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Symposium
celebrates architectural legacies, explores higher education's
needs
26
Jan 2000
IN THIS STORY:
Successes
and failures of post-World War II college planning
Related
stories, sites, photos 
Increasing
enrollment demands, seismic retrofitting and the need for competitive,
cutting-edge facilities lend critical timeliness to the upcoming
UC Berkeley program, "Designing the Campus of Tomorrow."
A
"long dry spell" of no new campus development at research universities
is ending, said John Douglass of UC Berkeley's Center for Studies
in Higher Education, an organizer of the Thursday, Feb. 10,
symposium aimed at campus planners, architectural historians,
administrators and design professionals.
The
program will look at design contributions of the past and looming
physical challenges of the future for institutions of higher
learning.
Symposium
participants will initiate their discussion by examining UC
Berkeley, starting with its international master plan competition
sponsored by benefactress Phoebe Hearst, and following through
to construction-guided by the Hearst Architectural Plan - of
the classical buildings that still define the core of the Berkeley
campus.
"The
Hearst Plan was an effective blueprint for the creation of a
physical campus to match and showcase the university's other
aspirations," said event co-organizer Steve Finacom of the Center
for Studies in Higher Education. The other goals included building
a strong faculty and administration, as well as a campus with
an impressive physical presence and international reputation.
Successes
and failures of post-World War II college planning
Participants
will also explore successes and failures of post-World War II
college planning in California. New campus construction peaked
in the late 1950s and early '60s with the development of three
new UC campuses and eight new campuses within the California State
University system. California's community colleges added more
than 30 campuses during that period.
"The
rapid physical expansion of UC and CSU, often on the cheap,
and in an era of sometimes brutal generic designs devoid of
any sense of region or place," said Douglass, "has left a legacy
that stands in sharp contrast to the core of the Berkeley campus.
"Colleges
and universities are more than teaching factories, but are important
public spaces that in no small measure reflect the values of
society."
The
symposium will consider UC Berkeley's efforts to develop its
"New Century Plan" to renew and modernize facilities for scholars
and researchers at the 113-year-old campus. The plan is tentatively
set for completion later this year and will guide UC Berkeley
academic and physical planning.
Among
the symposium participants are: UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert
Berdahl; UC Merced Chancellor Carol Tomlinson-Keasey; Harrison
Fraker, dean of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design;
Donlyn Lyndon, former chair of UC Berkeley's School of Architecture;
and Robert Judson Clark of Princeton, guest curator of the Berkeley
Art Museum's "Roma/Pacifica" exhibit.
Source:
Kathleen Maclay, Public Affairs
RELATED STORIES, SITES, PHOTOS:
Full
press release
"Designing
the Campus of Tomorrow" website
Historical
documents and images
Symposium
program
"Roma/Pacifica"
exhibit (highlights each phase of UC Berkeley's development
through original sketches, documents, photos and stunning large-scale
drawings)
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