Bernard Maybeck at Principia College: The Art and Craft of Building

Maybeck at Principia: Architect & Client and the Art & Craft of Building brings focus to Maybeck's late career and work outside California and provides a reevaluation of his design approach and intentions in his more traditionally styled work. The book relies on a unique and extensive archive at Principia College, and documents Maybeck's last and longest commission, the campus plans, un-executed projects, and built architecture for Principia. New assessments have been gained through Maybeck's taped interviews with this major client, Frederic Morgan, and with Edward Hussey of Maybeck's office, as well as on conversations and interviews with others associated with the work. The extensive Maybeck-Morgan correspondence allows much of the story to be told by the participants, through letters and other records preserved in the Principia archives. The Maybeck reassessment is also presented in the light of a wider range of theoretical influences discussed here for the first time.

For those of the college community who live and work at Principia and who daily experience its architecture as art, it is easy to see why Principia College was recently recognized as a National Landmark.

Robert Craig is Professor of Architecture at the College of Architecture, Georgia Tech, where he has taught since 1973. He is President of the 19th Century Studies Association; Secretary of the Society of Architectural Historians (SAH); Past-President of the Southeastern American Society for Eighteenth Century Studies; and a founding trustee, Past President, and currently Treasurer of the Southeast Chapter, SAH. He is author of Atlanta Architecture: Art Deco to Modern Classic, 1929-59, and co-author with John Portman and Aldo Castellano of John Portman: An Island on an Island. Craig has written on Maybeck for over three decades, including his doctoral dissertation on the Principia commission. He lives with his wife and son in Atlanta, Georgia.