Commission Brief – In 1951, the Putnam sisters established a non-profit organization called the Putnam Foundation, where their artwork would be known as the Putnam Foundation Collection, with the help of their friend Walter Ames.  Ames next would get the money to build a museum to house the Putnam collection from the Timken family.  Ames would eventually become the first director of the museum, but he is also the person responsible for hiring the firm of Frank L. Hope and Associates.

In September 1961, the San Diego City Council voted in favor of a new building on the site of the Home Economy/American Legion, originally built for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, a building that would be demolished in 1963.  This Spanish style structure would be replaced, by Hope’s design, and out of fear that the city would lose the Timken-Putnam collection in Balboa Park.

Harland Bartholomew Planners prepared the master plan for Balboa Park, which was adopted by the City Council in 1960, saying that the buildings in the Prado should “be harmonious with Classic Spanish architecture,” and then went on to say, “there are many styles of Spanish architecture some of which utilize most simple and direct building forms.”  These words were not very clear and could be twisted in different ways.

Design Brief - The design of the Timken Museum differs drastically from the rest of the Spanish-Colonial style buildings that survived after the Exposition. 

Museum

John Mock, was a draftsman who eventually joined the design team with Hope, called the building a “light and airy H-plan” as the building consists of two wings off of a central corridor.  The symmetry in the design along with the materials makes it unlike any other building on the Prado.  The combination of travertine, bronze, steel and glass were not being used on any other buildings in San Diego at the time.

Many of the other buildings in the park focus on the interior and the exhibits on the inside, however the Timken would be a “see-through” museum.  From the foyer, the lily pond is visible to the east with the Fine Arts gallery visible to the left.  Garden courts run north to south along the foyer with floor to ceiling glass walls, blurring the line between interior and exterior bringing in the moderate San Diego weather.

Ames hired Richard Kelly, a lighting designer that was trained as an architect, would be brought in to do the lighting for the interior and exterior of the building.  He was responsible for the lighting design on the interior and exterior of some of Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson’s projects. Kelly would filter the sunlight through skylights, to be consistent with the way the sun moved across the sky, but also considering the affect of the natural light on the artwork.

Amero, Richard. “History of the Home Economy Building in Balboa Park.” San Diego History Center | San Diego, CA | Our City, Our Story, BPOC, www.sandiegohistory.org/archives/amero/economy/

“The Timken: ‘Dead Sexy’ or ‘Cheap and Boxlike’?” Modern San Diego Dot Com, www.modernsandiego.com/TimkenProfile.html.

www.timkenmuseum.org/about/overview/