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A UNIFYING VISION:
IMPROVEMENT, IMAGINATION AND BERNHARD HOFFMANN
OF STOCKBRIDGE (NEW ENGLAND) AND SANTA BARBARA (NEW SPAIN)
by
Ellen K. Knowles
______________________________________________________
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION
December 2011
Copyright 2011 Ellen K. Knowles
Object Description
| Title | A unifying vision: improvement, imagination and Bernhard Hoffmann of Stockbridge (New England) and Santa Barbara (New Spain) |
| Author | Knowles, Ellen K. |
| Author email | knowles91360@yahoo.com;knowles91360@yahoo.com |
| Degree | Master of Historic Preservation |
| Document type | Thesis |
| Degree program | Historic Preservation |
| School | School of Architecture |
| Date defended/completed | 2011-12-06 |
| Date submitted | 2011-12-06 |
| Date approved | 2011-12-07 |
| Restricted until | 2011-12-07 |
| Date published | 2011-12-07 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Breisch, Kenneth A. |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Platt, Jay Campbell, Douglas |
| Abstract | “A Unifying Vision” explores the little-discussed link between two important civic phenomena in America: the village improvement movement, which began in mid-19th century Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the imposition of Mediterranean-influenced architecture in Santa Barbara, California, instituted a half century later. That connection came in the form of civic activist Bernhard Martin Luther Hoffmann, born in Stockbridge in 1874. After a career based primarily in New York City, Hoffmann arrived in Santa Barbara in 1919, immediately and directly applying the village improvement tenets his father and community had modeled for him throughout his life. Hoffmann’s organizational work both before and after the Santa Barbara earthquake of June 28, 1925 rendered him a kind of civic celebrity; however, this was a designation he modestly refused to indulge. ❧ As the idea of “improvement” was disseminated across the United States between 1830 and 1910, its basic tenets – basic sanitation, definition of land use, meaningful monuments, planting and horticulture, and general beautification - segued into the home economics movement before being enveloped by small-scale “City Beautiful” interventions inspired by the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. These mutually-supporting activities, bolstered by new technologies, combined with civic education to undergird the very beginnings of the urban planning movement around 1909. Interpretations of the Exposition’s organizational and aesthetic conventions were seen in the pioneering work of Charles Mulford Robinson and John Nolen, among others, from that time forward. Utterly reflective of the pragmatic, yet aspirational, nature of early American society, the ideal of “Improvement” was advertised perpetually by relocating boosters, writers, and investors as the railroad extended west. ❧ Nowhere, perhaps, were village improvement’s dual premises of selfless volunteerism and the imposition of taste more directly interpreted - or more successfully applied - than through the civic activism of Bernhard Hoffmann and Pearl Chase in 1920s Santa Barbara. A successful professional at mid-life, Hoffmann left his historic hometown of Stockbridge, Massachusetts to join a newly forming class of elites perfectly positioned between San Francisco arts and culture and an increasingly Anglicized Los Angeles. One of these elites was Miss Pearl Chase, a Yankee daughter of New England lineage who, returning as a young woman to Santa Barbara after graduating from Berkeley in 1907, applied herself zealously to the improvement of civic and societal conditions for the remainder of her life, The fiercely independent Chase found a steadying, and highly focused, counterpart in Hoffmann, as they worked effectively together (although often physically apart) for many years. ❧ Among the many Santa Barbara philanthropic and cultural activities with which Hoffmann and his wife, Irene, were involved, it was the completion of three important municipal projects: the Casa de la Guerra with El Paseo; the Meridian Studios, and the Lobero Theater which illustrated the centrality of the evolving Spanish Colonial style in the development of the city’s resonant paradigm. These case studies, and the events surrounding their construction, reveal how the legacy of historical New England village improvement contributed to Santa Barbara’s successful unity of form and image. |
| Keyword | Santa Barbara; Stockbridge; New England Village Improvment; Laurel Hill Association; Bernhard and Irene Hoffmann; Jose de la Guerra; Spanish Colonial Revival |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Rights | Knowles, Ellen K. |
| Physical access | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume6/etd-KnowlesEll-450-0.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Contributing entity | University of Southern California |
| Repository email | cisadmin@lib.usc.edu |
| Full text | A UNIFYING VISION: IMPROVEMENT, IMAGINATION AND BERNHARD HOFFMANN OF STOCKBRIDGE (NEW ENGLAND) AND SANTA BARBARA (NEW SPAIN) by Ellen K. Knowles ______________________________________________________ A Thesis Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION December 2011 Copyright 2011 Ellen K. Knowles |
