Allan Bernard Temko (February 4, 1924 – January 25, 2006) was an architectural critic and writer 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 ...

History

Born in New York City and raised in

Weehawken Weehawken is a township in the northern part of Hudson County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is located largely on the Hudson Palisades overlooking the Hudson River. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 17,197.

, New Jersey, Temko served as a

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

officer in World War II, graduated from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

in 1947, and continued his graduate studies at 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 ...

, and at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in Paris, France. He taught for several years in France and produced a landmark book about the Cathedral of Notre Dame, ''Notre Dame of Paris,'' in 1955. He wrote architectural criticism for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. de ...

'' from 1961 to 1993. He also taught

city planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

and the social sciences at the

and

California State University, Hayward California State University, East Bay (Cal State East Bay, CSU East Bay, or CSUEB) is a public university in Hayward, California. The university is part of the 23-campus California State University system and offers 136 undergraduate and 60 post ...

(now California State University, East Bay). Following Finnish-born architect

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

's death in 1961, Temko published ''

'' (1962), a critical examination of Saarinen's most famous works from the

General Motors Technical Center The GM Technical Center is a General Motors facility in Warren, Michigan. The campus has been the center of the company's engineering effort since its inauguration in 1956. In 2000 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; fourtee ...

to the

Jefferson National Expansion Memorial Gateway Arch National Park is an American national park located in St. Louis, Missouri, near the starting point of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The memorial was established to commemorate: *the Louisiana Purchase and subsequent westward mov ...

and its

Gateway Arch The Gateway Arch is a monument in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Clad in stainless steel and built in the form of a weighted catenary arch, it is the world's tallest arch and Missouri's tallest accessible building. Some sources consider ...

(still in the planning stages at the time), as a volume in

George Braziller George Braziller (February 12, 1916 – March 16, 2017) was an American book publisher and the founder of George Braziller, Inc., a firm known for its literary and artistic books and its publication of foreign authors. Life and career Braziller ...

's ''Makers of Contemporary Architecture'' series. Temko was an activist critic who defended the urban character and texture of San Francisco from, in his words, "a variety of villains: real estate sharks, the construction industry and its unions, venal politicians, bureaucrats, brutal highway engineers, the automobile lobby, and – in some ways worst of all – incompetent architects and invertebrate planners who were wrecking the Bay Area before our eyes." One of these villains, an architect named

Sandy Walker Sandy Walker (born 1942) is an American artist. His work is included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the Na ...

, famously sued Temko over his 1978 description of Walker's

Pier 39 Pier 39 is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of Cali ...

project which began, "Corn. Kitsch. Schlock. Honky-tonk. Dreck. Schmaltz. Merde." Temko was instrumental in the removal of the

Embarcadero Freeway Embarcadero, the Spanish word for wharf, may also refer specifically to: Places * Embarcadero (Oakland), California * Embarcadero (San Diego), California ** Embarcadero Circle, waterfront re-development project in San Diego * Embarcadero (San Fran ...

and memorably described the 1971

Vaillancourt Fountain ''Vaillancourt Fountain'', sometimes called ''Quebec libre!'', is a large fountain in Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco, designed by the Québécois artist Armand Vaillancourt in 1971. It is about high and is constructed out of precast concr ...

on the Embarcadero as a thing "deposited by a concrete dog with square intestines." He described the

City Center Building The City Center Building, known briefly as Centennial Tower, was the tallest building in Hayward, California. It was previously the second tallest, until the 2013 razing of Warren Hall on the Cal State East Bay campus. It was for many years an ...

in Hayward in the early 1970s, calling it a "toaster", due to its slightly elongated rectangular shape, which strongly influenced public opinion of the building. Temko, who met

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian a ...

when they were both undergraduates at Columbia, appears in Kerouac's novel ''

On the Road ''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagonis ...

'' as the model for the character "Roland Major". Temko also appeared in Kerouac's '' Book of Dreams'' as Irving Minko and in ''

Visions of Cody ''Visions of Cody'' is an experimental novel by Jack Kerouac. It was written in 1951–1952, and though not published in its entirety until 1972, it had by then achieved an underground reputation. Since its first printing, ''Visions of Cody'' has ...

'' as Allen Minko. He called for an international design competition for the eastern span replacement of the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland ...

, saying that both the single-tower cable-stayed scheme (favored by T.Y. Lin) and the single-masted self-anchored suspension design ultimately chosen were incapable of being "a world-famous work of engineering art." Temko was awarded the

Pulitzer Prize for Criticism The Pulitzer Prize for Criticism has been presented since 1970 to a newspaper writer in the United States who has demonstrated 'distinguished criticism'. Recipients of the award are chosen by an independent board and officially administered by C ...

in 1990. He died of apparent congestive heart failure at the Orinda Convalescent Hospital in

Orinda, California Orinda is a city in Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city's population as of the 2020 census is estimated at 19,514 residents. History Orinda is located within four Mexican land grants: Rancho Laguna de los Palos Colorados ...

, in 2006.

References

External links

Obituary and interview

San Francisco Chronicle obituary

Armand Vaillancourt Fountain 360 image (JAVA)

Armand Vaillancourt Fountain 360 image (QTVR Full screen)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Temko, Allan American architecture critics Writers from San Francisco 1924 births 2006 deaths Pulitzer Prize for Criticism winners California State University, East Bay faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Columbia College (New York) alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Architects from San Francisco Architecture in the San Francisco Bay Area 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers United States Navy personnel of World War II United States Navy officers 21st-century American male writers Military personnel from California