University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture
Encyclopedia
The University of California, Berkeley
campus and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard
, his peer Bernard Maybeck
(best known for the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts
), and Maybeck's student Julia Morgan
. Later buildings were designed by architects such as Charles Willard Moore
(Haas School of Business
) and Joseph Esherick
(Wurster Hall).
Very little of the early University of California (c. 1868–1903) remains, with the Victorian Second Empire-style South Hall
(1873) and Piedmont Avenue
(designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
) being notable exceptions. What is considered the historic campus today was the eventual result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst
Architectural Plan for the University of California," funded by William Randolph Hearst
’s mother and initially held in the Belgian
city of Antwerp (eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco, 1899).
This unprecedented competition came about from one-upmanship between the prominent Hearst
and Stanford
families of the Bay Area. In response to the founding of Stanford University
, the Hearst Family decided to "adopt" the fledgling University of California and develop their own world-class institution. Although Emile Bénard
, a Frenchman, won the competition, he disliked the "uncultured" San Francisco atmosphere and refused to personally revise the plan to the site. He was replaced by fourth place winner John Galen Howard
, who would later become UC Berkeley's resident campus architect. Only University House
, designed by architect Albert Pissis
and then home to the President of the University of California, was placed according to the original Bénard plan (today it is the home of UC Berkeley's Chancellor).
Much of the older campus is built in the Beaux-Arts Classical style, which was the style preferred by John Galen Howard and Phoebe Hearst (who paid his salary). This area is now referred to as the “classical core” of the campus. With the support of University President Benjamin Ide Wheeler
, Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and '60s. These included the Hearst Greek Theatre
, the Hearst Memorial Mining Building
, Doe Memorial Library
, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall, Sather Gate
, and the 307 feet (93.6 m) Sather Tower
(nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile
in Venice). Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or Collegiate Gothic
styles, such as North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall.
Buildings Founders' Rock, University House, Faculty Club and Glade, Hearst Greek Theatre, Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Library, Sather Tower and Esplanade, Sather Gate and Bridge, Hearst Gymnasium, California, Durant, Wellman, Hilgard, Giannini, Wheeler, North Gate and South Halls are a California Historical Landmark
and are now listed in the National Register of Historic Places
. Bowles Hall
—built in 1928—is California's oldest state-owned dormitory and is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
John Galen Howard retired in 1924, his support base gone with both Phoebe Hearst's death and President Wheeler's resignation in 1919. William Randolph Hearst
, seeking to memorialize his mother, contributed to Howard's resignation by commissioning Bernard Maybeck
and Julia Morgan
to design a series of dramatic buildings on the southern part of the campus. These were originally to include a huge domed auditorium, a museum, an art school, and a women's gymnasium, all arranged on an eastward esplanade and classically oriented towards the campanile. However, only the Hearst Women's Gymnasium was completed before the Great Depression
, at which point Hearst decided to focus on his estate
at San Simeon
instead.
The dramatic increase in enrollment during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s led to the rapid expansion of the campus, beginning with the University's appropriation of the north end of Telegraph Avenue
to form Sproul Plaza
and headed on its east side by Sproul Hall, a new neoclassical building for the campus administration. However, the administration moved out of Sproul and into California Hall, situated in the heart of campus, after students barricaded themselves in Sproul during the 1964 Free Speech Movement
. (Today, Sproul Hall houses Student Services and the Admissions Office, and Sproul Plaza is the center of student activities.) A series of huge Brutalist concrete buildings were also built to provide much-needed housing, lab, office, and classroom space, including Evans Hall
, Cory Hall, Wurster Hall, Davis Hall, McCone Hall, Zellerbach Hall
, the undergraduate dorms Units 1, 2, and 3, and others.
Gray-green Evans Hall
is the tallest instructional building on the campus and houses the offices of faculty in mathematics
, statistics
, and economics
. Evans Hall is widely reviled; a recent campus development plan lists Evans Hall as a candidate for demolition within the next fifteen years. Cory Hall, the electrical engineering
building, was the site of two attacks by the Unabomber in 1982 and 1985. Its neighbor, Soda Hall (computer science
), is one of the few classroom buildings on campus with showers. It was completed in August 1994 at the cost of $35.5 million, raised entirely from private gifts. Dwinelle Hall is another large building on campus; its rooms are strangely numbered both because Dwinelle Hall was built with entrances on different levels on a slope and because its expansions were numbered differently from the original building. Because this confusing building is host to both large lecture classes and numerous discussion classes, it is sometimes called the "freshman maze."
Underneath UC Berkeley's oldest buildings is a system of steam tunnels which carry steam for heat and power. During the 1960s, Berkeley students chained the doorknobs of the Chancellor's office in protest over the Vietnam War. The Chancellor, having no other way in or out of the building, used the steam tunnels to escape. Afterwards, the exterior double doors on that building were changed so they only had one doorknob, and this remains today.
In 2006, the new Stanley
Hall, named after the 1946 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, opened its doors. It houses the headquarters of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences
(QB3) and serves as a center for interdisciplinary teaching and research as part of the campus Health Sciences Initiative. Designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, the 285000 sq ft (26,477.4 m²). building contains 40 laboratories, and a 300-seat auditorium.
Davis Hall, primarily the location of the Civil Engineering Department, will be expanded to serve as the headquarters for the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society
(CITRIS). Estimated at 185000 sq ft (17,187.1 m²)., the building will support a "broad array of projects, from information systems for emergency and disaster response in an earthquake to life-saving medical alert sensors, to ‘smart’ buildings that automatically adjust their internal environments, to save energy and reduce pollution." It will include nanofabrication
facilities, labs, and classrooms.
The Tien Center for East Asian Studies, named for Chang Lin Tien, one of the campus' most beloved chancellors, consists of the C.V. Starr East Asian Studies Library and the Institute of East Asian studies, intended to maintain Berkeley’s strengths in the subject. The first free-standing buildings to be devoted to East Asian Studies in the United States, the Library is open after completion and dedication in October 2007. The library houses the largest collections of East Asian materials outside of Asia and behind the collections of Harvard University and the Library of Congress
.
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
campus and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard was an American architect.He is best known for his work as the supervising architect of the Master Plan for the University of California, Berkeley campus, and for founding the University of California's architecture program...
, his peer Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was a architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley...
(best known for the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts
Palace of Fine Arts
The Palace of Fine Arts in the Marina District of San Francisco, California, is a monumental structure originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in order to exhibit works of art presented there. One of only a few surviving structures from the Exposition, it is the only one still...
), and Maybeck's student Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
. Later buildings were designed by architects such as Charles Willard Moore
Charles Willard Moore
Charles Willard Moore was an American architect, educator, writer, Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, and winner of the AIA Gold Medal in 1991.-Life and career:...
(Haas School of Business
Haas School of Business
The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as the Haas School of Business or simply Haas, is one of 14 schools and colleges at the University of California, Berkeley....
) and Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick
Joseph Esherick was an American architect.Esherick was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1937, Esherick set up practice in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1953 and taught at University of California, Berkeley for many years...
(Wurster Hall).
South Hall (UC Berkeley)
South Hall, built in 1873, is the oldest building on the University of California, Berkeley campus and the only remaining building of the original campus. South Hall was originally the counterpart of North Hall, which no longer exists, but was located where the Bancroft Library currently stands.The...
(1873) and Piedmont Avenue
Piedmont Avenue (Berkeley)
Piedmont Avenue is a street in the city of Berkeley, California. It is the major street through the University of California, Berkeley's fraternity and sorority area. The street was originally named Piedmont Way....
(designed by Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
) being notable exceptions. What is considered the historic campus today was the eventual result of the 1898 "International Competition for the Phoebe Hearst
Phoebe Hearst
Phoebe Apperson Hearst was an American philanthropist, feminist and suffragist. She was also the mother of William Randolph Hearst.-Biography:...
Architectural Plan for the University of California," funded by William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
’s mother and initially held in the Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
city of Antwerp (eleven finalists were judged again in San Francisco, 1899).
This unprecedented competition came about from one-upmanship between the prominent Hearst
Hearst
Hearst may refer to:People* Amanda Hearst* Garrison Hearst, NFL running back* George Hearst* George Randolph Hearst, Jr.* Hunter Hearst Helmsley, WWE professional wrestler* John Randolph Hearst* Lydia Hearst-Shaw* Michael Hearst* Millicent Hearst...
and Stanford
Leland Stanford
Amasa Leland Stanford was an American tycoon, industrialist, robber baron, politician and founder of Stanford University.-Early years:...
families of the Bay Area. In response to the founding of Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, the Hearst Family decided to "adopt" the fledgling University of California and develop their own world-class institution. Although Emile Bénard
Émile Bénard
Henri Jean Émile Bénard , was a French architect and painter. Trained at the Beaux-Arts, Bénard was the winner of The Phoebe Hearst International Architectural Competition and the Berkeley Campus in 1899 with his project "Roma." The competition and his design led to the current University of...
, a Frenchman, won the competition, he disliked the "uncultured" San Francisco atmosphere and refused to personally revise the plan to the site. He was replaced by fourth place winner John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard
John Galen Howard was an American architect.He is best known for his work as the supervising architect of the Master Plan for the University of California, Berkeley campus, and for founding the University of California's architecture program...
, who would later become UC Berkeley's resident campus architect. Only University House
University House, Berkeley
The University House is a building on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Designed by the architect Albert Pissis, it was formerly the home of the president of the University of California, but is now the home of the chancellor of the Berkeley campus.It is actually the only...
, designed by architect Albert Pissis
Albert Pissis
Albert Pissis was the architect who introduced the Beaux-Arts architectural style to San Francisco, California, designing a number of important buildings in the city in the years before and after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.-Biography:...
and then home to the President of the University of California, was placed according to the original Bénard plan (today it is the home of UC Berkeley's Chancellor).
Benjamin Ide Wheeler
Benjamin Ide Wheeler was a Greek and comparative philology professor at Cornell University as well as President of the University of California from 1899 to 1919.-Biography:...
, Howard designed over twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and '60s. These included the Hearst Greek Theatre
Hearst Greek Theatre
The William Randolph Hearst Greek Theatre, known locally as simply the Greek Theatre, is an 8,500-seat amphitheater owned and operated by the University of California, Berkeley in Berkeley, California, USA....
, the Hearst Memorial Mining Building
Hearst Memorial Mining Building
The Hearst Memorial Mining Building at the University of California, Berkeley is currently home to the university's materials science department. The Classical Revival style building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and is also designated as part of California Historical...
, Doe Memorial Library
Doe Memorial Library
- External links :*...
, California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall, Sather Gate
Sather Gate
Sather Gate is a prominent landmark separating Sproul Plaza from the bridge over Strawberry Creek, leading to the center of the University of California, Berkeley campus. The gate was donated by Jane K. Sather, a benefactor of the university, in memory of her late husband Peder Sather, a trustee of...
, and the 307 feet (93.6 m) Sather Tower
Sather Tower
Sather Tower is a campanile on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It is more commonly known as The Campanile due to its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice, and serves as UC Berkeley's most recognizable symbol. It was completed in 1914 and first opened to the public in...
(nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile
St Mark's Campanile is the bell tower of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy, located in the Piazza San Marco. It is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city....
in Venice). Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or Collegiate Gothic
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture....
styles, such as North Gate Hall, Dwinelle Annex, and Stephens Hall.
Buildings Founders' Rock, University House, Faculty Club and Glade, Hearst Greek Theatre, Hearst Memorial Mining Building, Doe Library, Sather Tower and Esplanade, Sather Gate and Bridge, Hearst Gymnasium, California, Durant, Wellman, Hilgard, Giannini, Wheeler, North Gate and South Halls are a California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmark
California Historical Landmarks are buildings, structures, sites, or places in the state of California that have been determined to have statewide historical significance by meeting at least one of the criteria listed below:...
and are now listed in the National Register of Historic Places
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. Bowles Hall
Bowles Hall
Bowles Hall is an all-male residence dormitory at the University of California, Berkeley, world renowned for its unique traditions, legendary parties and camaraderie. The dormitory was the first residence hall on campus, dedicated in 1929, and was California's first state-owned dormitory...
—built in 1928—is California's oldest state-owned dormitory and is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
, seeking to memorialize his mother, contributed to Howard's resignation by commissioning Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Maybeck
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was a architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was a professor at University of California, Berkeley...
and Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
to design a series of dramatic buildings on the southern part of the campus. These were originally to include a huge domed auditorium, a museum, an art school, and a women's gymnasium, all arranged on an eastward esplanade and classically oriented towards the campanile. However, only the Hearst Women's Gymnasium was completed before the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, at which point Hearst decided to focus on his estate
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...
at San Simeon
San Simeon, California
San Simeon is a census-designated place on the Pacific coast of San Luis Obispo County, California. Its position along State Route 1 is approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, each of those cities being roughly 230 mi away...
instead.
The dramatic increase in enrollment during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s led to the rapid expansion of the campus, beginning with the University's appropriation of the north end of Telegraph Avenue
Telegraph Avenue
Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, USA, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California campus in Berkeley, California...
to form Sproul Plaza
Sproul Plaza
Sproul Plaza is a major center of student activity at the University of California, Berkeley. It is divided into two sections: Upper Sproul and Lower Sproul. They are separated by 12 vertical feet and a set of stairs.-History:...
and headed on its east side by Sproul Hall, a new neoclassical building for the campus administration. However, the administration moved out of Sproul and into California Hall, situated in the heart of campus, after students barricaded themselves in Sproul during the 1964 Free Speech Movement
Free Speech Movement
The Free Speech Movement was a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley under the informal leadership of students Mario Savio, Brian Turner, Bettina Aptheker, Steve Weissman, Art Goldberg, Jackie Goldberg, and...
. (Today, Sproul Hall houses Student Services and the Admissions Office, and Sproul Plaza is the center of student activities.) A series of huge Brutalist concrete buildings were also built to provide much-needed housing, lab, office, and classroom space, including Evans Hall
Evans Hall (UC Berkeley)
Evans Hall is the statistics, economics, and mathematics building at the University of California, Berkeley.- Academic importance:Evans Hall is also the building in which the original vi text editor was programmed....
, Cory Hall, Wurster Hall, Davis Hall, McCone Hall, Zellerbach Hall
Zellerbach Hall
Zellerbach Hall is a multi venue performance facility on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. It was designed by architect and professor Vernon DeMars and completed in 1968...
, the undergraduate dorms Units 1, 2, and 3, and others.
Gray-green Evans Hall
Evans Hall (UC Berkeley)
Evans Hall is the statistics, economics, and mathematics building at the University of California, Berkeley.- Academic importance:Evans Hall is also the building in which the original vi text editor was programmed....
is the tallest instructional building on the campus and houses the offices of faculty in mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, statistics
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, and economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
. Evans Hall is widely reviled; a recent campus development plan lists Evans Hall as a candidate for demolition within the next fifteen years. Cory Hall, the electrical engineering
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
building, was the site of two attacks by the Unabomber in 1982 and 1985. Its neighbor, Soda Hall (computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
), is one of the few classroom buildings on campus with showers. It was completed in August 1994 at the cost of $35.5 million, raised entirely from private gifts. Dwinelle Hall is another large building on campus; its rooms are strangely numbered both because Dwinelle Hall was built with entrances on different levels on a slope and because its expansions were numbered differently from the original building. Because this confusing building is host to both large lecture classes and numerous discussion classes, it is sometimes called the "freshman maze."
Underneath UC Berkeley's oldest buildings is a system of steam tunnels which carry steam for heat and power. During the 1960s, Berkeley students chained the doorknobs of the Chancellor's office in protest over the Vietnam War. The Chancellor, having no other way in or out of the building, used the steam tunnels to escape. Afterwards, the exterior double doors on that building were changed so they only had one doorknob, and this remains today.
New construction developments
Recent developments include the newly completed Jean Hargrove Music Library, the fourth free-standing music library to be constructed in the United States.In 2006, the new Stanley
Wendell Meredith Stanley
Wendell Meredith Stanley was an American biochemist, virologist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Stanley was born in Ridgeville, Indiana, and earned a BS in Chemistry at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. He then studied at the University of Illinois, gaining an MS in science in 1927 followed by...
Hall, named after the 1946 winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, opened its doors. It houses the headquarters of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences
California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences
The California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences is a nonprofit research and technology commercialization institute spanning three University of California campuses in the San Francisco Bay Area: UC Berkeley, UCSF, and UC Santa Cruz...
(QB3) and serves as a center for interdisciplinary teaching and research as part of the campus Health Sciences Initiative. Designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects, the 285000 sq ft (26,477.4 m²). building contains 40 laboratories, and a 300-seat auditorium.
Davis Hall, primarily the location of the Civil Engineering Department, will be expanded to serve as the headquarters for the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society
The Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society is an institute operated by the State of California to facilitate the real-world application of technological research...
(CITRIS). Estimated at 185000 sq ft (17,187.1 m²)., the building will support a "broad array of projects, from information systems for emergency and disaster response in an earthquake to life-saving medical alert sensors, to ‘smart’ buildings that automatically adjust their internal environments, to save energy and reduce pollution." It will include nanofabrication
Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
facilities, labs, and classrooms.
The Tien Center for East Asian Studies, named for Chang Lin Tien, one of the campus' most beloved chancellors, consists of the C.V. Starr East Asian Studies Library and the Institute of East Asian studies, intended to maintain Berkeley’s strengths in the subject. The first free-standing buildings to be devoted to East Asian Studies in the United States, the Library is open after completion and dedication in October 2007. The library houses the largest collections of East Asian materials outside of Asia and behind the collections of Harvard University and the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.