John C. Austin

John Corneby Wilson Austin (February 13, 1870 – September 3, 1963) was an architect and civic leader who participated in the design of several landmark buildings in Southern California, including the Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles City Hall, and the Shrine Auditorium.

Life Born in Bodicote, Oxfordshire, England, Austin was an apprentice to architect Williams S. Barwick in the late 1880s. He moved to Los Angeles in 1895, and the two formed a partnership in 1915.

Austin was also active in civic affairs in Los Angeles. He was elected President of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in January 1930. As head of the Chamber of Commerce, Austin initiated a public-art campaign to beautify the city through the erection of statuary and monuments. One of the issues on which Austin became a leader was the need to develop a larger water system for Los Angeles.

As the Great Depression deepened in Los Angeles, Austin also advocated federal spending as a means to stimulate the economy. In April 1930, a letter from Austin to President Herbert Hoover was published in the Los Angeles Times. In it, Austin proposed the creation of an emergency fund, raised by taxation or appropriation, which could be used to develop public improvements and to provide needed employment. Austin argued that such programs were needed so that otherwise good citizens not fall "prey to the propaganda of Communists and agitators against our institutions." Austin announced that he was going east "with a crowbar to try and pry something loose," vowing to stay as long as he felt he could help get things started. Shortly after his appointment to the relief effort, however, Austin's wife of 29 years, Hilda Violet Austin, the mother of nine children with Austin, died at their home in Pasadena.

Austin also served as the President of the State Board of Architectural Examiners, President of the Southern California Historical Society, President of the Jonathan Club, and a 32nd degree Mason. In 1963, Los Angeles Mayor Samuel Yorty presented Austin with a scroll commending him "for serving in an outstanding manner as a distinguished architect."

List of works

Austin's works include (in Los Angeles, California unless otherwise noted):

With Frederic M. Ashley Guaranty Building (1923), NRHP-listed McKinley Art School enlargement, Pasadena (1924) Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building (1924), with Parkinson and Parkinson Arroyo Seco Bank Building (1926), LAHCM #492 Petit Tudor, Ventura (1929), Ventura Landmark 93 House at 3719 N. Prestwick Drive (1929) Monrovia High School building, Monrovia (1929) Los Angeles High School building (pre-1930) Memorial Branch Library (1930), Alexander Hamilton High School administration building (1931) Griffith Observatory (1933–1935), LAHCM #168

Other works Higgins/Verbeck/Hirsch Mansion (1902) Fremont Hotel (1902, demolished 1955) Potter Hotel, Santa Barbara (1902–1903, burned 1921) Beckett Mansion (1905) Virginia Hotel, Long Beach (1907, razed ) Carnegie Library, Anaheim (1909), NRHP-listed Shrine Auditorium (1925–1926), NRHP-listed, LAHCM #139 LAHCM #150 NBC Radio City Studios (1939) St. Vincent's Hospital St. Paul's Catholic Church The first State Building in the Los Angeles Civic Center