Going Beyond the Bauhaus

Student architects seek inspiration from many sources: venerable architects like Vitruvius and Palladio, the functionalism of the Bauhaus, science and mathematics, natural forms.

How about fairy tales?

At the University of Oklahoma's School of Architecture, fairy tale imagery did indeed inspire the students, under the tutelage of Dean Bruce Goff, who was department chair there from 1947 to 1955.

Mickey Muennig, a student of Goff's who went on to become a master Big Sur architect, recalled displays at the university of ornate, delicate fairy tale illustrations of the early 20th century by Kay Nielsen and Edmund Dulac.

The sort of architecture that developed at this campus in Stillwater, Oklahoma, was latter dubbed 'the American School' by one of its practitioners, Donald MacDonald (best known in the Bay Area for his expressive design work for the Bay Bridge's eastern span.

An evocative exhibit at the American Institute of Architect's Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco, 'Do Not Try to Remember: The American School of Architecture in the Bay Area,' focuses on architects whose work can be seen in Kentfield, Big Sur, Stinson Beach, Sausalito, Monterey, and other locations.

'Do not try to remember' was their only dogma, the curators say. "Do not burden yourself with the past. Do not attempt to copy. Invent!"

The architects shown in the exhibit, all of whom studied in Oklahoma, have been called "iconoclasts, radicals, and even outlaws," the curators write. The architects rejected "Bauhaus-inflected traditions," with their "functional, machine aesthetic," in favor of "historical precedent, like traditional Japanese wood joinery, and…the local vernaculars, like Bernard Maybeck's iconic arts-and-crafts."

Although none of Joe Eichler's architects were part of the American School, they too were influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright and by Japanese and vernacular and Arts and Crafts traditions. Some of Eichler's architects, and in particular Bob Anshen and Steve Allen, explicitly rejected what they saw as the rigidities of Bauhaus-influenced modernity.

Their alignment with this more expressive way of building can be seen in Eichler homes' use of warm textures and natural materials, and in the homes' dramatic layouts, with their atriums and galleries.

Anshen and Allen's true fairy tale buildings, though, include some of their non-Eichler work, such as their Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Arizona, and Central Methodist Episcopal Church in Stockton, California.

Bruce Goff's spiral-shaped Bavenger house in Norman, Oklahoma, which suggests both a sailing ship and a living form, was published in Life magazine in 1955, attracting many imaginative students to study with Goff in Oklahoma.

Among members of the American School there is much variety of work, although free forms, curves, and natural materials are common—as are projects that are built by the architects themselves and/or by their clients.

Among the works shown in the exhibit, through copies of photos, plans, drawings, and elevations, is architect John Marsh Davis's 1965 Barbour residence in Kentfield, with a "living room &rblack;that] opens to the outdoors through an enormous sliding glass and wood door."

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.