Planning with Nature: 100 Years of Landscape Architecture at UC Berkeley
Septemeber 26, 2013 – December 13, 2013
Founded in 1913, this year the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning celebrates its centennial! The exhibition examines the history and guiding principles of the department -- innovation, social responsibility, and research through the works of its students, faculty, staff and alumni. Historical, archival and cutting edge material will be on display from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
Curated by: Caitlin Swarm and Miranda Hambro.
John Galen Howard: Crafting Campus, Continuing Practice
May 3, 2013 – September 6, 2013
This exhibition highlights the work of John Galen Howard, founder of UC Berkeley’s School of Architecture and campus architect from 1901 to1922, a time of rapid growth and development for the burgeoning university. Howard designed many landmarks during his tenure, including Sather Tower, Sather Gate, Hearst Mining Building, and Doe Library, but his impact extended well beyond the campus boundaries. This display explores his pivotal role in the evolution of the Berkeley campus as well as other projects throughout the Bay Area, through drawings, manuscripts, images and print material from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
Curated by: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Committee: Julie Turgeon, Waverly Lowell, Margaretta Lovell
Infrastructure: Designed Necessities
January 14, 2013 - April 22, 2013
Infrastructure – the technical structures, services and facilities necessary for society to function – is part of the designed landscape. Power sources, water supplies, streets, roads, bridges, and various methods of transportation have all drawn the attention of the architect and landscape architect. Original sketches, photographs, drawings, and rare books provided by the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library illustrate the elements that provide the structural framework to respond to societal demand and the physical world.
Curated by: Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives.
Exhibition Committee: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives; Andrew Sanchez; Cailin Swarm; Dorothy Friday
Hidden Engineer: The Designs of Julia Morgan
September 10, 2012 - December 17, 2012
Julia Morgan was a pioneer throughout her professional life. The first woman to enter and complete an education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, she later designed Hearst Castle, and left more than 700 buildings throughout California and the West. Among other reasons, she is notable for having designed many women-commissioned projects. This exhibit is mounted in conjunction with Landmarks California's Julia Morgan 2012 Festival, and re-examines some of Julia Morgan’s most influential designs, using material from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Collection, and Environmental Design Library.
Curated by: Miranda Hambro.
Tools of the Trade
July 3, 2012 - September 5, 2012
Designers use tools for learning the art of design, for teaching, and for communicating ideas in the studio, the office, the field, and on the site.
People often see the results of design; the buildings and landscapes that inform our everyday world. Rarely do we get to see the tools that make the design of this world possible. This exhibition features tangible items that help a designer carry out the day-to-day tasks of becoming and then practicing as an architect, landscape architect, or planner. It presents ways in which objects were used for learning and teaching design, from shade and shape to perspective and shadow. It shows methods of drafting, presenting ideas, and conducting field work.
The exhibit also provides a detailed glimpse into the practice of a father–daughter architecture office of the early 20th century, in order to see the application of these tools.
Curated by: Carol Reif, Andrew Sanchez.
Exhibition Committee: Waverly Lowell, Miranda Hambro.
Plants, Books and Drawings: The Work of Beatrix Farrand
March 12, 2012 - June 8, 2012
Beatrix Jones Farrand practiced landscape design from the 1890s through the 1940s. In 1899, she was a founding member, along with Frederick Law Olmstead, of the American Society of Landscape Architects. During her fifty-year career, Farrand designed more than 200 gardens for educational institutions, universities, communities, museums, and wealthy private clients. She is recognized for her work at Dumbarton Oaks, Dartington Hall, for various projects for the Rockefellers, for her projects at Yale and Princeton, and particularly for her Reef Point, Maine, Estate.
This exhibit re-examines Reef Point, through a selection of the prints and books held there, the Reef Point Bulletin, plants from its garden and the archival collections. Also on display will be plans, drawings, and other material from the Environmental Design Archives and Visual Resources Collection that showcase some of her well-known projects.
Exhibit Team: Emma Keefe, Miranda Hambro, Waverly Lowell, Jaye Fishel, and David Eifler.
R. Burton Litton, Jr.: California Landscapes
January 9, 2012 - March 6, 2012
This is an exhibit of watercolor sketches by Professor R. Burton Litton, Jr. He was a pioneer in the field of visual landscape assessment and is remembered for his abilities as a teacher, author, photographer and water color painter. Spanning the years 1982-98, Litton painted these watercolors while teaching his favorite class, Landscape Architecture 223: Introduction to California Landscape Regions.
Prepared by: T. Mollette-Parks, J. McBride, K. Cahill and M. Hambro. Sketches scanned by C. Becker
Off Hours: Environments for Entertainment
September 27, 2011 - December 16, 2011
As Americans’ leisure time has increased during the century, we have filled it with all manner of diversions. This exhibit highlights the buildings and landscapes in which we spend leisure time for respite from the stresses of daily life. Grouped thematically as things to watch, play, eat and buy, the focus is on spaces such as theaters, restaurants, playgrounds, country clubs, stores and sports facilities. Original sketches, photographs, drawings, and rare books are included in the material on display provided by the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
Curated by:Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives, and Jason Miller, Associate Librarian and Director, Visual Resources Center
Exhibition Committee: Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives, and Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian Emerita, Environmental Design Library
Gardens for Peace
June 8, 2011 - September 23, 2011
A former English teacher from Berkeley wondered why there was no national monument for peace amidst our country’s many national monuments to war. So in 1985 she determined to create a National Peace Garden in Washington DC. A National Peace garden was approved by Congress in 1987, and the competition drew nearly a thousand entries. The winning entry was by Eduardo Catalano, whose design took the shape of an olive branch from a bird’s-eye view. However, the firm of RHAA was selected to design the park that was to be located on Hains Point in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, funding was not secured, and the project remained unbuilt.
This exhibition explores this idea, the competition for its design, and its fate by asking, “What is a Peace Garden? What is its value? What should it look like? Who pays for it?” Most of the 900+ design submissions will be presented via rotating digital images. Original sketches and drawings from the design competition, letters from supporters and detractors, and examples of other peace gardens are included in the material on display provided by the Environmental Design Archives, and Environmental Design Library.
Curated by: Gar-Yin Lee, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Committee: Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian, Environmental Design Library, and Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
All Their Own: Designing for Themselves and Each Other
February 22, 2011 - June 3, 2011
As sites, designers’ own home projects teach us about the history of architecture and landscape architecture, communicate the nature of their work, and reveal something about themselves.
Although a designer’s first projects are often for family members, they inevitably will design a place of their own during the course of their career. These include gardens, residences, vacation homes, remodels, and design-build projects. Designers also design for each other. This exhibition showcases projects by architects and landscape architects for themselves and for their colleagues.
The exhibit includes highlights from the collections of the Environmental Design Archives/Visual Resources Center and Environmental Design Library, such as original sketches, photographs, ephemera, and books.
Curated by: Waverly Lowell and Miranda Hambro
Exhibition Committee: Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian, Environmental Design Library, and Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Design Book Art
January 10, 2011 - February 16, 2011
Artists have been illustrating and creating books for centuries, but the genre known as artists’ books developed in the mid-1960s. Most artists prefer to make art rather than write about their ideas, so creating an “art” book allows them to express an idea too complex for a single painting or sculpture. “Artists’ books are not books about art; they are art expressed through book form.1”
Called “the quintessential 20th-century art form,2” most artists’ books include hand work, unique or small editions, mixed and/or unusual materials, a strong personal statement, and experimentation with the form of the book. Formats from pop-ups to tunnel, accordion, photographic, concertina, multi-media, and multi-dimensional explore the potential of the book. Few depend on words to communicate their message.
The Environmental Design Library collects artists’ books that involve the built environment. This exhibit displays a selection of our artists’ books organized by broad themes. They highlight the variety of forms, techniques, materials, and ideas that artists have used in their exploration of just what is a book.
To preserve their fragile formats our artists’ books are housed in the Sigrid Rupp Rare Book Vault. After the exhibit closes these and other books in the rare book collection may be requested and viewed at the reference desk.
Curated by: Elizabeth Byrne and Mia Jaeggli
Exhibition Committee: Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian, Environmental Design Library, and Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Image: "Getting There / Being There" by Marcia Ciro (Watertown, Massachusetts: Marcia Ciro, 2000)
1 Iris R. Snyder, curator, “Artists’ Books at the Millennium,” University of Delaware Library, Special Collections Department, 2002,http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/exhibits/artistsbook/essay.htm viewed November 21, 2010.
2 Johanna Drucker, The Century of Artists’ Books. New York: Granary Books, 1994, p. 1.
Render Unto God
September 27, 2010 - December 17, 2010
Focusing on the design of religious structures this exhibition explores the connections between religious institutions and residences, social spaces, and the challenges of designing for religious purposes. Themes of community, ethnicity, innovation and tradition are highlighted with holdings from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library collections, such as rare books, original sketches, and photographs.
Curated by: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Committee: Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian, Environmental Design Library, and Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
It’s Not Just Black & White: Photographing the Built Environment
May 4, 2010- August 16, 2010
There are many ways to approach the use of photography in Environmental Design. It’s Not Just Black & White: Photographing the Built Environment uses four themes that serve the acts of viewing, creating, and studying the built environment: Documentation, Presentation, Remembering, and Practice. Drawing on the collections of the Environmental Design Archives, the Environmental Design Library, the CED Visual Resources Center, and private collections, the exhibit stimulates thinking about photographic representation of the built environment and how this representation influences our design, writing, and research activity.
Curated by: Jason Miller, CED Visual Resources Center
Exhibition Team: Waverly Lowell and Miranda Hambro, Environmental Design Archives
Image: Villa Savoye, photographed by Eugene Kodani, c. 1950
Stock Options: Houses for Everyone
January 20, 2010 – April 20, 2010
On Thursday, January 28, 2010, 5:30-8:30 p.m. there was a lecture and reception for the exhibit,Stock Options: Houses for Everyone. Speakers included: Daniel Gregory, editor-in-chief, Houseplans.com; Michelle Kaufmann, California architect, designer of sustainable pre-fab houses;Alfred Willis, architectural historian, librarian, Hampton University; and John King, urban design critic, San Francisco Chronicle.
Stock Options: Houses for Everyone is an exhibit of historic house pattern books and stock plan catalogs featuring rare and original materials from the Environmental Design Library and Environmental Design Archives.
Curated by: Elizabeth Douthitt Byrne, Environmental Design Library
Exhibition Team: Alfred Willis, Hampton University; Carrie McDade, Environmental Design Archives; Waverly Lowell, Environmental Design Archives; Matthew Prutsman, Environmental Design Library
Environmental Design: A New Modernism
September 25, 2009 - December 22, 2009
The College of Environmental Design (CED) was conceived of in the 1950s and formally established in 1959. To differentiate their ideas from Modernist dogma, the founders William Wurster, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Jack Kent, and their Bay Area colleagues dubbed their vision “Environmental Design,” or what we might call a “New Modernism.” The CED was unique not only because it was one of the earliest colleges to combine architecture, city planning, landscape architecture, and the decorative arts, but also because it emphasized the important role of the social, natural, and physical sciences in informing teaching, practice, and research. Wurster Hall, completed in 1964, has become the emblem of the founders’ vision where, in 2009, it continues to emerge anew.
The exhibit focuses on seminal moments from 1959 to 2009 in the evolution of the CED founders' vision, whereby teaching, research, and practice were informed by the social and natural sciences and which, in recent decades, has significantly come to include the computer sciences. It features original drawings, photographs, documents, books, and artifacts drawn from the Environmental Design Archives, the Environmental Design Library, the Bancroft Library, the University Archives, IURD and CEDR, and private collections.
Curated by: Professor Raymond Lifchez with the assistance of Carrie McDade
Image: Aerial view of Wurster Hall by Charles C. Benton
Urban Beast or Urbane Beauty: Planning the City Beautiful
May 20, 2009 - September 13, 2009
One hundred years ago, Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett published a vision of Chicago that reflected the early stages of big city planning. The City Beautiful Movement, spurred by Baron Haussmann's remaking of Paris in the1860s and the Progressive Movement in America, was intended to create a rational, classical city to replace the crowded, unplanned Victorian city common in the 19th century. The 1909 Plan for Chicago, although never fully realized, is heralded as the apex of the City Beautiful Movement which found echoes in plans for the San Francisco Civic Center, Oakland's City Center, and urban planning from Manila to Canberra, Australia. This exhibit explores the City Beautiful Movement as manifested in the San Francisco Bay Area, and subsequent attempts to make its wide boulevards, Beaux Arts buildings and neo-classical domes welcoming to urban inhabitants.
Curated by: David Eifler and Matthew Prutsman, Environmental Design Library
Exhibition Team: Waverly Lowell and Miranda Hambro, Environmental Design Archives
Image: Jules Guerin, Civic Center, 1916. John Galen Howard Collection, Environmental Design Archives, UC Berkeley.
Greenwood Common: Uncommonly Modern
February 3, 2009 - May 8, 2009
This exhibition reveals the history of Greenwood Common, an enclave of eight distinct modernist houses, developed between 1951 and 1957 in the Berkeley hills by architect William W. Wurster. The development featured his idealistic sense of community coupled with a modernist aesthetic and an awareness of regional traditions. The purchasers of the lots, working with established architects and landscape architects, created homes showcasing a uniquely Californian lifestyle that reflected the mild climate, the distinctive geography, and the local environment. This small cluster of residences surrounding a shared open space combined a sense of the suburbs with the intimacy of a small town. As a result Greenwood Common has become an icon of regional mid-century modernism and continues to thrive as a well-maintained and comfortable community site—all as it was originally intended.
Presented in conjunction with the publication Living Modern: A Biography of Greenwood Common, by Waverly Lowell. A Berkeley|Design|Book, published by William Stout Publishers, available spring 2009.
Curated by: Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Team: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Student Assistants: Madeline Hamlin, Lan Hu
Fatal Design Exhibit
October 31, 2008 - January 16, 2009
The great public cemeteries in the United States all began as monumental landscapes, playgrounds for the picturesque, where the growing middle classes both buried their dead and took refuge from the rapidly industrializing cities. There they could contemplate the “sweet hereafter” in a setting with an obvious kinship to Central Park or the leafy suburbs, then rising as part of the same cultural forces that created the modern cemetery. Still, these silent cities evolved from a social form that gave us a range of civic institutions including the temple and the astronomical observatory, the theater, and the university. But where has this great social form gone in the last century? Fatal Design tells the tale through the rich holdings of the Environmental Design Archives and Library.
Curated by: Andrew Shanken, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture; Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Image: Nantucket Cemetery, Charles Sumner Greene Collection
Building in the Landscape: The Sea Ranch and Making Places
April 28, 2008 - September 30, 2008
Exploring the concept of making places, this exhibit focuses on the Sea Ranch, and on Donlyn Lyndon's work in other areas. Lyndon's works explore the idea that, "environment is that piece of reality which gets through to us," and the things that enter, "our selected environment should help us to 'place' ourselves specifically in a broad context." Nowhere is this more evident than in the work that he did with MLTW at the Sea Ranch, and which he continues to do there and in other locations.
The exhibit includes highlights from the Environmental Design Archives and Environmental Design Library collections, such as original sketches, photographs, ephemera and books.
Curated by: Waverly Lowell, Curator; and Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Committee: Elizabeth Byrne, Head; Deborah Sommer, Librarian; Matthew Prutsman, Circulation Supervisor, Environmental Design Library
Image: Sea Ranch, Condominium I, William Turnbull, Jr./MLTW Collection (2000-9), Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
The Roving Eye: Travel and Design
November 15, 2007 - March 31, 2008
The Roving Eye explores the connections between travel and design, beginning with the Grand Tour of Beaux Arts tradition and continuing through present day study and studios. It looks at themes of cultural exchange, globalization, and inspiration through travel in the fields of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning.
Curated by the staff of the Environmental Design Archives and the Environmental Design Library, the exhibit includes highlights from these collections such as rare books, original sketches, and photographs.
Curated by: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives; and Dori Hsiao, Operations Manager, Environmental Design Library
Curatorial Committee: Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives; and Elizabeth Byrne, Head, Environmental Design Library
Opening Guest Lecturer: Ananya Roy, Professor, College of Environmental Design
Special Acknowledgment: Matthew Prutsman, Circulation Supervisor, Environmental Design Library
The Architect's Sketch: Vision and Document
May 21, 2007 - October 31, 2007.
The Architect's Sketch: Vision and Document is the inaugural exhibition in special cases designed and constructed specifically to display the holdings of the Environmental Design Archives and rare portfolios and books from the Environmental Design Library. The selected sketches explore the theme of the hand-rendered sketch.
Materials included in this exhibition present an opportunity to step back and re-discover the importance of drawing in the making of architecture. Sketching is a means of indicating design intentions and documenting certain values of space, function, and material not always reproducible on digital output. More importantly, in sketching, the making of each mark on paper enlivens the imagination of the designer by nurturing the unparalleled relationship between hand and eye.
The Architect's Sketch: Vision and Document is dedicated to CED students, for and because of whom, the College exists. It is with students in mind that these drawings, objects, and rare and significant volumes have been assembled as examples of the treasures preserved and made available for research and learning in the College Archives and Library collections. What has been selected is but a tiny fraction of the material that can now be exhibited and publicly enjoyed in the new exhibition cases. Conceived and donated by Professor Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach, The Architect's Sketch: Vision and Document celebrates and inaugurates these state-of-the-art exhibition cases designed by alumna Wendy Tsuji of Frost Tsuji Architects.
Curated by: Professor Raymond Lifchez
Curatorial Committee: Carrie McDade, Independent Curator; Elizabeth Byrne, Librarian, Environmental Design Library; Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives; Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Case Design: Frost Tsuji Architects: Frank Frost and Wendy Tsuji; Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design: Angela McDonald; Toft DeNevers & Lee Structural Engineers: Douglas Street
Construction: UC Berkeley, Capital Projects, Project Manager: Beth Piatnitza; George Slack, Cabinetmakers: George Slack; Del Monte Electric Company: Zair McMahan
Special Acknowledgments: Gillian Boal, UC Berkeley Library Conservation Department; Chuck Byrne, Graphic Designer; Benjamin Clavan, Architect; Dori Hsiao, Operations Manager, Environmental Design Library; Mel Lo, Student Assistant, Environmental Design Archives; Lars Luckner, North Berkeley Frameshop; Steve Murray, CED Computer Department; Roger Wicker, Turtle Island Book Shop; Keith Wilson, Architect
Design Book Art 2 is an exhibit of artists’ books about the built environment from the collection of the Environmental Design Library. Our second exhibit of artists’ books (the first was Spring 2011) displays a selection organized by broad themes. They highlight the variety of forms, techniques, materials, and ideas that artists and designers have used in their exploration of just what is a book.
Founded in 1913, this year the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning celebrates its centennial! The exhibition examines the history and guiding principles of the department -- innovation, social responsibility, and research through the works of its students, faculty, staff and alumni. Historical, archival and cutting edge material will be on display from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
This exhibition highlights the work of John Galen Howard, founder of UC Berkeley’s School of Architecture and campus architect from 1901 to1922, a time of rapid growth and development for the burgeoning university. Howard designed many landmarks during his tenure, including Sather Tower, Sather Gate, Hearst Mining Building, and Doe Library, but his impact extended well beyond the campus boundaries. This display explores his pivotal role in the evolution of the Berkeley campus as well as other projects throughout the Bay Area, through drawings, manuscripts, images and print material from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
Infrastructure – the technical structures, services and facilities necessary for society to function – is part of the designed landscape. Power sources, water supplies, streets, roads, bridges, and various methods of transportation have all drawn the attention of the architect and landscape architect. Original sketches, photographs, drawings, and rare books provided by the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library illustrate the elements that provide the structural framework to respond to societal demand and the physical world.
Julia Morgan was a pioneer throughout her professional life. The first woman to enter and complete an education at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, she later designed Hearst Castle, and left more than 700 buildings throughout California and the West. Among other reasons, she is notable for having designed many women-commissioned projects. This exhibit is mounted in conjunction with 
Designers use tools for learning the art of design, for teaching, and for communicating ideas in the studio, the office, the field, and on the site.
Beatrix Jones Farrand practiced landscape design from the 1890s through the 1940s. In 1899, she was a founding member, along with Frederick Law Olmstead, of the American Society of Landscape Architects. During her fifty-year career, Farrand designed more than 200 gardens for educational institutions, universities, communities, museums, and wealthy private clients. She is recognized for her work at Dumbarton Oaks, Dartington Hall, for various projects for the Rockefellers, for her projects at Yale and Princeton, and particularly for her Reef Point, Maine, Estate.
This is an exhibit of watercolor sketches by Professor R. Burton Litton, Jr. He was a pioneer in the field of visual landscape assessment and is remembered for his abilities as a teacher, author, photographer and water color painter. Spanning the years 1982-98, Litton painted these watercolors while teaching his favorite class, Landscape Architecture 223: Introduction to California Landscape Regions.
As Americans’ leisure time has increased during the century, we have filled it with all manner of diversions. This exhibit highlights the buildings and landscapes in which we spend leisure time for respite from the stresses of daily life. Grouped thematically as things to watch, play, eat and buy, the focus is on spaces such as theaters, restaurants, playgrounds, country clubs, stores and sports facilities. Original sketches, photographs, drawings, and rare books are included in the material on display provided by the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library.
A former English teacher from Berkeley wondered why there was no national monument for peace amidst our country’s many national monuments to war. So in 1985 she determined to create a National Peace Garden in Washington DC. A National Peace garden was approved by Congress in 1987, and the competition drew nearly a thousand entries. The winning entry was by Eduardo Catalano, whose design took the shape of an olive branch from a bird’s-eye view. However, the firm of RHAA was selected to design the park that was to be located on Hains Point in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, funding was not secured, and the project remained unbuilt.
As sites, designers’ own home projects teach us about the history of architecture and landscape architecture, communicate the nature of their work, and reveal something about themselves.
Artists have been illustrating and creating books for centuries, but the genre known as artists’ books developed in the mid-1960s. Most artists prefer to make art rather than write about their ideas, so creating an “art” book allows them to express an idea too complex for a single painting or sculpture. “Artists’ books are not books about art; they are art expressed through book form.1”
Focusing on the design of religious structures this exhibition explores the connections between religious institutions and residences, social spaces, and the challenges of designing for religious purposes. Themes of community, ethnicity, innovation and tradition are highlighted with holdings from the Environmental Design Archives, Visual Resources Center, and Environmental Design Library collections, such as rare books, original sketches, and photographs.
There are many ways to approach the use of photography in Environmental Design. It’s Not Just Black & White: Photographing the Built Environment uses four themes that serve the acts of viewing, creating, and studying the built environment: Documentation, Presentation, Remembering, and Practice. Drawing on the collections of the Environmental Design Archives, the Environmental Design Library, the CED Visual Resources Center, and private collections, the exhibit stimulates thinking about photographic representation of the built environment and how this representation influences our design, writing, and research activity.
On Thursday, January 28, 2010, 5:30-8:30 p.m. there was a lecture and reception for the exhibit,Stock Options: Houses for Everyone. Speakers included: Daniel Gregory, editor-in-chief, Houseplans.com; Michelle Kaufmann, California architect, designer of sustainable pre-fab houses;Alfred Willis, architectural historian, librarian, Hampton University; and John King, urban design critic, San Francisco Chronicle.
The College of Environmental Design (CED) was conceived of in the 1950s and formally established in 1959. To differentiate their ideas from Modernist dogma, the founders William Wurster, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Jack Kent, and their Bay Area colleagues dubbed their vision “Environmental Design,” or what we might call a “New Modernism.” The CED was unique not only because it was one of the earliest colleges to combine architecture, city planning, landscape architecture, and the decorative arts, but also because it emphasized the important role of the social, natural, and physical sciences in informing teaching, practice, and research. Wurster Hall, completed in 1964, has become the emblem of the founders’ vision where, in 2009, it continues to emerge anew.
One hundred years ago, Daniel Burnham and Edward Bennett published a vision of Chicago that reflected the early stages of big city planning. The City Beautiful Movement, spurred by Baron Haussmann's remaking of Paris in the1860s and the Progressive Movement in America, was intended to create a rational, classical city to replace the crowded, unplanned Victorian city common in the 19th century. The 1909 Plan for Chicago, although never fully realized, is heralded as the apex of the City Beautiful Movement which found echoes in plans for the San Francisco Civic Center, Oakland's City Center, and urban planning from Manila to Canberra, Australia. This exhibit explores the City Beautiful Movement as manifested in the San Francisco Bay Area, and subsequent attempts to make its wide boulevards, Beaux Arts buildings and neo-classical domes welcoming to urban inhabitants.
This exhibition reveals the history of Greenwood Common, an enclave of eight distinct modernist houses, developed between 1951 and 1957 in the Berkeley hills by architect William W. Wurster. The development featured his idealistic sense of community coupled with a modernist aesthetic and an awareness of regional traditions. The purchasers of the lots, working with established architects and landscape architects, created homes showcasing a uniquely Californian lifestyle that reflected the mild climate, the distinctive geography, and the local environment. This small cluster of residences surrounding a shared open space combined a sense of the suburbs with the intimacy of a small town. As a result Greenwood Common has become an icon of regional mid-century modernism and continues to thrive as a well-maintained and comfortable community site—all as it was originally intended.
The great public cemeteries in the United States all began as monumental landscapes, playgrounds for the picturesque, where the growing middle classes both buried their dead and took refuge from the rapidly industrializing cities. There they could contemplate the “sweet hereafter” in a setting with an obvious kinship to Central Park or the leafy suburbs, then rising as part of the same cultural forces that created the modern cemetery. Still, these silent cities evolved from a social form that gave us a range of civic institutions including the temple and the astronomical observatory, the theater, and the university. But where has this great social form gone in the last century? Fatal Design tells the tale through the rich holdings of the Environmental Design Archives and Library.
The Roving Eye explores the connections between travel and design, beginning with the Grand Tour of Beaux Arts tradition and continuing through present day study and studios. It looks at themes of cultural exchange, globalization, and inspiration through travel in the fields of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City Planning.
The Architect's Sketch: Vision and Document is the inaugural exhibition in special cases designed and constructed specifically to display the holdings of the Environmental Design Archives and rare portfolios and books from the Environmental Design Library. The selected sketches explore the theme of the hand-rendered sketch.