Gustave Albert Lansburgh (January 7, 1876 – April 1969) was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930.
Life and career
Lansburgh was born in Colombia (in a part of the country that is now Panama) and raised largely in San Francisco. After graduating from that city's Boys High School in 1894, Lansburgh enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. While a student there, he worked part-time in the offices of prominent San Francisco architect Bernard Maybeck. Upon graduation, he moved to Paris, where in 1901, he was enrolled in the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, earning a diploma in March 1906.
Lansburgh returned to the Bay Area in May 1906, one month after the region had been devastated by the San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires. First in partnership with Bernard Julius Joseph for two years, then in his own practice, Lansburgh designed numerous buildings in the recovering city. Among these were four of the seven Carnegie branch libraries for the city and his first theater, for the San Francisco–based Orpheum Theater Circuit. In his long career thereafter, Lansburgh become known primarily as a theater architect, designing more than 50 of them, many for the Orpheum Circuit and its successor firm, RKO. He continued to design other buildings, including Oakland's Temple Sinai in 1914.Rosenbaum, Fred (2009). Cosmopolitans: A Social and Cultural History of the Jews of the San Francisco Bay Area. University of California Press. p. 89.
Family Lansburgh's son was director Larry Lansburgh.Lawrence M. Lansburgh, by doug Galloway; in Variety; published April 4, 2001; retrieved October 8, 2018
List of works G. Albert Lansburgh's works include:
Theaters Los Angeles
Palace, 1910 Orpheum, 1926 Shrine Auditorium, 1926 El Capitan, 1926 Warner Hollywood, 1927 Wiltern, 1931
San Francisco
Orpheum No. 3, 1909 Golden Gate, 1921 Warfield, 1922 El Capitan, 1928 War Memorial Opera House, 1932 Grand, 1940 (collaborating architect)
Other
Kinema, Fresno, 1913 Orpheum No. 2, Salt Lake City, 1913 Orpheum No. 2, Kansas City, 1915 Orpheum, St. Louis, 1915 Orpheum, New Orleans, 1917 State-Lake, Chicago, 1919 Martin Beck, New York City, 1924 Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, 1926 (collaborating architect)
Other buildings San Francisco Bay Area
Elkan Gunst Building, 1907 M.A. Gunst Building, 1907 Sachs Building, 1908 Brown Mausoleum, 1909 Temple Sinai, 1914 1st Hebrew Congregation Synagogue No. 3, 1914 Clift Hotel, 1915 Mission Branch Library, 1915 Sunset Branch Library, 1918 North Beach Branch Library, 1921 Presidio Branch Library, 1921 Temple Emanu-El #2, 1926 American Trust Company Office Building, Berkeley, 1927 Home of Peace Cemetery Mausoleum, 1936
See also Alfred Henry Jacobs
References
External links Biography at Encyclopedia of San Francisco Cinema Treasures' partial list of theaters designed by G. Albert Lansburgh