Ron Yeo: Citizen Architect
By Jason Foo
On most days Ron Yeo can be found in his Corona del Mar studio busy at work. All but retired from architecture, for the past three years Yeo has been creating assemblages from bottle caps and whimsical sculptures of animals from discarded objects. Before then, he had been designing residences and commercial and recreational buildings throughout Orange County for over 50 years. His most well-known projects are nature centers, among them the Ralph B. Clark Regional Park Interpretive Center in Buena Park and the Peter and Mary Muth Interpretive Center and the Back Bay Science Center, both in Newport Beach. For much of his career, he has addressed problems of “urban ugliness” in architecture and planning and in civic roles and has been a leader in the local conservation movement. In 1976, he was selected as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
Early Years
Yeo was born in 1933 in Los Angeles and grew up in Long Beach. A graduate of the University of Southern California School of Architecture in 1960, he was a student near the end of a seminal period for the program when some of the most influential contributors to California modern architecture were faculty or visiting critics, including his mentors Calvin Straub, Conrad Buff, and Donald Hensman. While many of his classmates went on to work for large firms headed by A.C. Martin and William Pereira, Yeo began his career with the small Long Beach firm of George Montierth and Jack Strickland.
Seeking to capitalize on the postwar building boom in Orange County, the partners tasked their young associate with setting up an office in Westminster. Yeo was primed for a larger role in the firm when Montierth left; one of his earliest projects with Strickland was the landmark Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park (1962, fig. 1). He became a partner when their office was in Garden Grove before taking over the practice.
In 1963, he established his office in Corona del Mar. He says that Orange County offered him “the freedom to design,” especially in custom residential architecture, in an era of mass-produced tract housing. He purchased a cottage duplex on Jasmine Avenue in 1967 and converted it into a Craftsman-style studio that would accommodate a staff of as many as six, including his business manager and wife, Birgitta (figs. 2 and 3). Architect Scott Brownell, son of Newport Beach master architect J. Herbert Brownell, worked for Yeo while following in his father’s footsteps. Yeo was an admirer of the elder Brownell whose office was a few miles north.
Yeo’s early work shows his facility with the so-called “USC Style,” a term coined by architecture writer Esther McCoy in reference to the exposed wood post-and-beam designs employed by Straub and his former students and later partners, Buff and Hensman. Within the structural system, non-load-bearing walls, interior panels, and large expanses of glass could be used to create open floor plans and the integration of indoor and outdoor spaces. Also known as the “Pasadena Style” after where many of its practitioners lived and worked, it had wide appeal in Southern California and beyond.
Yeo hired Julius Shulman to photograph the Hall House in Corona del Mar (1967, fig. 4), which led to its publication in the Los Angeles Times Home section and Sunset Magazine, respectively, and an AIA/Sunset Magazine Western Home Award, as well as the Acme Wire Manufacturing building in Garden Grove (1968, fig. 5), which was published in Architectural Digest. As he did with numerous architects, Shulman helped promote Yeo in shelter magazines through his photography.
Residential Design
Despite the recognition he received for his post-and-beam buildings, Yeo was more interested in “design by feeling” than style. He found much success in custom residential design, working closely with clients – many of whom became friends – to build houses that suited their needs. He worked with famed artist Tony DeLap to design a studio and residence in Corona del Mar that met his specific needs and reflected the minimalist style of his art (1979, figs. 6 and 7).
In trying to provide maximum studio space, Yeo designed a block-like structure with high windows and large walls. Calling it an “anti-cottage,” it is not unlike an abstract sculpture on a concrete block base. The Orange County-based sculptor George Hall, who had hired Yeo to design his acclaimed Corona del Mar house, returned to the architect three more times to design other houses and studios.
Yeo was not disinterested in contemporary trends. In the late 1960s and 1970s, Sea Ranch, the progressive planned community on the Sonoma County coast, loomed large in the imagination of architects. Created in 1964 by a group of Bay-area architects and designers in the vernacular style of Northern California barns and minimalist box-like forms inspired by Scandinavian design (Alvar Aalto’s Säynätsalo Town Hall was a point of reference), they sought to elevate modern architecture with a strong environmental conscience.
Yeo was a great admirer of Aalto. When he was working in Sweden during a sabbatical from Strickland’s firm, he sought out the Finnish architect to share a drink. Aalto’s organic approach to design and common use of wood and the naturalistic but modern shed-like forms of Sea Ranch appealed to him. In the early 1970s, he began to design residences in the style featuring multi-directional roofs with little to no overhang, the unusual placement of windows to take advantage of natural light, and the use of wood shingles or siding made from reclaimed materials (figs. 8 and 9). Yeo moved away from the Sea Ranch style, or “Shed Style” as it became known, around 1980 as it was falling out of fashion in part because broad wooden exteriors proved costly to maintain. But he took with him the prevailing commitment to the environment, open space, and sustainability.
Open Space and Nature Centers
It is perhaps not surprising, then, that Yeo attained the most attention, including recognition as a Fellow of the AIA, for his leadership in conservation. In 1965, business and civic leaders in Orange County launched an ambitious initiative called Project 21 (UCI joined the group in 1967) to guide growth and planning for the 21st century. Study teams were formed to focus on urban issues such as downtown deterioration and low-income housing. Yeo led the Open Space Action Group, which studied open-space needs and made proposals for the preservation of natural lands. The study team produced a report that served as a guiding document for planners, cities, and the county (fig. 10). His participation in Project 21 led to appointments to the County Planning Commission – first in 1972-1973 and again in 1975-1976 – a position in which he continued to advocate for open space preservation and controls on development within a largely pro-development group.
Yeo’s involvement in environmental initiatives led him to design nature centers beginning in the late 1980s. His first was the interpretive center at Clark Regional Park in 1987 (fig. 11); he would go on to complete over ten nature centers and open space and park master plans in Orange and Los Angeles counties. In 2013, the Clark Center was recognized by the Orange County chapter of AIA with a 25 Year Award, given to projects that have stood the test of time. His most rewarding projects have been the Muth Interpretive Center (2000) and the Back Bay Science Center (2007). Both centers, located along the Upper Newport Bay Ecological Preserve, took ten or more years to complete with multiple clients and various constituencies to satisfy. But these challenges fed Yeo’s collaborative spirit and interest in architecture as problem-solving.
A nature center is a very specific building type that is by necessity efficient and sustainable and is often constrained by budget and site. For the Muth Center, Yeo wanted to minimize its footprint and preserve views of the bay. He tucked the structure into the hillside, using a triangular concrete coffer system that projects out as an overhang to shore up the earth around it while adding to it a sculptural presence (figs. 12-14). The building was made mostly of renewable and reused materials: the concrete was made of gravel, sand, and water from nearby Aliso and Trabuco creeks and the rebar was made of recycled steel; and Yeo regularly used leftover materials from previous projects.
Several years later, he designed the Back Bay Science Center. The structure’s complex program required office and educational facilities for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and a water testing laboratory for the Orange County Health Agency. He created three buildings for each function and connected them with a soaring canopy which Yeo says was “to provide a sense of arrival” (fig. 15). The Upper Newport Bay projects were the culmination of a career dedicated to open space and natural land preservation and an evolving design sensibility that is creative, resourceful, and environmentally conscious.
From Conservation to Preservation
In 2017, Yeo made the first of two donations of his papers from the Open Space initiatives and the development of the Muth Center to Sherman Library & Gardens in Corona del Mar, which collects materials related to the history of Orange County. While he is not shy in his regard for politicians, he remains active in civic issues. As the chair of the Corona del Mar Residents Association’s Historic Resources Committee, he has been working with Sherman Library and the Corona del Mar Historical Society to document the area’s disappearing historic cottages, which were built mostly as part-time vacation homes.
Earlier this year, he was a leader in the successful effort to get an ordinance passed that added a level of protection to the cottages. The legislation allows owners of older small houses in Newport Beach who wish to enlarge their properties to do so with fewer restrictions rather than tear them down. The ease and rate at which cottages have been torn down has alarmed both longtime residents and preservationists. While Yeo admits the limitations of the ordinance, his group hopes it will raise awareness for historic properties in an area where developable land is in demand. It is also a part of a wider strategy in which development includes the preservation of historic or natural resources.
Throughout his career, Yeo has shown proficiency in producing high-quality designs to meet client needs and addressing complex problems through sensitive, site-specific, and sustainable design. For Yeo, his preservation advocacy is the latest chapter in civic involvement that has helped shape Orange County over the past six decades.
*I would like to thank Ron Yeo for generously giving his time for interviews and many emails.