We celebrate our dear friend Paul Wolff as he turns 95 on December 27, 2024. His life has been full of adventure, challenges, and incredible purpose. Please read along and enjoy a small blip of his very full and meaningful life.
Paul Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Architecture at Cal Poly State University, has an incredible life story. Paul was born in 1929 in Hamburg, Germany to Jewish parents. After his father’s arrest during Kristallnacht in 1938, young Paul and his family fled Nazi occupation to London, England in 1939. Fortunately, as the political climate grew more volatile, they were able to secure 30-day transatlantic crossing and landed in San Francisco on August 1, 1939 – only 30 days before the start of WWII in Europe.
In the 1950’s, Paul was drafted into the US Army and served in Europe. After his service, the GI Bill of Rights enabled him to enroll in the graduate program of architectural studies at The Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. After graduation, he began his architecture career working with renowned architect Richard J. Neutra in Los Angeles and later started his own architecture practice in Palo Alto. In 1971, Paul began teaching Architecture at Cal Poly State University. It was during this time at Cal Poly that he began to recognize the need for accessibility in architectural design, partly due to the effects of his sister’s advancing MS diagnosis.
After earning his master’s degree in Environmental Psychology from the University of Surrey in Guilford, England, Paul retuned to Cal Poly where he introduced Environmental Psychology and Universal Design into the School of Architecture’s curriculum. In July of 1990, architectural accessibility finally became a national requirement as the American Disability Act (ADA) was passed into law. After 23 years at Cal Poly, Paul retired to focus on community involvement. He and his wife Marion, who escaped from Vienna as part of the Kindertransport, continue to talk to students and groups, sharing the stories of escapes from Nazi Germany, and exploring the impact of the current violence we see in our society today, and its relationship to the evils of prejudices and discrimination. Paul worked with local activists to start Access for All, which promotes accessibility, supports advocacy work, and provides connection through The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo County. He currently serves on the Access for All advisory committee
