First Bay Tradition (also known as First Bay Area Tradition or San Francisco Bay Region Tradition) was an

architectural style An architectural style is a set of characteristics and features that make a building or other structure notable or historically identifiable. It is a sub-class of style in the visual arts generally, and most styles in architecture relate closely ...

from the period of the 1880s to early 1920s. Sometimes considered a regional interpretation of the Eastern Shingle Style, it came as a reaction to the classicism of

Beaux-Arts architecture Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorporat ...

. Its characteristics included a link to nature, and use of locally sourced materials such as

redwood Sequoioideae, popularly known as redwoods, is a subfamily of coniferous trees within the family Cupressaceae. It includes the largest and tallest trees in the world. Description The three redwood subfamily genera are '' Sequoia'' from coas ...

. It included an emphasis on craftsmanship, volume, form, and asymmetry. The tradition was rooted in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

and the greater

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

. The Environmental Design Archives at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

house a repository of drawings and specifications associated with the tradition.

Joseph Worcester Joseph Emerson Worcester (August 24, 1784 – October 27, 1865) was an American lexicographer who was the chief competitor to Noah Webster of '' Webster's Dictionary'' in the mid-nineteenth-century. Their rivalry became known as the "diction ...

, a minister, mystic, and amateur architect, is believed to have developed the First Bay Tradition in its early stages. The style was later popularized by the architects

Bernard Maybeck Bernard Ralph Maybeck (February 7, 1862 – October 3, 1957) was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in ...

and Willis Polk. Other architects associated with the tradition included A. Page Brown, Ernest Coxhead,

John Galen Howard John Galen Howard (May 8, 1864 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – July 18, 1931 in San Francisco, California) was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at in ...

Julia Morgan Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career.Erica Reder"Julia Morgan was a local in ''The New Fillmore'', 1 Febr ...

Louis Christian Mullgardt Louis Christian Mullgardt (1866-1942) was an American architect associated with the First Bay Tradition. He designed houses in Berkeley, Oakland and other cities; the Court of the Ages at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition; th ...

, and A. C. Schweinfurth. Polk, Maybeck, and Schweinfurth had previously worked in Brown's office. The tradition influenced later styles such as the

Modernists Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

of the follow-on Second Bay Tradition. Transitional architects associated with the bridge between these two traditions were

Henry Higby Gutterson Henry may refer to: People *Henry (given name) *Henry (surname) * Henry Lau, Canadian singer and musician who performs under the mononym Henry Royalty * Portuguese royalty ** King-Cardinal Henry, King of Portugal ** Henry, Count of Portugal ...

and John Hudson Thomas.

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Further reading