About Loyola Law School
Established in 1920, Loyola Law School is among the first law schools established in Southern California. During its early years, Loyola operated as a part-time evening school, and classes were taught by a part-time faculty comprised of judges and practicing attorneys. In 1929, a day division was added.
Loyola Law School is a well-respected source of outstanding lawyers for the Southern California region and has emerged in the past decades as an important source of legal talent for the national and international markets. The 74 members of Loyola's full-time faculty of law are drawn from among the finest attorneys and academics in the nation. Loyola's curriculum is one of breadth and depth, its evening program one of the most highly regarded in the nation and its academic support programs one of the most innovative in the US.
Loyola Law School Los Angeles is part of Loyola Marymount University, the only Jesuit and Marymount Catholic University in Los Angeles. LMU is known for its challenging liberal arts and sciences curriculum and a commitment to strong social and ethical values.
An Introduction to the Loyola Law School Campus
Frank O. Gehry is one of the truly significant architects of our time, hailed by The Los Angeles Times in 2009 as “the most famous architect in the world, by a healthy margin.” His body of work includes the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Experience Music Project in Seattle. In 1989, Gehry received the Pritzker Prize, architecture's most prestigious honor.
But in 1978, when Loyola chose Gehry to construct its new campus, he was not yet known as an international star. The project would be the impetus for Gehry’s work to grow from domestic to public scale. At the time, Loyola was a law school with only one building--what is now the William M. Rains Library. Gehry transformed the Law School from one building to a full campus—designing a series of contemporary buildings clustered around a central plaza. The relationship between Frank Gehry and Loyola Law School has been a long one; ground broke on his first design in 1979 and his latest additions to campus have continued into the 21st century.
Integral to Gehry’s connection with Loyola was the late Robert Benson, Emeritus Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. He was a member of the committee that selected Frank Gehry as campus architect in 1979 and has worked amidst these designs in the decades following. In 2010, Professor Benson explored Gehry’s designs in his book, Frank Gehry’s Loyola Law School: an Architectural Tour.
The following online architectural tour highlights some of the unique artistic features of Gehry’s work found through the Loyola Law School campus and is accompanied by excerpts from the late Professor Robert Benson’s book, which are denoted with *.