Freudenheim - Building with Nature: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home: Inspiration for the Arts & Crafts Home

Building with Nature

Hillside Architecture is
Landscape Gardening around
a few rooms for use in case of rain.

H ILLSIDE C LUB Y EARBOOK , 1906 1907

To Tom,
my husband of forty years,
without whom neither this book nor the earlier one would have happened;
those who know him will understand how lucky I am.

To Elisabeth Sussman,
my dear friend and co-author of
Building with Nature: Roots of the San Francisco Bay Region Tradition,
who graciously encouraged me to expand our first joint effort.

To the Memory of
Ambur Hiken (19152002),
whose insightful photography illuminates
the pages of this book.

FIRST EDITION

10 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1

Text 2005 Leslie M. Freudenheim

Photographs by Ambur Hiken 2005 Leslie Freudenheim and Elisabeth Sussman, unless otherwise noted.

Frontispiece/Title Page: The Charles and Louise Keeler house, 1770 Highland Place, Berkeley (1895), designed by their friend Bernard Maybeck; drawing by Louise Keeler, October 1898.

All rights reserved for all countries, including the right of translation. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publishers, except brief portions quoted for purposes of review.

Published by

Gibbs Smith, Publisher

P.O. Box 667

Layton, Utah 84041

1.800.748.5439 orders

www.gibbs-smith.com

Designed by Rudy Ramos

Printed and bound in China

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Freudenheim, Leslie M., 1941

Building with nature: inspiration for the arts & crafts home / Leslie M. Freudenheim. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-58685-463-1

1. Architecture, DomesticCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay Area. 2. Regionalism in architectureCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay Area. 3. Arts and crafts movementCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay AreaHistory19th century. 4. Arts and crafts movementCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay AreaHistory20th century. 5. Architecture and societyCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay AreaHistory19th century. 6. Architecture and SocietyCaliforniaSan Francisco Bay AreaHistory20th century. 7. Worcester, Joseph, 18361913Influence. I. Title.

NA7235.C22S3537 2005

728.3709794dc22

2004030965

Contents

Preface:
A Tribute and an Explanation

IN 1967, WHEN ELISABETH SUSSMAN AND I BEGAN OUR RESEARCH INTO THE SOURCES OF EARLY California architecture, we joined a small group of pioneers whose work was effectively carving out a new field of American architectural history. Esther McCoys groundbreaking Five California Architects, Harold Kirkers significant and classic Californias Architectural Frontier, David Gebhards exhibition catalogue Architecture in California 18681968, Sally Woodbridges Buildings of the Bay Area, and Roger Olmsted and T. H. Watkins Here Today these became the seminal texts in the field. Their precursor, Elisabeth Kendall Thompsons significant article The Early Domestic Architecture of the San Francisco Bay Region (1951), turned out to be prophetic for us, as Thompson alerted us to the possibility that Reverend Joseph Worcester of the Swedenborgian Church in San Francisco may have played a major role in the architectural development of the region from 1876 to 1915.

It has been enormously gratifying to note the outpouring of further research in the field since we published Building with Nature: Roots of the San Francisco Bay Region Tradition in 1974, as can be seen in the endnotes and bibliography. Numerous articles and books have impressively augmented our understanding of Californias architecture and its role in the Arts & Crafts movement, moving a relatively obscure area of interest into the mainstream of American architectural, intellectual, and social history. One book in particular has been essential: Richard Longstreths On the Edge of the World: Four Architects in San Francisco at the Turn of the Century.

When Gibbs Smith agreed to publish a new edition of our book, we thought we would correct some mistakes and add new photographs. However, when Elisabeth Sussman accepted a job as Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, she could not work on this project. I decided to continue my research and generate a new book based on, but different from, the original. When I began, I did not suspect California would turn out to be seminal in the development of the Arts & Crafts movement in the United States.

In this new book I have tried to place this history in the international context it deserves, delving more deeply into the roots of the California Arts & Crafts tradition as we were urged to do thirty years ago by our wise publisher, Gibbs Smith, and pinpointing numerous connections with simultaneous European movements.

So much more information confirming Joseph Worcesters influence has come to light in the past thirty years that I feel it is important to expand upon this theme. Charles Keeler, writing around 1908, credited Worcester with having introduced the simple home to the San Francisco Bay Region: The work of a small group of young architects originally inspired and guided by a Swedenborgian minister has spread like a leaven in a mass of the commonplace.

Elisabeth Kendall Thompson seconded this view in her important article, cited above. Thompson lists the important architects and influential people in the region and begins by praising Worcester who, though he was not a trained architect, produced work of architectural rightness and dignity, and adds that

Edward R. Bosley also acknowledged Worcesters impact:

Bosley also cites an article in the August 1905 Craftsman, which by then was read by architects and designers nationwide, in which Keeler attributes the art spirit that took hold in San Francisco in the 1890s to Worcesters inspiration.