Architect John Kelsey Dies at 86

During the design of what is now the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena in late 1960, the architects Thornton Ladd and John Kelsey express a conviction. "It can be part of this event and experience" The space that houses art

When it opened in 1969 as the Pasadena Art Museum, observers saw the original design art crow, which was covered with stained tiles that seemed to change color with the sun, and the curved interior walls designed to introduce modern art.

An early review in the Times gives the structure "attractive" and "undoubtedly superior to single-local competition, Los Angeles County Museum of Art."

After forming the company in 1958, Ladd & Kelsey, both graduates of USC built a number of large projects in the next quarter century, including the main buildings at CalArts in Valencia and Busch Gardens theme park in Van Nuys .

Kelsey, 86, died on August 04 of complications related to age at home in Santa Barbara, said his family.

The "Guide to Architecture in Los Angeles" (2003), an architectural historian Robert Winter wrote that the museum has attracted the Streamline Moderne style in 1930, and reflects "a classic formal quality."

After the museum opened its doors to great fanfare, quickly sank into debt and took charge of industrial Norton Simon in 1974. Architect Frank Gehry has made a major reconfiguration of the space of the gallery in late 1990 to better show extensive collection of masterpieces by Simone, according to the museum.

By CalArts, Ladd and Kelsey designed the parts called "mega-construction" with a unit capacity of 150 people including eight theaters, galleries and other systems. Sometimes talks about plans for the giant "virtually unprecedented" Kelsey and promotes flexibility of design.

"There is a traditional classroom in the building," said Kelsey provided the classroom, which could be easily reconfigured "to meet the needs of the teacher."

His inspiration for CalArts - originally developed by Walt Disney - had come from Athens, Rome and the Renaissance, as architects.

Also designed plans for another Disney project, Mineral King Ski Resort, which has been proposed by the Sierra Nevada, but stopped after the country became part of Sequoia National Park in 1978.

Anheuser-Busch's Busch Gardens opened in 1966 on 17 acres adjacent to the brewery. 4 million project was both the theme park and tropical oasis including a monorail that snaked around the structure to allow passengers a look at the process of fermentation. The park was closed in 1979, so it could expand the brewery.

A low profile design, modern First Methodist Church in La Verne, was introduced in the 1967 movie "The Graduate," when Dustin Hoffman character is delivered to you to stop the wedding at the end of the film Picture.

Other projects include Ladd & Kelsey Herrick Memorial Chapel Occidental College, USC Student Activities Complex, two eight-story towers of living in what is now Claremont McKenna College, and a number of May Co. department stores.

In Pasadena, the partners designed a three-bedroom home for the family that Kelsey was built in 1962 and wrapped around a swimming pool. The family sold the house to the north of Annandale Country Club in 1978. It was sold in 2003 for $ 1.85 million.

"The house of the architect is a well articulated ..." wrote the guide in the winter. "This building low as pretty as modern when it was built."

John Field Kelsey was born Dec. 7, 1925, in Los Angeles, the youngest of three children. After his father died shortly before the Depression, Kelsey lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles with her mother.

Towards the end of World War II, he was a cadet in the Army Air Force before attending the School of Architecture at USC.

His collaboration with Ladd lasted until 1982, when he moved to Santa Barbara Kelsey and focuses on the design of contemporary homes. Ladd died in 2010 on his birthday 86.

Kelsey was "always interested in good shape," taken in 1970 sculpture, and painting in an abstract style, said his son, Brent, who is also an architect.

"It's been a lot of fun and had a great personality and was not shy to express their opinion," said the son. "But it used to be right."

The twice divorced Catherine Kelsey survive him, his wife of 30 years, three children from his first marriage, Brent, Jennifer and Elizabeth, two grandchildren, and a brother, Richard.