Paul Thiene (1880-1971)

Landscape architect Paul Thiene was born in Germany in 1880 and immigrated to the United States in 1903. He worked with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (Olmsted Brothers, Massachussetts) until 1910, then moved to San Diego to participate in the landscape design for the Panama-California Exposition with Frank Lloyd Wright’s son, Lloyd Wright. After working on the Exposition, Paul Thiene’s office designed the landscapes of major estates in Southern California including the Doheny “Greystone” estate in Beverly Hills.

The Paul Thiene collection consists primarily of visual materials documenting Thiene’s work as a landscape architect. The bulk of the collection includes photographs of drawings, of completed projects, and works in progress. The collection also includes a few presentation paintings and scrapbooks of clippings about landscape architecture and of landscape construction of the Panama-California Exposition.