From initials carved in dorm rooms to trophies shelved in the Athletic Department, Stanford students take every opportunity to make their mark on the Farm. Few manage as dramatically as architect John Carl Warnecke, '41. The designer of internationally known work—as well as campus landmarks including Maples Pavilion, the Cummings Art Building and the Stanford Bookstore—died in Healdsburg, Calif., on April 17 after complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 91.
Oakland-born Warnecke won two letters as an offensive lineman for Stanford football. He capped off an undefeated senior year on the famous "Wow Boys" team with the 1941 Rose Bowl victory over Nebraska. Upon graduation from Stanford with a degree in graphic arts, Warnecke finished Harvard University's three-year architecture master's degree program in one year before coming back west.
After working for the Richmond Housing Authority and his father's architectural firm, he founded his own company in 1945. About three decades later, John Carl Warnecke and Associates was the largest architectural firm in the country, with six offices spanning the United States from Honolulu to New York City. Warnecke's most famous projects were in Washington, D.C., including the Hart Senate Office Building, the Soviet Embassy and the gravesite of John F. Kennedy, an old friend, at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Kennedy gave Warnecke his start in Washington with a 1962 project to build federal offices while preserving historic buildings in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House.
Warnecke retained a special commitment to Stanford's architecture throughout his professional life. "He always cared very much about that campus and carrying on the tradition there," said his daughter, Margo Warnecke Merck, '73.
