Bernard Maybeck and Principia College: The Historic District

Elsah, Ill.: Principia College, Elsah, 1998. First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Oblong 12mo with black and color pictorial wraps; xvii, 40 pages: illustrations; 19 x 26 cm Near fine(+) with mild rubbing to edges; contains book release/college ephemera. Paperback. ISBN: 1881601013

Bernard Ralph Maybeck (1862–1957) 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 the San Francisco Bay Area."—Wikipedia. "The Principia college Historic District" represents the final phase of the career of Bernard Maybeck (1862-1957) as a designer of houses and public buildings, and as an architect significantly involved in campus planning and design for educational institutions. A recent poll of the American Institute of Architects ranked Maybeck ninth on a proposed list of the tengreatest architects this country has produced. As early as 1949, Lewis Mumford said "But for Bernard Maybeck's fine reticence, his work would have been hailed long ago as the West Coast counterpart of Wright's prairie architecture.[...] The Principia College commission, [...] kept Maybeck's office functioning through the Great Depression, and the plan was substantially carried out in spite of the change of site and other needed revisions. Maybeck designed 13 building that were constructed at Elsah, Illinois, between 1931 and 1946, and 11 of those structures are still standing. The concentration of Maybeck buildings on the Elsah bluffs rivals the collection of houses of his design still surviving in the Berkeley Hills." --Introduction.