Robert Judson Clark 1937–2011 Anthony Bruce Robert Judson Clark at work on his Thorsen House manuscript, Berkeley, 1982 (photo: Anthony Bruce) With the death of architectural historian Robert Judson Clark on 4 January 2011, BAHA lost a friend and a mentor. Robert’s abiding love for Berkeley and its architectural heritage was an inspiration for all of us through the years. Robert was a 1960 graduate of the University of California. During his college years, he rented a cottage behind a Maybeck-designed house on Durant Avenue, just below Piedmont Avenue. Many years later, Robert would tell us that, as a new student in Berkeley, he was intrigued by the architectural discoveries made during his walks around town. He was especially taken with the Thorsen House (Greene & Greene, 1909), located around the corner from his cottage. Robert was determined to learn everything he could about Berkeley’s architectural treasure trove, and this determination led him on a search for architects and original homeowners, a number of whom were still living, and whom he had the foresight to interview. Robert with Betty Marvin in front of Allanoke, 1982 (photo: Anthony Bruce) Robert spent many years as a professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, where he also earned his doctorate. Keeping Berkeley close to his heart, he bought a Princeton brown-shingle house that might have been transplanted from Benvenue Avenue. He took every opportunity to revisit the town that was such an important early inspiration for him. We were fortunate that on those visits he always paid a call at the BAHA office. Whatever work was at hand would be put aside in order to share discoveries with Robert and learn about his most recent architectural passions. His enthusiasm for Berkeley and its buildings showed no bounds and was for us exhilerating and infectious. It gave a legitimacy to our own sense of pride in Berkeley’s architectural heritage. We first met Robert during the summer of 1975, when he taught a course at the University of California and was staying in a Julia Morgan–designed house on Parker Street. This was before the establishment of a BAHA office, and our unofficial headquarters were located in the Gifts and Exchange Department at Doe Library, where BAHA founder Lesley Emmington worked. As Robert was also on campus, there was the opportunity for many informal chance encounters, as well as the privilege of sitting in on some of his lectures. We felt that we had never before met anyone with such an ebullient and passionate personality: he was good-natured, humorous, knowledgeable, and he fully expressed his love for Bay Region architecture and for Berkeley. Here was a delightful kindred spirit—someone who could explain to us novices in an educated way why we should care for and preserve Berkeley’s architecture. Robert and Nancy Clark on BAHA’s “Among the Rocks” house tour, 2007 (photo: Daniella Thompson) That summer culminated with a memorable and emotional talk for BAHA members on architect Louis Christian Mullgardt, at the restored Mullgardt-designed home of Anita and Robert Stein in Piedmont. Mullgardt was of special interest to Robert. He had researched his life and work since his student days. At Stanford University, he had written his graduate thesis on Mullgardt, and soon became the expert on this architect. Robert wrote Louis Christian Mullgardt, the catalog for a 1966 exhibition at the University Art Museum of the University of California at Santa Barbara and the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. Unfortunately, his promised monograph on Mullgardt was never completed. An international authority on the Arts and Crafts Movement, Robert was considered the father of the Arts and Crafts revival. He directed the now-legendary 1972 exhibition at Princeton University Art Museum titled The Arts and Crafts Movement in America, 1876–1916. The exhibition traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. Robert also edited the exhibition catalog. Over the years, Robert continued his involvement with BAHA—at first from a distance and then closer at hand, after he and his family moved to the Bay Area in the mid-1990s. He contributed historic resource forms on Berkeley’s two extant Mullgardt houses to the inventory BAHA completed for the State of California in 1979. He has given talks and slide lectures that were always well attended. Most recent and especially memorable was his lecture on Maybeck’s abundant year of creativity, 1907, delivered at the Hillside Club in May 2009. Robert and Nancy on BAHA’s “Maybeck Country” house tour, 2009 (photo: Daniella Thompson) In recent years, Robert Judson Clark served on the board of directors of Friends of First Church Berkeley, the non-profit organization dedicated to the restoration of Maybeck’s First Church of Christ, Scientist. The Clark family suggests that contributions in his name may be made to Friends of First Church or to Thorsen House Restoration Fund, another ongoing project about which Robert was passionate. All of us, in some way, have felt Robert Judson Clark’s positive influence. His influence will continue through his scholarly research, through his writings, and through the many people who have been inspired by him. Copyright © 2011–2016 BAHA. All rights reserved.