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Finding Aid for the Victor Cusack papers, 1932-2002 0000125
0000125  
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Collection Details
 
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  • Access
  • Custodial History note
  • Preferred Citation note
  • Biographical/Historical note
  • Scope and Content note
  • Related Archival Materials note

  • Title: Victor Cusack papers
    Identifier/Call Number: 0000125
    Contributing Institution: Architecture and Design Collection, Art, Design & Architecture Museum
    Language of Material: English
    Physical Description: 9.0 Linear feet (6 boxes and 1 flat file drawer)
    Date (inclusive): 1932-2002
    Abstract: Victor Cusack is an American architect who worked in the offices of Charles Luckman, William Pereira, and Pereira and Luckman. Collection comprises biographical material about Victor Cusack, including his unfinished memoir about being at Taliesin with Frank Lloyd Wright, and photographs taken at Taliesin during his time there. Also included are reports, printed materials, and drawings for assorted designs by William Pereira during the time that Victor Cusack was an architect in the firm. Projects at Pereira for which Cusack had design responsibilities include the California Federal Savings and Loan Building in Los Angeles, the Lockheed Corporation headquarters in Calabasas, the theme building and west terminal for the Los Angeles International Airport, and several master plans and reports for other projects.
    creator: Charles Luckman Associates.
    creator: Cusack, Victor A., b. 1915
    creator: Luckman, Charles
    creator: Pereira and Luckman, Architects, Engineers and Planners.
    creator: Pereira, William L., 1909-1985

    Access

    Partially processed collection, open for use by qualified researchers.

    Custodial History note

    Gift of Victor Cusack, 1999 and 2010.

    Preferred Citation note

    Victor Cusack papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Biographical/Historical note

    Victor A. Cusack was born in 1915. He attended Yale where he studied architecture and graduated in 1943. Cusack participated in the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin fellowship in Wisconsin and Arizona. From 1951 to 1954 Victor Cusack worked for Pereira and Luckman, Architects, Engineers and Planners as the senior designer working on projects such as the Union Oil Company Building, the CLA headquarters on Sunset Boulevard, Farmers and Stockmen’s Band in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Los Angeles International Airport. After Cusack left Pereira and Luckman, he went to work for the San Francisco firm Hertska & Knowles from 1957 to 1958. In 1959, Cusack rejoined Charles Luckman Associates as chief designer.

    Scope and Content note

    The Victor Cusack papers span 5 linear feet and date from 1932 to 2002. Box 1 of the collection contains Cusack’s personal papers, which include clippings, planning summaries, drafts of speeches, contemporary color photographs of Hutchinson residence, sketches Cusack did while at Taliesin, his Yale diploma and a VHS tape of the University of Southern California’s architectural guild forum event in 2002 entitle “Legacy of William Pereira”. Box 2 of the collection contains 8 x 11 in. architectural sketches and Cusack’s unfinished memoir describing his time at Taliesin. Box 3 contains Cusack’s American Institute of Architects certificate dated 1957, black-and-white photographs of Taliesin in Wisconsin, as well as twenty-four photographs of model drawings for Lockheed headquarters in Calabasas. Box 4 contains materials relating to the firm William L. Pereira & Association, Planning and Architecture which consisting of several master plans relating to Rancho Malibu, the Los Angeles International Airport, Ahmanson Ranch, and the Makaha Valley Inn and Country Club on the Island of Oahu. Box 5 contains drafts of a book on Pereira as well as published books concerning William Pereira. Box 6 contains architectural drawings and reprographic copies mounted on boards of both civic and residential buildings.
    Flat files that comprise this collection consist of both architectural drawings (including presentation and perspective drawings) and reprographic copies of buildings designed by Cusack while at the firms of Charles Luckman, William Pereira, Pereira and Luckman, and Hertska & Knowles. The drawings and reprographic copies present in the collection are of civic and residential buildings, primary in Los Angeles but also in Northern California area (primarily Oakland, California).

    Related Archival Materials note

    Welton Becket papers, Architecture and Design Collection. Art, Design & Architecture Museum; University of California, Santa Barbara.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Cusack, Victor A., b. 1915
    Cusack, Victor A., b. 1915
    Luckman, Charles
    Pereira and Luckman, Architects, Engineers and Planners.
    Pereira, William L., 1909-1985
    William Pereira Associates.
    Architectural drawings
    Photographic prints
    Reprographic copies