Gordon Kaufmann was an English born

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 architect

Architect

An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

 mostly known for his work on the Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam

Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...

. He arrived in California in 1914 and during his early career he did much work in the Mediterranean Revival Style

Mediterranean Revival Style architecture

The Mediterranean Revival was an eclectic design style that was first introduced in the United States about the end of the nineteenth century, and became popular during the 1920s and 1930s...

 which had become popular at that time.

He was also the initial architect for Scripps College

Scripps College

Scripps College is a progressive liberal arts women's college in Claremont, California, United States. It is a member of the Claremont Colleges. Scripps ranks 3rd for the nation's best women's college, ahead of Barnard College, Mount Holyoke College, and Bryn Mawr College at 23rd on the list for...

, a liberal arts

Liberal arts college

A liberal arts college is one with a primary emphasis on undergraduate study in the liberal arts and sciences.Students in the liberal arts generally major in a particular discipline while receiving exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, including sciences as well as the traditional...

 women's college

Women's college

Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women...

 in Claremont

Claremont, California

Claremont is a small affluent college town in eastern Los Angeles County, California, United States, about east of downtown Los Angeles at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. The population as of the 2010 census is 34,926. Claremont is known for its seven higher-education institutions, its...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. It is a member of the Claremont Colleges

Claremont Colleges

The Claremont Colleges are a prestigious American consortium of five undergraduate and two graduate schools of higher education located in Claremont, California, a city east of downtown Los Angeles...

.

Kaufmann, along with landscape architect Edward Huntsman-Trout, designed the general campus plan featuring four residence halls to be built the first four consecutive years of the College (1927–1930). The project's design is primarily in the Mediterranean Revival style.

While gaining recognition for his work on the Scripps campus, he was also hired by California Institute of Technology

California Institute of Technology

The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 in 1928 to design a group of dormitories and the building for the Athenaeum

Athenaeum at Caltech

The Athenaeum is a private social club on the California Institute of Technology campus.Illustrious regulars at the Athenaeum Round Table have includedDavid Baltimore,Robert Christy,Lee Alvin DuBridge,Richard Feynman,William Alfred Fowler,Scott Fraser,...

, a private club located on the school's campus.

Later in his career, Kaufmann worked primarily in the Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 style, with a personal emphasis on massively thick, streamlined concrete walls which gave his buildings a very distinctive appearance. Kaufmann's buildings as a result took on a very "mechanical" appearance, often resembling huge versions of old-fashioned appliances. The Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

headquarters is a perfect example of this.