Arch 179: American Architecture ShankenUCB 9/14/05Beaux-Arts Berkeley TourJohn Galen Howard (1864-1931)Supervising Architect, UC Berkeley, 1901-1923Studied at MIT in early 1880’s (the only school of architecture in the U.S. then)Apprenticed with H.H. Richardson in Boston, then with McKim Mead and WhiteAttended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1890-93Called to U.C. to help carry out Bénard’s winning design for the campus, 1901Founded Department of Architecture at U.C., 1903List of Howard buildings at UC (boldfaced on tour in order as marked)Greek Theater, 1903Old Art Gallery, 1904California Hall (4), 1905 (classrooms and administration)North Gate Hall, 1906, with additions, 1908 and 1912 (originally the architecture studio)Hearst Mining Building (2), 1907 Sather Gate (6), 1908-11Boalt Hall (now Durant Hall), 1911 Agricultural Hall (now Wellman Hall), 1912Sather Tower (1), 1913Gilman Hall (Chemistry), 1917Hilgard Hall, 1917Wheeler (5), 1917Doe Library (3), 1917California Memorial Stadium, 1923Women’s Faculty Club, 1923LeConte Hall (Physics), 1924Haviland Hall (Education), 1924Hesse Hall (Engineering); only a fragment of a group plan.Stephens Hall (7) (Student Union), 1925Howard Buildings on the Berkeley CampusInternational Competition for the Phoebe Hearst Architectural Plan of the University of California, Prospectus, 1898 (originally proposed by Bernard Maybeck, and won by Emile Benard)"The purpose is to secure a plan to which all the buildings that may be needed by the University in its futuregrowth shall conform. All the buildings that have been constructed up to the present time are to be ignored, and the grounds are to be treated as a blank space to be filled as a single beautiful and harmonious picture as a painter fills in his canvas."The site of the University of California at Berkeley, California, comprises 245 acres of land, rising at first in a gentle and then in a bolder slope from a height of about 200 feet above the sea level to one of over 900 ... It is thought that the advantages of the site, whose bold slope will enable the entire mass of buildingsto be taken in at a single coup d’oeil, will permit that production of an effect unique in the world, and that the architect who can seize the opportunity it offers will immortalize himself."It is seldom in any age that an artist has had a chance to express his thought so freely, on so large a scale, and with such entire exemption from the influence of discordant surroundings. Here there will be at least 28buildings, all mutually related and, at the same time, entirely cut off from anything that could mar the effect of the picture. In fact, it is a city that is to be created — a City of Learning — in which there is to be nosordid or inharmonious feature. There are to be no definite limitations of cost, materials, or style. All is to be left to the unfettered discretion of the designer. He is asked to record his conception of an ideal home for a University, assuming time and resources to be unlimited. He is to plan for centuries to come. There will doubtless be developments of science in the future that will impose new duties on the University, and require alterations in the detailed arrangement of its buildings, but it is believed to be possible to secure a comprehensive plan so in harmony with the universal principles of architectural art, that there will be no more necessity of remodelling its broad outlines a thousand years hence than there would be of remodeling the Parthenon, had it come down to us complete and uninjured."In the great works of antiquity the designer came first, and it was the business of the financier to find the money to carry out his plans. In the new building scheme of the University of California, it is the intention to restore the artist and the art idea to their old pre-eminence. The architect will simply design; others must provide the cost."Other Misc. Facts for me:Raymond Granite, the most common facing material on early U.C. buildings, comes fromRaymond, near Merced, far inland, near the Sierra Nevada foothillsList of Howard buildings at UCGreek Theater, 1903Old Art Gallery, 1904California Hall, 1905 (classrooms and administration)- : lovely interior (is it still there)-ferrovitreous roof.North Gate Hall, 1906, with additions, 1908 and 1912 (originally the architecture studio)Hearst Mining Building, 1907 - (“a kind, bluff brother amid a bevy of lovely sisters”). Memorial vestibule as a museum; the great working building behind: 120 feet, skylit, with a traveling crane that allowed the movement of machinery, with galleries on either side to allow observation and teaching; the tunnel: 1916, 750’ into the hillside, right under the Hayward Fault, to give instruction on drilling, blasting, timbering and mine surveying, and it was supposed to uncover a water source for the campus.Sather Gate, 1908-11- (Jane Sather)… - 8 allegorical figures representing the liberal arts or academic pursuits….females: agriculture, art, architecture and electricity; men: law, letters, medicine and mining. A fig leaf was found over the male genitalia, and Jane Sather insisted that they be removed, not, apparently, b/c she was prudish, but b/c she was an elitist who believed art should be placed in more private places where it would be available for people who would appreciate it, rather than desecrate it. So they wereremoved in 1911 and placed back in 1979, when they were found in a quarry- fiat lux: let there be lightBoalt Hall (now Durant Hall), 1911 (built for the School of Jurisprudence)-- meant to have a companion to the south, and to be connected by colonnadeAgricultural Hall (now Wellman Hall), 1912Sather Tower, 1913 and Esplanade: - Based on the campanile of San Marco in Venice. Thought originally of trying to make it utilitarian, including student housing. - Created a minor east-west axis and a north-south axis, and it was on hallowed ground, where an old wooden flagpole marked the center of campus life between N. and S. Halls.- Structural steel frame with reinforced concrete walls and faced with Raymond granite; the pyramid at the top is Alaska marbleGilman Hall (Chemistry), 1917Hilgard Hall, 1917Wheeler, 1917: - decorative program: Apollo as the light of truth; urn-shaped lamps the light of learning; rams heads symbolizing “procreant power, and garlands, symbolizing the flowers of wisdom.” See the lobby. Talk about Wheeler as the classicist who helped spur Howard to 20 years