"It is possible that if the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Berkeley, had been destroyed by fire, as so many of Maybeck's works have been, he never would have received the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects. No other building demonstrates so completely his imaginative architectural genius. His contributions to domestic design are outstanding and his efforts in architectural education noteworthy; but it is space, structure, color and light, that wins immediate admiration from lay and professional viewers. The church, designed in 1910 when Maybeck was forty-eight years old, is the visible statement of his design philosophy at its most fruitful stage."

"Only the genius and perseverance of the architect made the materials usually associated with factories and utilitarian building appropriate and in harmony with the edifice."

— Kenneth H. Cardwell. Bernard Maybeck: Artisan, Architect, Artist. p119, 126.

The Creator's Words

"He was a mystic, and his architecture was pervaded by mysticism. But above all he wanted to be understood — 'When you are talking about something tell the people what your are talking about.' He designed for 'the man in the street. He's the person you have to please, for he's the one who'll buy the building after the owner sells it.' He believed that all worthy creations in architecture sprang from the fraternity between the artist and the workman, as in the Middle Ages, and that 'it is spoiled when the gentry gets hold of the idea.' "

— Bernard Maybeck in Esther McCoy. Five California Architects. p4.