Edward H. Fickett, F.A.I.A. is not only a local treasure, but has a far-reaching effect on the world of architecture. His passion for meeting the needs of the people were paramount to design. The master architect’s work included, custom homes, speculation homes, merchant developer tract homes, multi-unit garden apartments, commercial buildings, parks, libraries, schools, shopping malls, civic buildings, as well as, his skills as a masterful urban planner. His master plans are dappled throughout California, with a concentration in the Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties with tens of thousands of homes designed. With a noted 60,000 homes designed by the architect, his body of work personified California architecture in the 1950s and 1960s, embracing the mid-century modern movement focusing on indoor/outdoor living space and defusing any boundary between the two. The California environment allowed Fickett to open walls and ceilings to the outdoors while providing thoughtful fenestration plans designed around solar gain. Texture and shadow would be contemplated in his design to his modernist designs, as well as the landscaping, hardscaping, pools and tennis courts, including the first cantilevered tennis court. He ultimately earned a reputation as an authority on small home design due to his award-winning floor plan designs created throughout his life.

Fickett began working on large-scale developments because he saw a decline in the quality of designs for moderate-income housing, and he set out to convince local builders of the value of modern features and construction methods that justified hiring an architect for these planned communities. In addition to doing concept designs, Fickett would prepare the plans, gain FHA or VA approval, coordinate with subcontractors, supervise construction, coordinate color schemes, regulate furnishings, and research new materials and methods. Due to the FHA guidelines, Fickett’s designs tended to be within the Minimal Traditional and Ranch style idioms, combining modern interior floor plans with traditional exterior features. He used “simple forms that were both clearly modern and designed for easy, economic construction.”

Synonymous with bringing the outdoors inside, open floor plans, 14-foot ceiling heights, floor-to-ceiling walls of windows, atriums, skylights, post and beam construction, private gardens, carports, pigment-treated concrete, red brick, and one of his signature materials, Mexican Tecate brick. Fickett set the standards for many of his colleagues, not only by his designs but by his knowledge of building materials. Practicality and proficiency were always of concern within his masterful floor-planning skills, while utilizing natural resources and readily available resources for the construction of his architecture. Fickett revolutionized the concept of the “Breakfast Bar”, opening the kitchen to the living area. Shadow boxes, window surrounds, window shading and trellis shading, all helped create texture and pattern from natural solar gain. He also revolutionized sliding closet doors to free-up space breaking away from the swing-door and eliminating waste of space. Fickett was the master in the use of indigenous material and his streamlined techniques to provide economic benefits to both the developer and the prospective buyer.

Fickett began working on large-scale developments because he saw a decline in the quality of designs for moderate-income housing, and he set out to convince local builders of the value of modern features and construction methods that justified hiring an architect for these planned communities. In addition to doing concept designs, Fickett would prepare the plans, gain FHA or VA approval, coordinate with subcontractors, supervise construction, coordinate color schemes, regulate furnishings, and research new materials and methods. Due to the FHA guidelines, Fickett’s designs tended to be within the Minimal Traditional and Ranch style idioms, combining modern interior floor plans with traditional exterior features. He used “simple forms that were both clearly modern and designed for easy, economic construction.”

Teacher, lecturer, a leader within his community of peers, advisor to an American president and most notably recognized American architect where Better Homes and Gardens, 1957 coined Edward H. Fickett as the “Frank Lloyd Wright of the 1950s”. Fickett believed a window only served one purpose, to allow the outdoors into the interior environment. Along with Wright, Fickett stands in good company along with other key 20th Century modernists Richard Neutra, Rudolph Schindler and A. Quincy Jones who would accompany Fickett on the AIA University Lecture Series speaking to architecture students around the country about the Mid-Century Modern philosophy of design in architecture. Disdainful of the “Cookie-Cutter” home, Fickett’s tract homes had multiple floor plans and present themselves as a collection of modern ranchos with distinctive facades.

Not only were his designs advanced, his ethic to serve the community was never more apparent than with his Master Plans for urban developments in the San Fernando Valley and San Diego areas creating affordable housing for returning veterans and are used as examples of sustainable design in today’s education of architecture. Fickett was determined to give to the veterans of war returning home a palatial retreat fit for a hero. These affordable tract homes were based on the California ranch style of home, but then altered with the mid-century philosophy by adding ceiling heights and working with local materials such as glass, brick and walnut while pushing the boundaries of engineering and design. Allowing the accessibility of these “Fickett Homes” at affordable prices, due to his design engineering and pioneering, allowed for a huge demand.

In 1962, Fickett embarked upon one of his highest achievements in engineering as he designed The Port of Los Angeles (Dock Office Building) (6203). His skills in engineering, developed in the Navy, would lend themselves to one of Fickett’s most engineering-driven designs, the Los Angeles Harbor (Passenger and Cargo Terminals), which at the time was the world’s largest, won him numerous international and local awards. It would be around this time Fickett would also create duplex housing for the Navy at Ponte Vista (6208) in San Pedro. The development has since been vacated, razed and cookie-cuttered by a major builder.

He was the “Master” behind master planning and urban planning. Look for curved streets as it is indicative of his plans. Some notable master plans designed by the architect are Hastings Ranch, Meadowlark Park, Sherman Park, Trousdale Estates, Laguna Niguel, Edwards Air Force Base, Norton Air Force Base and Murphy Canyon Heights Naval Base. His West Hollywood Park master plan (1958-1960) (5807, 5904) won him multiple awards for the multi-structure atomic modern village with Olympic-sized pool (5914) and modernist library (5903) conception of one of the very first libraries to have a wall of glass. The park was conceived in the mid 1950s through a state initiative for more park space.