Founded in 1996, Docomomo US/Northern California is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization dedicated to documenting and conserving the Modern Movement's buildings, sites, and neighborhoods.
Founded in 1996, Docomomo US/Northern California is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) membership organization dedicated to documenting and conserving the Modern Movement's buildings, sites, and neighborhoods.
College of San Mateo’s hilltop College Heights campus is a rare, cohesive Bay Area Neo-Formalist masterpiece by architect John Carl Warnecke—an accessible mid-century modern environment where folded-plate roofs, colonnades, and courtyards quietly create a dignified, university-like experience just south of San Francisco.
Stepping into Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s North Beach loft in 2017, I expected a polite studio visit and instead landed in the middle of her life story—greeted first by Gus the barking dog, then by Barbara’s amused, commanding voice filling the stairwell as completely as her Sea Ranch supergraphics filled a wall. Surrounded by a ping-pong table turned canvas, a towering library, and portfolios she firmly intended for museums, I listened as she leapt from dancing at the Copacabana to nights with Surrealists, then stopped me short—“Are you interested in books about me or by me?”—before selling me her own, signed “Bobby,” and joking the cash would go straight to her dog walker.
Between 1937 and February 1939, a league of architects set out to create a vision of Pacific Unity on Treasure Island. Their vision would reflect the early 20th-century architecture and lifestyles of California and the Pacific Rim- a style that opposed that of the technologically modern New York World Fair occurring in the same year. Yet, three interwar-modern buildings emerged despite the prescribed “Pacific Basin Style” of the Exposition’s Architectural Board. These buildings, perhaps overlooked by modern enthusiasts, would influence the future of Modernism and the second and third Bay Traditions of California architecture for years to come.
Docomomo US Tour Day celebrated Diversity in Modernism to highlight the contributions of female and underrepresented architects, landscape architects, designers, and artists to the modern movement. Like many professions, the field of architecture is primarily dominated by white male architects, and their legacies are entered into the canon. San Francisco’s Chinatown is a great place to explore the work of architects and designers of Chinese descent because it is not only the birthplace of San Francisco but also where modern architecture exists if you know where to look.
This article explores modernist sacred architecture in Northern California, highlighting how architects utilized contemporary technologies to create spaces for community building and religious practice during the last century. It emphasizes that while many architects of these spaces are forgotten, their creations fostered lasting stories within their communities.
The article also notes that beauty can be found in the mundane and functional aspects of modernist architecture, and not every building needs to be a cathedral to be appreciated.
Explore how architects Hertzka & Knowles transformed San Francisco’s downtown in the mid‑20th century, introducing modernist office towers, sleek commercial blocks, and integrated urban design that reshaped the skyline and streetscape into a new, distinctly modern core. All Tickets on Sale Now.
Join us for an in-depth tour of San Francisco’s Glen Park BART Station, described by former SF Heritage President Michael Buhler as “the best example of Brutalism in San Francisco, if not the entire Bay Area,” and Born’s self-declared “masterpiece.” The Glen Park BART Station is an outstanding example of how architecture, landscape, and infrastructure come together in the Bay Area. Ernest Born, working closely with landscape architect Douglas Baylis, designed the station, which is a strong example of mid-century modern civic design shaped by both artistic vision and the city's needs. Member Tickets on sale Aug 12. General Admission Aug 19.
This two-hour tour transforms Montgomery Street and Telegraph Hill into a hands-on exploration of how the conditions of modernity have shaped San Francisco since the late nineteenth century. These conditions include finance, mass media, real estate speculation, surveillance, automobiles, and all types of risk, from financial to natural. We will see how artistic and architectural expressions responded to the conditions of modernity. ON SALE NOW!
Modernism: Born in California features works made throughout the long careers of architects Ernest and Esther Born, from their time as architecture students at UC Berkeley in the 1920s through the days of urban renewal in the 1960s.
September marks the 50th anniversary of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Running Fence project. The installation stretched 24.5 miles across 59 properties in Sonoma and Marin Counties, before descending to the Pacific Ocean. To celebrate the anniversary, the Museum of Sonoma County will host an exhibition, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Running Fence at 50 Years, on view from June 27 through Nov. 8, 2026.
Discover Piet Zwart (1885–1977), the Dutch modernist who called himself a “typotekt” to reflect his fusion of architecture, industrial and interior design, graphic design, typography, and photography. Drawing on Zwart’s groundbreaking work from the 1920s to the 1960s, this exhibition shows how type alone can carry a brand’s voice and how architectural thinking can shape graphic identity.
For many in the Bay, Lake Merritt is beautiful, civic, gleaming, and strange, as only the unwieldy possibilities of public space can conjure. Its mid-century years, 1945-1976, are the focus of Docomomo Northern California’s Tour Day in the spirit of the 2026 national theme of “Recreation and Play”.
Contribute your superlative personal ephemera. Create and share your digitized* slides, negatives, prints, scrapbook items, Polaroids, ticket stubs, flyers, propaganda, stickers, sketches, and digital photos of festival t-shirts, family reunion mugs, DIY art, etc.
Docomomo US Summer 2026 Reads spotlights new and classic books on modern architecture and design, including Northern California’s experimental and environmental modernism. The curated titles connect Bay Area projects like The Sea Ranch and back‑to‑the‑land architecture to a broader global story of place, justice, and identity.
Ernest and Esther Born helped shape San Francisco modernism through architecture, photography, graphic design, and planning. UC Berkeley’s exhibition Modernism: Born in California, on view through September 30, 2026, traces their Bay Area legacy from the 1920s to the 1960s at Bauer Wurster Hall’s Environmental Design Library.
Docomomo US/Northern California honors the life and legacy of Donlyn Lyndon, FAIA, who was an architect, teacher, writer, and a key figure in Northern California modernism. He passed away on April 5, 2026, at The Sea Ranch at the age of 90. As a founding partner of Moore, Lyndon, Turnbull and Whitaker, Lyndon played a major role in shaping The Sea Ranch in the early 1960s. He described it as a coastal community built on a “limited partnership” between buildings and the land, reflecting values of stewardship, collaboration, and care.
The 19th International Docomomo Conference in Los Angeles explored how modernism is anything but a placeless “white box,” foregrounding climate-responsive design, regional identity, and the conservation of experimental modern architecture. Through panels on “Modernism in the Sun,” case studies like Marcel Breuer’s precast facades and Sim Van der Ryn’s Gregory Bateson Building, and tours of works by Paul R. Williams, Charles Moore, and other California innovators, the conference highlighted “Multiple Moderns” shaped by local histories, materials, and communities—and the complex challenges of preserving them for the future.
![How Downtown Became Modern - The Work of Hertzka & Knowles [Walking Tour]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c806e5734c4e2faa1db54c9/6583ea05-4db5-4c1f-a5ec-c1d4de7c30da/docomomo-HK-invite-01.png)
![Modernism, Born in California: Glen Park BART Brutalism [Tour]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c806e5734c4e2faa1db54c9/53907563-ea0d-46a3-914a-5c774d250e65/Glen+Park+BART+Photo+by+Kevin+H+Souza.jpeg)
![Thoroughly Modern Montgomery [Walking Tour]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c806e5734c4e2faa1db54c9/c7d6aa05-a86a-485b-93ce-786d01f4ec5d/Montgomery+Street+from+Green+Street+Stairs.png)
Hagen History Center in Erie, Pennsylvania, has opened the Frank Lloyd Wright Field Office Museum, built around Wright’s former San Francisco field office at 319 Grant Avenue. Used by Wright and associate Aaron Green from 1951 until 1959, the compact office served as a Bay Area base for Northern California work, culminating in the Marin County Civic Center. Now reassembled as the centerpiece of a 2,700‑square‑foot “museum within a museum,” the installation lets visitors walk through the office and drafting room, experiencing Wright’s redwood plywood construction, 120‑degree geometries, partial‑height walls, and signature red tile while surrounded by artifacts and audio‑visual material about his life and work.