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News

On Thursday, January 28, 2010, 5:30-8:30 p.m. there will be a lecture and reception on the occasion of the opening of a new exhibit in the Environmental Design Library. Speakers include: 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 exhibit, Stock Options: Houses for the People, curated by librarian Elizabeth Byrne, will focus on California house plan books from 1880s to the present and the people who created them, their influence beyond California, and recent and future trends. It is based on the Environmental Design Library’s large collection of house pattern books and stock plan catalogs, and related materials from the Environmental Design Archives. The exhibit will be on display January 20–March 26, 2010, in the Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach Exhbition Cases, Volkmann Reading Room, Environmental Design Library, 210 Wurster Hall.

Edited by Waverly Lowell, Elizabeth Byrne, and Betsy Frederick-Rothwell, this is an engaging and thoughtful review of the first one hundred years of architectural education at UC Berkeley. The illustrated monograph of approximately 370 pages combines scholarly essays written by faculty about the development, contributions, and future of the program; reflections of faculty and alumni about their experiences here; a timeline/chronology; lists of key people and contributions; a color portfolio of a century of student drawings; and appendices of architecture faculty. It is intended for alumni, students, faculty, architectural historians, and the general public.

The purchase price of Design on the Edge is $65; however, CED is offering a pre-publication discount of $15 for book orders received before December 1, 2009. Proceeds support the Environmental Design Archives.

To pre-order your copy, use this form (PDF).
< http://www.ced.berkeley.edu/cedarchives/centennialorderform%202.pdf >

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. 

Exhibition Dates: 25 September - 22 December 2009
Location: Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach Exhibition Cases, Volkmann Reading Room, Environmental Design Library (210 Wurster Hall), University of California, Berkeley. (Directions and hours)
Curated by: Professor Raymond Lifchez with the assistance of Carrie McDade
Image: Aerial view of Wurster Hall by Charles C. Benton

Due to budget cutbacks, most Cal libraries will be closed Saturdays through July 2010. Read more about Saturday library closings. UPDATE! Saturday hours have been restored! Read about the reopenings and new schedules here.

Pictured above: The flooded lounge area.

Pictured above: The flooded folios section.

Pictured above: A few of the books displaced by the flood.

Although the collection was saved from the initial danger of flood water, mold growth is also a serious threat. Wet carpet tiles were removed and drying equipment, pictured above, was installed throughout the affected areas.

Link to a video of the standing water in the library after the water flow from the hydrant was stopped. Video credit: Mia Jaeggli.

Image: Jules Guerin, Civic Center, 1916. John Galen Howard Collection, Environmental Design Archives, UC Berkeley.

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.

Environmental Design Library - Volkmann Reading Room
210 Wurster Hall, University of California, Berkeley
Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach Exhibition Cases

Exhibition Dates: May 20, 2009 (delayed opening due to building flood) - September 13, 2009
Directions & Hours
Curated by: David Eifler and Matthew Prutsman, Environmental Design Library
Exhibition Team: Waverly Lowell and Miranda Hambro, Environmental Design Archives

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.

Environmental Design Library - Volkmann Reading Room
210 Wurster Hall, University of California, Berkeley
Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach Exhibition Cases

Exhibition Dates: February 3, 2009 – May 8, 2009
Directions & Hours
Curated by: Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Exhibition Team: Miranda Hambro, Assistant Curator, Environmental Design Archives
Student Assistants: Madeline Hamlin, Lan Hu

Nantucket Cemetery, Charles Sumner Greene Collection

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.

Environmental Design Library - Volkmann Reading Room
210 Wurster Hall, University of California, Berkeley
Raymond Lifchez and Judith Lee Stronach Exhibition Cases

Exhibition Dates: October 31, 2008 – Jan 16, 2009
Directions & Hours
Curated by: Andrew Shanken, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture; Waverly Lowell, Curator, Environmental Design Archives

Spiro Kostof (1936-1991), widely recognized as one of the world's leading architectural historians, taught his last course in the Spring of 1991 in the Architecture Department of UC Berkeley's College of Environmental Design. The 26 lectures of his course "A Historical Survey of Architecture and Urbanism" covering the period from the Florentine Renaissance to the post-modernism of the late 20th century were video recorded and have recently been digitized and made available for public viewing. Kostof's lectures were heralded for situating the architectural monument in a framework of vernacular buildings that imbue it with meaning. He was also known for exposing the relationships between architecture and the people and cultures that built it. Kostof was the author of A History of Architecture: Settings and Rituals (1985), The City Shaped (1991), and The City Assembled (published posthumously in 1992). The 26 80-minute streaming lectures can be found at http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/kostof.html.

This digitization project was the result of the collaboration of Gary Handman and Gisèle Herrmann of the Media Resources Center and Elizabeth Byrne and David Eifler of the Environmental Design Library at UC Berkeley. Original lecture videos were provided courtesy of the Environmental Design Archives.

Sea Ranch, Condominium I, William Turnbull, Jr./MLTW Collection (2000-9),
Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.

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. For library hours and directions, call 510-642-4818.

April 28, 2008- September 30, 2008
Environmental Design Library - Volkmann Reading Room
210 Wurster Hall, University of California, Berkeley

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

The Environmental Design Library has created a Facebook page, and we invite your comments on making the page a helpful resource. (May 2008)

On display 15 November 2007 through 31 March 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. On view through March 31, 2008, the exhibit is in the Volkmann Reading Room of the Environmental Design Library, 210 Wurster Hall. For more information call 510-642-4818.

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 Acknowledgments: Matthew Prutsman, Circulation Supervisor, Environmental Design Library

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. On view through October 31, 2007, the exhibit is in the Volkmann Reading Room of the Environmental Design Library, 210 Wurster Hall. For more information call 510-642-4818.

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

Asher Benjamin (1773-1845) wrote the first truly "original" American builders' guide and became one of the most influential architect-writers in America. The Environmental Design Library recently acquired a first edition of what architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock identified as the "earliest original American work on architecture" Asher Benjamin's Country Builder's Assistant: Containing a Collection of New Designs of Carpentry and Architecture Which Will Be Particularly Useful to Country Workmen in General (Greenfield, Mass., Thomas Dickman, printer, 1797, ENVI NA2520 B41 1797 Rare). This extraordinary addition to its rare book collection was purchased through the UCB Library Michael Reese Library Endowment Fund.

Since this was a handbook meant for practical use in the field, on the job, few copies remain, and those that have survived show signs of use. Fewer than 15 copies of this edition have been located in libraries.

The son of a rural Connecticut carpenter, Benjamin designed and built several important houses, churches and public buildings in New England. Mostly self-taught, he used British builders' guides and pattern books, the only ones available at the time, but discovered that most of them were unsuited to American building styles and materials, and their plans for huge country houses were not appropriate for rural America. Drawing from the earlier British books, he created a strictly American guide and handbook for rural carpenters. Its clarity and advice also influenced architectural writing for many years.

The Country Builder's Assistant included plates with measured drawings and instructions, identification of terms for various parts of buildings, moldings, columns, etc.

Based on the success of The Country Builder's Assistant, Asher went on to write six additional builders' handbooks, which, along with the first, went through multiple editions each, and had a major influence on building in America.

We have access to the Material ConneXion's online database of building materials, processes and specifications selected from a large spectrum of industries which are typically unnoticed or difficult to reach by the design community.

Material ConneXion is a New York City company that has a library of 1400+ new and innovative materials representing eight categories: polymers, glass, ceramics, carbon-based materials, cement-based materials, metals, natural materials and natural material derivatives. All materials in the database are juried monthly by a panel of specialists and professionals from related and producer industries and technicians from different sources of processes such as weaving technology, metal foaming and co-injection molding.

Website: http://www.materialconnexion.com/intro.htm
To access the database you must be at an Environmental Design Library public computer and use this link: www.materialconneXion.com/berkeley
You can search in a variety of categories: project name, application, keyword, or country of origin.
Questions? Please contact Elizabeth Byrne.

We now have online access to the BuildingGreen Suite of products. These include: EBN (Environmental Building News), articles, reviews and archives, GreenSpec building products directory and Project Case Studies from the High Performance Buildings Database.

Go to the website: http://www.buildinggreen.com
Or, search in OskiCat for title: BuildingGreen and click on the link. You can access this new resource on campus or via the proxy service from off campus.

Photos courtesy of John Horton, CED.

Entryway - 210 Wurster Hall

Stacks from entrance and Catherine Bauer Wurster (on the right)

The Atrium, reading area and reference

Current periodicals and the atrium.

Pictures of the new Library still under construction

Renderings of the new library.