Going Beyond the Bauhaus - Page 2

The doors "slide open so completely that inside and outside unite, with the living/dining room becoming a kind of covered porch," the Wall Street Journal wrote.

Davis, whose practice was based in Sausalito, was deeply influenced by his journeys in Japan, where he'd served as an officer with the U.S. Navy from 1955 to 1959.

His client for the house, Nancy Barbour, loved Marsh's conception and his attention to detail. "John anticipated every sightline, the way the light would filter in at different times of year," she said. "Everything is lined up. Everywhere you look, there's something dramatic and spectacular."

Mickey Muennig's homes and other projects, many in and around Big Sur, are often built as wavelike curves. His own home there was half buried in the earth.

Marsh's Weissman-Hamilton residence in Carmel illustrates what the curators call the architect's, and the American School's, "poetic taxonomies of timber framing," with the home's expressive use of exposed posts, beams, wood joinery, stair risers, and banisters.

The home also illustrates the flair that American School practitioners enjoyed. "The living spaces are placed across several levels and often have views into one another, creating a sense of theatre and drama," the curators say.

A home that architect Robert Overstreet designed and built for himself in Corte Madera, in Marin County, in the 1970s comes across as a sort of freeform tree house ensconced in a forest with multiple levels for differing views. The home's reliance on intersecting rectangles belies the idea that expressive, organic architecture is only about curves or odd angles.

Indeed, as the exhibit makes clear, American School architects have gone beyond dramatic and expressive individual homes, particularly with their housing for homeless people, houseboats, and urban planning.

• The 'Do Not Try to Remember: The American School of Architecture in the Bay Area' exhibit is presently featured at the Center for Architecture + Design, 140 Sutter Street, San Francisco, and continues through August 8, 2025. On June 18 architects Hans Baldauf and Donald MacDonald will discuss the American School. And some time in June, house tours of American School projects in the Bay Area are planned. The exhibit is curated by Marco Piscitelli with the help of Stephanie Pilat, Angela Person, and historians and designers from the University of Oklahoma.