Marin County Civic Center

Wright saw none of it built. He died in April 1959 with the plans about ninety percent done, and ground was broken the following February. It happened at all because Supervisor Vera Schultz courted him past a hostile colleague and a letter, read aloud at a board meeting, calling him a communist sympathizer. In January 1961 a new board majority stopped the work; a newspaper poll ran seven to one for finishing it, and a week later the order was reversed. The bronze repeats Wright's own birth year, 1869. He was born in 1867.

What the plaque says

Marin County Civic Center The Civic Center Complex was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1959) near the end of his long career. The Administration Building was completed in 1962 and the Hall of Justice in 1970. They are the only government buildings designed by the distinguished architect that were ever actually constructed. The project fully embodied Wright's ideal of organic architecture--a synthesis of buildings and landscape. In Wright's words, the structures were planned to "melt into the sunburnt hills." California Registered Historical Landmark No. 999 Plaque placed by the State Department of Parks and Recreation in cooperation with the citizens of Marin County. December 31, 1992

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Muir Woods National Monument — 7.6 mi
  A redwood canyon saved from a reservoir by a gift, and named for a man who had been there once.
• Muir Beach Overlook — 9.7 mi
  A cliff edge on Highway 1, and the concrete dugouts where two-man crews watched the sea after Pearl Harbor.
• Earthquake Trail — 15 mi
  A short loop along the San Andreas, where a broken fence shows how far Point Reyes moved in under a minute in 1906.
• Kule Loklo — 15 mi
  A Coast Miwok village built in the 1970s to honour a people its builders were told had died out. They had not.

More markers nearby

• Mission San Rafael Arcángel — 1.6 mi
• St. Vincent's School for Boys — 2.6 mi
• Home of Lord Charles Snowden Fairfax — 3.0 mi
• China Camp — 3.7 mi