Susan Kuchinskas
SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER
Sept. 5, 1999
1999 San Francisco Examiner

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/examiner/archive/1999/09/05/REAL933.dtl



UC-Berkeley exhibit harks back to postwar optimism

People lucky enough to have been raised in California could easily
overlook Eichler houses, or take them for granted. Those of us who grew up
in drearier climes are more likely to recognize them as the iconic designs
they were.

These low-slung, jazzy spreads, built by Joseph Eichler from the late
1940s to the early 1970s, were the avant-garde architectural expression of
California dreamin' - an optimistic, middle-class, mid-century vision of
the good life.

They spread in unobtrusive coveys from San Rafael to San Jose, and east to
Concord - most of them in neighborhoods that have seen home prices zoom
through the boom times of the 1980s and again at the turn of the century.

Eichler, a merchant builder, put his distinctive imprint on approximately
12,000 homes in California - some 11,000 of them in the Bay Area.

Beloved by design intelligentsia in the world's sophisticated capitals,
they're nonetheless often dismissed as '50s tract homes. But they're
gaining renewed respect and delighting a new generation - thanks to a
traveling exhibit of photographs and illustrations put together by two
architects.

"Building the California Dream: an Exhibit of Modernist Eichler Homes"
opens next week at UC-Berkeley following a two-year tour through the
United States and Canada. The heart of the exhibit is 75 photographs by
Bay Area architectural photographer Ernie Braun, who worked as a
freelancer for Eichler.

Far from flat publicity stills, Braun's photos use extreme wide angle
lenses to intensify the interplay of sunlight and deep shadow against
white walls. They show stylish, casual furniture and blissed-out models
seemingly caught unaware in the act of being modern. Braun's photographs
are surreal dioramas of an idealized post-World War II happiness.

There's plenty to learn from Eichlers, which went far beyond mass-produced
housing typically built in the suburbs after the war, said Paul Adamson, a
San Francisco architect and co-curator of the exhibit.

"They illustrate the advantages of socially-responsible development -
something that's integrated with the local culture, respectful of the
physical environment," Adamson said. Also, Eichler's homes reflect "the
enduring value that good design can bring to any housing project."

Adamson, an associate at the architecture firm of Hornberger & Worstell,
curated the exhibit with Kevin Alter, acting director of the Center for
American Architecture at the University of Texas.

Eichler was a refugee from New York City, with its dark old buildings and
staid ways. He began his building career at the close of the war. The race
was on to build enough housing - in 1946 alone, the U.S. government had a
goal of 1.2 million new housing units - for the returning veterans and
their young families.

It's unclear how Eichler came to be a modernist and a lover of good
design. One inspiration, according to Adamson, may have come when Eichler
sublet Frank Lloyd Wright's Bazett House in Palo Alto, from 1940 to 1942.
That initial inspiration was probably reinforced, Eichler said, by the
belief that "the masses could have good design."

His first development was probably Sunnyvale Manor I, completed in 1949.
It was followed by subdivisions in Sunnyvale, Palo Alto and Menlo Park. He
soon began working with architects, developing his signature style - flat
roofs, atria, open plans and walls of glass looking out at the back yard.
They were considered quite avant-garde, and not for everyone.

Many admirers said Eichler's genius was in hiring talent. At various
times, he worked with architects Anshen and Allen, Jones & Emmons, and
Claude Oakland - who became notables in their own right.

Of Jewish heritage, Eichler was remembered as a moral man with strong
beliefs in social justice and good design at affordable prices. His
earlier homes cost around $6,500 though buyers in 1949 paid $11,000 for a
home in Palo Alto. His housing developments were open to all races at a
time when segregation was common and legal.

In the late 1960s, Eichler turned to what might be called the "sore thumb
style" of architecture - erecting three residential towers in San
Francisco.

Geneva Towers, a complex of two 20-story highrises designed as middle
income rentals, slid into crime and poverty and were destroyed in 1998.
But Cleary Court in the Western Addition still stands, and the Summit at
999 Green St. on Russian Hill remains an expensive and highly desirable
address for affluent San Franciscans.

A Julia Morgan house was razed to make way for the Summit - and public
dislike of the highrise led to new zoning limits for building heights on
hill tops. Eichler built a final double tower on Lombard Street, then his
business failed. He died in 1974.

Today, Eichler owners and admirers have their own San Francisco-based
association, the Eichler Network, with a quarterly newsletter that's a mix
of boosterism, encouragement, tips for keeping the houses dry and
watertight, and humor written by "Eichlerholic" Wally Fields.

Humor is especially needed since these middle-aged houses - built at a
time of cheap energy - are like high-maintenance lovers and need a lot of
work. The radiant heating pipes in their concrete floors are known for
springing leaks, the large expanses of glass make the houses sizzle in
summer and chill in winter, the wood siding must be kept caulked and
painted, the flat roofs weep under El Nino's lashings.

These homes are not for the lazy or the uninvolved. A miniature service
industry of specialists who can deal with problems has evolved.

For Eichler fanatics, the connection is deep.

"I've developed an emotional attachment to the homes," said Marty
Arbunich, executive director of the Eichler Network.

"I care about what's going on with the homeowners and the service
companies. (The homeowners) love the fact that somebody cares about them,
they appreciate somebody cares about the special kind of house they always
knew they had."

Nevertheless, in Palo Alto, the squeeze for housing and the Internet gold
rush have led to efforts to try to overturn the town's historic
preservation ordinances. Eichler aficionados K.C. and Mark Marcinik said
they fear for some of these houses.

"There are so many Eichler houses that there's this contempt of
familiarity," said K. C. Marcinik, whose firm, Greenmeadows Architects of
Palo Alto, remodels Eichler homes.

Of course, not all hold them in contempt. Today, Eichlers sell in the
upper six figures in and around Silicon Valley.


1999 San Francisco Examiner Page E 7