Theatre Architects

Here you can find out about the architect firms and individual architects associated with the theatres featured on this website.

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G. Albert Lansburgh

Born: 1876 (Panama)

Died: 1969 (San Mateo, California)

Gustave Albert Lansburgh was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theatres.

Lansburgh was born in Panama and raised largely in San Francisco. After graduating from Boys High School in 1894, Lansburgh enrolled in the University of California, Berkeley. While a student there, he worked part-time in the offices of prominent San Francisco architect Bernard Maybeck. Upon graduation, he moved to Paris, where in 1901, he was enrolled in the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, earning a diploma in March 1906.

Lansburgh returned to the Bay Area in May 1906, one month after the region had been devastated by the San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires. First in partnership with Bernard Julius Joseph for two years, then in his own practice, Lansburgh designed numerous buildings in the recovering city, including his first theatre for the San Francisco–based Orpheum Theatre Circuit. In his long career thereafter, Lansburgh become known primarily as a theatre architect and is known to have designed more than 50 theatres over his career, many for the Orpheum Circuit and its successor firm, RKO.

Lansburgh collaborated with Los Angeles-based architects Abram M. Edelman and John C. Austin on the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, and with Arthur Brown Jr. on the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco. Although many of Lansburgh’s best-known works, including El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, were on the U.S. West Coast, his personal favorite was said to have been the Al Hirschfeld Theatre (originally the Martin Beck Theatre) in New York City.

The University of California at Berkeley’s Environmental Design Archives houses a collection of Lansburgh’s papers.