Berkeley Optometry: UCB Historic Buildings

The University of California at Berkeley — one of the major centers of scholarship in the world — is situated on a scenic campus that combines an exciting mix of natural and constructed forms.

UC Berkeley's open areas include beautiful glades, tree-lined paths, and meandering Strawberry Creek. These features are enhanced by an extraordinary surrounding landscape, with the East Bay hills and Strawberry Canyon on one side and the majestic Golden Gate and Bay on the other.

The focus of UC Berkeley's impressive architectural heritage may be found in twenty-two historic Beaux Arts buildings created by John Galen Howard.

Howard's achievement is complemented by the designs of other celebrated architects, such as Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan. An eclecticism of architecture continues across the campus with buildings in Art Deco, modern, and post-modern styles.

Sather Tower, 1911-17
[John Galen Howard Collection,
Environmental Design Archives, UCB]

The Hearst Plan

UC Berkeley's architectural heritage includes one of the finest Beaux-arts ensembles in the US, part of the 1908 and 1914 Hearst Plans supervised by John Galen Howard (1864-1931; see History of Campus Architecture).

Today, 22 of his structures survive, most designated as historic buildings. The enduring symbol is Sather Tower ("The Campanile"), while other notable structures are the Hearst Mining Building and Doe Memorial Library.

Bird's-eye view, Hearst plan, 1917
(John Galen Howard Collection,
Environmental Design Archives, UCB)

The following descriptions offer more information about just a few of the historic structures on the Berkeley campus. These buildings are all listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the State Historic Resources Inventory; they are also designated as City of Berkeley Landmarks.

[photo by Chris Benton]

Sather Tower (The Campanile)
The "Campanile" is UC Berkeley's most widely recognized architectural symbol, constructed in 1913-14 and inspired by the campanile of San Marco in Venice. Howard wanted it to "rise with a slender stem, bursting into bloom at the summit." It is ornamented with corner obelisks topped by bronze finial flames symbolizing enlightenment.

The tower stands 303 feet high and can be seen from miles away. More than 70,000 visitors a year enjoy panoramic views of the Bay Area from the belvedere, a belfry with classical triple-arched openings supported by pairs of Corinthian columns. The belvedere houses the carillon, the tower's bell instrument, played on a regular schedule and for special occasions (with 61 bells, the smallest treble at 20 pounds, the "Great Bear Bell" or bourdon weighing five and one-half tons).

The ground-level setting for the tower is the Sather Esplanade, with raised lawn beds and six rows of pollarded London plane trees (Platanus X acerifolia) separated by brick walkways. In the aerial view on the left, the esplanade can be seen at the lower right, with Doe Library and Annex at middle left, Memorial Glade at middle right, and SF Bay in the far distance.

South Hall
This is the first campus building, designed by David Farquharson, a four-story brick building completed in 1873 in Second Empire style. The slate mansard roof is finished with ornamental cast-iron cresting, and its facade and rooftop are decorated with ornamented chimneys and former laboratory flues. Although planned for replacement by a classical building under the Hearst Plan, historically important South Hall - shown here along its east facade - survived (unlike its companion, North Hall) and now houses the School of Information Management and Systems.

Doe Memorial Library
The original Doe Memorial Library is the surviving centerpiece of John Galen Howard's classical ensemble. Built in 1907-1911 and 1914-1917, with various incremental alterations thereafter, this Greco-Roman structure was, in Howard's words, "the heart of the organism, from which radiates the lifeblood of books to all readers." The north facade (seen here from Memorial Glade) includes a monumental Corinthian colonnade, while both the east and west facades display giant Roman-arched windows. The interior includes the great Main Reading Room, a Beaux-arts marvel, 210-feet long and 45 feet high, with a coffered elliptical barrel-vault ceiling.

Hearst Mining Building
Considered by some to be John Galen Howard's masterpiece, its corner stone ceremony on November 18, 1902 was attended by luminaries and reported on by Jack London in the Hearst paper, the San Francisco Examiner. The style is a blend of Beaux-Arts and California Mission. One of its most admired features is the Memorial Vestibule, a three-story lobby-museum space supported by trim iron arches and illuminated by three dome skylights above vaultings surfaced with tiles in a herringbone pattern.

Wheeler Hall
Completed in 1917, this was the fourth of John Galen Howard's neoclassical buildings. The facade is in French Baroque style, the first story with seven arched doorways leading into a vaulted auditorium lobby illuminated by fanlight windows (shown here, south facade). Six Ionic columns span the height of the two middle floors, while a colonnade above is ornamented with allegorical urn-shaped lamps symbolizing, according to Howard, "the light of learning."