Bertram Goodhue replaced Irving Gill as chief architect of the Panama California Exhibition in San Diego. A decade later Goodhue was chosen to design the Los Angeles Public Library, presumably in thesame ornate Spanish colonial style that had won him acclaim at the fair. Ironically, by this date, Goodhue was turning for inspiration to the same “utilitarian qualities” exhibited by American Southwestern vernacular buildings that had inspired the earlier work of Gill, a turn that heavily informed his final
design for the Los Angeles Public Library.

Kenneth Alan Breisch is Associate Professor, USC School of Architecture. Breisch’s book, The Los Angeles Central Library: Building an Architectural Icon, 1872-1933 is forthcoming from Getty Publications.