Today, Bernard Maybeck occupies a central place in contemporary society. His influence extends to all areas of life, from politics to entertainment. With the advancement of technology, Bernard Maybeck has become more accessible than ever, creating a significant impact on the way people interact and communicate. In this article, we will further explore the role of Bernard Maybeck in modern life, analyzing its importance and implications in different contexts. From its origins to its current situation, this topic is relevant to anyone interested in understanding the world around us.
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.
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. In 1928, the Harrison Memorial Library was designed by California architect Maybeck in a Spanish Eclectic style and built by Michael J. Murphy.
Maybeck had many ideas about town planning that he elaborated throughout his career. As a citizen of Berkeley from the 1890s, he was intimately involved in the Hillside Club. His associations and work there helped evolve ideas about hillside communities. Maybeck developed a number of firm beliefs in how civilization and the land should relate to each other. Two overriding principles would be: 1) the primacy of the landscape - geology, flora and fauna were not to be subdued by architecture so much as enhanced by architecture 2) roads should pattern the existing grade and not be an imposition upon it. There were other principles he would elucidate, such as a shared public landscape, but these were key, and helped Berkeley evolve into a paradigm for hillside living that was organic and unique. Maybeck's visions for communities in the East Bay were also a conscientious counterpoint to across the bay where in San Francisco city planning was much more conventional, forced, and regimented into expansive grids of streets. Its grids, imposed in places on very steep grades, resulted in extremely steep streets, sidewalks and urban transitions, some almost comically so.
Maybeck was not doctrinaire however. His views reflected his wide interests and experience. Maybeck would play with more formal Beaux Arts planning principles on less steep grades, as his Palace of Fine Arts and numerous proposals for the University of California, Berkeley campus, San Francisco, and the Loch Lin General Plan for Principia College in Missouri, would reflect.
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.
Listing agents now claim after his death that, "Owning a Bernard Maybeck home is to become part of an exclusive group of people who own American architectural jewels."
Hillside Club (1906, rebuilt 1924) — Cedar Street, North Berkeley, a city designated Berkeley Landmark. The original 1906 clubhouse was destroyed in the 1923 Berkeley Fire. Maybeck's brother-in-law, John White, designed the current clubhouse in 1924.
Goslinsky Residence (1909) — 3233 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, California
Roos House (1909) — Tudor Revival and other styles, at 3500 Jackson Street at Locust, Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California, NRHP-listed & San Francisco Landmark.
Temple of Wings (1914, designed in 1911) for Charles Calvin Boynton and Florence Treadwell Boynton, in the La Loma Park neighborhood at 2800 Buena Vista Way, Berkeley, California
Kennedy-Nixon house (1914, rebuilt 1923) — 1537 Euclid Avenue, La Loma Park district, North Berkeley, Berkeley, California.
Maybeck Recital Hall (1914, rebuilt 1923) — part of Kennedy-Nixon house complex, Euclid Avenue at Buena Vista Way, North Berkeley.
Bernard Maybeck house and studio (1924) — architect's own residence and studio, Maybeck Twin Drive, La Loma Park district, North Berkeley, California.
Phoebe Hearst Gymnasium for Women, with architect Julia Morgan (1927) — Oxford Street, University of California, Berkeley campus, NRHP-listed.
Earle C. Anthony Packard Showroom (1927) — Beaux-Arts style, on Van Ness Avenue at Ellis Street, San Francisco, the present day British Motors dealership, San Francisco Landmark.
Earle C. Anthony House (1927) — Medieval, Gothic, Spanish and Tudor Revival elements, at 3431-3441 Waverly Drive, Los Feliz district, Los Angeles, California.
Maybeck designed the 'English village' campus master plan, and campus buildings including the Colonial Revival style Chapel (1931-34) at 1 Maybeck Place.
^ 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."
^Freudenheim, Leslie. Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home (Gibbs Smith, 2005)163ff and 60–68
^Murphy Donohue estate gardens − "Landscaping the American dream: the gardens and film sets of Florence Yoch, 1890-1972"; by James J. Yoch; H.N. Abrams, 1989.