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Olof Dahlstrand
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Olof Dahlstrand (1916-2014)
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Olof Dahlstrand received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1939. He is considered a canonical figure in the conception and execution of significant works of the golden age of California Modernism. As a fine artist, he drew and painted throughout his life and then continuously after he retired in 1984. Exhibition highlights include: Milwaukee Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art. He joined the Carmel Art Association in 1984. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees for Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art. An avid outdoorsman and explorer of rural California, much of his work skillfully captures the natural beauty of the West Coast with a stunning sense of realism and accuracy. Late in life he turned to abstraction, and his compositions reflect an architect’s interest in geometry and order.
Experts from a 2008 SF Chronicle Article:
“Work of Modernist Olof Dahlstrand Revisited in the East Bay” By Joanne Furio
If one's life could be charted like a graph, then the year 1934 would stand out as a pinnacle in the life of 91-year-old architect Olof Dahlstrand. That year, before heading from his native Milwaukee to study architecture at Cornell University, he visited Taliesin, Frank Lloyd's Wright's home and training ground for apprentices, in Spring Green, Wis. "I was overwhelmed," he said. "The architecture created an entirely different place I had never experienced before. Wright's work was much more humanist and much more suited to the human being and a sense of comfort. Once I saw these buildings, I knew that this was an important architect."
Dahlstrand was so inspired, he began reading all of Wright's books, along with Thoreau, Emerson and Whitman, who had greatly influenced Wright. "I agreed with their emphasis on the importance of the individual and being able to strike out in your own way," Dahlstrand recalled.
After moving to the Bay Area in 1948 (he lived in Lafayette and then Orinda), Dahlstrand spent two years at the architectural practice of Fred Langhorst, a former Taliesin fellow, and eight years at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Yet it was the creation of eight houses in the East Bay (seven remain intact), which he designed on his own after the war, that manifested both his greatest architectural influence and his individualistic beliefs.
"SOM was very much about the work of Mies van der Rohe," observed Pierluigi Serraino, the author of "NorCalMod" (Chronicle Books; 2006). "These houses are a statement of resistance. Olof always kept his own vision." That vision and Dahlstrand's 91st birthday were recently celebrated with a private house tour and dinner attended by, among others, five sets of people who live in his homes. Serraino was invited to discuss Dahlstrand's work within the context of Bay Area modernism. Dahlstrand's work is now considered so significant that UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design has requested that nearly all of the architect's papers be donated to its archive, including the records for all the homes he designed in the East Bay. The move will further secure Dahlstrand's place in the Bay Area's architectural history.
One of the ways Dahlstrand distinguished himself was through the use of sliding doors between children's bedrooms, which are opened to make a common playroom during the day and closed off at nighttime for sleep.
On the graph of Dahlstrand's life, his East Bay houses represent what Welty described as "a burst" of residential design. After moving to Carmel in 1958, where he had a practice for 25 years, Dahlstrand designed banks, shopping centers, office buildings and schools but only a couple of homes.
Wearing a red bow tie, striped blue shirt and a nubby wool blazer, Dahlstrand glowed behind the candles, each representing a decade. Looking back, he observed that he "really lucked into all these wonderful clients." None of them had to be persuaded to build modern.
