Timothy L. Pflueger - Early Life

Early Life

Pflueger was born the second of seven sons in the Potrero Hill area of San Francisco to German immigrants August Pflueger and Ottilie Quandt who had met in Los Angeles and married. Other Quandt relatives lived in the Noe Valley neighborhood, and, in 1904, the Pflueger family moved closer, to 1015 Guerrero Street in the Mission District, a melting pot neighborhood of blue-collar workers. At age 11, Pflueger took his first job working for a picture-framing firm near his home.

After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Pflueger continued his grade-school education, graduating at age 13 in a mass ceremony held in Golden Gate Park for all the city's devastated public schools. By 1907, Pflueger was working as a draftsman and soon joined the architectural firm Miller and Colmesnil, under the guidance of James Rupert Miller, senior partner. Young Pflueger sketched ornamental details based on ideas from his bosses, and attended Mission High Evening School to further his education. In 1911, Pflueger joined the San Francisco Architectural Club (SFAC), an organization that helped budding architects receive training in the informal Atelier Method where older experts taught the practical side of architecture including waterproofing, lighting and structural concerns to students who had no hope or wish to study Beaux-Arts in an established school abroad. Pflueger became thoroughly involved with SFAC's collegial activities and was chosen director in 1914.