s University of California Berkeley University of California Bancroft Library /Berkeley Regional Oral History Office William Charles Hays ORDER, TASTE, AND GRACE IN ARCHITECTURE An Interview Conducted by Edna Tartaul Daniel Berkeley 1968 William C. Hays on his 77th birthday In the garden of his home At 2924 Derby Street, Berkeley. All uses of this manuscript are covered by an agreement between the Regents of the University of California and William Charles Hays, dated 25 April 1961. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. FOREWORD William C. Hays was interviewed at length in 1959 as a part of a program of the Regional Oral History Office to record the history of the University of California. This final manu script was not completed until 1968, five years following Mr. Hays death. The time and the method of completing this manuscript has been unusual, in part a reflection of Mr. Hays wish to complete a correct and valuable history and his inability because of poor health to even begin to do all the hundreds of hours of rewriting that became his objective. Final work on the manuscript, after Mr. Hays death ended the possibility of his making the rough transcript into a polished manuscript, was delayed until funds could be obtained. In 1967 a grant from the Alumni Foundation to fund interviews on the history of the University made it possible to final-type the manuscript. A series of circumstances delayed the expeditious editing of Mr. Hays interviews in 1959 and 1960. After the interviews were transcribed, but before Mrs. Daniel, the interviewer, had a chance to edit the manuscript, Mr. Hays asked to see the verbatim transcript and check it himself. Mrs. Daniel delivered the unedited manuscript to him and it remained in his hands for some time. After checking back with Mr. Hays a number of times and talking to his doctor, Mrs. Daniel decided the burden of ii this work ho wanted to do alone was too great (the transcript ran to 1176 pages), and asked if she could take it back and straighten it up a bit before he went over it, still acceding to his wish to do the initial editing, unlike the usual office procedure. Mr. Hays agreed to Mrs. Daniel s plan. When it became necessary for Mrs. Daniel to accompany her husband to Europe for a year, she planned to take the manuscript for editing in what she expected would be a great amount of uninterrupted time. Mr. Hays approved this arrangement and seemed relieved to know it was being taken care of, but it developed that it was against Library policy to have such manuscripts removed from the office. Mr. Hays was informed of the change in plans, which quite upset him. His health was such that he felt urgency in the editing was necessary and so Mrs. Daniel rough-edited the manuscript in a few weeks and gave it to him in its rough form, with his understanding that he could go through it but that when she returned it would be redone and they would work jointly on it. Mr. Hays, in Mrs. Daniel s absence, became more concerned for the future of the manuscript and frustrated in his inability to do alone what he felt the manuscript needed. His wish was that he could have the whole manuscript rewritten with the aid of a graduate student hired by the University. He also proposed that he work on twenty pages of the manuscript iii at a time, with the office then retyping and returning it with interlineations incorporated. He was very desirous of producing a really readable, useful work. But his health continued to fail, and he died in January 1963. Several months later Mrs. Willa Baum, head of the office, went to pick up the manuscript from Mrs. Hays. In December 1964 Mrs. Daniel was available to edit the manuscript in great detail, retyping and rewriting extensively in an attempt to piece together sentences and subjects that had been discontinuous in the interviewing. Because the editing process described here is not at all usual for this office, it has been felt that to deposit the original transcript, as well as Mr. Hays notes on the manuscript and original documentary material that he provided for Mrs. Daniel, would fill in some blanks for the scholar and would give a closer feeling of the manner of speaking and working of the interviewee. The Regional Oral History Office was established to tape- record autobiographical interviews with people prominent in the recent history of Northern California. The office is under the direction of Mrs. Willa Baum, and under the administrative supervision of the Director of The Bancroft Library. Past interviews by the office which may supplement the material covered in this interview have been done with William Wurster, Dean Emeritus of the College of Environmental Design; Herbert iv B. Foster, University Engineer; and John Gregg, Professor Emeritus of Landscape Architecture, and with others in related fields. Regional Oral History Office 486 The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, California 30 January 1968 INTRODUCTION Mr. Hays was interviewed during twenty-one sessions from July through November of 1959 in the living room of his home at 2924 Derby Street in Berkeley. A few words about the house may help to convey something about the man. It was placed in an attractive setting of trees and shrubs. A tall yew, low magnolias and several other plants, interesting in shape, texture, and color implied care and impressive competence in the selection of plant material. Mr. Hays enjoyed talking about the plants in his garden, what they were, the care they required, and how they were trained to assume a desired shape. After a brief walk from the sidewalk to the front door, one stepped inside and observed in the entry hall opposite the front door a table of slender proportions holding, always, some thing beautiful, perhaps one of Mrs. Hays sculptures. The physical arrangement of space within the house was graceful and convenient. The entry hall went on to a cross hall which provided access in direction from left to right, to kitchen area, dining room, living room, and in a hairpin turn direction, the stairway going to sleeping rooms upstairs. The living room, in which the interviewer and Mr. Hays sat, lay across the street side of the house. Outside greenery cast a seclusive quality to the scene and a front bay, holding a grand vi piano, drew the eye out in an awareness of space. Walls were cream colored. Polished floors disappeared under dark and rich looking oriental rugs. Upholstery fabrics in quiet tones covered chairs and sofas. Here and there on shelves and tables were books, of course, many handsomely bound. As the interview progressed, Mr. Hays assembled papers, plans, and photographs in the dining room. Finally the aspect of dining disappeared as the archives took over. The room was just as useful and pleasant as a repository of papers as it had no doubt proven to be in its original use. This incident seemed to characterize the architectural versatility of Mr. Hays and the house which he had designed at a much earlier date. In summary, one could say that quiet, harmonious grace prevailed in the combination of space, objects, color, line, and texture of Mr. and Mrs. Hays home. Mr. Hays was a charming, lively, and elegant accent to his home. His garments adorned his small frame in a most distinguished way. His suit fabrics were without exception finely woven and skilfully cut. One s attention usually was drawn to his neckties because they were exactly the weave and color to provide subtle accent. In manner, Mr. Hays was gracious and cordial and very reluctant to be absolutely critical. A great deal of his conversation was anecdotal in an interesting and informative direction. Occasionally vii he bogged down in details of a detail. The interviewer regarded these digressions as the inevitable concomitant of an enthusiastic soul, who always looked around as well as before and behind the things which interested him. When Mr. Hays recalled controversial situations he was palpably uncomfortable and after decided to omit them. His enthusiasms were numerous and his outlook tolerant. He went smoothly along the twentieth century apparently fascinated by what he observed. The flow of architectural change didn t seem to upset him at all. How and why buildings evolved drove him to pencil and paper in happy anticipation of sketching and explaining the ideas inherent in what he saw. His wife, Elah Hays, seldom appeared, as the interviews went on, because, usually, she was busy teaching at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. If she did happen to come in, Mr. Hays glowed in the special way he had about him when he talked about her. He admired her immensely and mentioned again and again the considerable difference in their ages. He considered himself to be ages older than she and particularly blessed in his marriage. He was full of admiration of her design ability and her competence in handling her material. Some of her work appears in the facade of Giannini Hall. She designed the frescoes and supervised the development of molds to render them as an integral part of the structure.