William Raymond Yelland Collection, ca. 1917-1956

Processed by the Environmental Design Archives staff

Environmental Design Archives

College of Environmental Design

230 Wurster Hall #1820

University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, California, 94720-1820

Phone: (510) 642-5124

Fax: (510) 642-2824

Email: archives@socrates.berkeley.edu

http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/

Note

Arts and Humanities--Architecture History--California History--Bay Area History History--California History Geographical (By Place)--California Geographical (By Place)--California--Bay Area

William Raymond Yelland Collection, ca. 1917-1956

Collection Number: 1982-1

Environmental Design Archives

University of California, Berkeley

Berkeley, California

Contact Information:

Environmental Design Archives
College of Environmental Design
230 Wurster Hall #1820
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California, 94720-1820
Phone: (510) 642-5124
Fax: (510) 642-2824
Email: archives@socrates.berkeley.edu
URL: http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/

Processed by:: Environmental Design Archives staff
Date Completed:
Encoded by:: Campbell J. Crabtree
Funding:: Arrangement and description of this collection was funded by a grant from the Getty Foundation.

Descriptive Summary

Collection Title: William Raymond Yelland Collection,

Date (inclusive): ca. 1917-1956

Collection Number: 1982-1

Creator: Yelland, William Raymond, 1890-1966

Extent: 1 half box, 6 flat file drawers

Repository: Environmental Design Archives. College of Environmental Design. University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, California

Language: English.

Administrative Information

Access

Collection is open for research.

Publication Rights

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in the collection should be discussed with the Director.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], William Raymond Yelland Collection, (1982-1), Environmental Design Archives. College of Environmental Design. University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, California

Access Points

Architects--California.

Architecture--California.

Architecture, Domestic.

Biography

William Raymond Yelland was born in Saratoga, California in 1890. His father was a prune rancher, and the family lived on the prune ranch. His mother was a physician who received her degree from the University of California in 1886. Yelland trained at UC Berkeley, graduating with a B.S. in Architecture in 1913 when John Galen Howard was the program's director. He then spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania. During World War I, Yelland was stationed in France, and his time spent there influenced his architectural esthetic. He is believed to have worked in the offices of Bernard Maybeck and Walter Ratcliff after graduation. Licensed in California in 1916, Yelland joined the Oakland office of Miller and Warnecke in 1920. By 1924 he had set up an independent practice at 1404 Franklin Street in Oakland, where he remained for his career.

In 1930, Yelland married Edna Holroyd, a poet and librarian, and traveled to Europe and Asia. Afterwards, he exhibited his sketches in local galleries and published them in the San Francisco Chronicle. He and his wife collaborated on Christmas cards and booklets--he did the illustration and she wrote the poetry.

Yelland's architectural style has been characterized as Medieval Revival, particularly the French Norman Mode. He described his style as vaguely "rural." Examples of this style can be seen in the Richards House of 1926 (in the Claremont section of Berkeley) and the Thornburg (or Normandy) Village of 1926-28 (also in Berkeley). After World War II, however, his style broadened to include California ranch houses and modernism.

In the early 1950s Yelland moved to Milan, and died there in 1966.

Source:

Winter, Robert, ed. "Toward a Simpler Way of Life: The Arts & Crafts Architects of California," Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

Scope and Content

The William Raymond Yelland collection consists primarily of project records, arranged alphabetically by project. These include specifications, drawings, correspondence, notes, and a clipping. Drawings, which form the bulk of the collection, largely relate to residential work, although some commercial and apartment buildings, including Normandy Village, are also included. The collection also includes an attendance book and other materials from a technical drawing class that Yelland taught at night for adults through the Oakland Public Schools in 1933.

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