Test your Design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the eminent 20th century American architect who was a mover in rebuilding San Francisco after the Great Earthquake in 1906?
Born in Jacksonville, Illinois in 1867 to a homebuilder, he became an architect’s apprentice at the age of 14 years-old. In 1882, he won a competition for the design of a six-room schoolhouse in Hope, Arkansas, where his family then lived.
A versatile architect, with particular skill in combining classical styles with environmental harmony, he spent many years designing highly-regarded California commercial and residential architecture. He was known for his elegant residential work, mainly in mansions and estates, in the Georgian revival style for wealthy and prominent San Francisco residents.
These include Le Petit Trainon; homes for James K. Moffit and Duncan McDuffi; and the Carolands Chateau, at one time the largest estate west of the Mississipi. He also did a lot of work for the Bourn family - the home on Webster Street, which made clinker brink famous; as well as the Filoli Estate which was made famous as the Carrington House in the television series Dynasty.
He was instrumental in redirecting the course of architecture in the Sam Francisco region according to the ideals of the academic movement. During the 1890s, he produced unusually diverse architectural forms, space, scale, and imagery. he drew from post medieval vernacular sources
and from classical schemes.
At the turn of the century, he emulated the works of Daniel H. Burnham, designing for him in Chicago, and assisting him in preparing a master plan for San Francisco. After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, he was a member of Mayor Eugene Schmitz’s Committee of Fifty leaders who undertook ambitious plans to rebuild a world class city.
He was one of the fathers of California’s Arts and Crafts Movement, and is credited with introducing the California Mission and Brown Single style of architecture to California. His Hallidie Building in Chinatown was the first building in North America to utilize a glass curtain façade and is considered by many to be the most important commercial building in America.
Among his notable works include the Pacific Union Club, the Hobart Building, the reconstruction of Mission Dolores, a water temple in Sunol, California, and the adjacent parish house of the Swedenborgian Church.
He had a rather unorthodox working method. He was never seen with a drafting pencil in hand and would provide his designers with little more than a charcoal sketch and a verbal description. Yet he would provide each project with strict supervision.
It is said that his greatest achievement did not come in the form of his own buildings, but rather in human gesture when he selflessly handed over the choicest project of the Panama Pacific Exposition, The Palace of Fine Arts, which he had reserved for himself to his lifelong friend Bernard Maybeck.
He died in 1924 at the age of 57.
Last week’s answer: Jerry Traunfeld
Winner: Enzo Inigo S. Alincastre of Malolos, Bulacan
Text your answer to 0915-1371538 with your name and address. One winner will be chosen through a raffle of texts with the correct answer. The winner will receive P2,000 worth of SM gift certificates for use at Our Home, SM Department Store, or SM Supermarket. They can claim their prize at Our Home in SM Megamall. Call the store manager at 634-1951, 634-1952.Bring photocopies of two valid IDs and a clipping of the Design Quiz issue in which you appear as winner.
