This is the 84th article in Bears Doing Big Things, a weekly column celebrating the stories of notable M-A alumni.
Sally Notthoff Zarnowitz ‘76 is a former architect and city planner who focused on projects within the public sector. “Throughout my career, I felt like I was always giving back to various communities in different ways, improving living spaces—whether large or small—one step at a time,” she said.
At M-A, Zarnowitz played volleyball all four years, competed on the swim team in her freshman and sophomore years, and played on the badminton team in her junior and senior years. “I was not really into sports before M-A, but I didn’t want to be stuck in regular P.E. so it was the only option,” she said. “I was never the best but I had a lot of fun.”
Zarnowitz’s favorite class at M-A was English with Karl Lange. “He was a theatrical and engaging teacher,” she said. “I really fell in love with writing and literature after taking his class.” She also greatly enjoyed taking German with Frau Parker who was “strict, particular, but incredibly easy to learn from.”
“At the time, M-A was transitioning from a super hippie era to a stereotypical high school from the movies,” Zarnowitz said. “There were cheerleaders, jocks, and lots of school spirit, but I was pretty skeptical about it at the time because my older siblings were still pretty hippie.”
Zarnowitz then attended UC Davis for two years where she studied history. “I loved literature and writing, but I felt like history would be a more useful degree,” she said.
After two years at Davis, Zarnowitz spent a year working at a school building models of Boston, which sparked her interest in cities and architecture. She then completed her history degree at UC Berkeley over the next two years. “I decided I wanted to pursue architecture because I enjoyed the creative aspect, but I also loved the idea of improving a place and making it better for the general public,” she said.
Hoping to become an architect, Zarnowitz attended Harvard University Graduate School of Design for a three-and-a-half-year intensive program. “Coming from studying history, it was a big transition and it was a really competitive environment,” she said. “It was before computer-aided design was available, so we would design buildings and models every semester by hand.”
“Harvard was the first time I had experienced being in school with a lot of international students from all different backgrounds,” she continued.
After Harvard, Zarnowitz moved to New York where she worked as an architect on public realm projects, including museums, firehouses, and street improvements. In her early years as an architect, she worked for Kupiec Koutsomitis Architects, Buttrick White & Burtis, and Karahan Shwarting Architecture. “My job was to oversee design approvals and organize different city rehabilitation projects,” Zarnowitz explained.
Following her time as an architect in New York, Zarnowitz returned to the Bay Area to raise her two children and stay close to family. She transitioned to teaching architecture at the College of San Mateo, where she worked for around ten years. “I was raising my kids and didn’t really know what to do, but I had a lot of knowledge from my time at Harvard and in New York,” she said.
She then transitioned to work as a planner and historic preservation officer for the City of San Jose, contributing to the public sector. Throughout her career, Zarnowitz also worked for the City of Berkeley and the Town of Los Gatos, specializing in preserving historic buildings, managing land use policies, and overseeing new projects. “Architecture is not a very predictable profession,” she said. “It really depends on what project you are working on, and with two kids, I wanted something that I could count on.”
Her work as a city planner included tasks like responding to community members, homeowners, and developers seeking to improve or develop their properties. “It could have been as simple as getting someone a permit to cut down a tree or as complex as permitting new development on large streets like El Camino,” she explained.
As a historic preservation officer, Zarnowitz managed historic resource programs, and kept track of the city’s historic properties, ensuring that significant buildings wouldn’t be destroyed or altered. “I’ve loved history since college, and since I’ve seen the Bay Area change throughout my whole life, it was important to me to sustain old architecture while also modernizing our communities,” she said.
“It was a pretty big transition going from being an architect to a city planner because I studied history and architecture, not planning,” Zarnowitz said. “Having the experience of working with diverse groups of people at M-A and in college really helped me because city planning requires communication with people at many different levels of knowledge.”
Currently, Zarnowitz is enjoying her retirement and exploring new hobbies, such as taking an online creative writing class through Stanford. “When I was working as a planner, all of my writing had to be very factual and accurate, but I love the freedom of creative writing now,” she said.
Zarnowitz’s advice to current M-A students: “Appreciate your community and surroundings. It’s a huge gift to be able to grow and learn from all different kinds of people.”
To aspiring architects or city planners: “Always look for innovation and creative solutions within your community.”
