Bernard Maybeck is one of the pivotal figures in the regionalist architecture of the San Francisco Bay area. He was also an architect in the tradition of the artist: versatile, colourful, inventive and eclectic. With the First Church of Christ, Scientist, Berkeley (California, 1910), Maybeck was drawn by his client's sincere demand to have a church which expressed the congregation's deep seated faith, and looked not only to romanesque, Gothic and Byzantine forms, but also to contemporary Arts and Crafts philosophies to create an edifice which would evoke the "reinstatement of primitive Christianity", a guiding objective of Christian Science.
Maybeck's design has a convincing unity which contains and far transcends its sources. Massive concrete piers are in counterpoint to large expanses of translucent industrial sash, and the rich, Medieval interior comes to brilliant life through hierarchy of intricately applied colour. The reverence for detail is complete, from carved beams to delicate pew lamps and gilded tracery.
'Architecture In Detail' is a superbly photographed and technically informative series of monographs which embraces a broad spectrum of internationally renowned buildings, drawn predominantly from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Each sixty-page volume contains a lucid text by a respected author; a sequence of large-format, high-quality colour and black and white photographs; a comprehensive set of technical drawings and working details; and a complete bibliography and chronology, thus making these books the definitive work on the subject. They are essential purchases for enthusiasts, practitioners and students alike.
