Word: wurdeman
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...from such independence. After graduating from the University of Washington's College of Architecture ('27) and attending Fontainebleau's Ecole des Beaux Arts, he got one of his first commissions in Seattle: building a steam-heated doghouse. Becket later formed a partnership with College Classmate Walt Wurdeman, in 1932 moved to Los Angeles, where the partners made their mark by building houses to order for movie stars. During World War II they switched to mass production, built housing for 50,000 California workers. Their first big break into commercial construction came when they designed a Pasadena store...
...WALTER WURDEMAN WELTON BECKET Los Angeles, Calif...
...Walt & Welt's home designing on a mass production basis. They put up housing for 50,000 workers in California's mushrooming war industries, and soon they had 83 assistants working for them. "It was spit and matchstick stuff," Wurdeman says, "but it made us build a big organization and got us so we weren't appalled at big jobs...
...also an official of Socony-Vacuum's General Petroleum Corp. then got the team to plan General's new $8,000,000 office building. They designed the building in "modules" - or 7-ft. sections - for easy shifting of partitions and rooms in rearranging offices. Says Wurdeman: "When times are bad, that's when this building will...
...Wurdeman & Becket think other architects could get around antiquated building codes to cut costs. Wurdeman thinks that "they just haven't presented their cases right." The partners, who netted $125,000 apiece last year, are still penny-conscious. Says Wurdeman: "I just wouldn't know how to act if a guy would say 'I don't give a damn how much it costs...