 |
|
     |
Story and Photographs by Harvey Helfand ‘66 As Campus Planner during the 1980s, I had the opportunity to host a visiting planner from a major European university. Eager to impress him with Berkeley’s architectural heritage—especially the classical group of buildings planned and designed by John Galen Howard during the first quarter of the twentieth century—I choreographed a walking tour that would best display the campus. The tour began with a stroll up the esplanade between the physics and chemistry groups. I calculated that, as we ascended this incline, the triple-arched granite façade of Howard’s historic Hearst Memorial Mining Building would gradually come into view, gleaming in the sunlight and reflected in the mirror-like surface of the Mining Circle pond. It would be a dramatic way to introduce my guest to Howard’s architectural ensemble, with its classical ornamentation and alignment to the Golden Gate. As we reached the head of the esplanade, my guest stopped and in audible astonishment—as I had hoped—exclaimed: “What a beautiful building!” But I was soon astonished myself. He pulled out his point-and-shoot and began taking pictures of Evans Hall! That ten-story concrete tower, more than any building of the modernist period, had disrupted the integrity of Howard’s plan by blocking its central garden axis and dwarfing the Mining Building. My guest was so enraptured with Evans that he could not have noticed the dark cloud forming over my head,
My guest’s admiration of Evans Hall challenged me to clarify the campus to students, alumni, and others, so that its special features might be appreciated, and the succession of its architectural styles and development patterns better understood. The classical core of the campus, centered around Doe Memorial Library and accentuated by the Campanile, is the natural place to start a study of Berkeley’s architecture (just as I had planned to do with my European visitor). Cradled between the two forks of Strawberry Creek and set against the scenic backdrop of Strawberry Canyon and the East Bay Hills, its architectural and natural features form one of the most complete permanent ensembles of the American Beaux-Arts movement. Howard, one of four runners-up to French architect Emile Bénard—winner of the 1897 international competition for the University of California architectural plan sponsored by Regent Phoebe Apperson Hearst—was appointed supervising architect in 1901, after Bénard was unable to execute his scheme. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris—where many American architects, including Howard, trained in the ateliers of leading French masters—emphasized monumental structures and orderly design principles, using classical forms and ornamentation, axial composition and balance, and symmetrical and hierarchical elements. Howard envisioned his ensemble as a “great group of beautiful white buildings embowered in greenery,” of which 15 structures, including Wheeler Hall, Sather Gate, and the Greek Theatre, were built between 1902 and 1924. They incorporated classical motifs from Greece and Rome but were sculpted into a unique Californian vernacular, drawing influences from the California Missions (most evident in the Mining Building) and utilizing white Sierra granite
(later concrete and cement plaster) walls, red tile roofs, copper skylights, and ornamental cresting. His scheme, though incomplete, maintained its coherence into the 1940s. But the pressure for rapid development in response to enrollment growth following World War II, and a growing desire for more informal modernist planning, led to the abandonment of the Hearst Plan. The placement and size of many of the postwar buildings interrupted the orderly arrangement and the human scale of the older Beaux-Arts campus. As an architecture student here from 1962 to 1966, I was spared the emergence of Evans Hall—which did not begin construction until after my graduation—but I witnessed much of the construction that marked this period of physical transition for the campus. Members of my class were among the first to occupy Wurster Hall in 1964, moving there from temporary buildings and Howard’s venerated “Ark” or Architecture Building (now North Gate Hall), where his architecture school had been housed since 1906. This change—from the small, brown-shingled Ark to the functional-sculptural concrete form of Wurster, with its nine-story studio tower—seemed to express the academic transition from the Beaux-Arts teaching philosophy of Howard and his successor Warren Perry ‘07 to the modern reform begun in 1950 under William Wurster ‘19, who later became dean of the new College of Environmental Design. Wurster Hall was just one of a number of large buildings, in addition to Evans Hall, that contributed to the unprecedented build-out that transformed the campus and resulted in an approximate doubling of space in the two decades after World War II. The latter end of that period of physical transition coincided with the social transition expressed in the Free Speech Movement (FSM) and other changing student priorities. More evident now, these two changes were symbolically in conflict—the large anonymous buildings were often perceived by the younger generation as dehumanizing icons of an institutional bureaucracy they opposed.  Courtyard of North Gate Hall Hall (Photo by Harvey Helfand) Campus buildings also serve as a guidebook to the spirit of Cal’s early leaders—if you know where to look. A careful examination of several buildings shows evidence of the stewardship and passion they felt for the University during its formative years. In particular, President Benjamin Ide Wheeler—reflecting his knowledge as a Greek scholar—paid attention to the details of the “Athens of the West” as it emerged during the twenty years of his leadership (1899–1919). He scrutinized modeling instructor Melvin Earl Cummings’s allegorical sculptures on Sather Gate and debated Howard on the use of Roman arches at the Main Reading Room of Doe Memorial Library. Faculty criticism was also common. When a professor labored over the archeological correctness of Cummings’s clay model for the bronze bust of Athena—the goddess of wisdom and knowledge that adorns the main entrance of Doe—Howard intervened on behalf of the sculptor so he could get on with the casting. Victor Henderson, Class of 1899 and Secretary of the Regents during much of this same period, also kept a close hand on all matters pertaining to grounds and buildings. While dealing with everyday issues—such as directing the grounds superintendent on catching rats, ridding the oaks of moths, or planting trees—his enthusiasm for the new classical buildings was unrestrained. “It is already apparent,” he commented as the steel frame for Howard’s Agriculture Building (Wellman Hall) was erected in 1911, “how greatly the realization of the plan has advanced by this monument in the westward expansion of the buildings. It has a glorious situation there on its bluff.” Howard’s own enthusiasm was often expressed in his poetic descriptions, whether of the slender Campanile “bursting into bloom at the summit, like a great white lily,” or the “idyllic grove of ancient oaks” and “bouquet of eucalyptus” standing in the west part of the campus. Generations of Berkeley-trained architects have found expression on campus, which stands today as a living textbook of their works. The old Beaux-Arts school was rooted in the atelier tradition of studio teaching by practicing professionals; and many Berkeley faculty members were also designers of campus buildings. Drawing instructor Bernard Maybeck left his imprint on the Faculty Club and Hearst Gymnasium (with Julia Morgan ‘94). Several of my own instructors continued this tradition, among them Vernon DeMars ‘31 and Donald Reay (the Student Center), Michael Goodman (Dwinelle Annex Addition), and George Matsumoto (Bechtel Engineering Center). These contributions constitute a remarkable legacy: nearly half of present central campus buildings bear the design of architects with faculty affiliations, and nearly as many have been designed by Berkeley alumni. Postwar development has left the campus a more complex and
The presence of students, too, is an integral part of the Cal landscape. Perhaps even more than the granite and concrete structures, the campus as a whole embodies the experiences and memories of many individuals and the collective traditions of the Cal culture. In my own experience, for example, I remain linked to the Ark, where I attended (and sometimes slept through) many lectures, as well as to Wurster Hall, where the camaraderie of classmates and design “crits” from professors remain vivid to this day. Faculty Glade was where I often sketched, while Sproul Plaza will always be associated with the FSM, the Cal Band, and—from my staff years—the anti-Apartheid demonstrations of the 1980s. The creek-side coast live oaks and eucalyptus that Howard so fondly described served as the backdrop for the Partheneia, a “Festival of Maidens” initiated by women students in 1912. That tradition later transferred to the wooded edge of Faculty Glade, where it is recalled by Alexander Sterling Calder’s bronze sculpture, The Last Dryad (featured on the cover). Sather Gate leaves a lasting impression with every freshman’s first passage under its bronze arch, while its legacy as a free-speech gathering place from the 1930s through the 1950s is now complemented by performances of the Men’s Octet and Golden Overtones. “Meet you at the oak” once signified friendships cultivated at the steps of Wheeler Hall. And the Class of 1925 Courtyard, between the former student center complex of Stephens and Moses (then Eshleman) halls, was the busy crossroads of campus, a “marketplace of hawkers” of student magazines and theater tickets, but is now valued as a quiet retreat. No two people come away from this remarkable campus with the same impression. Much as my European visitor was dazzled by Evans Hall, every student, faculty member, and staff person sees the beauty of the buildings and the green spaces in between in a way that is inextricably tied to their time at Cal. Harvey Helfand ‘66, a graduate of the College of Environmental Design and former campus planner, is author and photographer of The Campus Guide: University of California, Berkeley (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002). |
| |||||||||||||||||||
| About
CAA Contact
Us
Update
your Address CAA Career Opportunities Privacy Policy |
©2008 California Alumni
Association. All Rights Reserved For questions about CAA: info@alumni.berkeley.edu Technical inquiries: web@alumni.berkeley.edu
|
Alumni House Berkeley, CA 94720-7520 Toll-Free: (888) CAL-ALUM Phone: (510) 642-7026 Fax: (510) 642-6252
|
