Who really designed this San Diego museum? An architectural whodunit

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For 60 years, San Diego’s Timken Museum of Art has stood successful Balboa Park — a travertine-clad Modernist jewel container showcasing priceless Russian icons and masterworks from the likes of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck and Fragonard, floating among the park’s exuberant Spanish Revival fantasies. But beneath its calm exterior lies an architectural enigma that has captivated Stephen Buck and Keith York, section architecture lovers who person spent the past twelvemonth obsessively piecing unneurotic grounds suggesting that the Timken’s existent authorship has been misunderstood, if not deliberately obscured, since the time it opened successful 1965.

Their probe — which has caught the attraction of the soon-to-expand museum, not to notation the city’s tight-knit taste assemblage — began with a secret. In 2013, York, laminitis of Modern San Diego, a integer archive devoted to the region’s Midcentury design, received a telephone from 1 of San Diego’s astir respected architects, Robert Mosher. Then successful his 90s, Mosher asked to conscionable for luncheon successful La Jolla. “I person thing I request to archer you,” helium said.

Mosher, recorded by York (who was sworn to secrecy until aft Mosher’s decease successful 2015) recounted a communicative told to him decades earlier by his person and workfellow Richard Kelly, the lighting decorator of immoderate of American modernism’s astir iconic buildings, including Philip Johnson’s Glass House, Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum and Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building. Kelly had been hired to plan the lighting for the Timken. But according to Mosher, during an aboriginal gathering Walter Ames, the project’s patron, made a astonishing proposition to Kelly: “You’re the designer — wherefore don’t you plan it yourself?”

Kelly, who trained astatine the Yale School of Architecture but had ne'er designed a building, recovered himself retired of his depth, Mosher added. He turned to his adjacent person and predominant collaborator Johnson, who helped him sketch a conception that Kelly would refine into a plan Ames approved. The plans were handed disconnected to San Diego’s Frank L. Hope & Associates to nutrient the moving drawings.

When completed, the rigorously composed, historically inspired chromatic pavilion bore each the hallmarks of Johnson and Kelly’s much than fractional twelve collaborations. Yet erstwhile the Timken opened, lone Hope’s steadfast was credited. One of Hope’s architects, John R. Mock, aboriginal took recognition arsenic the person of the design. This remained the accepted communicative until past December, erstwhile Buck, a aesculapian probe entrepreneur and architecture buff, stumbled connected a long-ago station by York astir Mosher’s tale. He couldn’t halt reasoning astir it.

Architect Philip Johnson with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis successful beforehand of New York's Grand Central Terminal successful 1977.

“Why would idiosyncratic similar Robert Mosher, astatine the extremity of his life, marque this up?” Buck asked. “If helium was telling the truth, this is 1 of the astir important uncredited works of Midcentury architecture successful California.”

Buck and York joined forces, combing done Kelly’s archives astatine Yale (with Yale pupil Macarena Fernanda Diaz) and done the Timken’s ain files. In summation to grounds of copious correspondence betwixt Ames, Kelly and Johnson, they recovered Kelly’s elaborate architectural drawings of the museum, and a 1959 declaration asking Kelly to hole elevations, plans and different design-related documents. Hope’s firm, according to a abstracted contract, would “prepare moving drawings.” Together the assemblage of grounds seemed to corroborate overmuch of Mosher’s story.

It besides pointed to wherefore Kelly (and perchance Johnson) was near out. In 1 letter, Ames wrote that “due to section governmental transverse currents, it was advisable that each plans beryllium filed locally.” In different words, bringing successful East Coast modernists similar Kelly and Johnson risked a nationalist outcry. “Ames wanted the champion plan helium could get,” Buck says. “But helium besides wanted the depository built.”

The Timken decidedly feels acquainted to idiosyncratic who has visited respective Johnson/Kelly collaborations: the bronze accents, the H-shaped pavilion, the solid walls that let you to spot consecutive done the building, and the pristine travertine — light-colored limestone that originated from the aforesaid quarry successful Tivoli, Italy, utilized for Johnson’s New York State Theater (renamed the David H. Koch Theater successful 2008) astatine Lincoln Center. All echo the minimalist precision and classical proportions of their museums crossed the country. At the Timken, Kelly incorporated downlighting to accentuate the building’s travertine walls, and engineered grids of soffits and louvers that lavation the galleries successful soft, ethereal light.

“He was experimenting — making airy itself architectural,” says York. This was a trademark of Kelly’s, notes Dietrich Neumann, prof of the past of modern architecture and urbanism astatine Brown University and writer of “The Structure of Light: Richard Kelly and the Illumination of Modern Architecture.” “He emphasized materials successful a precise skillful way. His lighting creates spatial depth. You get a antithetic thought of what the architecture consists of.” Neumann notes that Johnson liked to exclaim: “Kelly is my guru. He’s the top lighting decorator ever.”

Noted Buck: “There’s thing successful Frank Hope’s assemblage of enactment that resembles this.” Hope’s steadfast is champion known for its designs of McGill Hall astatine UC San Diego, the Union-Tribune Building successful Mission Valley, and the all-concrete San Diego Stadium, aboriginal known arsenic Qualcomm Stadium.

When Buck and York presented their findings to the Timken’s enactment earlier this year, the archetypal effect was enthusiastic. But arsenic the depository began its ain review, the code grew much cautious. Trustees revisited Buck and York’s probe and conducted checks successful the Timken’s archives. Executive manager Megan Pogue aboriginal summarized their presumption successful a missive to the researchers:

Stephen Buck astatine the Timken Museum of Art.

“Based connected these findings, we reached the unfortunate decision that Mr. Johnson was not yet progressive successful the building’s design, though the circumstantial designer oregon architects wrong Frank Hope & Associates liable for the last plan look to stay unidentified. We proceed to invited and promote further scholarly probe into this question, peculiarly fixed that John Mock has agelong been credited arsenic the designer — an attribution helium personally confirmed successful caller years.”

When asked aboriginal wherefore the depository didn’t corroborate oregon contradict Kelly’s connection, Pogue noted, “Everything successful our files is that helium was constricted to the lighting.” When pressed connected the probe unearthed astatine Yale, she acknowledged, “we were truthful focused connected Philip Johnson I don’t cognize that we did arsenic heavy a dive connected this issue.”

“I tin find nary crushed wherefore they wouldn’t privation to look done this probe [at Yale] and travel to their ain conclusion,” responded Buck.

The interior of a assemblage astatine the Timken Museum of Art successful San Diego.

Behind the scenes, applicable considerations loom. The Timken is preparing to motorboat an underground enlargement designed by Gensler, which volition treble its quadrate footage and supply much-needed caller exhibition, bureau and learning spaces. It’s a process that has taken 7 years to navigate done the city’s (and Balboa Park’s) nationalist process. The adjacent San Diego Museum of Art is astir to embark connected its ain expansion, replacing Mosher’s westbound helping with a plan by Norman Foster.

“Any caller attention, particularly astir the building’s authorship, could reignite aged debates,” Pogue said successful an earlier interview. “We’re fascinated by this history, but we person to beryllium cautious astir however it’s shared.” After consulting with the board, Pogue aboriginal noted that impervious of a caller architect, peculiarly idiosyncratic of Johnson’s stature, “could beryllium truly bully for the museum.”

The museum’s nebulous, cautious positioning successful galore ways mirrors the authorities that whitethorn person buried Kelly’s and Johnson’s engagement six decades ago. In the aboriginal 1960s, Ames faced fierce absorption from civic groups, who decried modernism arsenic a menace to Balboa Park’s Spanish heart. To get his task approved, helium appears to person localized the credit.

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