John Marsh Davis: Northern California Legacy
If you’re a Bay Area native, or just visiting, you’ve likely stepped inside a building designed by Hans Baldauf. His architectural firm is responsible for the interior of the San Francisco Ferry Building and the restoration of the Palace of Fine Arts, among other familiar projects. But unless you’ve been wine tasting in Napa Valley, you’ve likely not stepped inside a building by John Marsh Davis (1931–2009), whose majestic, dreamy constructions stand as wineries and private residences along the valley. Luckily, Baldauf has recently published a book, “Design Legacy of John Marsh Davis: Early Career: Wooden Expressionism 1961–1979,” with lots of large photographs of Davis’s work to get lost in. This first volume of a series on Davis is an account of the architect’s formative years spent in Oklahoma and the homes and wineries he built for himself and others in Northern California.
Davis’s buildings are extensions of Californian landscape: eliding indoor and outdoor space, they have the elegance of the old trees that surround them, constructed in wood but growing in lightness. Earlier this month, we spoke with Baldauf about the enduring magic of this neglected master.
Studio AHEAD: We can start with how you first became interested in Davis’s work and why you felt the need to write a book about him.
Hans Baldauf: I became interested in John Marsh Davis’s work when my firm, BCV Architecture + Interiors, was hired to renovate Joseph Phelps Vineyards old winery that John had designed 40 years prior, to create an expended visitors center and offices. I had long admired this particular building as well as a number of his other buildings throughout the Bay Area from Stinson Beach to Mill Valley and up in Napa as well. I was surprised that I was not able to find a monograph on his work. Bill Phelps put me in touch with John’s niece, Katy Davis Song. Katy had preserved John’s archives. Katy generously allowed us to scan the drawings and material from John’s scrap books. This became the basis of the book. Assembling the book and doing the research took most of a decade as I had to fit it in on the side of managing an architecture practice with my partners.
SA: You introduce the concept of “wood expressionism.” What is it and whose works, besides Davis’s, would you consider to be wood expressionist? Is it purely a regional thing?
HB: I coined the term “wood expressionism” because whenever I found myself in one of John’s buildings, I felt the emotional power of the way John uses wood to create and animate space. The work reminded me of Franz Ruen’s abstract expressionism book, “The Emotional Intensity of Expressionism,” and applied it to non-figurative art. John seemed to be doing the same with wood structures. As I learned more about John’s education under Bruce Goff at the University of Oklahoma, all of this made sense. Goff championed an approach to architecture in which each student was to explore his or her understanding of design. John’s buildings are an expression of his view of the world. Interestingly, a group of OU graduates came to California in the late 1950s and 60s where they supported each other and found an audience for their experimental approach to architecture. We have explored this group of architects in two recent exhibitions—the first, Outré West, at the Oklahoma Contemporary, and Do Not Try to Remember at the San Francisco Center for Architecture and Design.
SA: Davis’s designs often break down the indoors/outdoors dichotomy, as in the Barbour House. Has this influenced your own work in spaces that are mixed private and public? What have you learned from him?
HB: John’s designs are inspiring to me in how they break down exterior and interior divides, from the way that the Joseph Phelps building is split in two to the great sliding doors at the Barbour House. We have explored similar strategies at the new winery we designed for Sullivan Rutherford Estate. I am very influenced by John’s use of wood structure, which can be seen both at the Overland Trail Cabin at the Sugar Bowl Ski Resort and the Fall River Cabin.
SA: After writing the book, you must have come away with a different feeling towards his work.
HB: The joy of researching the book has been the opportunity to get to know the exceptional group of clients and craftspeople that John was surrounded by and these individuals were also interwoven into this unique group of Oklahoma trained architects of John’s era. I have been very enriched by the collaboration with the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma.
SA: "The Design Legacy of John Marsh Davis" is volume one. What’s in store for volume two?
HB: I have several other book projects that I am working on—a history of the Les Halles Market Hall in Paris and one on the food culture in the Bay of Naples over the last 2,500 years that are occupying my time right now. My hope is to get to the second volume on John’s work as soon as possible.