Bernard Maybeck

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Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco
First Church of Christ, Scientist (Berkeley, California), widely considered Maybeck's masterpiece.[1][2]
Lynwood Pacific Electric Railway Depot, Los Angeles, California, designed by Bernard Maybeck
Maybeck's automobile dealership on Van Ness currently houses British Motor Car Distributors.

Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley. Many of his major buildings were in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Biography

Maybeck was born in New York City, the son of a German immigrant and studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, France.[3] He moved to Berkeley, California in 1892. He became a professor of engineering drawing at University of California, Berkeley and acted as a mentor for an entire generation of other California architects, including Julia Morgan and William Wurster. In 1951, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects.

Maybeck was equally comfortable producing work in the Mission style and Mission Revival style, Gothic revival, Arts and Crafts style, and Beaux-Arts classicism, believing that each architectural problem required development of an entirely new solution. While working in the office of A. Page Brown in San Francisco, Maybeck probably contributed to the Mission Style California Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and the first Mission Style chair, designed for the San Francisco Swedenborgian Church.[4]

Many of Maybeck's buildings still stand in his long-time home city of Berkeley. The 1910 First Church of Christ, Scientist is designated a National Historic Landmark and is considered one of Maybeck's finest works.

In 1914, Maybeck oversaw the building of the Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California. Maybeck also designed the domed Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco as part of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and for the same fair he carried out his vision of the lumberman's lodge, "House of Hoo Hoo", made of little more than rough-barked tree trunks arranged in delicate harmony. The Palace of Fine Arts was seen as the embodiment of Maybeck's elaboration of how Roman architecture could fit within a California context. Maybeck said that the popular success of the Palace was due to the absence of a roof connecting the rotunda to the art gallery building, along with the absence of windows in the gallery walls and the presence near the rotunda of trees, flowers and a water feature.[5]

One of Maybeck's most interesting office buildings is the home of the Family Service Agency of San Francisco, offices at 1010 Gough Street. This building, constructed in 1928, is on the city's Historic Building Register and still serves as Family Service headquarters. Some of his larger residential projects, most notably a few in the hills of Berkeley, California (see esp. La Loma Park), have been compared to the ultimate bungalows of the architects Greene and Greene.[6]

He also developed a comprehensive town plan for the company town of Brookings, Oregon, a clubhouse at the Bohemian Grove, and many of the buildings on the campus of Principia College in Elsah, Illinois.[7][8]

A number of his works are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.[9][10]

A lifetime fascination with drama and the theatre can be seen in much of Maybeck's work. In his spare time, he was known to create costumes, and also designed sets for the amateur productions at Berkeley's Hillside Club.

Bernard Maybeck died in 1957 and is buried in the Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California.

Works

Notable works (with variations in attribution) include:

  • Faculty Club, University of California, Berkeley, CA (Maybeck, Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • First Church of Christ, Scientist, 2619 Dwight Way Berkeley, CA (Maybeck,Bernard Ralph), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Grove Clubhouse, Bohemian Grove, also known as Maybeck Lodge, overlooking the Russian River in Monte Rio, California[11][12]
  • Hearst Gymnasium for Women, Oxford St. Berkeley, CA (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Maybeck Recital Hall in Berkeley, California
  • Outdoor Art Club, 1 W. Blithedale Ave. Mill Valley, CA (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon St. San Francisco, CA (Maybeck, Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Panoramic Hill, Panoramic Wy, Canyon Rd., Mosswood, Orchard Ln., Arden Rd. Berkeley, CA (Bernard, Maybeck), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Parsons Memorial Lodge, Tuolumne Meadows Yosemite National Park, CA (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Roos House, 3500 Jackson St. San Francisco, CA (Maybeck, Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • Swedenborgian Church, 3200 Washington St. San Francisco, CA (Maybeck, Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • One or more works in Principia College Historic District, River Rd. Elsah, IL (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • One or more works in Professorville Historic District, roughly bounded by Embarcadero Rd., Addison Ave., Emerson and Cowper Sts. Palo Alto, CA (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]
  • One or more works at Tahoe Meadows, US 50 between Ski Run Blvd. and Park Ave. South Lake Tahoe, CA (Maybeck,Bernard), NRHP-listed[10]

References

  1. ↑ Maybeck And His Work
  2. ↑ Berkeley Landmarks :: First Church of Christ, Scientist
  3. ↑ One of his early jobs was with the architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings working as a draftsman on the monumental Ponce de Leon Hotel built for Standard Oil magnate Henry Flagler in St. Augustine, Florida. Maybeck's father also worked on the project, as a woodcarver "Two of San Francisco's best-known landmarks were built by Germans: Joseph Strauss designed the 1937 Golden Gate Bridge, and Bernard Maybeck, son of a German immigrant, designed the Palace of Fine Arts."
  4. ↑ Freudenheim, Leslie. Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home (Gibbs Smith, 2005)163ff and 60–68
  5. ↑ Macomber, Ben. The Jewel City, 1915, pp. 25, 101–102.
  6. ↑ See comparison of Maybeck and Greene and Greene bungalows in Freudenheim, Leslie, op. cit., 186 and 154ff.
  7. ↑ Vernacular Language North. Bernard Maybeck, Grove Clubhouse, Bohemian Club of San Francisco. Retrieved March 4, 2009.
  8. ↑ KETC: Living St. Louis: The Architecture of Principia College
  9. ↑ Berkeley, University of California MRA
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 10.7 10.8 10.9 10.10 10.11 10.12 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2010-07-09. 
  11. ↑ Mix, Robert. "Bernard Maybeck: (1902–1905)". Vernacular Language North. Retrieved September 4, 2012. 
  12. ↑ "Maybeck Lodge, Bohemian Grove". Calisphere. University of California. Retrieved September 4, 2012. 

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