ARCHITECT

Eclectic Style.

Bernard Maybeck's eclecticism made him unique in American architecture. In what many consider his best building, the First Church of Christ, Scientist (1910), in Berkeley, California, Maybeck drew on design elements of Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Japanese, and Chinese architecture. A free spirit, he inscribed the initials of his future wife in a monogram that ran around the top of one of his early buildings. He designed his own clothes, including trousers with a high waist that served as a vest.

Early Life and Training.

Maybeck was born in New York City in 1862 to German immigrants. His mother wanted Maybeck to become an artist, but he did poorly in school and joined his father as an apprentice wood-carver. At eighteen he went to Paris as an apprentice in furniture design. The shop was across the street from the Ecole des Beaux Arts; this exposure led him to become...