How Did Bernard Maybeck Influence Architecture

Bernard Maybeck

Bernard Maybeck was an eclectic American architect of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was known for his ability to fuse and experiment with many different styles of architecture, creating a blend of modern and historicism in his buildings. First serving as a teacher and then as an architect he influenced and shaped the Bay Area as it grew.

To begin with, Bernard Maybeck was born in the outskirts of New York to German immigrant parents. His father, being a carpenter wanted young Maybeck to draw and work with his hands. When he was of age, his father sent him to Paris to study Wooden Furniture making, but Maybeck was in control of his own destiny. He soon enrolled at Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he studied Architecture and was heavily influenced with the Viollet-le-Duc movement. After school he retuned to New York where he worked for the firm Carrère & Hastings. Like many others Maybeck soon migrated

1. They used undisguised natural materials from the local environment, such as redwood, cedar, and oak, as well as brick and stone (or as Maybeck often put it, they employed “open use of natural materials, honestly stated”). 2.They combined historic motifs, such as Gothic arches or Palladian windows, and traditional craftsmanship, with modern building materials and construction methods, such as reinforced concrete, asbestos siding and plate glass windows. 3. Each building was a unique design in itself, an original work of art that fulfilled the specific needs of the client, and the community it was a part of. 4. They were carefully integrated with their surroundings, both through their use of site-sensitive design and natural materials (so as to blend in with the hilly, evergreen setting) and by bringing the outdoors indoors, through devices as large expanses of glass, balconies and decks to allow sunlight, natural scents and breezes from outside to flow through the interiors