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None the Wurster for Wear

Frank Lloyd Wright's verbal jabs at 'Redwood Bill' meant more than the praises of lesser architects

By Gordon Young

IN THE MID-1950s, Frank Lloyd Wright delivered a lecture at the University of California at Berkeley. As dean of the School of Architecture, Wurster provided a gracious and glowing introduction for the nation's most famous--and outspoken--architect. Wright responded in typical fashion by declaring: "Three words describe what is wrong with Bay Area architecture: William Wilson Wurster."

The cantankerous Wright regularly referred to Wurster as "Redwood Bill" or the "shanty architect" and ribbed him for having leaky roofs, an all-too-common criticism of Wright's work. "They tell me that after the first rains sometimes you don't come into the office for a day or two," Wright once kidded Wurster.

Donald Emmons, a partner at the architectural firm of Wurster, Bernardi & Emmons, explains that Wurster should have been worried if Wright didn't take a few jabs at him from time to time.

"Wright wouldn't have bothered to comment on Wurster if he didn't think he was someone to be reckoned with," Emmons says. "He would have just ignored him, which was worse."

Like architect Ralph Walker, Wurster was an outspoken supporter of Wright before the American Institute of Architects, an organization Wright never joined and frequently mocked. As early as 1944, Wurster called on the AIA to award Wright its prestigious Gold Medal. In a December 1947 letter to the AIA, Wurster called the oversight "grossly wrong" and declared, "It is time the institute becomes of a stature which recognizes greatness and honors itself by such recognition."

The AIA awarded Wright the Gold Medal for lifetime achievement in 1949. Wurster captured the same honor two decades later.

In his oral history, Wurster remembered getting a telephone call a few weeks before Wright died. "Well, Bill, we don't see enough of each other--not that I like anything you do, but I like you, and we ought to get together and talk architecture," Wright said.

"We certainly should," Wurster responded. "What about right now?"

"No," Wright said. "I'm on my way someplace, but I just wanted to say hello."

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