Joseph Esherick

Who was Joseph Esherick?

Joseph Esherick was an American architect.

Esherick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937, Esherick set up practice in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1953 and taught at University of California, Berkeley for many years. He was awarded the AIA Gold Medal in 1989.

Inheriting the Bay Area architectural tradition of figures like Bernard Maybeck and William Wurster, Esherick's designs for hundreds of houses through his career centered on attention to regional traditions, site requirements, and user needs.

In 1959, Esherick was the co-founder, along with William Wurster and Vernon DeMars, of Berkeley's influential College of Environmental Design. The CED encompassed disciplines of architecture, landscape architecture, environmental planning and city planning, and served as a nexus for figures like Christopher Alexander, Catherine Bauer, Galen Cranz, Donlyn Lyndon, Roger Montgomery, Charles Moore, and William Wilson Wurster.

In 1972 Esherick reorganized his office, turning away from houses to more commercial and academic work, with three longtime associates George Homsey, Peter Dodge and Chuck Davis to form Esherick Homsey Dodge & Davis, the winner of the 1986 Architecture Firm Award. The firm continues today as EHDD Architecture. In 1976, Esherick was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1990.