James Pulliam; Architect And Teacher Noted For Modernism, 80
DGH
James G. Pulliam, a civic-minded architect whose understated geometric
style helped shape mid-century modernism in Southern California, has
died, at the age of 80.
Pulliam, who also fought to preserve the Los Angeles Central Library,
died Tuesday, December 27, 2005, at his home in La Cañada Flintridge,
said Kathleen Thorne-Thomsen, his ex-wife. He had battled Parkinson's
disease for more than a decade.
"He believed in very rational, clean buildings that lent a certain
crispness to the cityscape," said Joseph Giovannini, a New York-based
architecture critic who reviewed architecture for the Los Angeles
[California] Herald Examiner in the 1980s.
One design that stood out was the All-State Savings & Loan built in
1982 across from the Glendale Galleria.
"It held its corner very beautifully and made a sculptural contribution
to the cityscape. It was porous and wide, and it had scale. It was
meant to be appreciated at 35 miles per hour," Giovannini said.
He "never did the huge mega-projects," said Mark Nay, an architect who
was a student of Pulliam's at USC, "but he made a large contribution
through his civic work, which included controlling how the 210 Freeway
was designed when it went through Pasadena."
Pulliam's structures often displayed a trademark "cut into box" style
typified by deep indentations.
An award-winning example was a home in Beverly Hills, built in 1973 for
Bernard Heidemann. In "An Architectural Guidebook to Los Angeles"
(2003), David Gebhard and Robert Winter declared the house "almost
monumental."
Another more public example was the student union built in 1976 at Cal
Poly Pomona. The guidebook declared it "probably the best building on
the campus."
As the campus architect, Pulliam also designed a bookstore and art
gallery in the late '80s. One structure, built in 1993 as an interim
design center, resembled a railroad car. He also taught at Cal Poly
Pomona and other local schools.
When it came to the city as a whole, Pulliam had "the instincts of an
activist," Giovannini said. "He was very concerned about Los Angeles'
and downtown's future at a time when it wasn't clear that downtown had
a future."
As president of the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of
Architects, Pulliam pushed for a renovation of the Central Library that
would preserve the integrity of the building, Pulliam told The Times in
1979. That project was completed in 1987.
To derail plans for an elevated train downtown, Pulliam paid for his
architecture students to build a large model to show that the proposed
location wouldn't work.
James Graham Pulliam was born January 31, 1925, in Lyons, Kansas, to
Paul and Mary Tebbe Pulliam. At 6, he moved to Pasadena and his father
ran a mortgage business in downtown Los Angeles.
World War II interrupted his studies at Dartmouth College. After
serving in the Marines, Pulliam returned to earn a bachelor's in
English in 1947. The English Department thought he had a talent for
poetry, something he always made fun of later in life. As the "class
poet," he read an original poem at graduation.
At Dartmouth, Pulliam took a class from Hugh Morrison, a leading
architectural historian who wrote a definitive study on Louis Sullivan,
an American architect known for steel-frame skyscrapers and the
influential dictum "form follows function."
Pulliam's passion for architecture could be traced to that one
inspirational teacher, said Winter, an architectural historian and
former history professor at Occidental College who was in that same
class.
After being introduced to the work of Walter Gropius, a major figure in
modern architecture who founded the Bauhaus school of design, Pulliam
went to Harvard University's graduate school of design because Gropius
taught there.
Pulliam returned to the Marines during the Korean War before beginning
his architectural career in Los Angeles.
His first job was in the offices of well-known modernist architects
Richard Neutra and Welton Becket, who built many local landmarks,
including the Capitol Records tower and the Cinerama Dome.
The first building Pulliam designed on his own was the Abacus retail
store, built in 1961 on Lake Avenue in Pasadena with a cutting-edge
element for the time - an outdoor seating area.
For the 1970 World's Fair in Osaka, Japan, Pulliam created an
award-winning pavilion for IBM that incorporated a sheer wall and forms
that looked like tetrahedrons, popular on buildings from the era.
For many years, Pulliam lived with Thorne-Thomsen and their sons in a
Greene & Greene Craftsman house built in 1913 in Pasadena.
While Pulliam expressed reverence for the Henry A. Ware house, he told
The Times in 1989 it was "not a museum ....A house is a living thing"
that sometimes needs to change.
The same could be said for some of his other projects.
In 1980, he transformed a ferry building into the Los Angeles Maritime
Museum in San Pedro. Several years later, he helped design the market
hall and theater complex at the Century City Shopping Center.
"He was very much a Pasadena person and a gentleman, quiet and direct
but strong," Giovannini said. "His work was thoughtful, like he was."
Pulliam's two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by longtime
companion Christine Wheeler, three sons, a daughter and two
grandchildren.
LA Times