William Wilson Wurster, FAIA

Year Awarded: 1969
Born: March 09, 1905; Stockton, California, USA
Died: 1973;

Quote
Architecture is not a goal. Architecture is for life and pleasure and work and for people. The picture frame, not the picture. I like to work on direct, honest solutions, avoiding exotic materials, using indigenous things so that there is no affectation and the best is obtained for the money.


Projects
• 1941: Lyman House, Tiburon, Calif.
• 1941: Sibbett House, San Francisco
• 1940: Pope House, Orinda, Calif.
• 1937: Clark Beach House, Aptos, Calif.
• 1937: Jensen House, Berkeley, Calif.
• 1936: Butler House, Pasatiempo, Calif.
• 1927: Gregory Farmhouse, Santa Cruz, Calif.


Biography
William Wurster studied at the University of California, becoming versed in the Beaux-Arts tradition. In 1943, he moved to Harvard to study urban planning, but instead became dean of the School of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remaining there from 1944 to 1950. In 1945, he founded the architecture firm Wurster, Bernard & Emmons.

While he was at MIT, Wurster changed the fundamental practice of how students’ designs were judged for the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design competitions. He arranged for their submissions to be judged at MIT so they could receive feedback from their own professors. When he became dean at the architecture school of the University of California, Berkeley, he instituted a similar program to support the students’ development there. Wurster was dean of the school through the 1950s. In 1959, he established the new College of Environmental Design, incorporating the departments of architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning in the new school.

“Less is more” was one of his driving beliefs and he exhibited that in his designs. He took advantage of the California sun by employing passive solar heat and by orienting his houses toward the sun to warm and light the main living areas. He also was a strong proponent of bringing the outdoors inside by creating windowed and doorway connections between most if not all the living areas and by incorporating carefully cultivated gardens