Joseph Esherick
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
.
Esherick was born in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
in 1937, Esherick set up practice in the San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
in 1953 and taught at University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
for many years. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal
AIA Gold Medal
The AIA Gold Medal is awarded by the American Institute of Architects conferred "by the national AIA Board of Directors in recognition of a significant body of work of lasting influence on the theory and practice of architecture."...
in 1989.
Inheriting the Bay Area architectural tradition of figures like Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was a architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley...
and William Wurster
William Wurster
William Wilson Wurster was an American architect and architectural teacher at the University of California, Berkeley and at MIT, best known for his residential designs in California. - Biography :...
, Esherick's designs for hundreds of houses through his career centered on attention to regional traditions, site requirements, and user needs.
In 1959, Esherick was the co-founder, along with William Wurster
William Wurster
William Wilson Wurster was an American architect and architectural teacher at the University of California, Berkeley and at MIT, best known for his residential designs in California. - Biography :...
and Vernon DeMars
Vernon DeMars
Vernon DeMars was an American architect and professor at the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design.As one of the principal members of Telesis, he helped develop what Lewis Mumford called the Second Bay Area Regional Style. He, along with William Wurster, designed Wurster Hall, Sproul Plaza...
, of Berkeley's influential College of Environmental Design
UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design
The College of Environmental Design, also known as the or simply is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley. The school is located in Wurster Hall on the southeast corner of the main UC Berkeley campus...
(CED). The CED encompassed disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, environmental planning and city planning, and served as a nexus for figures like Christopher Alexander
Christopher Alexander
Christopher Wolfgang Alexander is a registered architect noted for his theories about design, and for more than 200 building projects in California, Japan, Mexico and around the world...
, Catherine Bauer, Galen Cranz
Galen Cranz
Galen Cranz is a professor of architecture at the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies the social and cultural bases of architectural and urban design....
, Donlyn Lyndon, Roger Montgomery
Roger Montgomery
Roger Montgomery was a city planner, urban designer, architect, and educator.-Biography:He was born in New York City to parents Graham Livingston Montgomery and Anne Cook and lived in Greenwich Village until 1930, when he moved to Port Washington, Long Island. Roger's father died suddenly from a...
, Charles Moore
Charles Willard Moore
Charles Willard Moore was an American architect, educator, writer, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991.-Life and career:...
, and William Wilson Wurster.
In 1972 Esherick reorganized his office, turning away from houses to more commercial and academic work, with three longtime associates George Homsey, Peter Dodge and Chuck Davis to form Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis, the winner of the 1986 Architecture Firm Award
Architecture Firm Award
The Architecture Firm Award is the highest honor that The American Institute of Architects can bestow on an architecture firm for consistently producing distinguished architecture.Prior recipients of the AIA Architecture Firm Award include:...
. The firm continues today as EHDD Architecture
EHDD
Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis is a United States based architecture, interiors, planning and urban design firm. EHDD, ranked among the top 20 architecture firms in the San Francisco Bay Area where it is headquartered, is known especially for its sensitivity to place, technical innovation, and...
.
Esherick was the nephew of American sculptor Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick
Wharton Esherick was a sculptor who worked primarily in wood. He reveled in applying the principles of sculpture to common utilitarian objects. Consequently he is best known for his sculptural furniture and furnishings...
.
Work
- House at Kentwoodlands, Kent WoodlandsKent Woodlands, CaliforniaKent Woodlands is an unincorporated community in Marin County, California. It lies at an elevation of 89 feet ....
, CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, 1957 - Cary House, at Mill ValleyMill Valley, CaliforniaMill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, United States located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge. The population was 13,903 at the 2010 census.Mill Valley is located on the western and northern shores of Richardson Bay...
, California, 1960 - Harold E. Jones Child Study CenterHarold E. Jones Child Study CenterThe Harold E. Jones Child Study Center is a research and educational institution for young children at the University of California, Berkeley. It is one of the oldest continuously running centers for the study of children in the country...
, at University of California, BerkeleyUniversity of California, BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, 1960 - Six Sea Ranch Demonstration Houses (now called The Hedgerow Homes) (in collaboration with Lawrence HalprinLawrence HalprinLawrence Halprin was an influential American landscape architect, designer and teacher.Beginning his career in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, in 1949, Halprin often collaborated with a local circle of modernist architects on relatively modest projects. These figures included William...
and Charles Moore), Sonoma CountySonoma County, CaliforniaSonoma County, located on the northern coast of the U.S. state of California, is the largest and northernmost of the nine San Francisco Bay Area counties. Its population at the 2010 census was 483,878. Its largest city and county seat is Santa Rosa....
, California, 1967 - The Cannery, at San FranciscoSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, California, 1968 - Mountain House (aka Roscoe House) Alamo California, 1972
- Garfield School, at San Francisco, California, 1981
- Flora Lamson Hewlett LibraryFlora Lamson Hewlett LibraryThe Flora Lamson Hewlett Library houses one of the largest collections of theological books in the United States.The building's distinctive, terraced design was based on preliminary sketches by famed architect Louis I...
, at Graduate Theological UnionGraduate Theological UnionThe Graduate Theological Union ' is a consortium of nine independent theological schools, and eleven centers and affiliates. Eight of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962. It maintains the Graduate Theological Union Library, one of the most...
, Berkeley, 1981 - Silver Lake Lodge, at Deer ValleyDeer ValleyDeer Valley is an alpine ski resort in the Wasatch Range, located east of Salt Lake City, in Park City, Utah, United States. The resort, known for its upscale amenities, is consistently ranked among the top ski resorts in North America...
, UtahUtahUtah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
, 1982 - Monterey Bay AquariumMonterey Bay AquariumThe Monterey Bay Aquarium is located on the former site of a sardine cannery on Cannery Row of the Pacific Ocean shoreline in Monterey, California. It has an annual attendance of 1.8 million visitors. It holds thousands of plants and animals, representing 623 separate named species on display...
, at MontereyMonterey, CaliforniaThe City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, California, 1984 - Hermitage Condominiums, San Francisco, California, 1984
- Aquarium of the PacificAquarium of the Pacific-External links:*...
, Long Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach, CaliforniaLong Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, 1998 - Tenderloin Community School, 1999