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Welton Becket

Los Angeles, United States of America
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Welton Becket in front of Pavilion (1964)

Welton David Becket was an American architect who designed many buildings in Los Angeles, California. Becket was born in Seattle, Washington and graduated from the University of Washington program in Architecture in 1927 with a Bachelor of Architecture degree (B.Arch.). He moved to Los Angeles in 1933 and formed a partnership with his University of Washington classmate Walter Wurdeman and architect Charles F. Plummer. Their first major commission was the Pan-Pacific Auditorium in 1935, which won them residential jobs from James Cagney, Robert Montgomery, and other film celebrities.

The successor firm Wurdeman and Becket went on to design Bullock's Pasadena (1944) and a couple of corporate headquarters. Wurdeman and Becket developed the concept of "total design," whereby their firm would be responsible for master planning, engineering, interiors, furniture, fixtures, landscaping, signage, and even (in the case of restaurants) menus, silverware, matchbooks, and napkins. Becket's buildings used unusual facade materials such as ceramic tile and stainless steel grillwork, repetitive geometric patterns, and a heavy emphasis on walls clad in natural stone, particularly travertine and flagstone. After Wurdeman's death in 1949, Becket formed Welton Becket and Associates and continued to grow the firm to the extent that it was one of the largest architectural offices in the world by the time of his death in 1969.

Welton Becket was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects in 1952.

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Los Angeles, United States of America
bostjan, December 26th, 2016
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