Author(s): Caitlin Lempres Brostrom

Design

 Over the course of a career that spanned forty-five years, William Wilson Wurster (1895 1973) designed hundreds of residences up and down the West Coast. Like Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, with whom Wurster maintained a close professional exchange, Wurster blends modernism with the vernacular. Wurster described these homes as "frames for living": spaces that could be fully transformed by the occupant to meet their needs and desires, well-designed canvases for homemaking. Authors Caitlin Lempres Brostrom, AIA, and Richard C. Peters, FAIA, draw upon extensive historical research as well as personal relationships with Wurster to tell the story of his career, including both residential and institutional building. The Houses of William Wurster features new and archival footage of thirty-three of the architect's best-known houses and includes a foreword by Donlyn Lyndon.