Reginald Davis Johnson was an American 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...

. His practice, based in Pasadena, California

Pasadena, California

Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...

, focused on the Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 area and southern California in general, with a mixture of residential and commercial work. Johnson's later work was influenced by his progressive ideas on housing policy.

Johnson was born in New York state on July 19, 1882, the son of Joseph Horsfall Johnson, who would become the first Episcopal bishop of Los Angeles from 1896 to 1928. Johnson studied architecture in Paris and then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

, graduating in 1910 and returned to Pasadena. His father would consecrate St. Paul's Cathedral in Los Angeles in 1924, designed by Reginald. Johnson made a good living in the 1920s designing houses in Montecito

Montecito, California

Montecito is an unincorporated community in Santa Barbara County, California. As a census-designated place, it had a population of 8,965 in 2010. This does not include areas such as Coast Village Road, that, while usually considered part of Montecito, are actually within the city limits of Santa...

 and Pasadena. Johnson made his name by designing houses for the rich, but also designed more affordable housing, a cause that assumed greater importance to him as the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 wore on. In 1931 Johnson won an award for best design for a small house, receiving the award from Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was the 31st President of the United States . Hoover was originally a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted partnerships between government and business...

. Johnson designed Rancho San Pedro for Los Angeles as a public housing project in 1939. Through the 1930s Johnson worked on the design of Baldwin Hills Village in Los Angeles, which was designed as an up-to-date community of inexpensive housing. Johnson collaborated with Clarence Stein

Clarence Stein

Clarence Samuel Stein was an American urban planner, architect, and writer, a major proponent of the "Garden City" movement in the United States.- Biography :...

, the planner of Radburn, New Jersey

Radburn, New Jersey

Radburn is an unincorporated planned community located within Fair Lawn, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.Radburn was founded in 1929 as "a town for the motor age"...

.

Works

• Saint Saviour's Chapel (Harvard-Westlake School)
  Saint Saviour's Chapel (Harvard-Westlake School)
  Saint Saviour's Chapel at Harvard-Westlake School in the Studio City section of Los Angeles, California is a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument . The chapel was patterned after the Chapel at Rugby School in England. Its pews face the center aisle, and it is considered an excellent example of...
  
   (1914)
• Good Samaritan Hospital
  Good Samaritan Hospital (Los Angeles)
  Good Samaritan Hospital is a hospital in Los Angeles, California, United States. The hospital has 408 beds.-History:Good Samaritan Hospital was founded in 1885, although the current hospital was built in 1976...
  
  , Los Angeles, replaced 1976
• Santa Barbara Country Club ("Miraflores") (1909, rebuilt 1913, altered 1915 by Reginald D. Johnson) now the Music Academy of the West
  Music Academy of the West
  The Music Academy of the West is a music conservatory located in Montecito, California near Santa Barbara, California. Every year, it hosts a summer music festival for the community highlighted by concerts and workshops directed by famous composers, conductors, and artists.A yearly maximum of 135...
  
  
• Flintridge Riding Club
• All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena (1923)
• St. Paul's Cathedral, Los Angeles (1924), demolished 1979
• Hale Solar Laboratory and Solar Observatory
  Hale Solar Laboratory
  The Hale Solar Laboratory was the laboratory of astronomer George Ellery Hale, and is located in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California.-History:...
  
  , Pasadena (1924) (NHL)
• Santa Barbara Biltmore Hotel (1927)
• Santa Barbara Post Office (1937)
• Tanglewood (Lotusland
  Lotusland
  The place-name Ganna Walska Lotusland, also known as the Lotusland, is the historic estate of Madame Ganna Walska and current location of a non-profit botanical garden in uniquely designed landscape gardens located in Montecito, near Santa Barbara, California, United States...
  
  ), Santa Barbara (1919), remodeled by George Washington Smith
• Baldwin Hills Village (1932)