Product Description

When talk turns to architects who have made their mark in the San Francisco Bay Area, it often stops after two names-Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. Widely admired, they are the stuff of legend. In a new book on the "signature" styles of Bay Area architecture, author and architecture critic Dave Weinstein takes aim at some of the most important yet lesser-known Bay Area architects-in other words, everyone else.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #570179 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

From the Inside Flap
When talk turns to architects who have made their mark in the San Francisco Bay Area, it often stops after two names-Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. Widely admired, they are the stuff of legend. Maybeck and Morgan did much to create what we call Bay Area architecture. But they didn't do it alone. The fifteen architects profiled in this book were chosen not because they are the best the area has produced, though several are, but because their stories, taken together, provide a solid history of Bay Area residential architecture.
But is there such a thing as Bay Area architecture? Many people say no. Historians have been arguing for years about something called the "Bay Tradition" or "Bay Region Style." The term Bay Regional Style was invented in the late 1940s and refers to several things-the idiosyncrasies of Maybeck; the wit of Ernest Coxhead; the influence of farm houses, barns, and adobes; the influence of Mission Revival; and modern homes that soften the International style by building in redwood and admitting regional influences like Maybeck and Morgan or touches of Japan.
Dave Weinstein offers a detailed look at the Bay Area's master architects. From Frank Wolfe's idiosyncratic mix of details and foolhardy arrangement of windows, chimneys, rooflines and gables to Jack Hillmer's expressive use of natural woodwork and rigorous geometric designs to Ace Architect's playful style allied with post-modernism that deliberately recalls Bay Tradition architects from years past, this fascinating volume offers a rare glimpse of the talented architects who shaped the area.
Dave Weinstein is a long-time Bay Area writer and journalist who has been profiling architects for the San Francisco Chronicle for three years, and writes about modern architects for CA Modern-the Eichler Network magazine and Web site. Dave also writes about historic preservation, the environment, history, and diverse issues for many Bay Area and national publications. A native of Long Island, Dave studied art history at Columbia University and journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He's an avid hiker and dog-walker, and a dedicated preservationist who initiated the successful effort to preserve the Cerrito Theater, an Art Deco theater in his hometown of El Cerrito, California.

About the Author
Linda Svendsen, a graduate of Music and Art High School and Parsons School of Design in New York, has been a renowned photographer for more than thirty years. Her work is showcased in numerous magazines and books; she is the author of Bicycle: Around the World.


Dave Weinstein, a native of Long Island, New York, received his undergraduate degree in art history at Columbia University in 1973, and then studied journalism at UC Berkeley. He has lived in the Bay Area for thirty years, and spent twenty years as a reporter and editor for daily newspapers. Dave has written two books, Signature Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area, and the text for a photo book Berkeley Rocks. He writes for the magazine CA Modern, and for four years has been writing a popular series of architect profiles for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction: Beyond Maybeck
When talk turns to architects who have made their mark in the San Francisco Bay Area, it often stops after two names-Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. Widely admired, they are the stuff of legend. This book takes aim at the little-known Bay Area architects-in other words, everyone else.
People talk about filmmakers with ease, about writers, even painters. But most architects remain unknown. Metro, a San Jose weekly, did an amusing story some years back about William Wurster, who's just one rung beneath Maybeck and Morgan on the ladder of architectural fame, but a long rung. It was the rare passerby who could tell the Metro's reporter who Wurster was-and this was on the Cal campus standing in front of Wurster Hall.
Maybeck and Morgan did much to create what we call Bay Area architecture. But they didn't do it alone. The architects profiled in this book were chosen not because they are the best the area has produced, though several are, but because their stories, taken together, provide a solid history of Bay Area architecture-residential architecture in particular.
Many other architects would have made ideal subjects, like the acerbic Willis Polk, easygoing Joseph Esherick, or Bob Anshen, who helped create Joseph Eichler's modern suburban tracts. One day maybe they will.
I started profiling Bay Area architects three years ago, as an outgrowth of articles I had been writing for the San Francisco Chronicle about preserving historic buildings. It quickly became apparent that before people realize a building is worth preserving, they need to understand what the building is all about.
What makes a building special? What thoughts, feelings and skill went into its creation? Whose thoughts, feelings and skill?
Maybe, I thought, if people knew more about the architects behind the architecture, they wouldn't have moved so quickly to tear down Vernon de Mars' and Don Hardison's Easter Hill Village, Gardner Dailey's Red Cross Building, or any number of Victorian cottages. Fat chance? Perhaps. But I was encouraged once I started knocking on doors, which was my modus operandi in researching this book.
"Hi, I'm Dave Weinstein," I would say, "and I'm writing about the architect who designed your house." The house could be a multimillion-dollar mansion in Atherton with wrought-iron gates a quarter mile from the front door, or a bungalow in San Jose with an old sofa on the porch. My spiel would be the same. The next thing, more often than not, I would be inside and people who said they only had a few minutes to talk would be bragging about their house and its architecture-even if they didn't know the name of the architect.
People who love their houses often attend to them well, and frequently pay attention to the historic style and fabric. And while I didn't see many original kitchens, I did see a few. Residential architecture, after all, is a very special art, among the most intimate.

Customer Reviews

Well written, Beautifully Illustrated
Every city has a wide variety of buildings. But San Francisco, because of its small size puts a wide variety of architectural styles in close proximity. San Francisco is unique (with the possible exception of Boston) in that the down town residential areas have been kept up, have kept their value, and are considered to be desirable places to live.

As the book says, I'm not sure that there is a Bay Area traditional architecture. Instead it seems that a Victorian house can be adjacent to an ultra modern with no jarring conflict in the mind.

This well written, beautifully illustrated book, perhaps untentionally seems to tell why this is so. Mr. Weinstein describes the work of fifteen of the Bay Areas most famous architects. Their styles vary, and perhaps because of this these fifteen architects just may be the reason that San Francisco architecture is so diverse. Other architects or prospective house builders have taken ideas from this fifteen.

Besides being a history of San Francisco architecture, this book also qualifies as an idea book for anyone thinking of building a house.

Great way to explore wonderful Bay Area architecture!
Written in a style that's friendly, accessible, witty, and imaginative, Dave Weinstein really brings the personality and history of Bay Area architecture and architects to life in his book. Great photography too!