

 

Buildings and Designs

Building Name District Town/City County Country
Extension to Bank of Napa. Napa California   Napa  California  USA
School Buildings for School Board of Seattle   Seattle  Washington  USA
Seattle National Bank Pioneer Square Seattle   Seattle  Washington  USA
Currier Building, Los Angeles   Los Angeles  California  USA
Laughlin Building   Los Angeles  California  USA
John H. Braly Building   Los Angeles  California  USA
Southern California Savings Bank: S.E. corner of Fourth and Spring Streets   Los Angeles  California  USA
California Club: NW corner of 5th & Hill Street   Los Angeles  California  USA
Central Building: Spring and Olive Streets   Los Angeles  California  USA
Pacific Mutual Life Assurance Company Building: NW corner of 6th & Olive   Los Angeles  California  USA
Los Angeles Trust & Savings Bank: 6th & Spring Streets   Los Angeles  California  USA
Los Angeles Athletic Club: 7th Street   Los Angeles  California  USA
Security National Bank   Los Angeles  California  USA
University of Southern California   Los Angeles  California  USA
John D. Spreckels Building: Broadway San Diego   San Diego  California  USA
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum   Los Angeles  California  USA
Title Insurance & Trust Company Building: Spring Street   Los Angeles  California  USA
Banks-Huntley Building   Los Angeles  California  USA
Los Angeles City Hall.   Los Angeles  California  USA
Federal Reserve Bank: Olive and 10th Streets   Los Angeles  California  USA
Bullocks Department Store Wiltshire Boulevard.   Los Angeles  California  USA
Union Station   Los Angeles  California  USA