AC Martin: A Dynasty of Design Endures

It’s highly unusual for any family business to survive intact after three generations, let alone one involved in the highly volatile business of architecture.

However, more than 90 years and three generations after its founding, one of Southern California’s most prolific architectural firms--now known as AC Martin Partners--remains owned by the same family, with cousins David and Christopher Martin in charge as the only partners.

While many of AC Martin’s old rivals, such as Welton Beckett and William L. Pereira & Associates, have merged or folded, the Martin family has endured.

“Architectural firms are typically very short-lived,” said architectural historian Margaret Crawford. “The fact that you have a third-generation architectural firm is astonishing.”

Few other families have played as important a role as the Martins in shaping the urban landscape of Los Angeles, despite their being dismissed by many critics for largely forgettable design. The Martins have been involved in the creation of such landmarks as Los Angeles City Hall, the Art Deco May Co. department store on Wilshire Boulevard and the downtown Los Angeles high-rises of Arco Plaza and Sanwa Bank Plaza.

But perhaps the Martins’ biggest impact is in the thousands of less notable commercial buildings--from stores to office parks to schools--that reflected and adapted to Southern California as the region developed into a sprawling giant.

The same family that helped design turn-of-the-century downtown department stores--when most patrons traveled long distances by streetcar--decades later created Lakewood Center Mall, one of the area’s first suburban retail complexes surrounded by parking lots.

“They understood Los Angeles and how it was becoming suburban and car-oriented and how you design for that,” said architectural critic and author Alan Hess. “They certainly have been one of the most important in the 20th century in terms of shaping Los Angeles.”

The firm opened its doors in 1906 shortly after founder Albert C. Martin moved to Los Angeles from Illinois. He went on to work on a string of buildings--such as City Hall, the Million Dollar Theater and St. Vincent’s Church--that became landmarks in the city’s historic core.

The firm’s work was always the focus of attention for the Martin family, who lived in the Westlake district off Wilshire Boulevard.

“It was the life of the family,” said Albert C. Martin Jr., 85, whose father often worked on building plans and schedules at the dinner table after meals. “It was always that way.”

The senior Martin--or “A.C.” as he was referred to by colleagues and his family--forged ties with business owners, who proved to be a source of design work for decades as they relocated their companies from downtown Los Angeles to the new, outlying suburbs.

A.C. Martin never directly asked his two sons to join the firm, but everybody assumed they would. Eventually, Albert Martin became head of design issues and Edward handled engineering and business affairs. The four Martin daughters, however, were never asked to join the firm and none was given an ownership stake.

“Women were not going to be architects or engineers,” said Albert Martin, explaining the family’s view of women in the business.

Albert and Edward Martin could not have been more different in personality or skills. Albert was the diplomat who courted clients and politicians. Edward, meanwhile, forced a strict discipline on the firm in meeting operational and financial goals.

“Al Martin was very social and very involved in the community and well-liked,” said architect Edward Abrahamian, a former Martin designer who is now a partner in a Pasadena architectural practice. “Ed Martin . . . spoke his mind and offended a lot of people. He was very opinionated and very blunt.”

The Martins used their complementary skills to expand upon their father’s work and take advantage of the postwar building boom that swept Los Angeles. The brothers adapted industrial equipment for new uses, including the use of oil rig cooling equipment to air-condition the new suburban shopping centers.

The Martins were also commissioned to design some of the first industrial parks to accommodate the fledgling aerospace industry. Christopher Martin, who is the son of Ed Martin, recalls being enthralled by his father’s work on the sprawling TRW Space Park.

“John Glenn was in orbit, and I was just fascinated about what might be going on in these top-secret military industrial complexes that he was building,” said Christopher Martin.

Since Christopher Martin was nearly a decade younger than his cousin David, neither had much exposure to the other while growing up. Yet both men were selected by their respective fathers to assume ownership and control of the firm during the 1980s. A building boom helped mask frictions between the two cousins.

“The firm was big enough where we could do our own thing,” said Christopher Martin, 48, who lives in San Marino. “David had his projects and I had mine.”

David Martin, 56, who lives on the Westside, recalls some very public arguments with his cousin in front of employees.

“That drives everybody around you nuts,” he said. “It’s like watching your mother and your father argue.”

It wasn’t until the recession of the 1990s--when profits at AC Martin evaporated and it cut about three-fourths of its staff--that the two cousins were forced to work together to save the family legacy. Now David is the head of design while Chris handles management and organizational issues.

“There is no question that when we work together, we get a better product,” said Chris Martin. “I am not a designer. David is not a business executive. If I didn’t have David, I’d be in trouble. If David didn’t have me, he would be in trouble.”

The firm has bounced back and now employs about 130 people, about 50 of them hired in the last year. After the skyscraper market dried up, the firm focused on a variety of government and education buildings--including new Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in Sacramento and a new humanities building at UC Irvine--as well as projects in once-booming Asia.

The firm has also returned to its roots by overseeing the costly and controversial renovation of Los Angeles City Hall. The $320-million project has seen its budget swell as the city moved to add more extensive renovations, said Chris Martin, who has received some flak for the ballooning price tag.

“When you work on controversial projects . . , you have to be prepared to take it on the chin,” he said.

The rebound in building notwithstanding, AC Martin faces enormous competition from local and international designers. In addition, many of the personal relationships forged by the two previous generations mean less in a business in which developers have emerged as the middlemen who build on behalf of corporate and institutional clients.

“The professional developer has taken over the building business,” Abrahamian said. “That’s put a lot of the old-line firms under pressure.”

But in AC Martin’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters, where brothers Al and Ed Martin still keep offices, the family remains a central force. “We just could not have weathered the storms if it were not for that,” Al Martin said.

Chris and David Martin said they don’t talk about succession, but Chris’ oldest son, Patrick, is an architecture student and has worked at the firm. But his generation might have to share control of the business with an outsider.

Offering partnerships to key designers and engineers would help keep top talent and maintain a stable operation that is spread across the country and the globe, David Martin said.

“Maybe we should stop this nonsense of trying to breed architects and engineers,” Chris Martin said. “It’s a pretty risky business.”