Hal Sadler roamed the world’s cities and landscapes, hunted in Idaho and rooted for the Chargers.

When he died Jan. 21 at age 91 after suffering a stroke, the Mr. San Diego of modernist architecture, left behind a wide variety of projects and a reputation for listening, mentoring and firm advocacy for doing the right thing.

“He really changed the face of San Diego and helped create the San Diego we have today,” said Bill Lawrence, executive director of the San Diego History Center, where Sadler served as board chairman and a leader in rethinking how to tell San Diego’s story.

At Tucker Sadler Architects, which Sadler founded in 1957 with fellow architect Thomas D. Tucker and structural engineer Edwin M. Bennett, early lucky breaks propelled the firm to ever greater and more diversified projects, concentrating on commercial and institutional developments that featured innovative design features.

“It’s much easier to fall back on the old because you know it’s acceptable architecture within our society,” Sadler said in a 2005 interview. “Instead of being creative and entrepreneurial, you end up falling back on cliches and things that have been an earlier way of doing things. And yet, we’re in a different time and place.”

His legacy includes three bank towers on B Street, UC San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse, the San Diego Central Library and the 2001 expansion of the San Diego Convention Center with its distinctive Sail Pavilion. He also was instrumental in many San Diego Zoo projects, including what is known today as the Dickinson Family Center for Lifelong Learning, Polar Bear Plunge and Hippo Beach.

Art Castro, who joined the firm in 1977, said Sadler was always looking for novel ways to plan a building, such as the high-rise Metropolitan Correctional Center at Union and F streets downtown with its innovative interior layout and narrow windows for inmates to look outside.

“To me, it’s the finest piece of architecture,” said Castro.

But like a handful of architects before and since, Sadler also served on many boards and committees, even though his business suffered because potential conflicts of interest cost him a job.

“You look at your time from two different aspects,” he said in 1984. “It’s wonderful to have an opportunity to design and create different projects in your office. But it is an equal measure of excitement to be part of a major board and make a contribution or statement in the community that changes a whole different direction.”

His resume includes American Institution of Architects’ national fellowship recognition; hospital, church and bank boards; chairmanship of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau (today’s San Diego Tourism Authority) and San Diegans Inc. (today’s Downtown San Diego Partnership); and two official city bodies, the Parks and Recreation Board and Centre City Development Corp.

The San Diego Rotary Club named him “Mr. San Diego” in 2007 for his devotion to “the betterment of the city he loves so much.”

Mike Stepner, the long-time city planner, said Sadler was generous with his time and enjoyed advising students at the NewSchool of Architecture and Design and encouraged them to volunteer in the community. He routinely pulled out a thick felt pen and drew sketches on plans, renderings and napkins.

At the office, Greg Mueller, who joined the firm in 2003 and now holds 49 percent of the ownership, said Sadler was like a “second father,” guiding and advising him on projects long after retiring from active design work. Castro owns 51 percent ownership of the firm.

“He was a genuine man with integrity that is unmatched,” Mueller said.

Born Oct. 25, 1930, in Phoenix, Harold G. Sadler spent summers at his relatives’ farm in Idaho, where he developed a love of the outdoors and a preference for cowboy music.

After earning his bachelor of science degree at Arizona State University in 1952, he enrolled at the University of Southern California to earn his architectural degree three years later.

He married his high school sweetheart, Mary Beecher, who earned an interior design degree at Woodbury University but instead of launching a career, devoted herself to raising their two daughters, Lindi and Cindi, and volunteer work. But she had her own ideas for their new house.

“I said to him, ‘If I can’t have something to say about interiors, there’ll be another Mrs. Sadler living in the house,’” Mary Sadler said.

Sadler’s first job out of USC was with noted modernist A. Quincy Jones, the architect of UC San Diego’s concrete landmark Mandeville Center. The couple soon moved to San Diego where Mary was born and Hal’s brother lived. He worked briefly for Richard Wheeler, a fellow modernist, and then set up his own firm.

Taking on private home commissions and minor commercial work, Sadler’s 1959 home received a local design award and front-page coverage in The San Diego Union’s Homes and Gardens section. Among various innovations was a kitchen countertop with two holes for toast to pop through from the toaster hidden below.

In 1962, he got a lucky break to design the city’s Evan V. Jones Parkade with two continuous, intermeshing spiral ramps. Then came the 24-story First National Bank (now Union Bank) Building at Fifth Avenue and B Street that opened in 1966 on the site of the 1924 Orpheum movie theater. Its most distinctive feature is the third-floor outdoor plaza. He returned to the project in 1990 to help refresh it.

He also designed the Security Pacific Bank building (now Civic Center Plaza) at Third and B and the Bank of America tower at Fourth and B.

Some projects never came to pass, such as additional office buildings flanking the County Administration Center (the Waterfront Park was built instead) and a trash-to-energy plant on the Chula Vista bayfront.

In the 1980s, he called for incorporating Balboa Park into downtown planning and linking the two with a lid over the Interstate 5 “S-Curve” — an idea embedded in the downtown community plan that Sadler got adopted in 2006.

In the 1990s he began working on a new downtown library with Rob Quigley that after many delays finally opened in 2013 near Petco Park. Sadler also led the design for the 2001 addition to the San Diego Convention Center.

As chairman of the parks board in 1983, Sadler demanded the Navy share its latest plans for a replacement hospital in the park, even though it was too late to change anything but the paint color.

The following year, he acknowledged that architects lack extra clout because they aren’t generally a source of plentiful campaign contributions. But he encouraged his colleagues to stay active anyway.

The Sadlers preferred independent travel to cruise ships and group itineraries and mixed wildlife trips to Africa and Antarctica with urban explorations of world cities like Singapore, Barcelona and Rome. His family says he left behind countless photos as a record of what he saw.

As a break from business, Sadler would attend Chargers games, watch sports on TV and occasionally run into danger on fishing and hunting trips. One time his rifle backfired when he faced a bear while camping. Another time, his skiff overturned on Rio Hardy in Mexico and he had to scramble ashore, his dog clinging to his back.

“He would have dreams about that, the near-death experience,” Mary Sadler said.

Sadler was one of the last of San Diego’s midcentury modern architects who brought a new sense of form-follows-function design in the 1950s and ‘60s.

“He was a fine fellow,” said one of his contemporaries, Richard Lareau, 94. “We competed with him from time to time, but it was in good spirit and sport.”

Over the years, Sadler hoped a new architectural icon could rise on the downtown waterfront. He designed a pair of giant sail-shaped sculptures for Navy Pier and took a keen interest in his firm’s design of the San Diego Symphony’s Rady Shell at Jacobs Park, the new monumental landmark on Embarcadero Marina Park South.

“We were lucky to have him for the opening (last fall),” said firm principal Mueller. “We’ve lost one of the great icons of San Diego.”

Sadler is survived by his wife; his daughters, Lindi Sadler Slaughter of San Diego and Cindi Sadler Whalen of Seattle; four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

A celebration of life is scheduled for 2 p.m. Feb 27 at the Rady Shell with parking available at the convention center.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the San Diego History Center and the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

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