While the rest of us had our Dad’s friend from Rotary vouch for us on our college application, Daniel Liebermann had Albert Einstein.
ROBERT VENTE VEN
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RHAPSODY
Inverness architect Daniel Liebermann’s career wasn’t built in a day—neither, he points out, was the Marin County Civic Center...
IN PINK AND BLUE “We know that the good building is not the one that hurts the landscape, but is one that makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before that building was built.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
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The above shots are of the Civic Center after it first opened in the 1960s. 12 PACIFIC SUN JUNE 1 - JUNE 7, 2012
peaking with Daniel Liebermann is traveling New Deal-era engineer, Lieberlike opening a whimsical encyclopedia mann also notes the influence that expointo the past. sure to a variety of lifestyles had on him at For instance, who among us can say a young age. they were an architectural protege of “My father had a library of British Frank Lloyd Wright? Or, that one of our archaeological publications,” recalls Liecollege application reference letters was bermann. “Looking through illustrations written by Albert Einstein? of resurrected monuments—sphinxes, And if that isn’t enough to impress, consid- pyramids, the hanging gardens of Babyer this—Daniel Liebermann knows why the lon—and photos of Tutankhamun and Marin Civic Center roof is blue. archaeological digs really influenced me.” This year marks the 50th anniversary of A self-described troublemaker, Liethe Marin County Civic Center — the bermann says he was drawn to the arts posthumously completed Wright proj- through a need to express himself visually ect that, once maligned as “suburban blight” and emotionally, unlike his older brother— by county residents, has lovingly described by become an icon for a Liebermann as the by Dani Burlison county that views itself more logical and rightas forward-thinking, brained of the two. progressive and at one with nature. He found mediums that allowed him If all goes as expected, the Marin to do just that: first, oil painting, then County Civic Center next year will join sculpture. the World Heritage List, the United NaIn his early childhood living in New tions’ tally of projects recognized for their Jersey during the Great Depression, his “outstanding universal value” such as the father often returned home from work Taj Mahal, the Pyramids at Giza and the with buckets of clay dug up at sites where Statue of Liberty. dams were being constructed—young Inverness architect Liebermann, 82, is Daniel would mold them into replicas of one of the few Marinites who can claim a things he’d seen in nature or on visits to piece of that history. But a future in archihis father’s engineering projects. tecture was never written in stone for the “My dad would take me along to projman who, as a youth, dreamed of nothing ects like a dam in Alabama or Tennessee greater than inheriting and working his Valley project,” says Liebermann. “I also family farm. went abroad to visit him; traveling on “How did I come to study architecboats and ships was an eye opener—as was ture?” he asks rhetorically. “I have a seeing Arab-built, limestone homes. My simple and short answer for you: Nummother took us kids to Pompeii when I ber one, real architects don’t become was 4 or 5 years old and God knows what I architects by studying architecture. observed! Still, I always had opportunities Number two, I’d be flattering myself to to nurture whatever brain I had.” call myself an architect.” O O O O But, adds the man who won’t call AND NURTURE IT he did. himself an architect, “Lunatics and comLiebermann’s family picked up and left pulsive people like me just find it very suburban life in New Jersey, settling in therapeutic.” a Dutch farming community, where he From Liebermann’s early years on a gained broader architectural perspectives Dutch farm to his study of an eclectic mix from authentic Dutch colonial homes. of art forms, his rich background and Living amid the hundreds of acres of apple abil ability to integrate his experiences into trees planted during the Civil War, Liethe world of architecture bring depth and bermann saw his environment as deeply spir spirit to his work. The son of a frequently