Henrik H Bull


Henrik Bull was a founder of Bull Stockwell Allen / BSA Architects in San Francisco in 1967.

Personal life

Henrik Helkand Bull was the only child of Johan Bull and Sonja Geelmuyden Bull. Johan Bull, a native of Norway, was an illustrator who regularly contributed to New Yorker magazine since its inception in 1925.
A cousin of Bull’s grandfather, also named Henrik Bull, designed several of Oslo’s landmark civic buildings at the end of the 19th century. This earlier Henrik Bull was nephew of the famed violinist Ole Bull, who began the utopian community of Oleana in Pennsylvania in 1853.
In 1954, Bull moved to San Francisco and began working for a firm in Oakland until 1956. He then got married and opened his own business. Bull's firm then merged with two other firms" to form Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell in 1967".

Career

Bull worked one summer in San Francisco with Mario Corbett. Corbett was one of the leaders of a regionalist architecture movement along with Joseph Esherick, Gardner Dailey, Campbell & Wong and Warren Callister. Bull began his studies at MIT in aeronautical engineering, and switched to architecture after the first year. Bull studied with Ralph Rapson, Buckminster Fuller, Alvar Aalto, and graduated in 1952.
As a first lieutenant in the USAF, Bull was stationed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and worked with Buckminster Fuller on developing the geodesic radar domes for the Distant Early Warning Line system at the north slope of Alaska. In 1954, Bull returned to San Francisco to work again with Mario Corbett.
On the basis of being commissioned to design several ski cabins, Bull opened his own architectural office in 1956. Bull's early practice included homes, condominiums and later hotels and institutional buildings.
Sunset Magazine published articles on Bull, twice putting his projects on the cover of their magazine, giving him numerous design awards, and enlisting him as a competition judge. In 1962, he was chosen to design the Sunset Magazine Discovery House: a "dream house" limited to. Bull designed the home as a series of four skylit pavilions built around an enclosed courtyard. It was the first home built in the newly established town of El Dorado Hills.
In the 1950s and the 1960s, Henrik Bull designed several prefabricated or kit cabins. He built the very first A-Frame ski cabin in the United States with his friend John Flender in Stowe, Vermont in 1953. The essence of a good cabin, according to Bull, is that it should be simple and economical, but also fun, different and exciting.
In 1967, Henrik Bull, John Field, Sherwood Stockwell and Daniel Volkmann formed Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell. Their first large project together was the planning and architecture for Northstar at Tahoe, a new four season resort. The firm has continued under the following names: Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell ; Bull Volkmann Stockwell ; Bull Stockwell Allen ; Bull Stockwell Allen & Ripley ; and is now called Bull Stockwell Allen / BSA Architects.

Ideological position

Bull directly related his design philosophy to the "Bay Area Style". This movement is a continuation of an earlier period of architecture practiced by such people as Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan, Greene & Greene, Willis Polk and Ernest Coxhead who were influenced by the British Arts and Crafts Movement as well as the Japanese architecture.
Because Bull believed that modern architecture should be warm as well as really sensitive to the topography and climate, he was classified both in the Northern California Modernism and the Bay Area Style. The question of an appropriate architecture for its location was always Henrik Bull’s main concern. He felt that a building of quality did not unnecessarily disturb the site and should be comprehensible to everyone. Buildings should expose frankly their structures and be designed in relation to the climate, so that outdoor living spaces are a continuation of the interior. According to Henrik Bull, the timeless value of architecture should be achieved in choosing natural materials appropriate to the site, crafting them well and being conscious of the effect of time and weather so the building can become richer with time. Creating lasting architecture is also achieved by placing priority on client needs and relationship to the site. This should form a triangular relationship: the human with the building, the building with the site, and the human with the site.

Awards and recognition

Bull received 43 major design awards for work he personally designed, or under his direct design leadership. In 1978, Bull Field Volkmann Stockwell won an invited competition for planning the proposal new capital city of Alaska with Bull as co-principal in charge.
The firm received 75 major design awards including the Firm Award from the AIA California Council in 1989, "in recognition of distinguished architecture in a form’s overall body of work".

Activities and public service

Bull was elected Vice President and President of the American Institute of Architects / San Francisco Chapter, and elected to Fellowship in National AIA in 1969. He was also part of the National AIA’s Committees.
His other activities included: Golden Gate Bridge Design Review Committee, President of the Architectural Heritage Association of Berkeley, Citizen Advisory Committee for the San Francisco Urban Design Plan, MIT Education Council, and architect representative on the Seismic Investigation and Hazards Survey Advisory Committee of San Francisco.

Significant achievements

Publications