Donald Parkinson Sites

In 1936, the Works Project Administration (WPA) completed construction of a new Streamline Moderne–style campus for Grant Elementary School in Santa Monica, CA. The school was designed by architects Donald Parkinson and Joe Estep, who would go on to design Santa Monica City Hall. Grant's original Virginia Avenue campus was one of four Santa Monica schools demolished after suffering severe damage in the 1933 Long Beach earthquake. System-wide renovations cost $3 million dollars.

Manual Arts High School, which opened in 1910, was rebuilt with funding from the Public Works Administration (PWA) between 1934 and 1935. Architects John and Donald Parkinson designed a Moderne-style campus of reinforced concrete, featuring horizontal banding, rounded corners, concrete grilles, and tiled entries. In January 1934, the PWA allocated $9,380,000 to the Los Angeles Unified School District for the rehabilitation of schools damaged in the severe 1933 Long Beach earthquake.  One hundred and thirty schools would benefit from the system-wide loan and grant, with 2,500 men to be employed in rehabilitation work over 21 months. Upon receiving news of the PWA allocation,...