John Carl "Jack" Warnecke (February 24, 1919 – April 17, 2010)Brown, "John Carl Warnecke Dies at 91, Designed Kennedy Gravesite," Washington Post, April 23, 2010.Grimes, "John Carl Warnecke, Architect to Kennedy, Dies at 91," The New York Times, April 22, 2010.Smith, "John 'Jack' Warnecke, Famed Architect, Dies at Sonoma County Ranch," The Press Democrat, April 20, 2010. was an American architect based in who designed numerous monuments and structures in the Modernist,Stephens, "John Carl Warnecke, Known for Contextualism and Charisma, Dies," Architectural Record, April 23, 2010.Loeffler, The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies, 1988, p. 6.McLellan, "John Carl Warnecke Dies at 91; Designer of JFK Grave Site," Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2010. Bauhaus,Burden, Elements of Architectural Design: A Photographic Sourcebook, 2000, p. 40. and other similar styles. He was an early proponent of contextual architecture.Joncas, Neuman, and Turner, Stanford University, 2006, p. 104. Among his more notable buildings and projects are the Hawaii State Capitol building,Sakamoto and Britton, Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, 2007, p. 16; Goggans, The Pacific Region, 2004, p. 38. 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).
Early life Warnecke was born on February 24, 1919, in Oakland, California."An Athletic Architect: John Carl Warnecke." The New York Times. October 7, 1964. His father, Carl I. Warnecke, was a prominent architect in Oakland and San Francisco. His mother, Margaret Warnecke, née Esterling, was a descendant of Dutch settlers who came to Sonoma County, California, in the 1870s.Kinnard, History of the Greater San Francisco Bay Region, 1966, p. 220.
He received his bachelor's degree (cum laude) from Stanford University in 1941. He played American 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."Lafayette, He Is Here," Time, December 13, 1963.Shearer, "Will She Marry Again?", Ottawa Citizen, February 10, 1967. 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."Monuments: A Tomb for J.F.K.", Time, November 20, 1964.Seale, The President's House: A History, 2008, p. 384. Warnecke received his master's degree in architecture from Harvard University in 1942, completing the three-year course in a single year.Current Biography Yearbook, 1969, p. 417.Heymann, Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, 2009, p. 74; Von Eckardt, "Architect Warnecke: 20th Century USA," Washington Post, December 22, 1963. While attending Harvard, he studied with the highly influential architect Walter Gropius.Cramer and Yankopolus, Almanac of Architecture & Design, 2006, 2006, p. 616.Joncas, Neuman, and Turner, Stanford University, 2006, p. 83.
Warnecke married Grace Cushing in 1945, with whom he had three sons and a daughter. His oldest son, John C. Warnecke, Jr., died in 2003.Chiang, "John Warnecke Jr.—Early Manager for Grateful Dead," San Francisco Chronicle, July 14, 2003. The marriage ended in divorce in 1961. Warnecke married Grace Kennan (daughter of George F. Kennan) in 1969,"John Warnecke, Architect, Weds Mrs. McClatchy," The New York Times, September 3, 1969; Men and Women of Hawaii, 1972, p. 600. which also ended in divorce.
Early architectural career After graduating from Harvard University, Warnecke worked as a building inspector for the public housing authority in Richmond, California. In 1943, he began work as a draftsman for his father's architectural firm (which specialized in the Beaux-Arts architectural style)."Mabel McDowell Elementary School," National Historic Landmark Nomination, U.S. Dept. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001. He was influenced by the work of architects Bernard Maybeck and William Wurster, leading proponents and practitioners of the "Bay Area school" of architecture.Roth, American Architecture: A History, 2001, p. 315; Sakamoto and Britton, Hawaiian Modern: The Architecture of Vladimir Ossipoff, 2007, p. 16; Goggans, The Pacific Region, 2004, p. 3.
He established a solo practice in 1950,Serraino, NorCalMod: Icons of Northern California Modernism, 2006, p. 284.At least one source puts the start of his solo practice at 1946, not 1950. See: "Mabel McDowell Elementary School," National Historic Landmark Nomination, U.S. Dept. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001. and incorporated as a firm in 1956. At first, he set a goal of applying Modernist architectural principles to major types of building. 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.Jencks, New Paradigm In Architecture, 2002, p. 99-11. 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).Benét, A Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Region, 1966, p. 346. Other schools in the San Francisco Bay followed, earning him much praise.Serraino, NorCalMod: Icons of Northern California Modernism, 2006, p. 25. Warnecke became an internationally recognized architect after submitting a design for a new U.S. embassy in Thailand in 1956, which was never built.Loeffler, The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies, 1988, p. 98, 162. He reorganized his firm in 1958 under the name John Carl Warnecke & Associates, the name it would be best known by.Moritz, Current Biography Yearbook, 1968, 1968, p. 418. He was named an Associate of the National Academy of Design the same year.Who's Who in California, 1979, p. 359. 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).Helfand, University of California, Berkeley: An Architectural Tour and Photographs, 2002, p. 28-29, 98, 300-302.
Warnecke designed seven of the buildings at the Asilomar Conference Grounds located in Pacific Grove, California, adjacent to Asilomar State Beach. 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. 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).
Association with Kennedys
Lafayette Square
Warnecke's reputation as an 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. 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.Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917, 2003, p. 90. 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.Luria, Capital Speculations: Writing and Building Washington, 2006, p. 139. Little action was taken on these proposals over the next 50 years. 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.Anthony, Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession, 2001, p. 42.Lindsay, "Court Gets New Home All to Itself," Washington Post, February 25, 1960; "2 Federal Courts To Be Housed on Lafayette Square," Washington Post, September 17, 1960. 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."3 Historic Buildings Befriended," Washington Post, March 2, 1960; "Senator Morse Joins Battle to Save Historic Sites on Lafayette Square," Washington Post, March 24, 1960; "Lafayette Sq. Razing Plan Termed Folly," Washington Post, April 12, 1960; "Group Formed to Save Lafayette Sq. Buildings," Washington Post, May 4, 1960; "AIA Journal Laments Lafayette Square's End," Washington Post, January 29, 1961; White, "Garden Atmosphere of Lafayette Sq. Can Be Preserved, Says Architect," Washington Post, March 3, 1961. The newly elected Kennedy administration indicated in February 1961 that it was anxious to retain the existing historic homes on Lafayette Square.White, "Administration Anxious To Save Lafayette Park," Washington Post, February 17, 1961.
In February 1962, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy lobbied the General Services Administration to stop the demolition and adopt a different design plan.Anthony, Designing for Diversity: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in the Architectural Profession, 2001, p. 43; Anthony, As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, 2003, p. 144-147.Marton, Hidden Power: Presidential Marriages That Shaped Our Recent History, 2001, p. 122. "The wreckers haven't started yet, and until they do it can be saved", she wrote. Jacqueline Kennedy enlisted architect Warnecke, who happened to be in town that weekend,Anthony, As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, 2003, p. 145. to create a design which would incorporate the new buildings with the old. With this project, Warnecke was one of the first architects to receive a commission from the Kennedy administration."Artists At Odds On Kennedy Job," The New York Times, October 7, 1964.Huxtable, "Warnecke's Capital Work," The New York Times, November 30, 1963. Warnecke conceived the basic design over that weekend, and worked closely with Jacqueline Kennedy over the next few months to formalize the design proposal.Anthony, As We Remember Her: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends, 2003, p. 146. The design was presented to the public and the Commission of Fine Arts (which had approval over any plan) in October 1962, and with Jacqueline Kennedy's backing the Commission adopted the revised Warnecke design proposal.Hunter, "Old Homes Saved By Mrs. Kennedy," The New York Times, September 27, 1962. Thomas E. Luebke, ed., Civic Art: A Centennial History of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, 2013): 234-239.
Warnecke's design for the square was based on the architectural theory of contextualism.Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, D.C., 2006, p. 108.Cramer and Yankopolus, Almanac of Architecture & Design, 2005, 2005, p. 471. Warnecke's design build the first modern buildings on Lafayette Square and they were the first buildings in the city to utilize contextualism as a design philosophy. Warnecke's design for the Markey National Courts Building was to create tall, flat structures in red brick which would serve as relatively unobtrusive backgrounds to the lighter-colored residential homes like the Cutts-Madison House. The Cutts-Madison House, Cosmos Club building, and Benjamin Ogle Tayloe House were joined, and a courtyard built between them and the National Courts building.