Campus of the University of California, Berkeley

The oldest parts of the campus that remain were built in the Beaux-Arts Classical style in the early 1900s, 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. Howard reoriented the main campus axis to its present-day alignment along Campanile Way, as a continuation of the line of Center Street.[8]^: 65–66 This divided the campus into four pieces: the park-like west side, as a buffer to the city of Berkeley; the central core, with its monumental buildings; the hilly east, "a majestic natural background and climax to the composition"; and the south, given to athletic pursuits.[8]^: 66–67 With the support of University President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Howard designed more than twenty buildings, which set the tone for the campus up until its expansion in the 1950s and 1960s. These included the Hearst Greek Theatre (1903), California Hall (1905), the Hearst Memorial Mining Building (1907), Sather Gate (1908), Durant Hall (1911), Wellman Hall (1912), the 307-foot (94 m) Sather Tower (1914; nicknamed "the Campanile" after its architectural inspiration, St Mark's Campanile in Venice), Doe Memorial Library (1917), Gilman Hall (1917), Hilgard Hall (1917), Wheeler Hall (1917), California Memorial Stadium (1923), (Old) LeConte Hall (1923), Haviland Hall (1924), and Hesse Hall (1924).[8]^: 177 Buildings he regarded as temporary, nonacademic, or not particularly "serious" were designed in shingle or Collegiate Gothic styles, including North Gate Hall (1906), Dwinelle Annex (1920), and Stephens Hall (1923).[8]^: 177

Sather Gate marks the original southern entrance to the campus, and now the entrance from Sproul Plaza

Multiple buildings and structures in the classical core are listed as a single aggregated California Historical Landmark (no. 946)[9] and also are listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places:

Wheeler Hall, built to represent John Galen Howard's "City of Learning" design, currently houses the campus' largest lecture hall

John Galen Howard retired in 1924,[8]^: 167 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.

Underneath UC Berkeley's oldest buildings is a system of steam tunnels which carry steam for heat and power.[27] 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.

With more than 400,000 sq ft (9.2 acres; 3.7 ha) of usable space, the Valley Life Sciences Building is the largest academic building at Berkeley and was the largest building west of the Mississippi River when it was completed in 1930.[28]

From 1927 until his death in 1936, George W. Kelham was supervising architect for the campus; Kelham previously had arrived on the West Coast in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire and remained there to design notable replacement buildings, including the San Francisco Public Library that was integrated into Howard's Beaux-Arts design for the city government complex at Civic Center. Subsequently, he was appointed the supervising architect of the campus at UCLA in 1925.[29]^: 20

During his tenure, Kelham never prepared an overall campus plan update, which fell instead on Warren C. Perry, who had succeeded Howard as the head of the School of Architecture.[29]^: 21 Kelham designed several individual buildings, including Bowles Hall, 1928;[29]^: 257 Valley Life Sciences Building, 1930;[29]^: 147 International House, 1930;[29]^: 288 Moses Hall, 1931;[29]^: 80 McLaughlin Hall, 1931;[29]^: 111 the Engineering Materials Laboratory, 1931 (later replaced by Davis Hall);[29]^: 117 and the Men's Gym, 1933 (remodeled and now named Haas Pavilion).[29]^: 171 Bowles Hall is California's oldest state-owned dormitory and is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Perry is credited with designing Edwards Stadium, 1932.[29]^: 168

Music and Painting (Swift)

Two mosaic murals by Helen Bell Bruton (Sculpture and Dance) and Florence Alston Swift (Music and Painting) were commissioned by the Works Progress Administration and installed in 1936 on the Old Art Gallery,[30] which originally served as a small utility building designed by Howard and completed in 1904.[29]^{: 201–204} After Kelham died in 1936, the architectural duties in progress fell on his junior partner, Harry Thomsen.[29]^: 21

Bancroft Library, view west from the Sather Tower esplanade

From 1938 to 1948, the San Francisco architect Arthur Brown Jr., who had designed several notable buildings in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Stanford University, and elsewhere, served as campus planner and chief architect; he was appointed during the planning phase for Stern Hall and the Administration Building, which would later be renamed Sproul Hall.[29]^: 22 Brown's Beaux-Arts credentials had been established with the design of San Francisco City Hall (1915).[29]^: 22

With his 1944 general plan, Brown broke the long east–west cross-campus axis that dated back to the earliest plans by Olmsted; he shortened it to terminate just before the northeast corner of campus, where he had planned library and mathematics buildings. In addition, he designated uses for the unused northwest (forestry, agriculture, and home economics) and southeast (jurisprudence, anthropology, and arts) corners.[29]^: 23 The final version of the 1944 plan reduced open spaces on campus to a minimum, as maintaining the Beaux-Arts precedents using low, sprawling buildings in the constrained site was inadequate to handle the forecasted explosive growth in enrollment, and he resigned his post in 1948.[29]^: 24 At Berkeley, he designed many of his last works, including the Cyclotron Building, 1940;[29]^: 279 Sproul Hall, 1941;[29]^: 190 Minor Hall, 1941;[29]^: 218 Donner Laboratory, 1942;[29]^: 107 and Bancroft Library (originally Doe Annex), 1949.[29]^: 55

After Brown's departure, the university's Office of Architects and Engineers (A & E), which was established in 1944, assumed supervisory responsibility for campus planning and development. Under the direction of chief architect Robert J. Evans, the office produced a Campus Plan Study in 1951, departing from the Beaux-Arts designs championed over the past fifty years: "blindly following policies and concepts of monumentality unsuited to contemporary requirements ... would straight-jacket a live and vital University into inflexible buildings [and] deprive it of its open spaces, its natural beauty and its true monumentality."[29]^: 25 Instead, heights would be governed by coverage (not to exceed twenty to thirty percent) and materials selection should be responsive to "the organic requirements of the occupants and ... create maximum practical internal flexibility".[29]^: 25 The 1952 plan also included high-rise dormitories, to be built south of the main campus.[31]^: 27 Lawrence Halprin was retained as a consulting landscape architect and submitted a master plan in 1954, but it never was followed.[31]^: 28

The large building program of the immediate postwar years produced Lewis Hall (E. Geoffrey Bangs), 1948;[29]^: 95 Mulford Hall (Miller & Warnecke), 1948;[29]^: 154 the LeConte Hall addition (Miller & Warnecke), 1950;[29]^: 99 and Dwinelle Hall (Weihe, Frick & Kruse), 1952,[29]^: 76 which were all designed in a stripped neoclassical mode; in addition, the Law Building (Warren C. Perry), 1951;[29]^: 242 Cory Hall (Corlett & Anderson), 1950; Warren Hall (Masten & Hurd), 1955; and Stanley Hall (Goodman), 1952, introduced flat-roofed, modernist forms.[29]^: 24–26

Cory Hall, as remodeled with fifth floor

One of the first new developments in the postwar era was Cory Hall, which houses the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science in the northeast corner of campus. Originally 4 stories, it was designed by Will G. Corlett & Arthur W. Anderson Architects and built in 1950 north of Hearst Memorial Mining Building. The building was named after Clarence Cory, who became the first professor of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Berkeley in 1892. Several renovations have been performed since then, including the addition of a distinctive fifth floor, designed by Crosby Thornton Marshall Associates, in 1985.[32] Cory Hall was the only site bombed twice by the Unabomber, in 1982 and 1985.[33][34]

A new building for the School of Law designed by Warren Charles Perry was dedicated in 1951,[35] in the southeastern corner of campus at the intersection of Piedmont Avenue and Bancroft Way. The School of Jurisprudence originally had been in what is present-day Durant Hall (1912). The site of the new building followed the Brown plan. The building was named Boalt Hall, carried over from the prior building, but the name was stripped in January 2020 after the racist views of its namesake, prominent local lawyer John Henry Boalt, became public.[36] In 2017, it was discovered that an 1877 speech by Boalt published by the California State Senate on "The Chinese Question"[37] later was used to support the passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.[38]

A four-story expansion, designed by Wurster, Bernardi, & Emmons,[39] was initiated in 1959, by Boalt Hall alumni who helped raise funds for building the Earl Warren Legal Center. At the same time, the University drew plans for additional classroom, office, and library space. A seven-story high-rise law student dormitory, Manville Hall, was made possible through gifts of other friends of the school. The three-part project was scheduled for completion in 1967.[40] After a remodeling and expansion project was completed in 1996, designed by Crodd Chin, Manville Hall was converted to offices and renamed Simon Hall; law student housing was moved to Manville Apartments in downtown Berkeley. In addition, the law building was expanded again.[41]

The modernist Biochemistry and Virus Laboratory, designed by Michael Arthur Goodman Sr., a professor of architecture, was built at the site of what is now Stanley Hall in 1952. The building received a merit award from the American Institute of Architects in 1954.[42] It was renamed the Molecular Biology and Virus Laboratory in 1963, and renamed again as Stanley Hall after the biochemist, virologist, and Nobel Prize winner Wendell Meredith Stanley upon his death in 1971. In 1997, it was rated seismically poor, and it was demolished in 2003.[43][44] The new, current Stanley Hall was opened in 2007.

Dwinelle Hall classrooms (left) and offices (right)

Dwinelle Hall was designed by Weihe, Frick and Kruse, architects, with Eckbo Royston & Williams, landscape artists.[45] It was built in 1953 north of Sproul Plaza, to the west of Wheeler Hall. Expansion was completed in 1998. The southern block of Dwinelle Hall contains three levels of classrooms as well as four lecture halls, and the northern block houses seven stories of faculty and department offices. It is named after the lawyer and politician John W. Dwinelle, who introduced the Organic Act establishing the University of California.

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."

Memorial Glade, at the center of the Berkeley campus.

In 1955, to transform the A & E study into a Long Range Development Plan, the Regents appointed a Committee on Campus Planning that included Regent Donald H. McLaughlin as chairman, Chancellor Clark Kerr, and William Wurster, who was both Campus Consulting Architect and dean of the College of Architecture. The plan was published in 1956. Wurster championed the development of high-rise buildings to ensure that open spaces could be preserved, codifying the 25% coverage ratio, which also would "restore the campus to its old sculptural form."[29]^: 26 He also retained Brown's shortened main axis and first proposed the development of what would become Memorial Glade, north of Doe Library; in the immediate aftermath of the war, that space was occupied by temporary buildings.[29]^: 26 Student circulation was considered, with a ten-minute class change time proposed.[31]^: 28 Thomas D. Church succeeded Halprin as consulting landscape architect for the campus in 1957, and oversaw the removal of most vehicle traffic through campus.[31]^: 29

Initial development under the new plan included Morrison and Hertz Halls, the Anthropology and Art Practice Building, the first phase of the Student Center, Campbell Hall, O'Brien Hall, and McCone Hall. University Hall on Oxford Street and first two units of the Residence Halls in Southside were also built during this time.[29]^: 26–27 For the first time, large-scale demolition claimed buildings dating back to the 1880s.[31]^: 28

Hertz and Morrison Halls, both designed by Gardner A. Dailey & Associates, were completed in 1958. They are located south of the Faculty Club near the southeastern edge of campus and connected to each other by a covered walkway. Both buildings have gable roofs, and compared to other post-War developments, both are relatively small in size: Hertz Hall is a 4-story concert hall, and Morrison Hall is 2 stories. Both buildings are used by the Department of Music.

Hertz Hall was named for the 1915-30 conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, Alfred Hertz, who left his estate to Berkeley for music. Its 678-seat concert hall hosts free noontime concerts during the academic year. The building also houses the music department's collection of historic organs.[46] Morrison Hall was named after May T. Morrison, class of 1878, who left money for this building in her will, as well as for the Morrison Library in Doe.[47]

A 6-story building designed by Gardner A. Dailey was built east of the Law Building in 1959. Until 2021, it was named Kroeber Hall after the anthropology professor Alfred Kroeber. It houses the Departments of Anthropology and Art Practice along with the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, the Worth Ryder Art Gallery, and the Anthropology Library.[48] On January 26, 2021, Berkeley officials announced the removal of the name Kroeber Hall, citing Kroeber's unethical actions toward Native American communities.[49]

The original Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union building, owned by the ASUC Auxiliary, was constructed with funds gained from the sale of the Cal sports teams to the university in 1959. The original building was designed by Vernon DeMars, professor of architecture. It contains an information center, multicultural center, lounges, a bookstore, restaurants and a pub, an art studio and computer lab.[50]

The Chavez Student Center was built in 1960 and named in honor of Cesar Chavez, the founding president of the farm workers' union. The building was once mainly a dining commons and lounge, but in 1990 it was renovated to house various student services.[51]

A modernist 3-story building designed by Van Bourg & Nakamura[52] was built in 1959 adjoined to the eastern side of Hesse Hall. In 1968, it was named after Morrough Parker O'Brien, who spent two decades as an engineering professor before serving as dean of the College of Engineering from 1948 to 1959.[29]^{: 112–113} It houses environmental engineering and the Water Resources Center Archives.[53]

McCone Hall, a 7-story building designed by John Carl Warnecke, was built in 1961 across from the Doe Memorial Library on the northern side of Memorial Glade and adjoined to the western side of Hesse Hall. It was originally called the Earth Sciences Building, and now houses the Departments of Earth & Planetary Science and Geography, the Earth Sciences and Map Library, and the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory. It was named after Berkeley alumnus and former CIA director John A. McCone.[54] A seismic retrofit and renovation was undertaken from 1997 to 1999.[55]

To reflect changes in conditions, a revised Long Range Development Plan was prepared in 1962 under the direction of an expanded Campus Planning Committee headed successively by Chancellors Glenn T. Seaborg and Edward Strong. In addition to Wurster, the committee included Consulting Landscape Architect Thomas Church, Campus Architect Louis A. DeMonte of the Office of Architects and Engineers and four other university officials. The new plan related to the California Master Plan for Higher Education of 1960, which established the roles of the public junior colleges, state college system, and the University of California, and the subsequent University Growth Plan prepared by President Clark Kerr to guide academic development of the university. Enrollment levels were established with a maximum at Berkeley of 27,500 projected for the mid-1960s. The revised plan also included the use of Strawberry Canyon and the hill area, as well as outlying campus properties not previously considered, and incorporated several landscaping proposals prepared by Church for the central campus, most notably the Springer Memorial Gateway on the west side[29]^: 156 and the landscaping for Wurster Hall.[29]^{: 27–28, 217–218}

During the 1960s, 17 major buildings were constructed on the central campus. Several more were developed on the peripheral sites, including Etcheverry Hall, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Unit 3 Residence Halls, and several parking structures. The upper hill was developed with two buildings by Anshen and Allen, Lawrence Hall of Science and the Silver Space Sciences Laboratory.[29]^: 29

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.)

The northeast quadrant of campus, north of Strawberry Creek and east of Doe Memorial Library, was the site of the most active development during the 1960s. Several buildings were constructed for math, science, and engineering departments.

Latimer, Pimentel, and Hildebrand Halls, a group of modernist buildings designed by Anshen & Allen, were built between 1963 and 1966 for the College of Chemistry.[52] They joined the existing chemistry buildings Gilman Hall, Lewis Hall, and Giauque Hall.

Latimer Hall, an 11-story building, was built between and to the north of Gilman and Lewis Halls in 1963. It is named after Wendell Mitchell Latimer, dean of the College of Chemistry in the 1940s.[56] Pimentel Hall, a round, 2-story lecture hall, was built north of Latimer Hall in 1964 and named after George C. Pimentel, inventor of the chemical laser. Hildebrand Hall was built in between Gilman and Lewis Halls to the south of the complex in 1966. It is named after Joel Henry Hildebrand, a long-time chemistry professor and dean, and houses the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences and the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Library.[57]

Etcheverry Hall, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill,[52] was built in 1964. It was the first building built by the university on the north side of Hearst Avenue.[58] The building was named after Bernard A. Etcheverry, a professor of irrigation and drainage from 1915 to 1951.[39] Its basement housed the Berkeley Research Reactor from 1966 to 1987, and it now houses the Departments of Mechanical, Nuclear, and Industrial Engineering.

Birge Hall, a 9-story building designed by John Carl Warnecke, was completed in 1964 to provide more space for the Department of Physics. It was named for Raymond Thayer Birge, who had been a professor of physics for 45 years (including 22 as department chair) when the new building was named in his honor. Bacon Hall, the university's elegant library and art gallery built in 1881, was demolished to provide space for construction.[59]

Davis Hall, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, was built in 1968 to the west of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building. It was named for Professor Raymond Davis, who spent 50 years on the Berkeley faculty and developed the Engineering Materials Laboratory into one of the world's finest. Davis Hall houses the offices of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, including its structural and earthquake engineering labs and teaching facilities. The building's ground-floor “structures bay” rises two stories, providing space for testing many types of materials and designs, from scale models of California highway overpasses to segments of the Golden Gate Bridge.[60]

Evans Hall, a 10-story building designed by Gardner A. Dailey and completed in 1971, is the tallest instructional building on the campus and houses the offices of faculty in mathematics, statistics, and economics. It was named after Griffith C. Evans, chairman of mathematics from 1934 to 1949. It blocked the central axis and cast a tall shadow over the adjacent Hearst Memorial Mining Building, leading the former committee chairman Donald H. McLaughlin to remark that it had become "painfully intrusive".[29]^: 28 A recent campus development plan lists Evans Hall as a candidate for demolition within the next fifteen years.

Bauer Wurster Hall from Sather Tower, with International House Berkeley in the background

Bauer Wurster Hall, a building for the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, was completed in 1964 northwest of the Law Building. It was designed by Joseph Esherick, Vernon DeMars, and Donald Olsen, members of the CED faculty. The building was originally named Wurster Hall for William Wurster, dean of the School of Architecture and its successor, the College of Environmental Design (1950–62), and his wife, the public housing advocate and lecturer Catherine Bauer Wurster.

The Chemical Biodynamics Lab, located east of Bauer Wurster Hall, was designed by Michael Arthur Goodman Sr., who had also designed the old Stanley Hall, and completed in 1964.[52] The Chemical Biodynamics Lab director was Melvin Calvin, the biochemist known for discovering the Calvin cycle, until his retirement in 1980, at which point the building was renamed the Melvin Calvin Laboratory in his honor.[61] It continued to function as a laboratory until fall 2012, when it began to be repurposed as the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, which opened in 2013. The renovation was done by Studios Architecture, a San Francisco firm founded in 1985.[62]

The Social Sciences Building, a 10-story modernist building designed by Aleck L. Wilson & Associates, was completed in 1964.[52] Until 2020, it was named Barrows Hall after David Prescott Barrows, political science professor and president of the university from 1919 to 1923. It houses the Departments of Political Science, Sociology, African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Near Eastern Studies, Asian American Studies, Chicano Studies, Native American Studies, and Gender & Women's Studies, along with the Energy & Resources Group.[63] On November 18, 2020, campus officials announced their decision to remove the name of Barrows Hall, due to David Prescott Barrows' history of white supremacy. Until a new name is chosen, it will be referred to as the Social Sciences Building.[64]

From 1915 to 1932, the site contained a cinder running track with wooden bleachers designed by John Galen Howard.[39]

Zellerbach Hall, a multi-venue performance facility designed by Vernon DeMars, was completed in 1968. It is located west of Lower Sproul Plaza. The facility consists of two primary performance spaces: the 1,984-seat Zellerbach Auditorium, and the 500-seat Zellerbach Playhouse.

Eshleman Hall, designed by Hardison and DeMars as part of the Sproul Plaza plan, was built in 1965. It was named for John Morton Eshleman.

In the northwest, Tolman Hall was built in 1963, and Barker Hall in 1964.

In 1970, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive opened on Bancroft Way across from the Hearst Gymnasium in a building designed by Mario J. Ciampi. In 2011, the building was named Woo Hon Fai Hall in 2011 in honor of the father of David Woo, a Hong Kong–based businessman and Berkeley alumnus who began his career as an architect on the Ciampi project. The museum closed at this location on Sunday, December 21, 2014.[65]

Soda Hall, which is located north of Cory Hall and houses the Computer Science Division, is one of the few classroom buildings on campus with showers. It was designed by the New York architect Edward Larrabee Barnes[66] with the local firm Allen and Anshen and completed in August 1994 at the cost of $35.5 million, raised entirely from private gifts.

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 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,[67] the 285,000 sq ft (26,500 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 185,000 sq ft (17,200 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, 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.[68] 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.[69]

Jacobs Hall is a building for design innovation at the University of California, Berkeley. It is located on the north side of Hearst Avenue, across the street from the main campus.[70] The floor plan includes flexible space with tools for prototyping, iteration, and fabrication.[70] Construction began in August 2014 with a $20 million grant from the Paul and Stacy Jacobs foundation.[71] The hall was inspired and named after Paul E. Jacobs, UC Berkeley alumnus, philanthropist, and also the executive chair of Qualcomm Inc.[72]

• Helfand, Harvey (2002). University of California, Berkeley: An Architectural Tour and Photographs. The Campus Guide. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 1-56898-293-3.

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