In Memoriam Architects attending the renowned Monterey Design Conference are a discerning group. Every other year, on a Sunday in October, after three days filled with insider looks at international projects by globally acclaimed design figures, it’s a challenge to keep them in Monterey to view just one more project on a tour. But the Monterey Bay Aquarium always delayed the drive or flight home. A sold-out, must- see, every visit to the Monterey coast. Such is the work of the late great Chuck Davis, FAIA, who passed away earlier this spring. Davis, the youngest founding partner of Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis (now EHDD), served as designer, project manager, architect, and politician with the city, the California Coastal Commission, and the owners of Cannery Row on the aquarium. Monterey Bay Aquarium. EHDD, Chuck Davis, FAIA – Principal in Charge, photo by Jane Lidz. “The Monterey Bay Aquarium revolutionized the field of aquarium design, and it remains an exemplar,” Tim Culvahouse, FAIA, an architectural historian through decades of editorship of AIA California’s Architecture California journal. The Aquarium “was a first on so many levels,” says Karen Fiene, FAIA, who worked at EHDD. “Chuck created truly unique breakthroughs in exhibiting live animals, preserving cultural history and working with scientists like Julie Packard to provide content that fundamentally changed the way we view the beauty and vulnerability of our oceans.” An overwhelming success—for visitors from across the world, scientists, and the surrounding community—it’s easy to forget that Monterey Bay Aquarium was Davis’s first aquarium project, a commission he won through his deep commitment to it – and his promise to set up his office on site to fully understand what its human and amphibious inhabitants required. “For the next five and one-half months, I roamed back and forth between the biologists in the lab and my people in the next room, trying to understand the myriad technical requirements of taking care of fish and mammals, as well as trying to fashion a building that would fit the context of Cannery Row,” Davis recalled in an article penned by EHDD for arcCA Digest on the occasion of Davis’s Maybeck Award. Partnering with his brother, Hal Davis, a structural engineer (their father was in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) “they redefined the idea of aquariums while staying true to the spirit of Cannery Row,” noted writer, editor, and Davis cousin-in-law John J. Parman in a sweeping remembrance. “Chuck Davis epitomized the thoughtful, impactful practice of the craft of architecture,” Bill Leddy, FAIA, told us. “Like his mentor Joseph Esherick, he was a direct, no-nonsense architect who didn’t need a manifesto to give special meaning to his work. The sensitivity to context, technical discipline, and elegant materiality of the buildings he crafted will always be Chuck’s most powerful and lasting design statement.” “He was an architect who believed that design truly matters, and his work continually supported that principal,” said Paul Welch, Hon. AIA, AIA California’s Executive Vice President from 1982 to 2014. First hired as a designer and draftsman by Joseph Esherick in 1962, Davis was a founding partner of EHDD in 1972, and became the firm’s President and Senior Design Principal. “It must have been a challenge, (yet also an amazing opportunity) to be the youngest of the EHDD partners, to look up to and carry forth the legacy of Joe, but to also be able to carve out the freedom to be himself,” Janet Tam, FAIA, told us. “I think that Chuck was able to do both- he was true to the Esherick design ethic, but also brought what I thought was a kind of freedom to be open and inclusive in his own design process.” He was widely recognized for the sensitivity he showed, connecting the built and natural environments. “Throughout his career, Chuck designed an architecture connected to the land and to the existing cultural heritage he was operating in. His forms were assertive, logical in their tectonic principals and responsive to actual need,” said architect and author Pierluigi Serraino, Ph.D., FAIA. His portfolio included other aquariums, of course—as far flung as the National Aquarium of Taiwan—as well as major academic, institutional, and private projects such as the Science Library at UC Santa Cruz, the DOE Library expansion at UC Berkeley (his alma mater, he later served on the campus’s design review board), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, and the Exploratorium. Davis realized work at all ten University of California campuses. “His legacy was in the impact these buildings have on the thousands if not millions of people who pass through their doors,” Jennifer Devlin, FAIA, EHDD’s current CEO, remarked. “Chuck was deeply rooted in the practical – he was less about concepts, parti’s and lofty ideas – though he pushed to expand the creative ‘solution space’.” “We were defining a problem and finding solutions, not pulling a big shiny design out of a magic bag,” said Fiene, who, began working for EHDD in 1987, and, by the mid-1990s was part of the senior leadership at the firm. Though Monterey Bay Aquarium may stand as the best-known contribution in Davis’s multivalent legacy, the principles integrated within it remain steady hallmarks in a lifetime of remarkable work. A Superpower“[The] ability to see the larger project while keeping the tiniest detail in mind was his superpower,” observed Fiene. His ability to execute on both levels, and solve complex problems, regardless of typology or scale, rested on precepts that formed the foundation for his lifetime of success: his ability to inspire and engage teams, his tireless work ethic, and his fascination and immersion in the meta. “He was master of the technical aspects of complex design problems, like holding a million gallons of seawater and not having the steel rust out,” observed Fiene. “He read constantly, including hardware catalogs, and knew something about everything, we considered him our resident guru.” This combination of inner geek—he could talk “tuna tracking and the latest construction technologies,” recounts Devlin—and commitment, drove
Charles “Chuck” Davis, FAIA, 1934 – 2025
Architects attending the renowned Monterey Design Conference are a discerning group. Every other year, on a Sunday in October, after three days filled with insider looks at international projects by globally acclaimed design figures, it’s a challenge to keep them in Monterey to view just one more project on a tour.
But the Monterey Bay Aquarium always delayed the drive or flight home. A sold-out, must- see, every visit to the Monterey coast.
Such is the work of the late great Chuck Davis, FAIA, who passed away earlier this spring. Davis, the youngest founding partner of Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis (now EHDD), served as designer, project manager, architect, and politician with the city, the California Coastal Commission, and the owners of Cannery Row on the aquarium.
Monterey Bay Aquarium. EHDD, Chuck Davis, FAIA – Principal in Charge, photo by Jane Lidz.
“The Monterey Bay Aquarium revolutionized the field of aquarium design, and it remains an exemplar,” Tim Culvahouse, FAIA, an architectural historian through decades of editorship of AIA California’s Architecture California journal.
The Aquarium “was a first on so many levels,” says Karen Fiene, FAIA, who worked at EHDD. “Chuck created truly unique breakthroughs in exhibiting live animals, preserving cultural history and working with scientists like Julie Packard to provide content that fundamentally changed the way we view the beauty and vulnerability of our oceans.”
An overwhelming success—for visitors from across the world, scientists, and the surrounding community—it’s easy to forget that Monterey Bay Aquarium was Davis’s first aquarium project, a commission he won through his deep commitment to it – and his promise to set up his office on site to fully understand what its human and amphibious inhabitants required.
“For the next five and one-half months, I roamed back and forth between the biologists in the lab and my people in the next room, trying to understand the myriad technical requirements of taking care of fish and mammals, as well as trying to fashion a building that would fit the context of Cannery Row,” Davis recalled in an article penned by EHDD for arcCA Digest on the occasion of Davis’s Maybeck Award.
Partnering with his brother, Hal Davis, a structural engineer (their father was in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) “they redefined the idea of aquariums while staying true to the spirit of Cannery Row,” noted writer, editor, and Davis cousin-in-law John J. Parman in a sweeping remembrance.
“Chuck Davis epitomized the thoughtful, impactful practice of the craft of architecture,” Bill Leddy, FAIA, told us. “Like his mentor Joseph Esherick, he was a direct, no-nonsense architect who didn’t need a manifesto to give special meaning to his work. The sensitivity to context, technical discipline, and elegant materiality of the buildings he crafted will always be Chuck’s most powerful and lasting design statement.”
“He was an architect who believed that design truly matters, and his work continually supported that principal,” said Paul Welch, Hon. AIA, AIA California’s Executive Vice President from 1982 to 2014.
First hired as a designer and draftsman by Joseph Esherick in 1962, Davis was a founding partner of EHDD in 1972, and became the firm’s President and Senior Design Principal.
“It must have been a challenge, (yet also an amazing opportunity) to be the youngest of the EHDD partners, to look up to and carry forth the legacy of Joe, but to also be able to carve out the freedom to be himself,” Janet Tam, FAIA, told us. “I think that Chuck was able to do both- he was true to the Esherick design ethic, but also brought what I thought was a kind of freedom to be open and inclusive in his own design process.”
He was widely recognized for the sensitivity he showed, connecting the built and natural environments. “Throughout his career, Chuck designed an architecture connected to the land and to the existing cultural heritage he was operating in. His forms were assertive, logical in their tectonic principals and responsive to actual need,” said architect and author Pierluigi Serraino, Ph.D., FAIA.
His portfolio included other aquariums, of course—as far flung as the National Aquarium of Taiwan—as well as major academic, institutional, and private projects such as the Science Library at UC Santa Cruz, the DOE Library expansion at UC Berkeley (his alma mater, he later served on the campus’s design review board), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in Los Altos, and the Exploratorium. Davis realized work at all ten University of California campuses.
“His legacy was in the impact these buildings have on the thousands if not millions of people who pass through their doors,” Jennifer Devlin, FAIA, EHDD’s current CEO, remarked. “Chuck was deeply rooted in the practical – he was less about concepts, parti’s and lofty ideas – though he pushed to expand the creative ‘solution space’.”
“We were defining a problem and finding solutions, not pulling a big shiny design out of a magic bag,” said Fiene, who, began working for EHDD in 1987, and, by the mid-1990s was part of the senior leadership at the firm.
Though Monterey Bay Aquarium may stand as the best-known contribution in Davis’s multivalent legacy, the principles integrated within it remain steady hallmarks in a lifetime of remarkable work.
A Superpower
“[The] ability to see the larger project while keeping the tiniest detail in mind was his superpower,” observed Fiene.
His ability to execute on both levels, and solve complex problems, regardless of typology or scale, rested on precepts that formed the foundation for his lifetime of success: his ability to inspire and engage teams, his tireless work ethic, and his fascination and immersion in the meta.
“He was master of the technical aspects of complex design problems, like holding a million gallons of seawater and not having the steel rust out,” observed Fiene. “He read constantly, including hardware catalogs, and knew something about everything, we considered him our resident guru.”
This combination of inner geek—he could talk “tuna tracking and the latest construction technologies,” recounts Devlin—and commitment, drove solutions and innovation. “He had a work ethic of a mid-western farmer: no time to pause, reflect—there was more work to be done,” she continued. But Davis was also larger than life figure that breathed joy into complex, serious challenges.
“The beauty of Chuck’s work commitment was that he did it with laughter, with passion and belief in each of us as individuals; a belief in what we were doing together,” said Devlin. “He knew how to encourage, motivate and provide sound counsel, whether to an employee, or a professional colleague, or peer firm.”
Davis also understood and excelled at honoring the role of client.
“I think clients felt truly appreciated and listened to, that they were an integral part of the design process. He had a saying that when you went into a client meeting you “park your ego at the door,” said Fiene.
An Equity Pioneer
“In addition to his buildings, Chuck’s lasting legacy is his devotion to mentoring young architects. He was a particularly strong early advocate for women in architecture, as my late partner Marsha Maytum, FAIA, experienced firsthand during her years at EHDD in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s,” said Bill Leddy, FAIA. “She was one of many young designers who benefited from Chuck’s good-humored wisdom in their early careers and continued to learn from him for decades to come.”
Davis’s mentorship of Maytum is repeated again and again. “Chuck was the first to promote women to higher levels of responsibility in the firm and I’m grateful for the confidence he had in me to take on a leadership role,” said Fiene.
These relationships were generous, not transactional. When Janet Tam, FAIA, left the office to launch Noll & Tam, she credited his direct intervention with the client as the reason her young firm was able to win its first ground up community center project.
His Legacy
Asked to name Davis’s legacy, today, “It would be obvious to name the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the body of aquarium work and more that Chuck built for EHDD,” Tam says, “But for me, his impact to the countless young architects he nurtured over his career up until the very end, will never be forgotten. His ability to pull everyone into his tent to feel included by his warmth of personality and truly valued when he listened to you.”
But perhaps, it is impossible to highlight one influence Davis has in the profession and label it as The legacy. Perhaps it is a greater embodiment.
“Pride in his work but not driven by ego—grounded in respect for the history and specifics of a place and its users. All the things that we are taught to strive for and say we do, but what he was able to pull off,” observed Tam, FAIA.
View Chuck Davis’s MDC 2024 Talk
AIA California is grateful that Davis spoke at MDC in 2024. To view it, in its entirety:
1. Log in or register at: www.aecknowledge.com
2. Go to: MDC – Reflections with Chuck Davis, FAIA.
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