The town of San Rafael, one of the original Spanish missions in California, 30 min drive north of San Francisco,... is a bustling little town, and in the old days used to be a sleepier summer vacation destination for wealthy San Franciscans wanting to get out of the city. Now its a tree lined suburb. It can, however, boast of one major architectural building, besides its historic Mission church, and that is a large complex of buildings designed to house the administrative and civic offices for the whole county of Marin, designed by the 20th century's greatest architect Frank lloyd Wright.
Although it comes late in the famous architects life, it has many of the hallmarks of his "Organic Architecture" style. It was reported that he wished to make a building that would meld into and reflect the golden, rolling California hills that surround it.
ummm...I'm not sure how a blue roof and a gold spire do this, exactly, but he convinced many people about the grandiosity of his plan, and of his genius. enough of them so his plan could go through.
It doesn't exactly "melt" into the landscape, but there are rounded sloping forms in the central axis (now the Marin Library) and a nice elongated curved form that doesnt exactly scar the surrounding hills.There are far more trees now than when it was built, and one cant even see it from the highway.
From viewing his sketches, it seems close to his original idea. Indeed his drawings are beautiful, as is his original model.
The building dates to the 1950's. This building belongs to the later period when he was very busy, churning out great numbers of commissions: everything from doghouses to gas stations to shopping plazas. His plan actually called for lots more structures, that unfortunately never got finished, including a large children's playground on a little island in the lagoon, and an outdoor amphitheater with a covered roof and open walls.
Although the Civic Center has many of the touches that we might come to expect of architecture of the 1950's and early 60's, it actually possesses much of what we come to admire in Wright's work, and it has signature elements that he developed over the course of his career.
an example: his use of a long skylight in the main atriums, so as to let in natural light all the way to the lower corridors, where there are plants and stones in the center of the aisle. This might seem common enough in any shopping mall, but we must remember that this was not the case at the time. It is a testament to Wrights ideas that they survive and have become so ubiquitous in our later large structures.
Wright used curved glass in large sheets to create the skylight. Perhaps this technology was just becoming affordable, and so it was exploited to effect.
Wright also enjoyed the building up of repeated forms, the way Nature repeats forms in various proportions in plants and geological features. His gates of vertical and rounded forms echo in the circular windows, the rows of circular forms on the roofs, and the circular globe light fixtures.
The building is a little shabby around the edges compared with the ultra modern buildings, malls, airports, and office buildings we are used to today. There is an old small elevator with chipped gold paint, and lots of linoleum and concrete visible. It feels like a building that gave rise to the ones we have today. Its not exactly an elegant building, nor is it sleek, cool, and detached. It is definetly not in the International style.
It has a certain warmth of character, despite its bland function and uninspired decor. It feels like an old coat from my grandfathers generation, one thats a little shabby and out of style, but too unique and lovely to discard or dismiss.
One must remember that Wright was a 19th century man, a man who came of age at the turn of the century, and saw the transition from the old character of the 19th century to the sleekness and experimentation of the 20th. He pioneered much of what we are trying to incorporate into architecture today, a certain sensitivity to the forms and rhythms of the surrounding landscape. although the 'Greening' of architecture today is more in terms of sustainable materials, the same spirit of holism is there. For Wright it lay more in people's approach to naturally sympathetic design, whereas today it lies in concepts such as the breathability of the home and use of non-toxic materials.
