Living Modern: A Biography of Greenwood Common

Waverly Lowell

Architect William Wurster envisioned Greenwood Common as a development that combined an idealistic sense of community with a modernist aesthetic and an awareness of regional traditions.

Utilizing the Berkeley Design Archives, Lowell explores the eight homes — designed by seven significant California architects — which make up the Greenwood Common. Built between 1952 and 1957, the development’s houses harmonize effortlessly with one another and their individual locations. Along with four gardens designed by Lawrence Halprin, the common’s landscape captured what had become the midcentury ideal of indoor-outdoor living.

William Stout Publishers

Part of the Berkeley/Design/Books series, launched in 2008 by Professor Emeritus Marc Treib and former EDA Curator Waverly Lowell. The series promotes historical and critical scholarship on subjects substantially drawn from the holdings of the Environmental Design Archives.