03 July 2014

Imaging - Religious Architecture

Here's a look at another stone-built church image to wrap up a 4th of July holiday-shortened work-week. Located within this large city (or is it a suburb of L.A.?) that's teeming with interesting religious and historic architecture, this Gothic Revival-styled house of worship was designed by Johnson, Kaufman and Coate, Architects and was dedicated in 1924. The architectural and artistic stories behind these picturesque elevations are well-documented and accessible online through the good work and courtesy of the All Saints Church (© 2014 all rights reserved) community.

All Saints Episcopal Church at Pasadena, California / Jim A. Beardsley (c)2010

The lead designer of All Saints church, Reginald Davis Johnson (1882 - 1952), was the son of the Reverend Joseph Horsfall Johnson who was the first Episcopal bishop in Los Angeles between 1896 and 1928.  As a highly accomplished architect in Southern California, Reginald was instrumental in bringing a good number of building projects under his father's jurisdiction to fruition.  Besides several Episcopal churches mostly built in the 1920s, Johnson and/or his association with architects Roland Coate and Gordon Kaufman were responsible for a wide array of noteworthy buildings such as the Hale Solar Laboratory in Pasadena, the Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel, the c.1927 Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, and the St. Paul Episcopal Cathedral that towered over the Downtown L.A. intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and Figueroa Street between 1924 and 1980. The historically understated All Souls Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital (both structures were designed by Johnson, et al. to face away from the street) was basically just a scaled-down version of the previously built St. Paul Cathedral that had been sited a few blocks away on the northeast corner of Wilshire and Figueroa.

All Souls Chapel at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles / Jim A. Beardsley (c) 2012

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