A pioneering physicist deserves a pioneering property—and that’s exactly what Arthur Frederic Kip got when he commissioned a young architect to build his Berkeley home in the 1950s.
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The UC Berkeley physics professor is best known for conducting foundational research on semiconductors, helping lay the groundwork for the computers, smartphones, and electronic devices we rely on today. Early on in his tenure at the university, Kip commissioned Olsen to build a home for him and his wife. It was one of Olsen’s earliest independent commissions, before he became one of the most influential modernist architects in Northern California.
Olsen, who trained under Walter Gropius at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, was inspired by European International Style Modernism, and drew on the likes of Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe for his designs. The Kip House, as the Berkeley residence is known, is a largely Bauhaus-inspired structure, defined by a simplicity and functionality that feels just as suited to today as it did more than 70 years ago…