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The book, “William Turnbull, Jr: Building in
the Landscape” by William Turnbull and Bill Stout examines 20 of
Turnbull’s projects, selected by Turnbull himself before he passed
on at the age of 64. An essay by Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA gives the
history about the early years of MLTW as well as commentary on the
work of his close friend. The photography is done in black&white
by Morley Baer and is superb.
Mr. Turnbull was a founding member of Moore
Lyndon Turnbull & Whitaker, otherwise known as MLTW. This famous
architectural firm was based in Berkeley and produced some of the
most memorable architecture in the 1960’s—culminating in
ultra-famous The Sea Ranch Condominium No. 1. Formed and led by
Charles Moore as design-guru, he and 2 of his ex-graduate school
charges, along with a third, MLTW fused sophisticated spatial ideas
with Bay Area regionalism to great success. The firm broke up
“rock n’ roll super-group style” (without the animosity, though)
with Moore spinning off to become Citizen-Architect to the World. The
other three (Donlyn Lyndon, William Turnbull, and Richard Whitaker)
carved out their own successful solo careers in architectural
education, architectural practice, or both. Three partners left for
all parts of the country, it was Turnbull who remained in San
Francisco and continued the practice.
In this terrific monograph, one can easily see
the Turnbull’s evolution from a regionalism with barn-like forms to
his own unique final combination of vernacular regionalism. The Sea
Ranch Condo No.1 was only the beginning. His master-work Hines
house 1970 is about as good as residential architecture can get and
is an equal to any other structure constructed by his contemporaries
such as Richard Meier, only Turnbull’s work is rendered in
redwood. Later, Turnbull’s designs became richly-crafted wooded
residences for the California gentleman-farmer that drew inspiration
from that other building that sat next to the barn—the farm-house
with the covered wooden porch. The spatial qualities are still
there but the MLTW dynamic fluid spatial games give way to elegant,
placid spatial solutions that still fit nicely in the landscape. His Alewelt House in 1978 is a masterpiece of his solo career because it
fuses MLTW ideas with his growing interest in farm houses with their
porches.
Charles Moore casts a long shadow across this
monograph. Turnbull and Moore collaborated on many projects during
and after the MLTW days. Some projects were attributed to one
partner when it was really the other partner or even both. And,
given the collaborative process unique to MLTW, it was never clear
about how much input a partner had in any one design. But what is
definitely clear is that Moore was the major creative force within MLTW and clearly the mentor to Turnbull in those early days . However, to this
observer, Moore needed the design discipline that only
Turnbull could offer, being a partner. However, Turnbull
needed Moore to to give the creative edge. Together they created some great architecture. Later in
their solo careers, Moore's projects grew more eccentric and the
design quality varied greatly. Everyone was probably so cowed
by Moore that no one probably had the gumption to simply tell Moore
that a design was a lemon. Turnbull's projects possess a very high quality
but tend to be conservative and probably could've used a "shot" of Moore
for some zing. I think a passage on their relationship would
have been a nice addition.
Influences aside, Turnbull was a very very good architect
in his own right -He deserves
this book and all recognition that goes along with it. I strongly
recommend this monograph to those who are interested to find out
more about this particular architect and about Bay Region
Architecture in general. This book focuses only on his residential
work, but Turnbull designed some particularly fine churches and
schools as well. So, as nice as this monograph is, the book
shouldn’t be closed on Turnbull just yet.
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