Book Review: 100 Years of UC Berkeley’s Architecture Department
After a decade of research, interviews, and editing, UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design has just published Design on the Edge: A Century of Teaching Architecture, 1903–2003, a book chronicling the history of the University’s Department of Architecture, announced Jennifer Wolch, dean of the College of Environmental Design.
From its unofficial beginning on a San Francisco ferryboat to its current status as a nationally recognized program, the Architecture Department at the University of California, Berkeley, played a significant role in American architectural education. Faculty and alumni from the UC Berkeley Architecture Department have profoundly influenced architectural thought, practice, design, education, and the built environment of the San Francisco Bay Area. Design on the Edge provides insights into the history and development of the department that included such notables as John Galen Howard, William Wurster, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Erich Mendelsohn, Christopher Alexander, Joseph Esherick, Spiro Kostof, Sim Van der Ryn, Dell Upton, and Marc Treib, as well as more recent rising stars such as Michael Bell and Lisa Iwamoto. From its inception, Berkeley’s architecture program enrolled women and minorities; recently, more than 50% of its graduates have been women. Discover how Berkeley’s Architecture Department became the national model for incorporating social responsibility and environmental sustainability into design and design education.
By assembling a wide array of informal reflections, scholarly essays, and writings from a variety of past and current students, staff, and faculty, Design on the Edge will appeal to a broad audience of people interested in architecture, pedagogy, the creative process, and the built environment of California. Its hundreds of photographs and drawings and readable text will engage and entertain.
The images below may be downloaded and used for reviewing or promoting Design on the Edge: A Century of Teaching Architecture, 1903–2003. Copyright for these images is held by the Regents of the University of California. Please credit the Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley, unless otherwise noted. Non-promotional use requires written permission from the Environmental Design Archives.
The Ark was designed by John Galen Howard
For its first 50 years, the UC Berkeley Architecture Department was housed in a small, shingled building that everyone called the “Ark.” It was designed by well-known Bay Area architect and founder of the department, John Galen Howard, in 1906.
Students from 1928
Architecture students in the Ark, 1928.
This entry was posted on Monday, November 29th, 2010 and is filed under Architecture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Amazing pictures and amazing article. Looking at those buildings and faces from the past evokes many emotions and a sense of gratitude and wonder at all the beautiful things they created.
Thank you.