Bakewell & Brown

Biographical Information

Arthur Brown, Jr. was born in 1874 in Oakland, California. After graduating from Oakland High School in 1892, Brown went on to the University of California (UC), Berkeley to study civil engineering. During his time at UC, Brown received informal training from architect Bernard Maybeck, who encouraged Brown to continue his architectural studies at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Arthur Brown, Jr. began his studies at the Ecole in 1897 and graduated in 1901, achieving the status of Architecte Diplômé par le Gouvernement Français. Brown stayed on in France to continue his training in the Atelier Laloux and to travel through Europe until 1903.

Returning to the United States in 1904, Brown spent a brief time with the firm Hornblower & Marshall in Washington, DC. In 1905 Brown moved back to San Francisco, where he found employment in the office of Henry Schulze. Later that year Brown was approached by fellow École graduate, John Bakewell, Jr. with an offer to open a firm, and the two young architects joined in practice, opening Bakewell & Brown in 1905. Arthur Brown, Jr. acted as the design partner in the firm, while John Bakewell, Jr. handled the administrative and financial tasks of the firm.

The firm thrived in its early years, largely as a result of the opportunities afforded architects in the rebuilding efforts after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Early architectural projects include Berkeley City Hall (1907), the interiors of the City of Paris department store (1908), and several residences in Oakland. In 1912, Bakewell & Brown won a major competition for the design of San Francisco City Hall. Completed in 1915, San Francisco City Hall remains the masterwork of Bakewell & Brown.

Many significant commissions followed Bakewell & Brown's winning of the San Francisco City Hall competition. In 1913, the firm was hired as the design architect and master planner for Stanford University campus, positions they held until 1942. By 1915 Bakewell & Brown were responsible for the Palace of Horticulture at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco as well as the San Diego station for Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway. In the following years, they designed the Green Library for Stanford University (1919), the Pacific Gas & Electric office building in San Francisco (1922-1926), Pasadena City Hall (1923-1928), Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco (1923-1928), and the California School of Fine Arts (1924-1928, now the San Francisco Art Institute).

From 1911-1913, Brown along with Jean-Louis Bourgeois led an atelier with the San Francisco Architectural Club (SFAC), a group formed in 1901 to provide instruction in architectural design for dedicated draftsmen working in leading San Francisco architectural firms.

The firm of Bakewell & Brown dissolved in 1927, although the two former partners continued to collaborate on many later projects, most notably several buildings on the Stanford University campus. After the dissolution, Brown established his own firm, Arthur Brown, Jr. and Associates, while Bakewell formed Bakewell & Weihe with longtime employee Ernest Weihe. The buildings of Arthur Brown, Jr. and Associates include Coit Tower (1933), the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House and Veteran's Building (1932), the United States Department of Labor and Interstate Commerce Commission Building in Washington, DC (1934), and the Tower of the Sun for the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939).

The last ten years of Brown's career (1938-1948) were spent as supervising architect for UC Berkeley, a position in which he designed many campus buildings. Brown retired from practice in 1950, continuing to consult on various projects including the extension of the US Capitol building and serve on boards until his death in 1957.

From the guide to the Arthur Brown, Jr. photograph collection, 1906-1921, (The Bancroft Library)