The Yerba Buena Club

A frankly temporary and modern building of light wood construction, it was the lone example of the Second Bay Region tradition at the fair and William Wurster’s main contribution. Aligned with the great axes of the fair, but insistently informal, it was an essay in how regional, modernist, and classical design meshed and sometimes clashed in the late 1930s. Wurster mediated the complicated needs of the women’s club with a difficult plot and nagging demands from Arthur Brown, Jr. that it be symmetrical. With its long windows, high ceilings, multiple outdoor spaces, pergolas, and deep overhangs, Wurster exaggerated the mannerisms that distinguish Bay Area houses from their modernist kin. He likened it to a tree house, an example of what he called “sane modernism. Amid ostentatious, extroverted buildings, Wurster’s folded in on itself and unfurled in a series of sheltered spaces. It provided a private refuge at a public fair for women to meet, change clothes, entertain, and host the political events that were part of the central project of women’s clubs.