49ers Rub Shoulders with the Old World (Part 2 of 3)
In the second installment of our series on Beaux-Arts Architecture in California, we explore the connection between the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the growing enthusiasm for classical architecture in later 1800s California.
California provided an especially favorable environment for the success of ambitious young architects, ready to bring their education at the École to bear. Following the Gold Rush of 1849, California experienced dramatic population and economic growth. San Francisco developed into a major commercial and financial center, while Los Angeles and other cities expanded rapidly. This growth created an enormous demand for new architecture. Government institutions, universities, libraries, banks, museums, businesses, and wealthy individuals all needed new buildings. Beaux-Arts-trained architects were particularly suited to these projects because their education emphasized monumental buildings and formal organization. Rather than simply designing individual structures, they could develop buildings as part of larger civic environments.
John Galen Howard provides an excellent example of this process. After studying at the École, Howard came to California and became the supervising architect for the University of California, Berkeley, beginning in 1901. He also founded and directed the university's School of Architecture. Under his leadership, Berkeley developed what became known as its "classical core," with buildings designed according to Beaux-Arts principles. Howard's work demonstrates how Beaux-Arts ideas extended beyond individual buildings and influenced the organization of entire campuses. Buildings such as the Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Library, Sather Tower, and the Greek Theatre helped create a unified architectural identity for the university.
In addition to Howard, California played host to a coterie of the most important proponents of the City Beautiful movement. Daniel Burnham worked briefly in San Francisco on buildings for the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Bernard Maybeck was recruited by the University of California to work alongside and then replace Howard in developing the campus and the Architectural curriculum . Maybeck stayed on to teach at Berkeley where he taught a young Julia Morgan. He helped pave the way for Morgan to be the first female graduate of the École.
Before Howard, Maybeck or Morgan, Frederick Law Olmsted developed the very first campus plan for the University of California at Berkeley. Olmstead - the famous park planner - was the Dean of the City Beautiful movement. His work was featured extensively in the same international exhibitions that brought the movement to prominence along with Burnham’s and Maybeck’s. The Olmstead plan for Berkeley was ultimately scrapped, but he was brought on to lay out the campus of Stanford University instead. He remained in the area to design and complete Golden Gate park in San Francisco - the largest urban park in the U.S.
Deciding to settle in the area, Bernard Maybeck eventually set about developing a style of architecture specifically for Northern California, shaping and participating in the Arts & Crafts movement while also infusing it with Classical principals. These architects brought a Beaux Art flavor to the architecture of the area, perhaps culminating in Arthur Brown Jr.’s City Hall - a grand civic building and plaza the equal of any such building in Paris or anywhere else.
