Ernest J. Kump, Jr. (1911-1999), was born in Bakersfield, CA. His father Ernest Kump, Sr was also an architect,Ernest Kump, Jr’s younger brother Peter became an architect in 1946, working in Menlo Park, CA, for most of his career. Kump, Jr.(hereafter referred to as Kump) married Josephine Clark Miller in 1934 and had two children.

Kump drafted for pioneer California architect J.N. Saffell (1858-1936) and studied under noted architectural educator Clarence Cullimore FAIA (1885-1963) at Kern County Union High School in Bakersfield. He received his B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1932 and began studies for his Masters in Architecture at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1933. He was forced to return to California due to limited funding, where he worked for his father’s architectural firm in Fresno. Kump, Sr. fired his son in 1934 over conflicting ideals on design, which the senior Kump characterized as "chicken coop architecture."

Kump met Charles Franklin while working at his father’s office and they established the firm of Franklin & Kump in 1937 with offices in Fresno and Bakersfield. One of their earliest advanced designs was Fowler Grammar School (1937). Early work that established him as a brilliant and innovative architect included Bakersfield's Sill Building, the Fresno City Hall and Acalanes High School in Lafayette, hailed by critics as outstanding examples of innovative open plan modular construction.

Franklin and Kump rose to national distinction with their modern design for Fresno City Hall (1941), which was selected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York as one of the most significant American structures built between 1932 and 1944. They left Fresno for the Bay Area during World War II to provide the military with their architectural knowledge and skills. Kump worked with structural engineer Mark Falk where he applied his ideas on modular and prefabricated construction to produce the Naval Optical and Ordnance Building at Hunters Point, one of the world's first transparent multi-story buildings.

Following WWII, Franklin, Kump & Falk established a practice in San Francisco. This firm's legacy is preserved in the San Joaquin Valley by the high-profile United Airlines Airport Terminal at Merced (1947). This advanced International style facility received highest honors in the 1948 annual awards competition sponsored by Progressive Architecture.

In the late 1940s, Kump’s partnership received multiple awards and recognitions due to Kump's influence as a public spokesman for modern architecture. Kump was a panelist on the very significant Planning Man's Physical Environment, a three-day symposium held at Princeton University in 1947 as part of the school's bicenntenial celebration along with Alvar Aalto, Serge Chermayeff, Sigfried Gideon, Walter Gropius, Philip Johnson, George Fred Keck, Richard Neutra, Konrad Wachsmann, Frank Lloyd Wright, William Wurster and other eminent practitioners and scholars.

Kump formed Ernest Kump Associates in 1955 with offices in Palo Alto and New York. During this period he designed numerous educational buildings in California, including the much lauded Foothill College (with Peter Walker, landscape architect), De Anza College, and Crown College, University of California, Santa Cruz Other designs of recognition include the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Korea and the Pacific Lumber Company Headquarters in San Francisco. In 1990, he partnered with Hiko Takeda to research and develop

Kump was part of the Master Planning Committee at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), starting in 1961 with Theodore Bernardi, Robert Anshen, John Carl Warnecke and Thomas Church. He became the supervising architect for the UCSC in 1963, and also the architect for Crown College and for the Central Services Building.

Kump was a prolific inventor holding 59 international and U.S. patents. During the 1940s, Kump created Prebilt production designs as a solution to low cost, prefabricated structures. This technology was used to create defense housing during a collaboration with the noted firm of Wurster, Berardi, & Emmons. He created Tekkto Systems in 1970 to explore the potential of space age technology for mass production of low-cost housing. That same year, the American Institute of Architects recognized the importance of Ernest J. Kump Associates, praising Kump as "a pioneer of modular practices and systems concepts in architecture."

Kump authored several books, including the noted A New Architecture for Man, served on President Ronald Reagan's Task Force for Arts and Humanities and taught at many universities, including Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was elected a fellow of the AIA in 1956, and was a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, Royal Society of Arts in London, Akademic der Kunste in Berlin and the International Union of Architects and International Arts and Letters in Switzerland. He served as Chair, American Institute of Architects Committee on School Buildings, 1948-1949; as a judge for the American Institute of Steel Construction's 1949 contest for the most beautiful bridge in the U.S; as an AIA Delegate to the International Congress of Architects, 1951-1955; and as a member, City of Palo Alto, School Planning Committee, 1949-1955.

After retiring from active practice in the United States, Kump lived abroad and maintained a London office from which he continued working as an international architectural consultant. Until his death, Kump remained dedicated to his research on low-cost modular building systems for housing, educational, and community facilities. Ernest J. Kump, Jr., died in Zurich, Swtzerland, on November 4, 1999.

Sources:

Hatfield, Larry D. “Innovative Architect Ernest Kump, 87.” San Francisco Examiner. 6 Jan. 2000.

Powell, John Edward. (2004). A Guide to Historic Architecture in Fresno, California. Retrieved from http://historicfresno.org/bio/kumpjr.htm.

Treib, Marc. An Everyday Modernsim: The Houses of William Wurster. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.