Joseph Esherick (1914-1998)

Joseph Esherick was born in Philadelphia in 1914, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in architecture in 1937. He moved to San Francisco the following year, where he worked part-time for structural engineer Walter Steilberg before securing a full-time position in the office of Gardner Dailey.

Esherick served in the Navy during World War II, then opened his own firm in San Francisco in 1946. His early work, primarily residential, was influenced by William Wurster and Gardner Dailey, and built upon their expression of the Bay Area Tradition.

In the 1960s Esherick’s firm began to take on larger projects, such as The Cannery (San Francisco, 1965-67) and Stevenson College at the University of California, Santa Cruz (1965-66). Esherick also designed demonstration houses for The Sea Ranch (1965-67), a planned community noted for the sensitivity of plan and design to the natural elements of the site. Esherick established a partnership with George Homsey, Peter Dodge, and Charles Davis in 1972, and the firm became Esherick, Homsey, Dodge, and Davis (EHDD).

In addition to his work with the firm, Esherick was an educator and consultant. He taught at University of California, Berkeley from 1952-1985 and served as the Dean of the School of Architecture for the university from 1977-1981. Esherick established an independent consulting firm in the early 1980s. His projects included speaking engagements and committee memberships as well as design consulting. In this capacity he served on the Professional Consulting Group for The Sea Ranch twenty years after the community’s original design. He also delivered a number of lectures on topics such as architectural education, the use of computers in design, and the Bay Area Tradition.

Esherick was awarded the American Institute of Architect’s Gold Medal Award in 1989. He continued working as senior design principal at EHDD until his death in 1998.