Charles Luckman
[5] Luckman recalls that, after the second or third week he was working at the newsstand, he asked a woman passing by about what the "pretty lights" hanging down the ceiling were called.
He joined the high school debate team, was elected class president during his senior year, and voted "Most Likely to Succeed; the latter which he detested.
[5] Following graduation in 1925, and a stint in a Kansas City Junior Engineering College, he took a job as a draftsman at an architect's office in Chicago.
[5] Lacking professional opportunities in architecture as a result of the Great Depression, Luckman joined at Colgate-Palmolive-Peet as a draftsman in the advertising department.
Luckman achieved impressive gains in the sales of his company's soap on Chicago's South Side, which earned him a reputation as a superb salesman and set the stage for a remarkable rise in the business world.
[14] The complex, designed by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was innovative in several other ways, as well, including a rare public plaza at ground level.
[15] Their partnership led to works such as CBS Television City and the master plans for Edwards Air Force Base and Los Angeles International Airport.
[16] In 1950, CBS (which was relocating to Los Angeles from New York) purchased a property site at Fairfax Avenue and Beverly Boulevard to build a new facility for their entertainment productions.
Television City was built in 1952 as an International Style, four-story building consisting of gridded expanses of clear glass set along planar geometries.
[18][19] In 1953, Pereira and Luckman were commissioned by UC Regents to create a master plan and campus expansion at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
[15] In the early 1950s, Walt Disney developed relationships with leaders of the Los Angeles architectural community, notably Pereira and Luckman.
[20] He chose Pereira and Luckman due to the fact that both architects were designing Marineland of the Pacific, which was to be the world's largest aquatic park when it opened in 1954.
"[22] Despite his rejection, Disney hired Pereira and Luckman to design the Disneyland Hotel, which originally consisted of a two-story guestroom complex with shopping, dining and recreational facilities.
[25] The tower has distinctive angled front and rear façades covered with a grid of thin aluminum louvers protecting the offices within from the sun.
In the original conception, the Theme Building was to be a much larger structure that would have consisted primarily of a glass dome that was meant to be LAX's main ticketing area and terminals.
[28] Its design repeated the theme of the circle in its wide cantilevered canopy, matched by its small circular drum for an office.
"[11] Luckman designed the United States Pavilion for the 1964 New York World's Fair, for which he received a jury award for the simple and bold structure that utilized dramatic engineering approach through the use of steel.
Although Madison Square Garden did not open to the public until 1968, Luckman started designing the center prior to receiving the commission for the Forum.
[31] Then in 1947, President Truman appointed Luckman as chairman of the Citizens Food Committee, which assigned him to obligations such as feeding the starving in post-war Europe.
[32] In addition, Luckman was the director of Freedom Train, which was a program during the Truman administration that helped rebuild Europe after World War II.
[6] Apart from his educational service, Luckman served as president of the Los Angeles Ballet, and as chair of the board of UCLA's Brain Research Institute.
