Frank R. Seaver Science Center, 1969
1969
Pereira & Associates
USC President Norman Topping hired William Pereira & Associates in 1961 to draw up a master campus plan, for which the firm contributed many buildings over the years, including the Seaver Science Center. Before the Science Center’s completion, the science and engineering libraries were housed in separate buildings. Pereira designed the new seven-story building to house classrooms, gathering spaces, and laboratories under one roof, with a one-story entrance pavilion that connects to the Seaver Library next door. The massive project was funded by the wife of lawyer and industrialist Frank R. Seaver for 4.8 million dollars.
Wayne Thom photographed the Seaver Center in 1970, the largest scientific complex on the West Coast at the time. The exterior of the building with its striking horizontal eaves flow into the interior, creating a seamless transition. Thom photographed it shortly after construction, before landscaping of jacarada trees and other foliage softened the building’s brutalist slab masses. It stands admist a still sparsely developed campus, allowing for unimpeded views of its white concrete overhangs, brick-faced cubic masses, and metal framed glazed curtain walls. In a photograph of the glass enclosed entrance pavilion, Thom organizes the image in one point perspective, the picture plane framed by open floor plan below, and waffle slab ceiling above. Between, students lounge on couches and make their way through the building.
References:
Charles Epting, University Park Los Angeles: A Brief History, The History Press, 2013.
Planning Task Force Reports, Science & Engineering Library History, USC Libraries, web.