Maverick for the Built Environment: A Biography of John Paul Eberhard

Maverick for the Built Environment is a biography of my father. A trained architect, he felt that architecture, indeed all engineering disciplines, should not ignore the human factor and that new ways of thinking were needed to improve the built environment. “This generation of students and young professionals,” he testified before Congress in 1973, “feels the need to deal with issues which reflect a socially responsible position by the profession…they want to have some confidence that their design decisions make a positive contribution to the quality of the environment.” Not content to teach architecture the way it had always been taught, Eberhard argued, “It is no longer sensible to talk about one body of men called architects as though they were the only ones involved in architecture…environmental designers must operate as a team lead by men trained as generalists.” Also before his time, Dad saw architecture as a clinical science to promote health and increase worker productivity. “This could be a whole new field of science,” he said.

In Dad's words: “I would describe myself, in short, as an organizational entrepreneur. That ranges from starting a new school of architecture in Buffalo to starting a new Institute for Applied Technology at the National Bureau of Standards and from creating a research program at the Sheraton Hotel Corporation to the most recent events that include working with the San Diego Chapter of the AIA and establishing the new Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture.”

John Paul Eberhard was not a traditional architect in any sense of the word. He was a maverick. For the built environment.

Review from Writer’s Digest: "Congratulations on writing and publishing your book! You have created a loving and informative tribute to your father, an important if not well remembered figure in American history. This book brings him into our consciousness. You do a great job of alternating between your writing and your father’s own words, as well as interpolating reminiscences of others, to create as complete a portrait as possible. His life can be seen as a microcosm for so much of his generation in the United States. The story of your parents’ deaths is heartbreaking and serves as a painful reminder of the tragic period in the early months of the Covid pandemic. The many photographs and drawings you include add a great deal, and they are reproduced with great clarity."