- William Wurster
William Wilson Wurster (1895 - 1973) was an influential American architect and architectural teacher at the
University of California, Berkeley and atMIT .Wurster was born in
Stockton, California and is strongly associated with the Bay Area and its regional style, along with Wurster's mentorBernard Maybeck , the landscape architectThomas Church , and fellow architectJoseph Esherick . Wurster designed hundreds of California houses in the 1920s through the 1940s using indigenous materials and a direct, simple style suited to the climate. His 1928 Gregory Farmhouse inScotts Valley, California is regarded as the prototypical ranch-style house.In 1940 Wurster married Catherine Bauer, an influential figure in her own right in the field of
public housing . Both withstood accusations of disloyalty during the Red Scare of the 1950s.Wurster was elected a Fellow of the
American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1954 and he received the AIA Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement in 1969. He was a co-founder of theUC Berkeley College of Environmental Design , where Wurster Hall is named in his and his wife's honor.Among Wurster's students was the award-winning architect
John Desmond inBaton Rouge, Louisiana . Jim Webb, who taught at the University of North Carolina and was an influential architect in Chapel Hill, worked with Wurster for a while.Readings
* Gregory, Daniel, "William W. Wurster," "Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts & Crafts Architects of California" (
Robert Winter , editor) Norfleet Press Book/University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles London, 1997, pp. 245-254.* Treib, Marc, "An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster", San Francisco Museum of Art/University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1995.
External links
* [http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/01.18.96/wurster-9603.html Biographical notes on William Wurster]
* [http://www.verlang.com/sfbay0004ref_ww.html A thorough on-line catalog of Wurster's houses, including the Gregory Farmhouse, with photos]
* [http://www.marinmodern.com/ William Wurster designed homes in Marin County]
* [http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/profiles/wurster.htm Finding aid to the William W. Wurster/Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons Collection at the Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley]
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