RAMAGIRI: DESIGN FOR A SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY BY MICHAEL JEFFREY MORSE
$ 250.00
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[Tomales, CA]: Privately Printed (c. 1970s). Unique Original Architectural Proposal Presentation Copy. Comb-bound horizontal format with stiff black printed boards. Book Condition: Very Good + with light rubbing to board extremities and minor age-toning and light damage to the white plastic comb binding; internal pages exceptionally clean with rich, high-contrast monochrome printing on rectos only. Unpaginated. Illustrated throughout with full-page black-and-white photographs, site maps, and detailed architectural ink plans and sectional drawings. Text in English. Ex-office library (Esherick HHomsey Dodge and Davis) with pasted in card holder & card at back of book.
This is an extraordinarily rare (and likely unique) architectural proposal document for Ramagiri, the famous spiritual ashram in Marin County, California, founded in 1970 by Eknath Easwaran (founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation).
Situated on 260 acres of rolling hills in northern Marin County (near Tomales), Ramagiri was converted from a former dairy farm/Catholic seminary into an intentional spiritual community. This proposal was authored by architect/community resident Michael Jeffrey Morse, and it outlines an ambitious master plan to house 45 permanent residents, balancing sustainable communal living, agriculture, printmaking workshops, geodesic domes, and a central meditation hall complex.
This document comes from the library of Esherick Homsey Dodge and Davis (EHDD)—one of the Bay Area’s most prestigious modern architectural firms (founded by Joseph Esherick), suggesting that this proposal was either submitted for professional consultation, prepared as an advanced architectural thesis, or kept as a regional study in intentional community design.
An evocative artifact of Northern California counterculture, 1970s intentional communities, and regional Bay Area Modernist architecture.
