John Carl Warnecke

His mother, Margaret Esterling Warnecke, was a descendant of Dutch settlers who came to Sonoma County, California, in the 1870s.

The controversy over Lafayette Square can be traced back to 1900, when the United States Congress passed a resolution establishing the U.S. Senate Park Commission (also known as the "McMillan Commission" because it was chaired by Senator James McMillan [ R-Mich. ]).

The Park Commission's proposals, which came to be known as the "McMillan Plan," proposed that all the buildings around Lafayette Square be razed and replaced by tall, Neoclassical buildings clad in white marble for use by executive branch agencies.

Little action was taken on these proposals over the next five decades.

John Carl Warnecke (February 24, 1919 – April 17, 2010) was an architect based in San Francisco, California, who designed numerous notable monuments and structures in the Modernist, Bauhaus, and other similar styles.

He was an early proponent of contextual architecture.

Among his more notable buildings and projects are the Hawaii State Capitol building, the John F. Kennedy Eternal Flame memorial gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery, and the master plan for Lafayette Square (which includes his designs for the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building and the New Executive Office Building).

Warnecke was born on February 24, 1919, in Oakland, California.

His father, Carl I. Warnecke, was a prominent architect in Oakland and San Francisco.

He played football at Stanford, and was a member of the undefeated 1940 Stanford Indians football team (nicknamed the "Wow Boys") that won the 1941 Rose Bowl.

A shoulder injury incurred while playing football prevented him from being drafted or serving in the U.S. military during World War II.

While studying at Stanford, Warnecke made the acquaintance of John F. Kennedy, who was auditing courses at the university.

He received his bachelor's degree (cum laude) from Stanford University in 1941.

Warnecke received his master's degree in architecture from Harvard University in 1942, completing the three-year course in a single year.

While attending Harvard, he studied with the highly influential architect, Walter Gropius.

In 1943, he began work as a draftsman for his father's architectural firm (which specialized in the Beaux-Arts architectural style).

He was influenced by the work of architects Bernard Maybeck and William Wurster, leading proponents and practitioners of the "Bay Area school" of architecture.

Warnecke married the former Grace Cushing in 1945, with whom he had three sons and a daughter.

He established a solo practice in 1950, and incorporated as a firm in 1956.

At first, he set a goal of applying Modernist architectural principles to major types of building.

But his work soon reflected a desire to Harmonize building designs with the environment in which they were set as well as their cultural and historical setting, an architectural theory known as contextualism.

However, plans were made in the late 1950s to raze all the buildings on the east side of Lafayette Square and replace them with a white modernist office building which would house judicial offices.

Opposition to the demolition of the Cutts-Madison House and other buildings on Lafayette Square began forming shortly after the decision to raze the structures was announced.

Warnecke won national recognition in 1951 for the Mira Vista Elementary School in East Richmond Heights, California (a small residential community which overlooks the northern part of San Francisco Bay).

Other schools in the San Francisco Bay are followed, earning him much praise.

Warnecke became an internationally recognized architect after submitting a design for a new U.S. embassy in Thailand in 1956 (it was never built).

The Asilomar Conference Grounds Warnecke Historic District consists of 22 buildings and related landscape features after the State of California acquired the property in 1956.

He reorganized his firm in 1958 under the name John Carl Warnecke & Associates, the name it would be best known by.

He was named an Associate of the National Academy of Design the same year.

The Warnecke buildings include, Surf and Sand Complex (1959); Corporation Yard (1959); Crocker Dining Hall Additions (1961); Sea Galaxy Complex (1964); Housekeeping (1965); Long View Complex (1966); and View Crescent Complex (1968).

Warnecke's reputation as a world-class architect received a substantial boost when he was asked by the administration of President John F. Kennedy to save the historic buildings surrounding Lafayette Square.

He won additional notice for buildings at Stanford University (built in the 1960s) and the University of California, Berkeley (built in the 1960s and early 1970s).

Warnecke designed seven of the buildings at the 107 acre Asilomar Conference Grounds located in Pacific Grove, California, adjacent to Asilomar State Beach.

This first marriage ended in divorce in 1961, and Warnecke married the former Grace Kennan (daughter of George F. Kennan) in 1969.

This second marriage also ended in divorce.

After graduating from Harvard University, Warnecke worked as a building inspector for the public housing authority in Richmond, California.

The newly elected Kennedy administration indicated in February 1961 that it was anxious to retain the existing historic homes on Lafayette Square.

In February 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy lobbied the General Services Administration to stop the demolition and adopt a different design plan.

"The wreckers haven't started yet, and until they do it can be saved," she wrote.

His oldest son, John C. Warnecke, Jr., died in 2003.