Thomas D. Church Collection, 1933-1977

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Summary

Creators:
Church, Thomas Dolliver, 1902-1978
Language:
English.

Background

Scope and content:

The Thomas D. Church collection documents over two hundred of Church's projects through textual records, drawings and photographs. The collection is arranged in four series: Office Records, Project Records, Display Boards, and Additional Donations. The office records include correspondence relating to prospective (uncompleted) projects, subject files that contain photographs and clippings of landscape details and structures, public relations files and exhibit boards. The public relations files include correspondence regarding the publication of Church's work and photographs of Church projects. The exhibit boards also feature photographs, as well as drawings. Additional photographs are located with the project files.

The bulk of the collection is comprised of project records. Arranged alphabetically, they consist of correspondence, plant lists, reports, clippings, photographs and drawings. Many project files include pre-construction site photographs. Records of Church's major projects form a large part of the series, including the General Motors Technical Center (Warren, Michigan, 1956), numerous sites for the Caterpillar Company (Illinois, 1958-62), Longwood Gardens (Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, 1971-75), Stanford University (Palo Alto, 1949-76), and University of California, Santa Cruz (1962-75). The Dewey Donnell garden, his most acclaimed project, is also documented.

The third series consists of multimedia display boards from the retail store Cargoes, illustrating projects Church collaborated on with William Wurster and Gardner Dailey. The bulk of the collection was transferred from Church's office in 1998, and their original order has been maintained. Blueprints and photographs donated separately are included in the final series.

A project list is available in the Archives.

Biographical / historical:

Thomas "Tommy" Dolliver Church was born in Boston but lived in Ojai until he was a teenager and then moved to Berkeley. He is credited with being the creator of the "modern garden." He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley and Harvard. Following graduation in 1922, he traveled extensively in Europe on a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship. Upon his return to the United States, he began teaching landscape architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He returned to practice in 1929 and three years later opened his own office in San Francisco at 402 Jackson Street where he practiced until his retirement in 1977. During the 1930s, Church’s wife Betsy worked for "Cargoes" a gift shop that sold furniture. She talked the manager into allowing Tommy to show his drawings there and when the Aaltos--who were good friends of the Churches--wanted to sell their furniture in the US, Betsy was also allowed to show it in the space.

Church's design approach combined with the local natural environment and economic climate of the 1930s through the 1970s to lead to the development of what became known as the California style. Church designed gardens primarily for the expanding middle class, both in cities and in the rapidly developing suburbs of the Bay Area. In addition to the residential gardens that make up the majority of his work, Church designed larger scale open space for housing, industrial plants and hospitals, and was consultant to Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz. Church's designs were much publicized by a number of popular home and garden journals, primarily Sunset magazine. His philosophy and principles of design were spelled out in two books, Gardens Are For People (1955, reprinted in 1983) and Your Private World (1969).

Among Church's most important works were the Dewey Donnell garden, El Novillero, in Sonoma, California (1948), done with Lawrence Halprin, who was then working in his office; the beach garden of Mr. and Mrs. O. Martin, Aptos, California (1948); the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Michigan (1956); portions of the campuses of Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Cruz; and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

During the course of his practice, Church collaborated with numerous architects including William Wurster and Gardner Dailey. He also influenced many young landscape architects. Garrett Eckbo, Robert Royston and Lawrence Halprin all worked in Church's office during the early stages of their careers. His awards include the Gold Medal of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Fine Arts Medal of the American Institute of Architects.

Sources:
Mann, William A. "Landscape Architecture: An Illustrated History in Timelines, Site Plans, and Biography." John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York. 1993.

Laurie, Michael. "Thomas D. Church, Landscape Architect." Unpublished article.

Physical description:
114 boxes, 9 flat boxes, 29 tubes, 8 flat file drawers

Access and use

Location of this collection:
230 Bauer Wurster Hall #1820
Berkeley, CA 94720-1820, US
Contact:
(510) 642-5124
designarchives@berkeley.edu
Website