A. Quincy Jones (1913-79) designed enduring landmarks across Southern California. Pass by USCs Annenberg School for Communication, the Congregational Church of Northridge or the Shorecliff Tower apartment building in Santa Monica, and you very well may admire the architecture without realizing that Jones was the man hehind it. ()
St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church in Studio City, shown here, is cited as one of Jones’ notable works. The architect’s frequent use of high ceilings, walls of glass and exposed natural materials embodied a modernist aesthetic that has come to epitomize midcentury American design. (Larry Frost)
Light spills down from above inside the architect’s St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. (Larry Frost)
The Studio City church, as seen from outside. (St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church)
Jones designed 80 private residences in Southern California from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, raising the level of the tract house in California from the simple stucco box to a structure of beauty and logic, surrounded by gardens and integrated into the landscape, writes architect Cory Buckner in her 2002 monograph, A. Quincy Jones. This historic image shows the Mutual Housing Assn. office in a part of L.A. now called Crestwood Hills. ()
Jones and Whitney R. Smith designed the Mutual Housing Assn. office, which was converted into a house in 1952. ()
Jones’ other residential projects included Sunnylands, philanthropist Walter Annenberg’s rambling estate in Rancho Mirage.
For an in-depth look at another Jones home, click through our gallery of the Holmby Hills house now owned by Shulamit Nazarian. (Los Angeles Times)
