Herbert Ronald Greenberg was born in 1929 in
Oneonta, New York. Greene left
Syracuse University in New York in 1948 to enroll at the
University of Oklahoma, where he studied under the direction of
Bruce Goff, a modernist architect known for his iconoclastic design philosophy. While earning his degree and after, Greene worked for Goff, preparing architectural drawings, which are now included in The
Art Institute of Chicago, Archival Collection. During 1951 to 1954 Greene worked for John Lautner in Los Angeles, California and then relocated to Houston, Texas, where he worked for Joseph Krakower and established his own practice. Donald MacDonald, an architect who trained under Greene and Glickman, described the American School as “a truly American ethic, which is being formulated without the usual influence of the European or Asian architectural forms and methodologies common on the East and West coasts of the United States.” Students were taught to look to sources beyond the accepted canon of western architecture and to find inspiration in everyday objects, the natural landscape, and non-western cultures such as the designs of Native American tribes of Oklahoma and the Western plains.
Mickey Muennig was one of Greene's students. Greene realized the completion of his building, The Prairie House, in 1961, a structure that pre-dated the green building movement by a decade. Located in Norman, Oklahoma, this modernist residence, integrates concepts that are now associated with smart architecture: natural materials, passive design, natural lighting and ventilation, energy efficiency, and careful site placement.
Julius Shulman photographs of The Prairie House were featured in Life and Look magazines, in addition to several international publications. This media exposure brought Greene recognition for his experimental architecture and counter-culture design philosophy. In 1964 Greene left Oklahoma to become a professor of architecture at the
University of Kentucky, where he taught for 18 years and designed buildings that reflected client-centered regional architecture. Greene believed that dialogue between the architect and client was paramount to creating a design that both could support. He subscribed to the philosophy that ultimately the users and clients needed to make buildings their own. He did this through the integration of regional and historical references and by incorporating the client's personal objects into a meaningful relationship with the actual design such as in the Joyce Residence. Greene has lived in Berkeley, California, since 1982, where he continues to explore the interdisciplinary realm of architecture, art, science and philosophy. He is a published author, on the subject of visual perception and neurobiological systems. Greene's work as an artist, architect and writer explores symbolic relationships between memory, experience, object and environment. == Legacy ==