More to the Story

Modern School Design of Sonoma Elementary Schools by Celebrated Sonoman

 

(Here is a colorful scene in the newly opened school was captured by photographer Fred Lyon and featured in Life Magazine in 1959)

caption: Students enjoyed recess at Sassarini Elementary School in Sonoma, Calif. in 1959; the school was designed by architect Mario J. Ciampi, Fred Lyon/LIFE Pictures/Shutterstock)

 

Sonoma local Mario Ciampi was an American architect and urban planner best known for his modern design influence on public spaces and buildings in the San Francisco Bay Area.

His parents immigrated from Italy to San Francisco in 1906 just before the devastating earthquake and due to the devastation, lived in an Army issued tent in the Presidio. Mario was born a year later and, shortly thereafter, they moved to property a few miles south of Sonoma. Mario grew up and worked on his parents’ farm in Schellville. As teenagers, Mario with his brothers Paul and Joe tended the family vineyard and made extra money making wooden shipping crates for the neighboring Sebastiani Winery. He graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 1924.

 

(photo from high school)

 

Despite early signs of talent, Mario could not afford architecture school. Instead, after high school he did an apprenticeship as a draftsman in the San Francisco firm of Alexander Cantin and Dodge A. Riedy, who had worked on the Pacific Telephone Building with Timothy L. Pflueger, from 1925–29. He also took night classes at the San Francisco Architectural Club from 1927–29. He won two National Design Competition scholarships to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he was admitted in 1931 and 1932 under special circumstances, because he had no bachelor's degree. After Harvard, he studied at École des Beaux-Arts

in Paris for two years and toured Europe before returning to San Francisco.

 

Ciampi founded his design firm, M.J.C. and Associates, in 1945.  His professional works include the design and construction of university buildings, schools, churches, and commercial buildings, including joint ventures with architectural organizations and collaboration with painters, sculptors and artists.

 

He designed numerous schools in the Bay Area including in Sonoma Valley––the Chapel at Hanna Academy in 1948 using stone quarried on Trinity Road, Prestwood Elementary that opened in 1950, and Sonoma Elementary School in 1957 for which he received an honor award from the American Institute of Architects in 1959. After the tragic death of Prestwood School Principal Calvin Sassarini, the new school was renamed in his honor.

 

(photos of Prestwood and Hanna chapel)

 

 

In 1959, Ciampi received two honor awards from the American Institute of Architects, out of five awards given during that year. "San Francisco architect Mario J. Ciampi's two schools, the Sassarini Elementary School in Sonoma and the Westmoor High School, Daly City were named among five buildings to get First Honor Awards from the American Institute of Architects. He was the only architect to get two top winners and the only one from Northern California to be named in this category or in the Awards of Merit." The cover of Fortune magazine October 1958 featured one of Mario Ciampi's award-winning schools.

 

Ciampi was commissioned to develop the Downtown Plan for San Francisco in 1963, including beautification of Market Street, Embarcadero, Hallidie, and United Nations Plazas. Much of his work was completed under the administrations of Christopher, Shelley, Alioto, Moscone, and Feinstein. He was the urban design consultant for the Golden Gateway, Embarcadero Plaza, Rockefeller Center, Fisherman's Wharf, Yerba Buena Center, and a freeway study for San Francisco with the California Department of Transportation.

 

(photo later in life)

 

Perhaps Ciampi's best known work is the original Berkeley Art Museum building, which was opened in 1970 at the University of California, Berkeley campus in a brutalist style. The building was renamed Woo Hon Fai Hall in 2011.The museum moved out in 2014, and the building was renovated in 2022 and now houses the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub. The City of Berkeley declared it to be a landmark in 2012.

 

Mario Ciampi died on July 6, 2006 in San Rafael at age 99.