Robert Stacy-Judd


Robert Stacy-Judd was an English architect and author who designed theaters, hotels, and other commercial buildings in the Mayan Revival architecture Style in Great Britain and the United States. Stacy-Judd's synthesis of the style used Maya architecture, Aztec architecture, and Art Deco precedents as his influences.

Aztec Hotel

Stacy-Judd's most celebrated Mayan Revival designed building is the Aztec Hotel, focusing on the facades, interiors, and furniture. It was built in 1924 on the original U.S. Route 66, and is located in Monrovia, Southern California. Stacy-Judd explained the choice of the name of the hotel.
When the hotel project was first announced, the word Maya was unknown to the layman. The subject of Maya culture was only of archaeological importance, a, at that, concerned but a few exponents. As a word Aztec was fairly well known, I baptized the hotel with that name, although all the decorative motifs are Maya

Works

Works include :
Stacy-Judd was a friend of the writer T. A. Willard, who published a fanciful account of his travels to Chichen Itza, was extremely influenced by John Lloyd Stephens writings, and perhaps even more so by the illustrations by Frederick Catherwood as presented in their book 'Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatán'. a work that introduced many to the wondrous ruins of Central America. Possibly inspired by his friend T.A. Willard, Stacy-Judd published several popular books on Maya culture that blend fact and fiction.