1965, Pacific Heights, Sarah Dix Hamlin School
2129 Vallejo St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
This concrete school still maintains the unadorned purity of this firm's early work. Next door at 2121 and 2127 Vallejo are two interesting Queen Anne-Eastlake houses, erected in 1890 by builder Albert Wilford (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 47).
The imposing Mannerist mansion on Broadway is backed by Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons's simple and straightforward classroom building below (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 147).
1965, Northern California, Cowell College
University of California, Santa Cruz
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
The site for the campus was selected in 1961 and stands on the old Cowell Ranch which enjoys a superb view over the city of Santa Cruz below and of the bay beyond. The concept of this new campus was that of a series of independent cluster colleges. These were to be grouped at the edge of the redwood grove overlooking the open grass-covered fields which slope down to the outskirts of the city. The site plan was prepared in 1962-63 by Carl Warnecke and Thomas D. Church. The first of the cluster colleges, Cowell College, opened in 1965. Since this date, six additional colleges have been built, and a number of general structures have been added to the site. With the exception of the new student apartments, all of these buildings have been grouped and, one might add, to a considerable extent hidden within the redwood grove. From the beginning, the Regents of the University of California and those involved with the administration of the Santa Cruz campus have sought to make it a showplace of architecture. The roster of those who have designed buildings at the Santa Cruz campus is impressive, not just on a state level, but nationally (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 486).
1965, Peninsula, Woodlake Residential Community
S side Peninsula Ave. bet. N Humboldt and N Delaware Sts., San Mateo
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; Lawrence Halprin, landscape architecture
A large--nearly a thousand unit--apartment community fitted out with all the trappings such as tennis, swim and health clubs, putting greens, etc. The design represents one of the first and still one of the best Planned Unit Developments (PUDs) in the Bay Region. Though the architecture looks dull, the energetic landscaping more than makes up for it (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 134).
Other major Bay Area architects played important roles in evolving the condominium vernacular. Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons did large planned-unit projects. At Woodlake in San Mateo, built in the same year as [Charles W.] Moore's [Sea Ranch] condominium, they achieved, with Lawrence Halprin, a splendid standard of site amenity coupled with a rather artless building. This was typical of a number of Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons' projects of this scale in the Bay Area and beyond (Woodbridge 1988: 254, 257).
1967, Telegraph Hill, Northpoint
2211 Stockton St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
No comment (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 57).
1969, North Bay, Mill Valley Library
Throckmorton at Elma St., Mill Valley
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
A pleasant unpretentious design for a public building which fits well with the town and with its wooded site (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 220).
1969-71, Financial District, Former Bank of America World Headquarters
555 California St., San Francisco
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; Skidmore Owings and Merrill; Pietro Belluschi, consultant
The city's most important office building but no longer owned by its largest bank. The tower's faceted form was partly inspired by Pflueger's 450 Sutter building. The height and dark red color insure its dominance of the skyline, but at sunset it becomes eerily transparent. The shaded, windswept north plaza has a polished black granit sculpture by Masayuki Nagare dubbed "the Banker's Heart" by an irate citizen. An opulent three-level banking hall fronts on Montgomery Street (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 28).
The 52-story carnelian granite-clad tower with its undulating wall is the largest object in the downtown skyline. It is connected to the three-level bank pavilion by a plaza with a concourse below which cuts through the middle of the block (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 66, 545).
In the two blocks west of Montgomery on California, there is a cluster of modern buildings, the most dominant of which is the Bank of America (B of A) Building (49) (1969) at 555 California by Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons and SOM with Pietro Belluschi as consultant. In topping the city skyline along with the Transamerica Pyramid, the B of A Building indicates the direction in which Downtown was headed before the numerous campaigns against high rises. Clad in carnelian granite, the 52-story tower is faceted to provide views from every window. There is a large banking hall on the sourthwest corner of California and Montgomery, and the tower shades a large plaza, served by tapered steps, with a massive black sculpture by Masayuki Nagare, which local wags call the "Banker's Heart." Since the B of A was gobbled up by NationsBank of North Carolina, the building has been a reminder that fewer and fewer locally headquartered corporations can claim to be global giants (Wiley 2000: 169).
1970 [1914], North Waterfront, The Ice Houses (Nos. 1 and 2)
1075-1265 Battery and 151 Union Sts., San Francisco
1914 Charles Wallace; 1970 remodeling by Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
The first of many conversions of old warehouses to new uses that have enlivened the area with often inventive designs melding the old and the new. A pleasant walk down Battery Street, the verge of the original waterfront, will reveal many more (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 119).
Two handsome old brick warehouses (originally designed by Charles Wallace in 1914) remodeled as office space. This area below Telegraph Hill has most of the surviving old waterfront warehouses of the city (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 59).
1972, East Bay, Merritt College
Campus Dr., Oakland
Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons; Reynolds and Chamberlin; Lawrence Halprin Assoc., landscape architecture
The latest of the three contemporary junior colleges in the Peralta District, this group of brut-concrete buildings is coldly composed on its hill-top site (Gebhard, Winter, and Sandweiss 1985: 308).
1973 [1900c], South of Market, The Galleria
101 Kansas St., San Francisco
remodeled by Wurster, Bernardi and Emmons
A spectacular joining of two brick warehouses by a large steel and glass atrium (Woodbridge, Woodbridge and Byrne 2005: 61).
