Tag Archives: Bernard Maybeck
Pianist Dick Whittington back in Berkeley, his kinda’ town
If Berkeley had a hall of fame for musicians, pianist Dick Whittington would be inducted as part of the inaugural class. As an educator, presenter, and ebulliently swinging player, he left an indelible mark on the city’s jazz before decamping for the Monterey Peninsula in the mid-1990s.
In an all-too-rare return to Berkeley, he performs Saturday at the Jazzschool with his trio featuring bassist Robb Fisher, drummer Vince Lateano and special guest Andrew Speight on alto saxophone.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Whittington made his first major contribution to the Bay Area scene in the late 1960s when he and trumpeter Phil Hardymon helped found the Berkeley public school system’s innovative music program. By the time he retired in 1991, he had helped initiate several generations of musical visionaries into the art of improvisation, including Peter Apfelbaum, Rodney Franklin, Steven Bernstein, Jessica Jones, Joshua Redman and Benny Green. … Continue reading »
The Hanging Gardens of Berkeley
By Robert Trachtenberg
I have spent the last month observing and waiting to see what is blooming in Berkeley as we slowly come out of a long, cold winter. Berkeley the Garden City is an incredible place to live, especially if you have a passion for gardens and architecture. In my recent search for plants that are beautiful and distinct, a consistent theme began to emerge. From one end of Berkeley to the other there was an explosion of wisteria blossoming profusely everywhere. I am most captivated by this flowering vine when it is intertwined with history and, in particular, buildings designed by Berkeley architects like Bernard Maybeck.
Storied Pelican Building is considered for landmark status
The Pelican Building, situated on the UC Berkeley campus on Eshelman Road, was designed by architect Joseph Esherick, who taught at UC Berkeley for 40 years, designed Wurster Hall, co-founded Cal’s College of Environmental Design with William Wurster and Vernon DeMars, and was one of the founding designers of Sea Ranch on the Sonoma-Mendocino coast. But the design story of this pretty pavilion-style structure goes even deeper than that.
Venerable Bay Area architect Bernard Maybeck originally received the commission to design the building. In his nineties at the time, he passed the task along to Esherick who expressed his gratitude by blending some signature Maybeck touches with his own, more modernist ideas, into its design. That is why the building might bring to mind one of Maybeck’s most well-known creations, Berkeley’s First Church of Christ Scientist — and why the Pelican Building has been described as “a unique overlap of First and Third Bay Traditions”.
The client for the building is another big name in California history — Earle C. Anthony (1880-1961), whose wide range of interests included cars — he was California’s distributor of Packards and built three impressive showrooms, one of which, designed by Maybeck, still survives, on Van Ness in San Francisco – radio and television, journalism, song- and play-writing and promotion of the arts.
While an engineering student at UC Berkeley in 1903, Anthony founded the college humor magazine The California Pelican. More than 50 years later he would finance the creation of a building dedicated to the magazine — hence its name, and the pelican sculpture at its entrance. Today the building is known as Anthony Hall, or the Graduate Assembly.
Robert Johnson and Berkeley architect Gary Parsons have prepared the report supporting the application to Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. … Continue reading »
Landmark north Berkeley property up for sale
Anyone wanting to get their hands on an architecturally distinctive property in Berkeley — and with $3,680,000 in their pockets — is in luck with the recent arrival on the market of this multi-unit complex on Codornices Road.
Designed by Henry Gutterson in 1924, the nine units are across the way from Bernard Maybeck’s Rose Walk. Four two-story duplexes face a garden. A separate cottage with a large deck faces Codornices Road near Rose Garden. Together they were designed as … Continue reading »
The Berkeley Wire: 12.15.09
State gives OK to expansion of Oakland enterprise zone into West Berkeley [Daily Planet]
Back to the drawing board for Maybeck-related landmark application [SF Chronicle]
Berkeley Rep celebrates 20th anniversary of its costumes shop queen [Broadway World]
Public Health Clinic on University set to close for renovations [City of Berkeley]
New anthropology museum director: “like being in a candy store” [Contra Costa Times]
[Photo of DNA sculpture at LHS by Kap Chris, Berkeleyside Flickr pool]
The Berkeley Wire: 12.8.09
Put the logs down. Tomorrow, Wednesday 9, declared a Spare the Air Day [BAAQMD]
Berkeley candy store Alegio opens up in San Francisco [SFoodie]
Maybe not so much a Maybeck: status of Berkeley building reconsidered [SF Chronicle]
Judge orders Oregon Street drug-bust home to be boarded up [Daily Planet]
Man shot in arm in South Berkeley car park, Sunday [Daily Cal]
[Photo of UC campus, 1968 by Nick DeWolf Photo Archive from Berkeleyside Flickr pool]
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