Lansburgh, Gustave Albert
Entry Author: David
Parry
Architect
 Gustave
Albert Lansburgh was born January 7, 1876 in Panama, the eldest
son of Polish-born Simon Lazarus Lansburgh and his wife Rebecca.
Tragically, Albert's father died in 1879 while his mother
was carrying his younger brother, who was named Simon, after
his father. She relocated to San Francisco with her two young
sons, taking rooms at 195 Hyde Street. Rebecca died of tuberculosis
in 1888 and the Lansburgh brothers were raised by Celia Goldman
under the guardianship of Rabbi Jacob Voorsanger of Temple
Emanu-El. Graduating from Boys High School in 1894, Albert
enrolled at U. C. Berkeley, the year
Julia Morgan graduated. Bernard
Maybeck had recently been hired to teach descriptive geometry
there and Albert worked as a draftsman for Maybeck during
his vacations and later for architect Julius E. Krafft for
a year. Maybeck was a positive influence on Albert and others,
encouraging them to attend the prestigious École
des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Albert first went to Paris in
1898 as a tutoring companion to the son of real estate developer
Harvey M. Toy. Keen to enrol in the famous architectural school,
Albert found a San Francisco sponsor in Moses A. Gunst and
passed his entrance exams in 1901.
He chose the atelier of Jean Louis Pascal, working with him
on the Bibliotèque Nationale, and after five
years work earned his Diploma in March 1906 and was awarded
a Medaille Salon by the Societé des Artistes Français
in July 1906 for a set of drawings of a projected new Temple
Emanu-El at the corner of Sutter and Van Ness, which had been
largely destroyed in the April 18th earthquake. Lansburgh
had returned to the Bay Area in May 1906, one month after
the earthquake, teaming up with Bernard Julius Joseph (1875-1971)
who had also worked as a draftsman for Julius Krafft. The
replacement Temple Emanu-El was not built, however,
as the Trustees recognized that the location was becoming
too commercial. Many years later, in the mid-1920's, both
Lansburgh and Maybeck were retained as consultants for the
Temple's present structure on Arguello at Lake designed by
Sylvain Schnaittacher in collaboration with Bakewell &
Brown.
Lansburgh and Joseph worked together as partners for two
years before Lansburgh opened his own office. During that
time they designed 3096-98 Washington/2100-02 Baker in Pacific
Heights, now converted to four condominiums, and many Downtown
commercial buildings in the reconstruction of the City following
the devastation of April 1906, including the Gunst Building
on the south-west corner of Powell and Geary in Union Square,
the remodel of the burned-out Emporium on Market Street, and
a new $1 million Orpheum Theater on the south side of O'Farrell
between Stockton and Powell (which was demolished in 1938).
Even after the partnership dissolved Lansburgh and Joseph
still collaborated on several major projects.
Lansburgh became known as a theater and auditorium architect,
designing over 50 nationwide. He enjoyed the patronage of
Morris Meyerfield, Jr., President of the Orpheum Theater and
Realty Company and Lansburgh's younger brother Simon, an attorney,
became in-house counsel of the company, succeeding Meyerfield
as President in 1920. Lansburgh was to design several theaters
for the Orpheum chain in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans,
St. Louis, Kansas City and Salt Lake City. He became a master
of acoustics, fixing the problems of the Civic Auditorium
with a new ceiling canopy in time for the 1920 Democratic
Convention. Lansburgh also designed several buildings for
the Panama-Pacific International Exposition including the
Guatemala Pavilion. He consulted with local architects on
six theaters in Los Angeles alone, including the Shrine Auditorium,
site of the Academy Awards, and the historic Wiltern Theater
on Wilshire Blvd.
In San Francisco two of Lansburgh's finest surviving theaters
are the Warfield on Market Street at Taylor and the Golden
Gate Theater across Taylor Street on the corner of Golden
Gate Avenue, both built in 1921-22. (What is now the Orpheum
Theater on Market Street at Hyde was designed in 1925 by B.
Marcus Priteca for the Pantages Theater Company and acquired
by the Orpheum Company in 1929). In 1931 Lansburgh and Arthur
Brown, Jr. designed both the War Memorial Opera House
and the War Memorial Veterans Building on Van Ness Avenue,
with Lansburgh focusing on the interiors.
Lansburgh's personal favorite was a Byzantine-style theater
he designed for Vaudeville producer Martin Beck on W. 45th
Street and 8th Avenue in New York, which opened in 1924. It
has room for huge sets and hundreds of actors and reflected
Beck's ambitions to stage large musicals, such as the original
'Bye Bye Birdie'. Lansburgh came close to designing a 5300
seat Metropolitan Opera House in New York, but the death of
Otto Kahn, philanthropist and President of the Metropolitan
Opera Company, in 1934, stalled the project.
Lansburgh's own home at 3052 Pacific Avenue
Lansburgh designed only a small number of houses in San Francisco,
but two interesting examples include the Beaux-Arts influenced,
but very original stylistic creation at 2201 Broadway on the
corner of Webster, designed in 1914, and his own home which
is the subject of this month's article at 3052 Pacific Avenue,
which he completed in 1924. Lansburgh and his wife Irene Muzzy,
who he had met while studying in Paris and married in 1908,
acquired the lot in May 1922. The resulting home is very clearly
in what we would now call the Spanish-Mediterranean style
and was acknowledged at the time by architect and writer Irving
F. Morrow to be "a house embracing the beauties and amenities
of Spanish architecture". Lansburgh's objective had been
to "design a house in which formal entertainment is no
less possible than informal living" and he succeeded
admirably on a prime 90 ft. wide Pacific Heights view lot,
entered by a long driveway from Pacific Avenue with the house
situated at the back, overlooking the last block of Broadway
and with a curved pathway down to it. The Lansburghs sold
the house in January 1937, moving to San Mateo.
When World War II came, Lansburgh closed his New York and
Los Angeles offices and contributed to the war effort by designing
seaplanes and destroyer tenders, until ill health forced him
into semi- retirement. He died in San Mateo in April 1969
at the age of 93.
From the early 1920's until the depression Lansburgh had
leased a ranch at Stanford to raise show horses, a hobby that
delighted his four children. One of his sons, Larry, who died
in March 2001 at the age of 89, became a director and producer
of animal-themed films for Disney, winning two Oscars.
Entry taken from the website of David Parry at www.classicSFproperties.com
and is used by permission. Unauthorized use of this copyrighted
material is strictly forbidden without permission from the
author.
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Born: Panama, January 7, 1876