Frank Lloyd Wright’s Marin County civic center: A vision that continues to inspire Bay Area professionals

Over the decades, those who live for architecture or those who work in the Marin Civic Center find it both fascinating and endearing.

“The setting and stunning architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright's Civic Center is one of the great pleasures of practicing law in Marin County,” said Morgan Daly, a criminal defense advocate who has worked in the courtrooms for over a decade.

“Having started my career at San Francisco's Hall of Justice which is in a more Brutalist architectural style (heavy materials, angular geometric shapes, small windows, monochrome color palette), I especially appreciate coming through security on the court floor and being greeted by a view of the Sorich Park ridge. I think it makes a difference to litigants as well — many of whom are at the courthouse dealing with very difficult circumstances — to be in a beautiful space.”

It's clear to Daly that Wright thought about the occupants of the space not just its purpose. The circular rooms, the warm colors and the indoor plant-filled atriums ease clients’ anxiety as well as contribute to the collegial atmosphere among the lawyers who practice there.

“I remember the first time I addressed a jury from the well (the space between the ‘bar’ where attorneys sit and the ‘bench’ where the judge sits) in a Marin County courtroom. The well is round with special amplifying acoustics. When I spoke my first words from the middle of the well I jumped, spooked by the sudden amplification. I later learned it was by design. Now, over a decade later, I count on using it for dramatic effect,” Daly says.

And then too, there is all that walking. “With modern security measures, we can only enter the court floor from one set of elevators and stairs. The exercise is welcome,” Daly admits, “but not so much in high heels carrying a heavy briefcase.”

Charles Dresow is a lifelong Marin resident who has maintained a criminal defense practice in the county since 2008.

“Practicing law inside a Frank Lloyd Wright–designed courtroom is an amazing experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else in the state,” Dresow said. “Other courthouses, especially the newer ones, can feel very clinical and sterile; they don’t have the same personality, intimacy and unique quirks as ours. The practitioner who takes the time to understand these distinctive traits will be rewarded.

“Marin courtrooms are also unique in that there is one table which is shared by the defense and the prosecution instead of two tables divided by a few feet of open space. In my opinion, this feature builds collegiality between opposing parties. The Civic Center is a terrific place to practice law and we are lucky to have it.”

After 32 years as a community design architect in San Francisco, Mark Schatz, FAIA, now splits his time between teaching at California Polytechnic University and UC Berkeley, working with ELS Architects of Berkeley, and creating photography and glass art. He served for more than 30 years on the Marin County Civic Center Conservancy.

Part of the Conservancy’s job is to make sure that necessary and lawfully-required modifications to the building (i.e., ADA accessibility, seismic retrofitting, security and technology updates), are consistent with the original design.

“It’s a testament to Wright’s greatness that his expansive vision could accommodate the changes we needed to make,” said Schatz.

“I’ve always been fascinated by this building whose long, horizontal lines join the hills that surround it, connecting it to nature. Rather than bulldoze the hills (the County originally offered to do this), Wright designed the structure to bridge the hills. Metaphorically, it speaks to how government should relate to all the people it serves, building bridges of understanding. “And it is so eye-catching; how often do you see a quarter-mile long government building with a contrasting bright blue roof?”

Circular themes are only one of the things that adjunct professor Schatz pointed out to his architectural students when they tour Wright’s stellar work:

“An important lesson is the manipulation of space. From one spot in the center atrium, you can see sky, all the other floors, and the street below. You are aware of how people move throughout and are not isolated in your own department. I ask students to notice how Wright located sections within the building to symbolically indicate the importance of people over government. I point out that the vision of the building carries through all the way from the grandest features to the smallest detail, like the gold anodized grills and railings and the circular fountains.”

Mark Quattrocchi, FAIA, is a founding partner of the 70-person firm Quattrocchi Kwok Architects, with offices in Santa Rosa and Oakland.

“I was born the year Frank Lloyd Wright was hired to design the civic center. My father’s cabinet shop was just north of the site and this grand building looms large in my memory,” Quattrocchi said. “Now, as an architect of large public buildings, I know that the masterful thinking behind it has influenced my work. Wright’s utilization of daylight is remarkable and one I have mimicked when designing multistory educational buildings.

“I am taken with how the long floor openings widen at subsequent floors, allowing an abundance of light to penetrate even to the lowest floors. Wright then uses glass walls off the atria to allow daylight into the County offices, fulfilling his belief in government transparency.”

As an architect who designs schools, Quattrocchi finds that libraries serve as the perceptual center of a campus and are emblematic of the centrality of the free access to knowledge.

“Wright saw this symbolic importance and placed the library under the large domed rotunda at the intersection of the two angled wings of the building. He wanted to emphasize that what happens there is important and meaningful.”

“This monumental local building surely has relevance to those Marin and Sonoma County residents who regularly pass by. Surely they notice the stark contrast to the banal office buildings and strip malls along the Hwy.101 corridor. I would like to think Marin residents find their Civic Center as comforting and ubiquitous as Mt. Tam, a building that is uniquely theirs and part of their identity.”