Maurice Metz

Maurice Jean Metz (1920-1975) was born on May 20, 1920, in Los Angeles, California, the son of Franklin Amandus Metz (1884-1954), an automotive mechanic, and Bessie Barkley Metz (1897-1955), a secretary by training, and later a clerk in the Fresno County Tax Collector's office.

By the age of 10, Metz resided with his parents in rural Fresno County, where the family lived on State Highway 99 near McCall Avenue. Metz entered Fowler Union High School in 1934, after completing his early education at Fowler Elementary School, but transferred to Sanger Union High School two weeks into his freshman year. He graduated from SUHS in 1938, where he served as manager of the football team, assistant manager of the track team, and participated in the Junior/Senior Hi-Y, Student Council Citizenship Board, debate team, and the Mechanical Drawing Club, in which he was designated "Chief Draftsman."

Metz began a traditional apprenticeship as a junior draftsman in the Fresno office of Edward W. Peterson. Peterson had trained at Armour Institute (later to become Illinois Institute of Technology) in Chicago, and was a partner during the late 1930s in the noted PWA consortium, Allied Architects of Fresno. Metz then took a position with David H. Horn, FAIA, a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of U.C. Berkeley who had apprenticed under legendary California architects Julia Morgan, Bernard Maybeck, and William Wurster. After a formative period in Horn's office, Metz moved to the Bay Area to complete the balance of his advanced apprenticeship, formal education, and professional office training.

Again working as a draftsman, Metz secured his first job in San Francisco with the influential structural engineering firm of William Peyton Day & Associates, followed by a position in 1942 with the renowned consulting civilian military engineer, Clyde E. Bentley, C.E., M.E., E.E. In 1943, Metz joined architect Frank Wynkoop, formerly in practice in Los Angeles, Seattle, Fresno, and Bakersfield, who had trained under Parkinson & Parkinson and Swasey & McAfee in Southern California, and was a specialist in school facility architecture. During this period, Metz also affiliated with the San Francisco Architectural Club, and completed nearly eighteen months training under the auspices of its historically prestigious program.

In 1944, Metz accrued additional office experience working with Stone & Mulloy (later Stone, Mulloy, Marraccini, and Patterson), and then John H. Devitt (later San Francisco Assistant City Architect), in preparation to enter the University of California, Berkeley in 1945. Admitted to a special (non-degree) program, Metz resided in Oakland, California, while undertaking courses in Elementary Design & Theory under Professor Stafford L. Jory, and Design & Theory: Junior Problems, taught by professors Michael A. Goodman and Raymond W. Jeans.

Metz subsequently worked in the East Bay as a draftsman for the prominent Oakland firm of Reynolds & Chamberlain, before taking a position with famed designer Mario J. Ciampi in San Francisco. His first position working as a designer himself then came in the office of Ellison & King, Engineers. William Henry Ellison and Stanley C. King were noted for their pioneer work designing concrete ships and barges for the American military during World War II, at the Belair Shipyards in South San Francisco, and were earlier associated with engineering the Tower of the Sun for the Golden Gate International Exposition of 1939-1940.

In 1948, Metz returned to Fresno to join architect William D. Coates, formerly the State Architect of California. Metz received his certificate to practice architecture in California on April 14, 1948 (License No. C-998), ultimately becoming a partner in the firm of Coates & Metz. After Coates' death in 1953, Metz practiced in Fresno until the early 1970s, when he took a position as a production architect in the Burlingame, California, office of St. Louis-based Bank Building Corporation (BBC). BBC was at that time "the nation's largest firm specializing in planning, designing and construction management of financial and health care facilities." Founded in 1913 in St. Louis, the firm grew to have regional offices in Chicago; Dallas; Denver; Atlanta; Bloomfield, Connecticut; Richmond, Virginia; and Burlingame. The company employed 1600 professionals holding "more than 260 architectural [certificates] and more than 75 engineering licenses."

During his professional career, Metz was a member of the American Institute of Architects, having first joined as a Junior Associate in San Francisco in 1946. He was elected to AIA Corporate Membership in 1948, then served as President of the San Joaquin Chapter, and later as Secretary-Treasurer of the AIA's California Council. He also served as chair and co-chair for Fresno County March of Dimes fund raising campaigns during the 1950s, in the fight against polio.

Notable architectural commissions from Metz's career include the Fresno County Hall of Records Annex (1955); Fresno Colony School (1955); Nordic School, Scandinavian School District (1956); Tranquility Union High School (1956-1958); Bryant Elementary School Additions, Dos Palos (1958); Madison Elementary School (1958); Scandinavian School (1958); Sierra Hospital (1958); Viking School Additions (1958); Vinland School Additions (1958); Leif Ericson School (1960); Physicians Osteopathic Hospital, Bakersfield (1960); Andrew Jackson School, Selma (1961); Temperance-Kutner School (1965); Fresno County Juvenile Hall Dormitory Additions (1970); and various production projects for banks and credit unions while serving under architect Carl R. Klager (1925-1983) at BBC.

Maurice Jean Metz died in Mountain View, California, on October 16, 1975, at the age of 55, after a long struggle with kidney disease.

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