Imaging - Religious Architecture

Sometimes it's fun for me to revert back to my standard history major training of comparing and contrasting for the purpose of study or appreciation.  Following is a 1920s aerial view image of Mission San Fernando which is located on the northern fringe of the San Fernando Valley in the suburban area north of Los Angeles in Southern California:

The long Covento building at the bottom-right portion of the image looks much same today, and Brand Park / Memory Garden, (which was recently developed in this photograph), still has most of its original features. A host of major changes to the Mission church and grounds and have taken place over the last 90 years. As it's shown above, this dilapidated structure was the third (and by far the largest) church built on the site and was completed prior to 1810.  Several major renovation projects had taken place before the entire church was demolished and duplicated in the early 1970s following the great Sylmar Earthquake of 1971 that irrevocably damaged the ancient house of worship.  The 'L-shaped' row of workshops and facilities that now include the popular gift shop were reconstructed c.1950, and were extended from the church towards the Convento as well as towards the center-right edge of the photograph.  That extensive construction project (initial funding was provided through the Hearst Foundation) also redeveloped the Mission quadrangle, added a still extant caretaker and maintenance shed, and preceded the extensive modern development of the surrounding areas including the new San Fernando Mission Cemetery and campus facilities for the Our Lady Queen of Angels Seminary that now house Alemany High School.  The modest two-story building that houses our Archival Center was completed in 1981 and lies between the Church and the Convento, adjacent to the long-gone orange grove in the left-center section of the image. These days, the extensive landscaping is lush and green.

And, lastly, a link to a recent aerial view that illuminates just how much change the built environment in the immediate vicinity has experienced over the course of the last 90 years.

Imaging - Religious Architecture (Ross G. Montgomery / Introduction)

Visiting again the topic of 'Religious Architecture' but with an additional element in that this post will introduce Ross G. Montgomery. He was a Los Angeles-based architect with a catalog of work that spanned roughly a half-century between 1911 and 1961.  He was also the subject of a graduate thesis project that I completed at C.S.U.N. in 2005. In addition, since Montgomery did most of his work for the local Catholic community, my ongoing work at the Archival Center for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has provided an opportunity to further my standing as an authority on this subject.  The idea here is to share a series of professional and biographical illuminations that will eventually form a complete story of Montgomery's life, times, and work.

St. John's Seminary Campus - Camarillo, California / c.1942

Unquestionably, this was among the most significant design project completed by Ross G. Montgomery and his associate William F. Mullay during their longstanding connection to the administration of Archbishop John J. Cantwell.  Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Seminary took place in May, 1938, and the campus facilities were  elaborately dedicated in October, 1940.  The image below, (courtesy of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Archives), was created after construction of the episcopal residence (upper-right portion of the image) was completed in 1941.  Also notable is the Doheny Memorial Library (upper-left portion of the image) that was designed by the well-known architect, Wallace Neff,  and is the only architectural element of the original campus history not attributable to the office of Montgomery and Mullay.

Fast-forward seventy-plus years and St. John's Seminary's original 100-acre campus has been divvied up by a number of developments that have included the construction of college facilities in the 1960s, and, more recently, the Blessed Junipero Serra parish Catholic church.  The following c.2005 images (courtesy of Tom Zimmerman) were created during a summer field trip to the Seminary to tour the grounds and review the institution's archives.

 Main Entrance at St. John's Seminary / Photo by Tom Zimmerman (c)2005

Main Chapel at St. John's Seminary / Photo by Tom Zimmerman (c)2005

ExFlorations - K-Town Palm Blossoms

This image was gathered on a little urban hike through a local neighborhood last Sunday. These exquisite flowers were notice-able from at least a block away blooming on a small palm-like tree along a sidewalk outside a humble residential building.

Imaging - Religious Architecture

The Los Angeles Conservancy website has a nice piece on a local and historical structure that caught my eye many years ago when my wife waitressed at the nearby Sizzler Restaurant that's still open on the southeast corner of 4th and Vermont. Eventually, I walked through the neighborhood and got a nice set of images that included the following:

Joohyang Presbyterian Church - Los Angeles / Jim A. Beardsley (c) 2012

The history-relaxed text from the above-inserted link reads:

"Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church; 1926; 407 S. New Hampshire Avenue; Los Angeles, CA.

Located north of Wilshire on New Hampshire Avenue, this Romanesque-style building with Byzantine and Moorish elements was built as a synagogue for Los Angeles' oldest Conservative Jewish congregation.

Architect S. Tilden Norton had built the congregation's previous temple downtown (where they had resided for fifteen years), as well as contributing to the designs for the nearby Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

The grand arch on the front of the building is in low-relief yet highly ornamental, offering a dominant focal point for the simple massing of the building.

The interior is dramatically illuminated by a large oculus (or circular skylight) in the dome. It was a filming location for 1927's The Jazz Singer.

Following the westward migration of Los Angeles' Jewish population, the Temple Sinai moved into a new building in Westwood in 1961. The Temple Sinai East, as the Wilshire Center building then became known, was sold more than a decade later. It now serves as the Korean Philadelphia Presbyterian Church."

Sinai Temple - Westwood (Los Angeles, California) / Jim A. Beardsley (c) 2013