The Bay Area architecture we love: Why we enjoy such beauty and variety

If you had to name a quintessential Bay Area style of building you might go with an elegant Victorian or a cute Arts and Crafts bungalow You might pick something from the past such as Mission Santa Clara or something modern with lots of wood and glass set amid redwoods or along the waterfront Those architectural styles may seem wildly different but they are all an integral part of the landscape If you want to understand the origins and diversity of the Bay Area s architecture historians say you have to first consider that it developed in response to the region s natural beauty and mild Mediterranean setting which allows people to be outdoors year-round An exterior view of Mission San Jose on April in Fremont Dai Sugano Staff But other factors have influenced architecture here From the Gold Rush through World War II and into the st century the region has been a magnet for people streaming in from other parts of the United States and around the world Seeking a better life these transients helped create a world-class metropolitan region of million people that has long been known for its diverse communities and its corresponding variety in architectural styles from traditional to modern to international Related Articles Her way Julia Morgan the quiet genius who defined Bay Area architecture Developer pulls out of Berkeley s California Theatre redevelopment A mansion with a mission Filoli House and Garden promotes history beauty The Bank of Italy tower A standout on San Jose s skyline Five Art Deco landmarks in the Bay Area that preservationists love What s less considered but equally significant in the Bay Area s architectural history is its location on the western edge of the continental U S according to architects authors and historians Alan Hess and Mitchell Schwarzer For millennia the Ohlone and Coast Miwok inhabitants pretty much had the place to themselves They built conical-shaped homes out of tule reeds and other local materials but spent bulk of their time outdoors hunting and gathering food in accordance with the seasons It could be explained that these indigenous people pioneered the concept of California indoor-outdoor living Until the Gold Rush and the opening of the transcontinental railroad in the surrounding mountains deserts and oceans kept the Bay Area and the rest of California pretty much isolated from world centers of power and practices California s early colonizers starting with the Spanish in the late s exposed it could take months to get here traveling by wagon over the Oregon trail or sailing down and around Cape Horn It was much easier to get from Europe to Chile than to California mentioned Schwarzer author of Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Area A History and Guide The people who made it to the Bay Area therefore had to be pretty adventurous and motivated by a fierce desire to to start a new life forget the past and to live the life the way they yearned They had the freedom to do that in the Bay Area disclosed Hess the former architecture critic for Bay Area News Group Interior view of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building located at UC Berkeley in Berkeley Calif on Monday May Jose Carlos Fajardo Bay Area News Group For architects this freedom meant that no one s looking over your shoulder Hess announced The countless talented architects who were either born here or immigrated here from the East Coast or the Midwest or Europe they came here because of that freedom to really do something new and different There also was a blank-slate quality to the Bay Area which fostered experimentation and variety Architects could import familiar styles from the East Coast Europe or Asia then modify them to fit the local landscape or changing times Likewise new residents could choose the kind of home they would live in If they requested a castle they could build a castle Hess explained If they requested a rustic cabin in the forest they could do that as well Isolation of program is no longer an issue for the Bay Area But pressures on the population and on the natural circumstances have pushed the region s architecture in new directions including a focus on creating new forms of multi-family housing to address the region s dearth of affordable housing Schwarzer stated After the COVID- pandemic emptied office towers in San Jose San Francisco and Oakland architects and urban planners also are having to rethink how they envision workplaces Meanwhile engagement with the landscape remains the Bay Area s calling card Schwarzer disclosed But this landscape is affected by setting change and earthquakes and wildfires remain a threat leading to modes of residential and commercial construction that are environmentally sustainable and can survive calamities Still Schwarzer and Hess are optimistic about the future Surely the beauty and dynamism of our natural ecosystem encourages architects to strive for something similarly magnificent in the built context Schwarzer wrote in his book while Hess announced Architects have a sense of continuing tradition that they can bring into current times but it s rooted in something solid Here s an overview of the eras and styles that have shaped the Bay Area landscape The Missions The traditional architectural practices that Spanish missionaries brought from Southern Europe were easily adaptable to the Bay Area landscape The abundance of clay straw and other materials could be turned into adobe used to build their missions presidios pueblos and ranchos The California missions from San Diego to Sonoma still offer the best examples of the classic Spanish style Because they needed to attract attention as religious centers they incorporated several of the embellishments appreciated nowadays white-washed walls and red-tile roofs bell towers and courtyards graced by fountains The Gold Rush and the Gilded Age After gold was discovered in the Sierra foothills California s isolation ended From to San Francisco s population soared from to more than hastening its integration into the American and world economies according to Schwarzer The booming market which continued past the Civil War created a new class of millionaires who sought to flaunt their wealth Particular looked to the classical styles preferred by European royalty or Gilded Age barons for ideas on how to build grand mansions The famous row of homes known as the Painted Ladies are seen from Alamo Square Park February in San Francisco California Photo by Justin Sullivan Getty Images The Painted Ladies Everyday architecture in the late s also turned up the decorative heat to bring on a proliferation of richly ornamented homes with decorative columns molding and other embellishments made achievable by the availability of redwood Schwarzer mentioned The Victorian era culminated with the storybook Queen Anne style with dramatic corner towers witches hat turrets and ornate porches followed by the more streamlined aesthetic of Edwardian homes Birds swim near the Palace of Fine Arts rotunda on May in San Francisco Justin Sullivan Getty Images TNS City Grandeur The approach of the th century ushered in a taste for reviving all kinds of classic styles in the Bay Area such as Tudor Georgian Colonial and Mission the latter best represented by Leland Stanford s grand scheme to build a prestigious new college in Palo Alto Bay Area leaders meanwhile looked to bring City Beautiful concepts for their cities especially following the earthquake The style thought to best convey this grandeur was Beaux-Arts which draws on the principles of French neoclassicism and incorporates Italian Renaissance and Baroque elements Architect Willis Polk helped develop a plan for San Francisco s Civic Center which included the Beaux-Arts City Hall while other notable Beaux-Arts buildings include Bernard Maybeck s Palace of Fine Arts and John Galen Howard s Doe Library Hearst Memorial Mining Building and the Greek Theatre on the UC Berkeley campus An exterior view of the Berkeley Playhouse a building that was designed by famed architect Julia Morgan originally as a Presbyterian Church is seen on April in Berkeley Calif Dai Sugano Bay Area News Group First Bay Perhaps as a reaction to Beaux-Arts haughtiness Polk Maybeck and Julia Morgan also worked in the First Bay tradition which shares similarities with the English Arts and Crafts emphasis on rusticity simplicity and fidelity to natural materials In the Bay Area redwood also became the go-to material for the shingled-sided First Bay homes churches and locality centers that Maybeck and Morgan designed Arts and Crafts also became the original style associated with Bay Area bungalows those affordable solid working-class homes that became an icon of residential urban and suburban neighborhoods starting in the early s wrote UC Berkeley geographer Richard Walker and urban planner Alex Schafran Art Deco During the s and s countless prominent Bay Area builders chose Art Deco to celebrate the region s growing economic and industrial power Originating in Paris and flourishing in Europe and the United States the style represented a belief in social and technological progress Art Deco also became a preferred style for glamorous Bay Area entertainment venues particular of which still operate in the current era as movie theaters or concert halls The grand interior of the Paramount Theatre photographed in Oakland Calif on Tuesday April This year marks the th anniversary of the Paramount Theatre's restoration and in celebration the Art Deco Society of California will be holding an Art Deco Preservation Ball on Saturday April th Laura A Oda Bay Area News Group Archives Modernism By the s up-and-coming th-century Bay Area architects embraced the futuristic design philosophies championed by the Bauhaus and International Schools which cast off the conventions of the past Schwarzer wrote Well-known Bay Area monuments of modernism include Frank Lloyd Wright s Marin County Civic Center the former San Jose City Hall and the Oakland Museum of California the latter built with concrete and the bold geometric forms of Brutalism Even before the turn of the century the urban centers of San Jose Oakland and San Francisco had begun to go vertical with the use of steel-reinforced concrete though early skyscrapers tended to look to the past with Beaux-Arts Romanesque or Gothic exteriors Following World War II office towers with modernist-style glass curtain walls began to rise such as the -story Kaiser Building in Oakland A duplex on Crown Boulevard in San Jose Calif on Thursday Feb Nhat V Meyer Bay Area News Group The Suburban Ranch House One of the leading Bay Area practitioners of modernism was Wiliam Wurster the dean of UC Berkeley s School of Architecture who applied its principles to a signature kind of California construction the suburban ranch house Wurster s usually small homes featured flowing interiors that opened up to the outdoors To address the post-World War II population boom Wurster also helped build innovative affordable mass-produced homes similar to the efforts of developer Joseph Eichler another modernist fanatic who built thousands of homes in new suburban tracts across the Bay Area The ranch house proved to be highly adaptable to a variety of settings and styles with the Bay Area flatlands and hillside neighborhoods filled with rows of modernist split-levels or homes that emulated more traditional looks from Cape Cod to Tudor Revival to the neo-Tuscan style that became the rage in the s with increasingly bloated footprints according to Walker and Schafran Workers leave Googles Bay View campus in Mountain View California on June Photo by NOAH BERGER AFP via Getty Images The New Modernism Even as historic preservationists strive to hold onto the character of Victorians Art Deco movie theaters and Eichler neighborhoods civic leaders developers tech billionaires and architects have been pushing design forward Apple opened its billion spaceship headquarters in Cupertino while sleek environmentally sustainable ultramodern designs such as San Jose City Hall and the new M H de Young Museum have become de rigueur for any new ruling body corporate or cultural building that aspires to world-class status