Donlyn Lyndon is an American architect, planner, and educator who worked primarily in California and the East Coast. Lyndon was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1936. His father, Maynard Lyndon, was an architect known for designing modern school buildings across California and Michigan, including Northville School in Northville, Michigan, known as the first modern public school in America, and Bunche Hall, at University of California, Los Angeles. Donlyn Lyndon’s mother, Joyce Earley Lyndon was a landscape architect and planner. In 1953, Donlyn Lyndon began attending Princeton University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in 1957, and a Master of Fine Arts in Architecture in 1959. At Princeton, Lyndon befriended architects Charles Moore and William Turnbull, Jr. Between 1959-1960 Lyndon studied in India on a Fulbright scholarship (1959-1960). He is married to artist/photographer Alice Wingwall.

In 1963, Donlyn Lyndon joined a partnership with Charles Moore, William Turnbull, Jr., and Richard Whitaker, forming the firm MLTW (Moore Lyndon Turnbull Whitaker). MLTW, along with Lawrence Halprin, designed the master plan for The Sea Ranch, located on the Sonoma Coast of Northern California, as well as Condominium One. The condominium drew high praise from critics and the general public alike, and the firm instantly made a name for itself. Condominium One is now on the National Register for Historic Places. In addition to The Sea Ranch, MLTW completed several other significant projects, including Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the Faculty Club at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Most MLTW projects can be found in the William Turnbull, Jr./MLTW Collection at the Environmental Design Archives at the University of California, Berkeley. By 1970, the firm MLTW, had dissolved with all principal designers leaving the firm to pursue academic careers and establish new firms, but remained in close contact.

As an educator, Donlyn Lyndon held faculty positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oregon, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After graduating from Princeton University, Lyndon led the Architecture Department at the University of Oregon. As head of the Department from 1964 to 1967 starting at the age of 28, Lyndon was a key figure in the expansion of the department. From 1967 to 1978, Lyndon was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and served as chair of the Architecture Department from 1967-1975.

In 1978, Lyndon took a position at the University of California, Berkeley as professor of Architecture, and served as chair of the Architecture Department from 1996-1999. At the UC, Berkeley Lyndon taught studio, seminar, and lecture courses both in the Architecture and Masters of Urban Design Programs. He also founded the Graduate Group for the Design of Urban Places, served as a Chancellor’s Professor, and was a founding Editor of PLACES, a journal of environmental design. Lyndon is the first Eva Li Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at UC Berkeley and is currently Professor Emeritus.

Lyndon has also held guest professorships at University College (London), Bartlett School (1970); University of Maryland (1975-1976); and Lund University in Sweden (2010-2017). In 1997 Lyndon received the Topaz Award, one of the most distinguished awards for excellence in architectural education, from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Between 1977 and 2003, Lyndon served as a board and faculty member of the International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, also known as ILAUD, originally directed by architect Giancarlo de Carlo. Lyndon taught design seminars in Urbino, Siena, San Marino & Venice, Italy and Seminars in Oslo, Barcelona, Paris, Brussels, Ferrarra, and Berkeley.

Prior to returning to Berkeley, Lyndon practiced architecture as the principal of Lyndon Associates in Cambridge, MA. Their most significant project was Pembroke Dormitories at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. The project, done between 1968 and 1975, was a collaboration between MLTW and Lyndon Associates. It received a Progressive Architecture first design award in 1970, an honor award from Boston Society of Architects in 1977, and an AIA Honor Award in 1979. On returning to Berkeley in 1978, Lyndon asked fellow architect and designer, Marvin Buchanan, to partner with him in the firm Lyndon/Buchanan Associates which continued until 2006. Prior to their partnership, Lyndon and Buchanan had worked closely together first at MLTW on The Sea Ranch Condominium One. Later Buchanan played an important role in the work of MLTW/Moore Turnbull, in San Francisco and New Haven, and led the Boston office of MLTW/Lyndon, which became Lyndon/Buchanan Associates. University Avenue Housing in Berkeley was Lyndon/Buchanan partnership’s first project (1978), consisting of new and rehabilitated apartment buildings, flats, row houses and bungalows—constructed with government subsidies as a limited equity cooperative. Other notable projects include: Bayer Research Campus planning and urban design guidelines (Berkeley, CA), as well as several houses and siting/design guidelines for a segment of The Sea Ranch, and the Hanzlik residence in Austin, Texas. In 1987 the firm formed an urban design team consisting of Allan Jacobs, Randy Hester, Marcia McNally, and Frances Halsband, which prepared the Pasadena Civic Center Master Plan and a later urban design plan for the Pasadena Playhouse District.

Throughout his career Lyndon has written extensively about the structure of “place” and the ways in which architecture intersects with the lives of people and the sites of which it becomes a part. He is the author of several books, including The Sea Ranch (with Jim Alinder) and The City Observed: Boston. He co-authored, with Charles Moore, Chambers for a Memory Palace and The Place of Houses. He has authored many articles for journals and magazines including Casabella, Spazio e Societa, Progressive Architecture, Places, Journal of Architectural Education, Global Architecture Houses, World Architecture, and the International Encyclopedia of Higher Education. He was a founder and for many years the editor of Places: Forum of Design for the Public Realm. He also served for nine years as the director of the Mayors’ Institute for City Design, West—a National Endowments for the Arts initiative to help transform communities and teach mayors to be the chief urban designers of their cities.

Sources: Curriculum Vitae, Donlyn Lyndon, 2019