LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY MASTER PLAN

The 1963 Edward T. Foley Center, designed by Edward Durell Stone. Photo by Ken Shelton.

The Conservancy worked through much of 2010 to ensure that master planning for the Westchester campus of Loyola Marymount University (LMU) didn't ignore its most signifcant postwar resources.

In January 2010, LMU released the draft environmental impact report (EIR) for a twenty-year master plan for its Westchester campus. The plan would retain the school’s earliest buildings from the 1920s, yet leave postwar structures vulnerable to demolition.

Xavier Hall, one of the original campus buildings. Photo by Conservancy staff.

The campus dates from 1928, when developer Harry Culver donated about 100 acres high on a bluff in West L.A. to Loyola College. Only two buildings had been completed when the Great Depression halted all construction in 1929.

World War II further depleted construction resources and reduced enrollment to fewer than 100 students.

With the end of the war, and the passage of the G.I. Bill to pay for veterans’ college tuition, enrollment swelled eighteen-fold to over 1,800 students. Loyola’s Westchester campus underwent a postwar building boom, as did many other colleges and universities across the country.

Edward T. Foley Center entrance. Photo by Conservancy staff.

Among the most distinctive postwar buildings on campus is the Edward T. Foley Center, designed by Edward Durell Stone and completed in 1963.

Stone (1902-1978) is a recognized master architect whose mid-career shift into expressive and abstracted historical forms advanced New Formalism as an alternative to the glass-and-steel aesthetic of International Style modernism.

The Foley Center is highly characteristic of Stone’s work. The pavilion-style structure houses a theater, classrooms, and offices in a rectangular building, set on a podium behind an expansive reflecting pool.

Detail of Millard Sheets tapestry depicting the history of communication. Photo by Conservancy staff.

Hallmarks of New Formalism include its symmetrical composition, massive projecting roof, and tall arches forming a colonnade around the building. In the highly intact lobby, a site-specific tapestry by acclaimed artist Millard Sheets dominates the oval space.

The Conservancy commented on the draft EIR in March and has reached out to LMU and the office of Councilmember Bill Rosendahl, urging them to reconsider the postwar resources on campus, particularly the Foley Center.

Based on our discussions and our work with the Council office, LMU decided to revise its master plan to ensure that any major alterations to (or demolition of) the Foley Center in the next twenty years will be subject to additional review.