Born, Ernest, 1898-1992

Ernst Born was an architect, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a frequent collaborator with Walter Horn.

Ernest Born was born in 1898. He studied architecture under John Galen Howard at UC Berkeley and then went to work in Europe. On his return he worked in New York for almost ten years with the distinguished architects Gehron and Ross, and Arthur Loomis Harmon, and on special projects with Corbett, Harrison and McMurray. In the 1930s, Born worked as art director with Architectural Records and then with Architectural Forum. Born's architectural practice in San Francisco began with exhibit buildings and exhibit design at the 1939/40 Golden State International Exposition in Treasure Island. He spent the war years in Manaus, Brazil, with architect Gardner Dailey, and then in the U.S. on special military projects. After the war Born returned to architectural practice in San Francisco. He also became professor of architecture at UC Berkeley, during which time he designed additions and alterations to the William Randolph Hearst Theater on the Berkeley campus, and began his association with Walter Horn. Throughout the 1960s Born was consultant to the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). He was appointed to the San Francisco Art Commission by several mayors, and served as chairman of its Civic, Design, Planning and Architecture committee. Through the 1970s Born devoted himself almost exclusively to working on The plan of St. Gaul with Walter Horn.

Biography

Ernest Born was born in 1898. He studied architecture under John Galen Howard at the University of California, Berkeley and then went to work in Europe. On his return he worked in New York for almost ten years with the distinguished architects Gehron and Ross, and Arthur Loomis Harmon, and on special projects with Corbett, Harrison and McMurray. In the 1930s he worked as art director with Architectural Records and then with Architectural Forum . Born's architectural practice in San Francisco began with exhibit buildings and exhibit design at the 1939/40 Golden State International Exposition in Treasure Island. He spent the war years in Manaus, Brazil, with architect Gardner Dailey, and then in the US on special military projects. After the war Born returned to architectural practice in San Francisco. He also became professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, during which time he designed additions and alterations to the William Randolph Hearst Theater on the Berkeley campus, and began his association with Walter Horn. Throughout the 1960s Born was consultant to the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). He was appointed to the San Francisco Art Commission by several mayors, and served as chairman of its Civic, Design, Planning and Architecture committee. Through the 1970's Born devoted himself almost exclusively to working on The plan of St. Gaul with Walter Horn.

Biographical Note

Ernest Born (1898-1992)

Ernest Born was born in San Francisco in 1898. Educated in San Francisco and Oakland schools, he graduated from UC Berkeley's School of Architecture in 1922. Following graduation he traveled to Europe on a Fellowship returning to receive his master's degree in Architecture from the University of California in 1923. From 1927 to 1928 he studied decorative painting and fresco in Europe and in 1936 he traveled to Mexico to study modern architecture. Early in his career, Born worked with John Galen Howard, John Reid Jr., and George Kelham. He received his license to practice architecture in New York in 1931, and in California in 1937. In 1926 he married UCB Architecture School graduate Esther Baum ('26) with whom he traveled and shared an architectural practice (1945-1973). Esther B. Born was a widely regarded architectural photographer. (See Biographical Note below.)

An accomplished artist as well as architect, Born's designs included exhibits, murals, and building design for the 1939-40 Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco, low rent housing for the San Francisco Housing Authority, residences, warehouses, offices, plant designs, and showrooms. He performed site and master planning for the University of California and consulted on product and book design projects. Later in his career, Born participated in the design of the Glen Park BART station and drafted the signs for 33 BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) stations. Born also did editorial and design work for the Architectural Record and Architectural Forum magazines, as well as rendering designs for other firms, designing furniture, painting in oils and watercolor, and creating illustrations and art prints.

Born was a member of the faculty at the UC Berkeley School of Architecture from 1951 to 1958, and from 1962 to 1974. A member of the A.I.A., he was director of the San Francisco Art Association from 1947 to 1950, serving as its president in 1951. He was also a member of the Art Commission of the City and County of San Francisco from 1947 to 1950. His works were published in various professional architectural magazines from 1929 onward. Born created the illustrations and co-authored both of The Plan of St. Gall and The Barns of the Abbey of Beaulieu (UC Press) with Walter Horn. He died in 1992 in San Diego.

Esther Born (1902-1987)

Esther Baum, was a graduate of the UCB Architecture School (1926) where she studied under John Galen Howard. She married Ernest Born in the same year she graduated. During the Great Depression she studied photography, which she practiced successfully throughout her life. She became interested in the architecture of Mexico and drove south to experience the architecture for herself. She returned 10 months later with photographs, drawings, and plans of the country's architecture and design. The compilation of this work was first published in an issue of Architectural Record in April 1937. The article was expanded into a book, The New Architecture in Mexico published by Wm. Morrow & Co. (New York, 1937). This monograph has been credited with directing the attention of the world to the rise of modern architecture in Mexico.

From 1938 through 1940, she photographed the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in San Francisco. Her subjects included the many different aspects of the Exposition: buildings, construction, fresco painting, opening events, exhibit halls, exhibits, and the general environment.

Her photographs were published in several architectural journals throughout her career, and of note are her architectural photographs highlighted in an article featuring Frank Lloyd Wright's "Honeycomb House" ( Architectural Record, July 1938).

From 1945 through 1973 she shared an architecture practice with Ernest Born. She continued to take many outstanding photographs of architecture designed by him and others.

Biographical/Historical Note

Ernest Born (1898-) was an architect, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a frequent collaborator of Walter Horn, whose related papers the repository also holds. One of their best-known collaborations resulted in the exhaustive study, The Plan of St. Gall, 1979. They also wrote on medieval timber hall structures in the 1965 publication, Barns of the Abbey of Beaulieu at its granges of Great Coxwell & Beaulieu-St. Leonards .