Ayres & Fiege architectural drawings, 1939-1970

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Summary

Creators:
Ayres & Fiege (Firm)
Abstract:
Ayres & Fiege was a prolific Los Angeles architectural firm founded in 1946 by Donald Ayres and Herbert F. Fiege. The collection consists of the firm's architectural drawings, plans, and specifications from school, church, commercial and residential projects.
Extent:
726.0 Linear Feet (242 map folders and 1 box)
Language:
Materials are in English.
Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Ayres & Fiege Architectural Drawings (Collection 115). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Background

Scope and content:

The collection consists of original architectural drawings and specifications for approximately 700 projects designed by Ayres & Fiege. Additional materials include perspectives, sketches, duplicates of original drawings, bid records and standard materials forms.

The collection documents the popularization of mainstream architectural modernism during California's postwar period. The residential series illustrates paticularly well the patterns and tastes that informed the urbanization of Los Angeles during the 1950s and 1960s.

Biographical / historical:

Donald Ayres (1904-) was born in Wilton Junction, Iowa and received his Bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Illinois. He was a fellow of the Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris in 1932, and a Carnegie scholar at Harvard University during the summers of 1935 and 1936. In 1946 he founded the architectural firm of Ayres & Fiege with his business partner, Herbert F. Fiege. The firm designed many buildings for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, in addition to a large number of public and private schools, commercial buildings, and residential developments in the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles metropolitan area. Their residential work included apartment complexes, private homes, additions and renovations to existing structures, and model and tract home designs for developers and private clients.

Acquisition information:

Gift of Mrs. Donald Ayres, care of Sally Fuller, 1996.

The archives of Ayres Fiege were stored at Donald Ayres' home in Encino, California. Following his death, the drawings were donated by his widow, in the care of neighbor Sally Fuller, to the UCLA Art Library's Special Collections. Responsibility for the materials was transferred to the Young Research Library's Department of Special Collections in 2001, where they were later processed.

Processing information:

Processed by Liron Elkan with assistance from Laurel McPhee.

Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.

We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Potentially Offensive Description in Library Special Collections.

Arrangement:

Arranged in the following series:

  1. Educational facilities, 1947-1967 (21 map folders).
  2. Parochial buildings, 1951-1968 (30 map folders).
  3. Commercial buildings, 1945-1969 (26 map folders).
  4. Clubs, 1963 (2 map folders).
  5. Residential projects, 1939-1970 (163 map folders), subseries A-D as follows:
    1. Apartments, 1945-1970 (30 map folders).
    2. Private homes, 1939-1970 (73 map folders).
    3. Additions and renovations, 1939-1968 (30 map folders).
    4. Model and tract homes, 1947-1964 (30 folders).
  6. Bids and forms, ca. 1940-1960 (1 box).

Physical location:
Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Access and use

Restrictions:

Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.

Terms of access:

Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Ayres & Fiege Architectural Drawings (Collection 115). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.

Location of this collection:
A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library
Box 951575
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
Contact:
(310) 825-4988
AskLSC@library.ucla.edu
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