Why Pasadena Masonic Temple matters.
Pasadena Masonic Temple is a stately fraternal hall where Pasadena's Civic Center grandeur meets Beaux-Arts Classicism, Masonic symbolism and an institutional lineage reaching to the city's earliest years.
Set along South Euclid Avenue near East Green Street and just steps from Pasadena Civic Auditorium, the temple occupies the southern edge of Pasadena's Civic Center between the expansive public buildings surrounding Garfield Avenue, the commercial blocks extending toward Colorado Boulevard and the residential fabric approaching South Lake Avenue. A raised podium and broad cast-stone stair establish the western entrance before three Italian Renaissance portals draw movement beneath the building's Ionic colonnade. Heavy oak doors lead into marble and hardwood interiors, making the transition from the formal exterior into ceremonial rooms the primary encounter. Two lodge rooms and the Grand Hall carry Masonic emblems into the upper level, extending the building's symbolic program beyond its exterior ornament. The result is an expansive fraternal building whose classical composition, ceremonial interiors and relationship with Pasadena's civic architecture give institutional Masonry an unusually commanding physical presence.
What defines Pasadena Masonic Temple.
Pasadena Masonic Temple is best known for giving permanent architectural form to a Masonic community whose local ancestry began on February 20, 1883, when a small group of Pasadena residents assembled in the settlement that preceded the incorporated city. A second gathering that October led the organization to Williams Hall at Colorado Boulevard and Fair Oaks Avenue, where architect and lodge master H. Ridgway later created an ornate upper-story front. Growth had produced three separate lodges and fourteen affiliated bodies by 1917, eventually overwhelming the earlier quarters. The organization acquired the Euclid Avenue site during Pasadena's extraordinary 1920s building expansion and commissioned Cyril Bennett and Fitch Haskell to design a new temple. The architects completed the building in 1926, with its dedication following in 1927, combining an expansive two-story rectangular mass with a formal style rooted in Beaux-Arts Classicism. Bennett had trained with Charles and Henry Greene and later worked with Sylvanus Marston before forming his partnership with Haskell in 1923, and the firm subsequently contributed to buildings including the First Trust Building and Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The old Fair Oaks temple survived until 1977, when its 1904 cornerstone was removed, transferred to Euclid Avenue and rededicated on October 2 under Grand Master Kermit A. Jacobson, physically joining the present building with its predecessor.
Ten fluted Ionic columns define the upper western facade, carrying a frieze inscribed “Masonic Temple” above the three entrance portals below. Modified Corinthian pilasters, rusticated stone, festooned architraves and cast-iron lamps concentrate ornament around the entry, creating a deliberate hierarchy from podium to doorway to colonnade. A circular Masonic emblem crowns the central wall behind the columns, binding the classical architecture directly to the ceremonial organization that commissioned it. The interior continues that hierarchy through marble and hardwood floors, arched ceilings, lodge rooms and a ballroom whose high ceiling and substantial floor give the building a second life as an event setting. Few major alterations disturbed the original composition through the twentieth century, leaving the temple as a rare intact Pasadena example of the Beaux-Arts tradition that spread through Southern California after the 1915 San Francisco and San Diego expositions. Its formal classicism also creates a deliberate architectural counterpoint to the Mediterranean Revival buildings of the nearby Civic Center, giving Euclid Avenue two different expressions of Pasadena's interwar architectural ambition within the same expansive district.
How Pasadena Masonic Temple fits.
Pasadena Masonic Temple works as the anchor for an outing connecting the architectural ambitions of the City Beautiful movement with an expansive municipal palace and the performance hall that completed Pasadena's interwar civic ensemble.
Begin at Pasadena Central Library, the first building completed under the Civic Center plan financed through a $3.5 million bond approved by voters in June 1923. Myron Hunt and H.C. Chambers won the architectural competition in 1924, construction began on May 19, 1925 and the Mediterranean-style building was dedicated on Abraham Lincoln's birthday in 1927. Hunt and Chambers organized the building around a grand facade, entry court and spaces capable of later expansion, establishing the architectural standard for the civic buildings that followed. A historically sensitive restoration between 1984 and 1990 revived woodwork, skylights and lighting, earning a National Preservation Award in 1990. Continue to Pasadena City Hall, completed on December 27, 1927 from the winning design by John Bakewell and Arthur Brown. Palladian influence shaped a rectangular complex surrounding an interior court, with 235 rooms and passageways occupying 170,000 square feet. Its great circular tower rises through six stories before reaching a 54-foot-wide dome and lantern, placing the highest point 206 feet above the ground. The building became the dominant architectural element of a Civic Center regarded as one of the country's strongest expressions of City Beautiful planning. Conclude at Pasadena Civic Auditorium, designed by Edwin Bergstrom with Bennett and Haskell and dedicated in February 1932 during the depths of the Great Depression. Its 3,000-seat auditorium joined an exhibition hall conceived for another 3,000 people, giving Pasadena a performance complex proportioned for major civic gatherings. The exhibition hall became a prominent big-band dance setting before and after World War II, and the auditorium later hosted the Emmy Awards, People's Choice Awards, Broadway productions, ballet and orchestral performances. Bennett's participation also creates a direct architectural connection with the Masonic Temple completed six years earlier. The progression moves from the first completed component of an ambitious civic plan through its immense domed municipal centerpiece and culminates inside the performance hall that completed Pasadena's expansive interwar civic ensemble.
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