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Alfred Newman Beadle Collection 1950s-2000s

MS MSS 30

Biographical Note

Alfred Newman Beadle V was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 23, 1927, the youngest child of Fred and Marie Beadle. He attended school in Minneapolis but did not graduate from high school. During World War II he served with the U.S. Navy Construction Battalion, known as the Seabees, where his experience included building piers, working on the design of a command base, and constructing a hospital.

Following the war, Beadle worked for his father’s commercial kitchen and restaurant contractor business designing kitchen layouts and receiving practical experience in design and construction. In 1948 he married Nancy Leland in Duluth, Minnesota. While living in Minneapolis, Beadle designed two houses. In 1951, Al, Nancy, and their son Steven moved to Phoenix, Arizona so that Al could continue to work for his father, who had recently moved there.

Following the move to Phoenix, Beadle worked on a variety of commercial and residential projects, including the Paradise Gardens housing development and the Safari Resort in Scottsdale. As his business grew, Beadle developed a practice that involved all phases of the architectural and construction process, including financing, design, building, and sales.

Beadle’s lack of an architectural license eventually led to a confrontation with the state of Arizona Board of Technical Registration. The situation improved in 1956 when Beadle began working with Alan Dailey, a respected east coast architect who had recently retired to Phoenix. Dailey offered Beadle a partnership in his firm, Dailey Associates, which allowed Beadle to keep practicing architecture and also fulfill the apprenticeship hours required to sit for the registration exams, which he went on to pass.

As a partner-in-charge at Dailey Associates from 1956 to 1967, Beadle completed some of his most critically-acclaimed work, including the Case Study Apartments #1, a three-unit apartment development known as the Triad in Phoenix. This project was the only Arizona building included in the influential Case Study House program of Arts & Architecture magazine. During this period Beadle also designed and supervised construction of the 21-story Executive Towers in 1964, then the tallest high-rise building in Phoenix. He also designed two buildings which won awards in design and excellence in engineering from the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1965, a branch building of Western Savings and Loan and his own house in Phoenix (Beadle House 11).

In 1967 Beadle started his own architectural firm in Phoenix and for the next thirty years designed residential and commercial buildings in the local area and in Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Diego, and Albuquerque. In addition to winning numerous awards, Beadle’s designs were featured in many national and international architectural publications of note and his work was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1993, the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Arizona State University hosted a month-long exhibit on Beadle’s work, entitled Constructions: Buildings in Arizona by Alfred Newman Beadle and the College gave an award to Beadle for distinguished achievement in the practice of architecture. Publication of the exhibit catalogue in 1993 and a second edition in 2008 provided a documentary record of Beadle’s career and significance.

In addition to being an architect and designer, Beadle was also a sculptor and a licensed contractor. Alfred Newman Beadle died in Carefree, Arizona on October 10, 1998, survived by his wife, Nancy, and children Steven, Nansi Le, Caren, Gerri Lynn, and Scott. During his lifetime Beadle was best known for designing stylish modernist buildings consistent with the work of Mies van der Rohe and Richard Neutra. In recent years the architecture of Alfred Newman Beadle has been rediscovered by a new generation of midcentury modern architecture devotees and Beadle is widely recognized as a pioneer in desert modernism. Working with the online archive group Modern Phoenix, the Beadle family and architects who worked with Alfred Newman Beadle (including Wayne Chaney, Ned Sawyer, Rich Fairbourn, and Eddy Jones) have identified about 200 projects in the Phoenix area alone that Beadle designed.

Scope and Content Note

The Alfred Newman Beadle Collection provides an extensive documentary record of a significant architect, designer, and builder and a prominent figure in midcentury modern architecture.

Series 1, Drawings and Papers, includes 83 oversize folders of architectural drawings from a wide variety of Beadle projects, both residential and commercial. This series also includes project specifications, awards, correspondence, photographs, and articles.

Series 2, Exhibit and Catalogue Materials, contains records pertaining to the 1993 exhibit at Arizona State University, Constructions: Buildings in Arizona by Alfred Newman Beadle and both editions (1993, 2008) of the exhibit catalogue with the same title. Records include photographs, correspondence, reports, financial documents, and drafts of exhibit and catalogue text. Correspondents include Beadle, Bernard M. Boyle (former ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design faculty member, organizer of the exhibit, and editor of the catalogue), Arizona Humanities Council staff, and various ASU College of Architecture and Environmental Design faculty and staff.

Series 3, Miscellaneous, contains a variety of news clippings, articles, and ephemera related to Alfred Newman Beadle.

Arrangement

Restrictions

Access Restrictions

To view this collection, make an appointment at least five business days prior to your visit by contacting Ask an Archivist or calling (480) 965-4932. Appointments in the Design and the Arts Special Collections Reading Room at the Design and the Arts Library on the Tempe campus are available Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Access Terms

Administrative Information

Credit Line

Alfred Newman Beadle Collection, MS MSS 30. Arizona State University Library: Design and the Arts Special Collections.

Provenance

The records in Series 1, Drawings and Papers, were donated by Nancy Beadle, the widow of Alfred Newman Beadle, in 2001. The records in Series 2, Exhibit and Catalogue Materials, were donated by Nancy Beadle and Bernard M. Boyle in 2001 and 2016. The records in Series 3, Miscellaneous, were donated by Bernard M. Boyle in 2001 and 2016 and Janice Fingado in 2018.

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