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FOREWORD


For the last 10 years I've been on the hunt for answers to (among others) the following key questions:
  • Which SoCal architects (and/or builders) used AJBayer lettering or numbers on which projects, especially residential, but not limited to such;
  • Which publicly funded projects between 1930s and 70s (schools, libraries, post offices, fire stations & other social infrastructure) employ AJBayer lettering on their facades
  • Why did Design Within Reach (DWR) and Dion Neutra offer a product they claimed was specified by and (for several years up to and including the present) "designed by" Richard Neutra when, as most Angelenos with an eye for detail can attest, are not "true to the 1930s originals in exacting detail"
PHOTO COMPOSITE: Google Earth (2022) looking north from Bayer's HQ and foundry at E Slauson & Santa Fe (along right side of image, which 5 miles north terminates in the Arts District) in Huntington Park – overlaid with one of their 1956 brochure folder covers. They produced a host of fine architectural hardware including but not limited to entry doors and metal staircases between 1902 and the late 1980s or early 1990s.
For some, like me, their work in architectural lettering is what set AJBayerCo apart from any other SoCal foundry.
For modernist architects, the necessity of bringing materials and components in from the commercial supply chains helped differentiate them from the more traditional residential practitioners. The same can be said of the California modernists regarding house numbers, both pre- and post-war. Sourcing a commercial product from an architectural sign letter manufacturer was just another one of the tricks of the trade that got shared between colleagues at USC and within the industry. The fact that the consumer/retail address number business had not developed suitably modern styles was no obstacle to the California modernists: they found what they needed at A J Bayer Co.


INTRODUCTION


In 2013 we acquired some intellectual property originating with the A J Bayer Co, circa 1956. It covered a series of Bayer's products, but here I will concentrate on showing you a few images – some recent, some historical – of the lettering they produced and sold to architects, builders and also to those developing the social infrastructure projects that followed the Public Works Administration investment in schools, libraries, science, the arts and more.

Ads Bayer placed in Arts & Architecture magazine: March 1950 & October 1949

Here's their listing in the 1957 Los Angeles Yellow Pages. At that time, the competition was fierce among the sellers of NEON and other electric signage, none of which AJBayerCo offered. By producing unlit architectural sign letters, they were able to secure a spot at jobs where, as they put it, "with every lighted sign there are five sales potentials for these custom metal signs, tablets, trademarks & symbols" >