thumb|right|Dodge House, West Hollywood, CA, 1914-16 (demolished)
Irving John Gill (April 26, 1870 – October 7, 1936), was an American architect, known professionally as Irving J. Gill. He did most of his work in Southern California, especially in San Diego and Los Angeles. He is considered a pioneer of the modern movement in architecture. Twelve of his buildings throughout Southern California are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and many others are designated as historic by local governments.
Early life
Gill was born on April 26, 1870, in Tully, New York,
By 1889, Gill was working as a draftsman under Ellis G. Hall in Syracuse. Then, in 1890, he moved to Chicago to work with Joseph Lyman Silsbee, who was Hall's partner years prior. Finally, in 1891, Gill went to Adler and Sullivan. His apprenticeship there coincided with several important Chicago School architects including Frank Lloyd Wright. While there, he worked on the Transportation Building, an exhibition hall at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Long after his death it was claimed that Gill never saw the end of that project due to illness. The veracity of this claim has never been documented and is highly unlikely. In 1893, the year of the Fair, he moved to San Diego to open his own architectural practice. in 1908, for the center of Horton Plaza Park, in downtown San Diego. Though designed in the prime of his Modernist period, its revivalist style is atypical of his work. Gill's design was chosen in a competition among professional architects, and was one of the first projects in the country to combine water and colored electrical light effects.
thumb|left|La Jolla Woman's Club (photo taken 1971)
In 1911, Gill's nephew, Louis John Gill, joined his firm as a draftsman. That same year, Gill lost an important commission for the 1915 Panama–California Exposition to Bertram Goodhue. He did work for a time as an associate of Goodhue, including the design of the Balboa Park Administration Building, Balboa Park's first structure, which is located just outside the California Quadrangle. Today, it is known as the Gill Administration Building of the San Diego Museum of Man, and houses offices and the Gill Auditorium. His work was described as "cubist" in publications of the time.
Gill's interiors were concerned with removing most unnecessary detailing, partly for reasons of economy and hygiene. His houses are known for minimal or flush mouldings; simple (or no) fireplace mantles; coved, and therefore fluid, floor-to-wall transitions; enclosed-side bathtubs; plentiful skylights;, plastered walls with only occasional, but featured, wood elements; flush five-piece doors; concrete or Sorel cement floors; and a general avoidance of dividing lines, ledges, and unnecessary material changes. According to Joseph Giovannini, "the desire for an easily maintained, sanitary home drove Gill's aesthetic toward purity."
Gill's aesthetically best work, much of it dating from the 1910s, favors flat roofs without eaves, a unity of materials (mostly concrete), casement windows with transoms, white or near-white exterior and interior walls, cubic or rectangular massing, plentiful ground-level arches or series of arches creating transitional breezeways in the manner of the California missions.
His best-known work still in active use today includes the Ellen Browning Scripps residence (now the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego), the earliest buildings of The Bishop's School, the La Jolla Woman's Club, the La Jolla Recreation Center and the George W. Marston House. He designed ten churches, of which the best known is the Christian Science Church at Second and Laurel Streets in San Diego.
Despite frequent recent references to Gill as "forgotten" or "unappreciated," he was reasonably well documented during his life. For example, his work was more frequently published in Gustav Stickley's "Craftsman" magazine than any other Western architect, including the Greene & Greene firm.
Gill's reputation did quickly fade after his death, and it languished until he was included in the 1960 book Five California Architects by Esther McCoy and Randell L. Makinson. This book (still in print) helped to renew interest in his work, and in early California architecture in general. In the decades since its publication Irving Gill has come to be recognized as a major figure in the modern movement.
Personal life
On May 28, 1928, at the age of 58, Gill married for the first and only time. His wife was Marion Waugh Brashears. While some have speculated that the marriage was unsuccessful, a few remaining letters in Gill's own hand indicate his deep and fond feelings for his wife. Gill was alone on his wife's family ranch in Carlsbad, California when he died on October 7, 1936.
- Sunnyslope Lodge, San Diego, 1902, NRHP-listed
- F. B. Lewis Courts (aka Bella Vista Terrace), Sierra Madre, 1910
- First Church of Christ, Scientist, San Diego, 1909-1910
- Walter L. Dodge House, West Hollywood, 1916, destroyed 1970
- Samuel Raymond House, Bluff Park, Long Beach, 1918
- Clarke Estate, Santa Fe Springs, 1919, NRHP-listed