In memoriam: Donn Logan (1938–2024)
We were saddened to learn of the passing of Donn Logan, who served on the College of Environmental Design faculty for 20 years. An architect and urban designer who left his mark on the built environment of Berkeley and beyond, Hubert Donn Logan, FAIA, passed away August 10, 2024, at the age of 86.
Logan was founding partner of Elbasani, Logan and Severin Architects (now known as ELS Architecture + Urban Design) and later teamed up with his wife, Marcy Wong, to form Wong Logan Architects. With a focus on civic, cultural and performing arts architecture, Logan designed buildings and developed master plans that spurred urban revitalization in cities across the San Francisco Bay Area and the United States.
Logan was particularly impactful in shaping the city of Berkeley, his adopted hometown. In the early 1990s, he helped form the Downtown Berkeley Arts District on Addison Street. He was the architect for cornerstone Arts District institutions such as Berkeley Repertory Theater, Freight & Salvage, and California Jazz Conservatory. In 2017, he designed the dynamic, faceted facade of the Berkeley Center Street Parking Garage. The environmentally sustainable parking garage, which also holds retail, art exhibit spaces, public restrooms, bicycle parking, a cafe, and offices, earned numerous design awards.
Other projects in Berkeley include UC Berkeley’s Recreation Sports Facility (1989 National AIA Honor Award Recipient); the rebuilding of Berkeley’s Cragmont Elementary School after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake; and Berkeley High School’s library, fitness gym, indoor swimming pool, and dining hall facilities.
Logan’s large-scale projects included the Milwaukee Grand Ave Mall, Portland’s Pioneer Place Retail Center, U.S. Embassy Housing in Manila, and a master plan for the new city of Jubail in Saudi Arabia. Wong Logan Architects oversaw two huge adaptive reuse projects in the Bay Area: the revitalization of the historic Ford Assembly Building in Richmond (2011 National AIA Honor Award recipient) and the Pier 70 Historic Core Revitalization in San Francisco.
Raised in Phoenix, Logan earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Arizona State University under the direction of Dean Jim Elmore. During his studies, he apprenticed for visionary and utopian architect Paulo Soleri. He then studied at Harvard Graduate School of Design in its burgeoning Urban Design Program under the direction of Dean Jose Lluis Sert. At GSD, Logan was drawn to urban design theorist Fumihiko Maki, whose ideas influenced both his approach to urban form-making and his teaching of urban design at UC Berkeley. After Harvard, Logan worked for Victor Gruen Architects, the groundbreaking architect and urbanist credited with inventing the shopping mall typology in the 1950s.
In 1966, Logan began teaching at Berkeley in the architecture department, where he taught graduate seminars and urban design studios. In 1986, he left teaching to focus on professional practice.