Architecture turns 100:
‘Design on the Edge’ exhibit takes a look back

01 October 2003

Can you find the “UC” and the “Ark” in this stylized logo of the early College of Architecture?

The College of Environmental Design’s “Wurster Redux” celebration includes a tribute to the Department of Architecture, established in 1903 under the leadership of the newly named Campus Architect, John Galen Howard.

The new department was the first university architecture program and library west of St. Louis, and only the 13th in the United States. Students studied under the Beaux Arts model of architectural education, which Howard imported to the West Coast. High points of the year, in the early days, included costume balls in which students dressed as animals while Howard and his wife came as Mr. and Mrs. Noah, in a nod to the moniker for the department’s home, North Gate Hall, known in those days as “The Ark.” During the century since its founding, scores of influential architects, designers, and scholars have been associated with the department.

An exhibit on its first 100 years — “Design on the Edge: A Century of Teaching Architecture at the UC Berkeley, 1903-2003” — will be on display at Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Gallery from Oct. 8 to the end of December.

Other CED anniversary milestones — all to be celebrated at “Wurster Redux”:

• Environmental Design Library’s 100th
• Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning’s and the Department of Design’s 90th
• Department of City and Regional Planning’s 55th
• Environmental Design Archives’ 50th
• Center for Environmental Design Research’s and Institute of Urban and Regional Development’s 40th