October 31
1925
Charles Willard Moore was born in Battle Creek, Michigan. Shortly after, his parents moved to Benton Harbor.
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October 31
1930
Charles' mother, Kathryn, who had been a school teacher, recognizes his precocious intellect. Instead of keeping him in school during the Michigan winters, they often embark on lengthy road trips to Florida and California, with Charles mostly self-taught in the back seat of their touring car. Frequent stays in Los Angeles and Pasadena cements a life-long fascination with the exotic wonders of California.
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15 1/2 Years Old
1940
Charles enrolls in the University of Michigan School of Architecture when he is only 15 1/2 years old. Since many young men would soon be joining the war effort, the architecture school only has a few students enrolled. Shortly after he starts his studies, Charles' father passes away. Roger Bailey, the Dean of the Architecture school, sees Charles' potential and takes him under his wing. They become lifelong friends.
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20 Years Old
1945
Charles Moore graduates with full honors.
He moves to San Francisco, where he works for a succession of architects in preparation for his licensing examinations. He first works for Mario Corbett, then Joseph Allen Stein, and finally Hervey Parke Clark of Clark & Beuttler. (He eventually collaborates with this firm for several years on stays in the Bay Area.)
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22 Years Old
1947
Charles his licensing exams and becomes a Registered Architect.
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22 Years Old
1947-1949
Since Charles wants most of all to teach architecture and history, but has never been to Europe, he applies for and wins the University of Michigan's George G. Booth Travel Fellowship.
This funds his "Grand Tour" as war-damaged Europe is just beginning to recover. For nearly 18 months, Charles explores the continent, writing, watercoloring, photographing, and even filming places with a 16mm movie camera.
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25 Years Old
1950-52
While in Europe, Roger Bailey persuades the University of Utah President to let him establish the state's first architecture school. Bailey telegrams Charles in Europe and invites him to come and teach.
Charles imports a Citroën Deux Chevaux and drives it to Salt Lake City.
Together, they invent an architecture curriculum from scratch. On the side, Charles designs stage sets for local theatrical productions. Bailey invites architectural luminaries to lecture. Charles takes Richard Neutra on watercolor expeditions to Utah's National Parks.
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27 Years Old
1952-1954
Charles enlists in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is deployed to Seoul, Korea.
In the service, Charles designs structures for the military, in addition to small schools and chapels for war torn Korea.
On military leave, he goes to Japan and is profoundly moved by its many gardens and architectural traditions.
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29 Years Old
1954-1957
While in Korea, Charles applies to graduate programs at Princeton and Harvard. Both accept him.
Charles declines Harvard, overseen by Walter Gropius, and enrolls in Princeton, whose Dean is Jean Labatut. Charles will eventually earn a Masters and Ph.D (the second Doctorate ever awarded in architecture in the United States at the time) in only three years. Charles Master's thesis focuses on a rehabilitation of central Monterey, California, with the preservation of its adobe structures. (During summer breaks, Charles stays in Pebble Beach, and works on regional projects with Clark & Buettler and Wallace Holm.) His Ph.D dissertation, "Water and Architecture" is a wide-ranging study of the role of water in the landscape, architecture, and gardens.
During these extraordinary years at Princeton, a group of students converge who will begin shifting architectural thought internationally. Robert Venturi is just finishing his graduate work. Many fellow students become lifelong friends and collaborators. From California, William Turnbull, Jr. and Donlyn Lyndon, will eventually form a partnership with Charles. Another student, Richard Peters, will become a lifelong friend, who will later teach with Moore and collaborate as his principle lighting designer. Other students include Hugh Hardy, George Hartman, and Felix Drury.
Jean Labatut, a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts, impresses upon the students the importance of history, of understanding context both past and present, as fundamental foundations of design. George Rowley's courses in Asian art are important for Moore. Enrico Peressutti, a hero Italian partisan and co-founder of the acclaimed Milan firm BBPR, teaches a studio at Princeton and leads field trips to the Yucatan Peninsula.
Charles also leads exploratory trips with fellow students around New England and the mid-Atlantic states, focusing on vernacular buildings and architecture that at the time were far outside the "Modernist" field of vision, such as the Mercer Museum, the Casino in Newport, and Nantucket. Most important, when the students happen upon the Trenton Bath House in the midst of construction, it leads them to the little-know Louis Kahn, whose office they immediately visit in Philadelphia.
Charles Moore invites Kahn to teach a design studio at Princeton. But since Kahn seldom leaves his own office, the studio reviews most often occur in Philadelphia. Charles serves as Kahn's Teaching Assistant. Kahn's ideas and observations become central to Moore's forthcoming work and theoretical position.
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29 Years Old
1958
Charles Moore moves to San Francisco to begin teaching at the University of California at Berkeley.
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