- University of California, Berkeley Campus Architecture
The
University of California, Berkeley campus and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architectJohn Galen Howard , his peerBernard Maybeck (best known for the San FranciscoPalace of Fine Arts ), and Maybeck's studentJulia Morgan . Later buildings were designed by architects such asCharles Willard Moore (Haas School of Business ) andJoseph Esherick (Wurster Hall).(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 ofStanford University , the Hearst Family decided to "adopt" the fledgling University of California and develop their own world-class institution. AlthoughEmile 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 winnerJohn Galen Howard , who would later become UC Berkeley's resident campus architect. Only University House, designed by architectAlbert 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 PresidentBenjamin 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 theHearst Greek Theatre , theHearst Memorial Mining Building ,Doe Memorial Library , California Hall, Wheeler Hall, (Old) Le Conte Hall, Gilman Hall, Haviland Hall, Wellman Hall,Sather Gate , and the convert|307|ft|m|sing=onSather 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 aCalifornia Historical Landmark and are now listed in theNational 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.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 formSproul 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 1964Free 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.), is one of the few classroom buildings on campus with showers.Fact|date=February 2008 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 tunnel s which carry steam for heat and power [ [http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~fricke/undercal/ Steam Tunnels at UC Berkeley ] ] . 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 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 Biomedical Research (QB3) and serves as a center for interdisciplinary teaching and research as part of the campus Health Sciences Initiative. Designed byZimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects [ [http://www.zgf.com Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Architects ] ] , the convert|285000|sqft|m2|abbr=on. 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 convert|185000|sqft|m2|abbr=on., 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 one of the campus' most beloved chancellors, will consist 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.cite web |url= http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/17/MNOHVJCT2.DTL |title= Asian library is among best new buildings |author= John King |work=
San Francisco Chronicle |date=March 17 2008 |quote= ] The library will house the largest collections of East Asian materials outside of Asia and behind the collections of Harvard University and theLibrary of Congress . [ [http://tiencenter.berkeley.edu/introduction.html Chang-Lin Tien Center for East Asian Studies: Introduction ] ]Notes
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