Arthur Brown Jr. (1874–1957) was an American architect, based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and designer of many of its landmarks. He is known for his work with John Bakewell Jr. as Bakewell and Brown, along with later works after the partnership dissolved in 1927. Arthur Brown Jr

Career

Brown was a member of

Beta Theta Pi Beta Theta Pi (), commonly known as Beta, is a North American social fraternity that was founded in 1839 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. One of North America's oldest fraternities, as of 2022 it consists of 144 active chapters in the Unite ...

fraternity and graduated from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1896, where he and his future partner, John Bakewell Jr. (1872–1963), also a member of Beta Theta Pi, were both protégés of famed Bay Area architect

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

. Brown went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and graduated from the ''

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth century ...

'' in 1901, attending the atelier of

Victor Laloux Victor Alexandre Frederic Laloux (15 November 1850 – 13 July 1937) was a French Beaux-Arts architect and teacher. Life Born in Tours, Laloux studied at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts ''atelier'' of Louis-Jules André, with his studies i ...

, before returning to San Francisco to establish his practice with Bakewell in 1905. Their first commissions included the interior of the City of Paris department store and the city hall for

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, before entering the competition for the 1915

San Francisco City Hall San Francisco City Hall is the seat of government for the City and County of San Francisco, California. Re-opened in 1915 in its open space area in the city's Civic Center, it is a Beaux-Arts monument to the City Beautiful movement that epitomi ...

for which they are best known. Brown also designed the city's

War Memorial Opera House The War Memorial Opera House is an opera house in San Francisco, California, located on the western side of Van Ness Avenue across from the west side/rear facade of the San Francisco City Hall. It is part of the San Francisco War Memorial and ...

and Veterans Building, the former in collaboration with

G. Albert Lansburgh Gustave Albert Lansburgh (January 7, 1876 – April 1969) was an American architect largely known for his work on luxury cinemas and theaters. He was the principal architect of theaters on the West Coast from 1900 to 1930. Life and career Lan ...

. Brown was meticulously trained in the rigorous Beaux-Arts tradition, and in the City Hall project his attention extended to the smallest details of light fixtures, floor patterning and doorknobs. SFOperaHouse

In addition to their well-known monumental works, Bakewell and Brown designed several homes in the

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

style championed by Maybeck. Early among them were two redwood framed "double houses" for Stanford University in 1908, and the only fraternity house they designed de novo, the Beta Chi Chapter House of Sigma Nu in 1910 (razed by the University in 1991 despite student and alumni efforts to give it historic designation and restore it). They later designed additions to Ernest Coxhead's 1893 Beta Theta Pi house they had lived in as undergraduates, now a listed Berkeley landmark. The firm went on to design a series of familiar San Francisco landmarks, and many buildings at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, before Brown dissolved the partnership in 1927. For contractual reasons many buildings at Stanford through the 1930s continued to be credited to both. Bakewell and Brown also designed the Byzantine-inspired Temple Emmanuel (1926) at Lake St. and Arguello Blvd. in San Francisco, and the Pasadena City Hall (1927)., Most of Brown's later San Francisco works employed a stripped-down classicism. The poured-concrete

Art Moderne Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design ...

Coit Tower Coit Tower is a tower in the Telegraph Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, California, offering panoramic views over the city and the bay. The tower, in the city's Pioneer Park, was built between 1932 and 1933 using Lillie Hitchcock Coit's beq ...

(1932), that crowns

Telegraph Hill A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation that is chosen as part of an optical telegraph system. Telegraph Hill may also refer to: England * A high point in the Haldon Hills, Devon * Telegraph Hill, Dorset, a hill in the Dorset Down ...

is an important Modernist landmark in the Bay Area. Coit Tower was the site of some of the first public works murals executed under the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Recove ...

, later known as the WPA. "The primitive nature of Coit Tower would lend itself better to that sort of thing than other public buildings," was Arthur Brown's first reaction to the project.

Diego Rivera Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, known as Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957), was a prominent Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the ...

included Brown among the designers and craftsmen in his

fresco Fresco (plural ''frescos'' or ''frescoes'') is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaste ...

mural of ''The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City'' (1931). Sfcityhall

Washington, D. C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

Brown designed the

Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later trucking) to ensure fair rates, to eliminat ...

Building, its near-twin the

Department of Labor Building The Department of Labor Building, also known as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, is a historic office building, located at 14th Street, and Constitution Avenue, Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Federal Triangle. It was the head ...

, and the

Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium The Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium (originally named the Departmental Auditorium) is a 750-seat historic Neoclassical auditorium located at 1301 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. The auditorium, which connects two wings of the William Jeffer ...

. All three form part of the

Federal Triangle The Federal Triangle is a triangular area in Washington, D.C. formed by 15th Street NW, Constitution Avenue NW, Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and E Street NW. Federal Triangle is occupied by 10 large city and federal office buildings, all of which are ...

, the largest construction project undertaken by the US Federal government prior to

The Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...

. Preliminary designs were begun in 1927, with construction in the Depression years between 1932 and 1934. The new buildings were to be designed to reflect the "dignity and power of the nation." Brown's last works were primarily at UC Berkeley, where Brown served as campus planner and chief architect from 1936 to 1950. His principal buildings there include Sproul Hall, the

Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

, and the Cyclotron Building, commissioned by Ernest Lawrence and

J. Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is oft ...

Brown was elected a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

in the

American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the AIA offers education, government advocacy, community redevelopment, and public outreach to su ...

in 1930. Among the draftsmen in his office was Clarence W. W. Mayhew. In 1943, Brown was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the fin ...

as an Associate member, and became a full member in 1953.

Work

In San Francisco unless otherwise noted: * Folger Estate,

Woodside, California Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the United States, home to many technology billionaires and investment manager ...

, 1905 * Interior of

City of Paris Dry Goods Co. The City of Paris Dry Goods Company (later City of Paris) was one of San Francisco's important department stores from 1850 to 1976, located diagonally opposite Union Square, San Francisco, California, Union Square. In the mid-20th century, it op ...

, 1906–09 * City Hall,

, 1908–09 * "Double Houses" and Beta Chi Chapter House of

Sigma Nu Sigma Nu () is an undergraduate Fraternities and sororities in North America, college fraternity founded at the Virginia Military Institute on January 1, 1869. The fraternity was founded by James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles and James McIlva ...

, 1908-1910 * Horticulture Building, Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915 *

, 1915 *

Union Station (San Diego, California) Santa Fe Depot in San Diego, California, is a union station built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to replace the small Victorian-style structure erected in 1887 for the California Southern Railroad Company. The Spanish Colonial Rev ...

, 1915 *

Burnham Pavilion Burnham may refer to: Places Canada *Burnham, Saskatchewan England * Burnham, Buckinghamshire ** Burnham railway station ** Burnham Grammar School *Burnham Green, Hertfordshire, location of The White Horse * Burnham, Lincolnshire **High Burnham, ...

, 1921 *

Toyon Hall Toyon Hall is an all-sophomore dormitory at Stanford University. Its Romanesque revival architecture, Romanesque and Mediterranean Revival Style architecture, Mediterranean Revival Style residence halls originally housed 150 men, but today Toyon i ...

, 1923 *

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

, 1925 * Temple Emanu-El, 1926 * Pacific Gas and Electric Company Building, 1926 *

Pasadena City Hall Pasadena City Hall, completed in 1927, serves as the central location for city government in the Pasadena, California, City of Pasadena, California and is a significant architectural example of the City Beautiful movement of the 1920s. History ...

Pasadena, California Pasadena ( ) is a city in Los Angeles County, California, northeast of downtown Los Angeles. It is the most populous city and the primary cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley. Old Pasadena is the city's original commercial district. I ...

, 1927 * St. Joseph's Hospital (San Francisco), 1928 * Cowell Memorial Hospital,

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

, 1930 * Roble Gym,

, 1931 *

, with

, 1932 *

, Washington DC, 1934 *

, Washington DC, 1935 * 50 United Nations Plaza Federal Office Building, 1936 * Memorial Auditorium,

, 1937 *

San Francisco Transbay Terminal The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2 ...

, with

Timothy L. Pflueger Timothy Ludwig Pflueger (September 26, 1892 – November 20, 1946) was an architect, interior designer and architectural lighting designer in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of the 20th century. Together with James Rupert Miller, Ja ...

, 1939 *

Hoover Tower Hoover Tower is a structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The tower houses the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, an archive collection founded by Herbert Hoover before he became President of the United Stat ...

, 1941 *

Cyclotron A cyclotron is a type of particle accelerator invented by Ernest O. Lawrence in 1929–1930 at the University of California, Berkeley, and patented in 1932. Lawrence, Ernest O. ''Method and apparatus for the acceleration of ions'', filed: Janu ...

Building, 1940;

Sproul Hall Sproul Plaza (pronounced ) is one center of student activity at the University of California, Berkeley. It is divided into two sections: Upper Sproul and Lower Sproul. They are vertically separated by and linked by a set of stairs. History S ...

, 1941; Minor Hall, 1941; Donner Laboratory, 1942;

, 1949,

References

External links

Online guide to the Arthur Brown Jr. Papers

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

Diego Rivera's mural at the SFAI

Arthur Brown Papers

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Arthur Jr. 19th-century American architects Architects from San Francisco Beaux Arts architects Historicist architects Mediterranean Revival architects Spanish Colonial Revival architects 1874 births 1957 deaths Fellows of the American Institute of Architects American alumni of the École des Beaux-Arts People from Oakland, California UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design alumni 20th-century American architects Burials at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Career

Work

References

Further reading

External links