Journal of Architectural Education

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Architecture in Support of Citizenry: Vernon DeMars and the Berkeley Student Union

Clare Robinson

To cite this article: Clare Robinson (2016) Architecture in Support of Citizenry: Vernon DeMars and the Berkeley Student Union, Journal of Architectural Education, 70:2, 236-246, DOI: 10.1080/10464883.2016.1197677 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2016.1197677

Published online: 20 Sep 2016.

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Download by: [Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture] Date: 07 December 2017, At: 13:27 Architecture in Support of Citizenry Vernon DeMars and the Berkeley Student Union

Clare Robinson University of Arizona

University students perennially use college Introduction Few can imagine the Free Speech campuses for social and political protest. For this Movement (FSM) of 1964 without reason it is important to understand how campus Sproul Plaza (Figure 1). The space was and remains pedestrian oriented, design conditions student activism as well as the tree-lined, graciously proportioned, ways architects have worked to build spaces to and squarely in front of the University of California, Berkeley, practice democracy and citizenship. This article campus administration building. It turns to the administrative policies and campus is near shops and cafés and is large enough to hold several thousand planning activities leading up to the Free Speech people. The space, however, was not Movement in 1964, which took place adjacent a coincidental backdrop to the FSM, but instrumental in the movement’s to the postwar student union building at the very formation. Its design is tied to University of California, Berkeley. It argues that Berkeley’s storied past of student involvement in off-campus issues, the student center and plaza, designed by the the social education and citizenship architects Vernon DeMars and Donald Hardison training student union buildings promised, and the emerging career of and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, gave Vernon DeMars and his colleagues, the postwar university citizenry a monumental Donald Hardison and Lawrence Halprin.1 In this way, the space space to practice democracy as it paved the way for and the events that took place in it civic-oriented student centers elsewhere. during the 1960s result from several parallel histories, which defined the spatial politics of free speech as a conflict between student citizenship and university policies for student conduct (also known as “in loco parentis”) and assumed architec- ture could facilitate citizenship and desirable public behavior.

Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 Figure 1. A crowd filled upper Sproul Plaza on December 7, 1964. The student union buildings, designed by Vernon DeMars and Donald Hardison, appear in the background, with students hanging on the balcony of the California Memorial Union (later named after Martin Luther King Jr.) and the rooftops of the covered walkway and dining commons (later named after Cesar Chavez). (© Don Kechely, reproduced with permission from Free Speech Movement Photograph Collection, University Archives, Courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley [UARC PIC 24B:1:23].)

236 In their 1957 competition entry, DeMars and Hardison used the typical midcentury program of student union buildings to shape the physical expression and social possibilities of the student union and plaza. Guided by their reverence for Piazza San Marco in Venice and semiplanned urban activities, they, and later Halprin, set out to build a civic space for the campus community. At the time, colleges across the United States were constructing new versions of student unions, by then a well-established building type, in an urgent response to postwar campus conditions: increasing student enrollment, inadequate old facilities, and available federal funding and loans for campus expansion. The proposed union at Berkeley thus matured Figure 2. The plan of the student union complex environment of campus differ from alongside other campus centers designed by Vernon DeMars, Donald Hardison, and those of North American cities.3 Lawrence Halprin with the lower plaza at its center while it addressed common postwar and the upper (Sproul) plaza to the east (left). The Most important, universities, unlike campus problems. The project by latter extended the campus edge from Sather Gate cities, are governed by an adminis- DeMars, Hardison, and Halprin, (seen in the upper right corner) to the terminus of tration, not elected officials; they Telegraph Avenue (seen in the lower right corner). however, was especially visionary. To the east is the front of the campus administration embark on planning and develop- It combined long-standing ideas building, later named Sproul Hall. (Courtesy of ment projects with little community about social education with the latest the Vernon DeMars Collection, Environmental input and establish policies that act Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley. innovations concerning urbanism Reproduced with permission.) in place of parental guidance. With and civic participation. DeMars, a these crucial differences in mind, founding member of the regional students practice democracy through the student union project and the planning and research organization student government, special-interest designers gave students at Berkeley Telesis, described his project as “a clubs, and school spirit. The thinking a monumental space that influenced fragment of an urban situation with went that citizenship on campus the practice of democracy and purposeful changes of pace, vista happened when students partici- citizenship on campus. and materials at the scale and tempo pated in or led activities specific to necessary to evoke the experience college culture, not real-life politics. Political Expression at the Campus of an urban situation,” which was to The distinction between cultural and Edge: Defining the Rules and Spaces him “a synthesis of streetscape and political citizenship was important for Citizenship plazascape, great building and small, because the variety of “urban” spaces The University of California, shop and pub, terrace and mall.”2 central to the architects’ design Berkeley, has a long history of Complete with a large cafeteria, concept allowed for spontaneous student activism as well as rules ballroom, lounge, bookstore, and and spirited student citizenship that established by the administration bowling alley; rooms for billiards, included both normative (cultural) to govern student activities on art, band practice, and clubs; and as well as undesirable (political) campus. In an academic environ- two generous outdoor plazas, the student activities. As a result, the ment punctuated by protests during Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 complex served as a hub of student project’s urban spaces advanced the World War I, the Great Depression, activities (Figure 2). issue of citizenry and citizenship on and again during the 1950s, students Programs typically found university campuses. regularly and fervently responded to in union buildings supported Scholars and university conservative agendas, war, famine, normative social activities, which presidents, such as University of labor injustices, and environmen- by the postwar period were likened California President Clark Kerr, have tal concerns (to name only a few to civic activities. The invocation of compared universities to cities and issues). Up until the FSM, the civics and citizenship supported the the campus community to citizens, university administration restricted importance of democracy during the but the regulatory mechanisms that political expression on campus, Cold War. At best, universities had govern the citizenry and the built closely regulated the activities of

Robinson JAE 70:2 237 compulsory and voluntary student southern edge of campus (Figure 2, land for a special purpose. More organizations, and by and large upper right corner).7 important, however, was Kerr’s viewed student self-government The formal approval, design, vision for its placement. It would be as a privilege.4 These policies, and construction of the postwar within view of the administration an expression of in loco parentis, student union in the late 1950s building, making surveillance and spatially defined free speech prior to made the closure of the northern- casual regulation possible.10 1964 and circumscribed how citizen- most block of Telegraph Avenue In parallel, Kerr revised ship would be practiced on campus. permanent, and subsequently the rules of student conduct, When on campus, students needed students moved unsanctioned commonly referred to as the “Kerr permission to form organizations activities southward toward the new Directives.”11 The rules of conduct or to host lectures with off-campus edge of campus, where the conflict were meant to liberalize the speakers, for example. Without over political expression and campus permissible boundaries of student permission, or to voice unsanctioned property erupted in 1964 (Figure 2, politics by allowing students and opinions and ideas, students would lower right corner). The migration voluntary student organizations gather off campus, often at its legal from Sather Gate to Telegraph and to take positions on off-campus edge, just beyond the reach of the Bancroft Avenues was not merely issues as long as their actions did administration’s rules. procedural: it reflected students’ not violate any law or act in the Although the university had the tenacity to persevere despite name of the university.12 Following tradition of student regulations, the administrative and government this logic, the student government rules tightened in the early twentieth power and, less obviously, the could not speak for the university century, when the University of administration’s efforts to teach or for the student body as a whole California Regents formally limited students (at least on campus) on issues unrelated to campus the types of student gatherings.5 normative modes of citizenship affairs because the university had Intending to manage the Association measured by club membership and established it for the purpose of of Students of the University of athletic participation. Hidden from conducting student affairs.13 This California (ASUC), the Regents view were policy changes and capital scheme censored compulsory required students to obtain prior campaigns overseen largely by Clark organizations with diverse political permission to meet, parade, or Kerr, who served as Berkeley’s first and religious membership, such demonstrate on the grounds and chancellor and later the University as ASUC, but allowed voluntary in campus buildings and forbade of California’s system-wide organizations to be the locus of them from promoting, organizing, President. Kerr was not only an off-campus issues and debate.14 or participating in unsanctioned instrumental proponent of the new The “directives” and “speaker’s activities, especially those that were union building but also a key player corner” would have worked hand political or religious in character. framing the spatial politics of Sproul in hand. The “speaker’s corner” or The Regents also prohibited any Plaza. the “free speech island” involved student or organization from Attentive to the liberalization transferring property along circulating or posting flyers, of university rules, Kerr entertained Bancroft Avenue from the city to handbills, and newspapers without the idea of a “free speech island” the university, which redefined prior consent.6 The mandates or “speaker’s corner,” akin to the the physical space for political maintained administrative oversight famous corner in London’s Hyde expression and dissent on campus of student leaders and targeted Park.8 Hyde Park’s Speaker’s and gave the university administra- nonconforming students who tended Corner, born out of class struggles tion the ability to oversee speech. to voice and enact ideas outside in nineteenth-century England, These actions by the administra- of the sanctioned norm. Thus, the gave Londoners a sanctioned tion, especially by Kerr, were campus administration, using public place to hold public meetings. The a genuine attempt to govern tax dollars to run the school, willfully content of these meetings was student behavior and model civil and carefully controlled student tacitly regulated by the government society on campus. In the fall of Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 activities as it managed its public through forms of free and 1960, however, the administration image. The enforcement of these sanctioned speech, giving the spatial decided the written rules were rules placed unsanctioned gatherings model credence for college campus liberal enough: it kept the city land and the ephemera associated with administrators.9 Kerr imagined a and abandoned the island.15 More them off campus, but not necessar- similar space designed as part of the pressing were the unsanctioned ily out of sight. Any person or student union project. Thus, similar political activities of students and group seeking visibility set up their to England’s Parks Regulations Act the blight of Telegraph Avenue, soapbox south of Sather Gate, which of 1872, the campus administra- which the mechanisms of campus was, until the completion of the tion (acting as the government) planning and the new student student union and Sproul Plaza, the sanctioned a small swath of campus union building promised to change.

238 Architecture in Support of Citizenry Postwar Campus Planning and the Student Union Project At Berkeley, postwar campus planners and visionaries borrowed from the ethos of urban renewal, declared areas around campus blighted, and plotted to expand the campus beyond its original borders. Key players in this effort were Kerr, Dean of the College of Environmental Design William Wurster, and Halprin, who built upon ideas published by the Alumni Association in a 1948 report called Students at Berkeley, a Study of Their Extracurricular Activities with Suggestions for Improvements on and off Campus to Broaden Their Preparation for Citizenship, of which the student union was an instrumental piece.16 Benevolent and bureaucratically based, the planners used data collected from surveys and crafted Figure 3. Rendering of proposed student union that stressed leisure activities, rather maps of the inevitable campus building in 1948 showing a courtyard building than scholastic ones, as the basis of beside a great plaza with Sather Gate in the expansion to the south. The distance. (Courtesy of the California Alumni a great university and the practice of rationale, of course, was soaring Association. Originally published in California citizenship by its graduates. A great student enrollment, the dreadful Alumni Association, Students at Berkeley, a Study of university “will be concerned with Their Extracurricular Activities with Suggestions for appearance of campus, inadequate Improvements on and off Campus to Broaden Their the living problems of its students” facilities for instruction and student Preparation for Citizenship (Berkeley: University of and provide “many types of outdoor leisure, and the promise of continued California, 1948). Reproduced with permission.) activities that absorb the free time enrollment and continued access to of students.”19 Equating appropri- federal dollars. Although the Alumni temporary solutions for dire needs ate leisure with citizenship, Students Association had already spelled and to plan for more permanent at Berkeley went further to declare out the plight of students and the facilities. New curriculums and that a new student union could be campus context in 1948, it was not research endeavors played an the hearthstone of the university, until Kerr became chancellor in important role in campus develop- and the center of social and cultural 1952 that plans for any major capital ment, but the physical appearance education.20 Affirming what student improvements took shape. The irony of the campus and the social needs union directors and campus adminis- of Kerr’s efforts, while inspired by of students worried administra- trators already believed, Students Halprin and indebted to Wurster, tors at Berkeley most. With more at Berkeley effectively made a new was that the planning ignored students, Berkeley’s lawns turned student union building the solution the possibility of unsanctioned to dirt as students trespassed across to postwar campus problems and the political expression and explicitly them, trash cans filled up faster than guarantor of campus citizenship. assumed that a clean and safe maintenance crews could empty The authors of Students at campus environment would appease them, and commuter cars clogged Berkeley illustrated the student union parents, subdue students, and every lot, path, and alley.17 When as an agglomeration of amenities instill normative social behavior and it rained, students trudged across that would fill the entire city block Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 citizenship in the postwar period. muddy paths to find refuge in the few on Telegraph Avenue across from the World War II, however, had interior spaces of the old union. The administration building (Figure 3). irreversibly changed the social and students also desired social spaces The architectural program proposed educational priorities of colleges and amenities, such as ample and by the Alumni Association, typical and the subsequent planning and inexpensive lunchrooms, informal of its time, would include public construction of campus buildings. lounge spaces, and lockers, tailored telephones, writing rooms, lockers, Wartime officer training programs to their needs.18 a post office, candy and cigarette and postwar college enrollments, The publication Students at counters, a snack bar, a cafeteria, in particular, pressed campus Berkeley made several notable a ballroom, a student store, and a administrators at Berkeley to devise assertions about the postwar campus parking garage, as well as offices

Robinson JAE 70:2 239 Figure 4. Long Range Development Plan for the Berkeley Campus. (Courtesy of the Committee on Campus Planning [Donald McLaughlin, Clark Kerr, and William Wurster]. Originally published in Committee on Campus Planning, Long Range Development Plan for the Berkeley Campus, University of California, August 1956. Reproduced with permission.)

for student government, bowling alleys, a hobby shop, an auditorium, a chapel, an art gallery, and a radio station.21 The new union would have nearly everything a student would want or need, including a courtyard, connecting loggia, and large pedestrian plaza south of Sather Gate. The site, to be acquired over several years, played into the university’s vision for campus expansion and signaled the role that student union buildings played in facilitating the practice and physical presence of in loco parentis. Although Students at Berkeley made the proposed union appear fairly resolved, the student union building and adjacent plaza would take years of dedicated administra- tive support and a long building campaign to complete. Kerr, one of many strong supporters, saw the student union as an essential and necessary improvement on campus.22 Before Kerr had become chancellor of University of California Berkeley, the Office of Architects and Engineers had devised a Long Range Development Plan that formally proposed to expand the university southward. Couched in the belief environment with seamless spatial it set out to preserve open spaces that the university needed to sanitize experiences described and designed for greenery, pathways, and plazas. and control blighted areas around by Halprin.24 New axial relationships, however, the campus in order to tame the To create a postwar vision were absent from the plan. In their overall university environment, the for campus, Kerr borrowed from place were varied landscapes and plan touched on every institutional Halprin and enlisted Regent groups of academic buildings.25 need, including classrooms, housing, Donald McLaughlin and Dean The significance of Kerr’s campus office space, recreation, and parking. Wurster. Rolled out as the Long plan, influenced heavily by Wurster, As one scholar put it in 1969, if the Range Development Plan for the was that a single building no longer Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 university were to be a knowledge Berkeley Campus in 1956, the proposal served as the unit of planning. factory, then the south campus area clustered academic departments Instead, the plan linked several would be its company town.23 Kerr’s according to college or research concerns involving the academic plan vision of campus kept the rational, unit (Figure 4). Thus, new engineer- and student life. This shift away from technical, and efficient character- ing buildings joined older ones on older planning paradigms allowed istics but cast aside the traditional the north side of campus, athletic Kerr to advance Wurster’s concept Beaux-Arts buildings and planning facilities were proposed to the south, of “environmental design,” where strategies previous campus plans and humanities buildings remained academic and social needs trumped celebrated. Instead, Kerr embraced in the center. The plan limited historic style or architectural unity.26 the idea of a comprehensive campus building footprints, and therefore At the same time, it positioned

240 Architecture in Support of Citizenry Figure 5. Student proposal for the California Memorial Union. (Originally published in Daily Californian, January 4, 1955, 1. Reproduced with permission.)

contemporary modern architecture as a rationalized backdrop for the social life of campus. The logic of the Kerr-McLaughlin-Wurster plan meant that campus expansion would fulfill necessary functional relation- ships among academic units while introducing new exterior spaces for social recreation and demonstrations of citizenship. The proposed postwar student union project fit into the scheme well. Nested within the master plan south of Sather Gate, the union promised functional and efficient spatial arrangements for Figure 6. Vernon DeMars, Donald Hardison, and as a viable proposal (Figure 5).32 Lawrence Halprin’s vision for the student center students arriving to and departing bears resemblance to earlier published proposals. The published proposal broke the from campus, as well as flexibility It contains several discrete buildings, covered major programmatic elements into between indoor and outdoor student walkways, and pedestrian plazas. (Originally a low-rise building with a courtyard, published in California Monthly, January 1958, cover. activities. In this way, the interior Reproduced with permission.) an office tower, and a theater. spaces of the building were to be as Covered walkways linked the exterior important as the adjacent exterior and availability during the summer spaces to the interior and tied the spaces. Thus, if student unions months for travel and research and composition of buildings together. served as instruments for social described to Kerr how he could Hanna and Hastings’s proposal of education, as union proponents form several professional associa- 1955 shared formal ideas present believed, then at Berkeley this tions with architects Ernest Kump, in DeMars and Hardison’s 1957 education could take place outside Joseph Esherick, and Wurster.28 By competition entry, specifically the on the plaza. assuring DeMars that he would be discrete buildings for student offices, considered alongside other qualified the theater, ballroom, and dining Vernon DeMars’s Position on Civic professionals, Kerr kept him at bay.29 commons, as well as exterior covered Space: Designing the Postwar Undeterred, DeMars nurtured his passages that connected buildings Student Union interest by offering studios that (Figure 6). DeMars framed the debate about the focused on the design of a student Up until this point, DeMars’s architecture of the proposed student center.30 credentials as a designer had been Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 union in lasting ways. As a newly The studios led by DeMars based on a mixture of teaching minted professor in the Department produced several student-generated and professional practice. While of Architecture, he actively sought proposals, one of which was teaching as a visiting professor the project through the Office of developed and built as a model over at the Massachusetts Institute of Engineers and the chancellor. At a winter break and displayed in Technology, DeMars similarly offered one point, he would have given his the lobby of a prominent academic an architecture studio that addressed “remaining eye and tooth to land the building on campus.31 The school a real architectural problem he project” and “sweat blood to see it paper later featured a project by later designed and built himself. through.”27 He later professed his students Richard Hanna and James He had also tackled the design of a interest, qualifications, connections, Hastings and celebrated its promise theater that involved a large-scale

Robinson JAE 70:2 241 auditorium.33 By the time DeMars concentrated and extensive perform- the complex complete, the student joined the faculty at the University ing arts district.36 To accomplish union’s interior passages and of California, Berkeley in 1951, he this, the design needed to bind exterior covered walkways tied the had a wide range of professional several performing arts institutions buildings together, framed a large experiences that cemented his together and did so through classically pedestrian plaza, and defined the propensity to think locally and inspired modern buildings, a central edge of another plaza in front of the expansively about community and plaza, underground parking, and administration building. Modern the grandeur of civic centers. covered passageways. These urban interpretations of classical motifs Between 1936 and 1942, DeMars maneuvers, spanning three city established aesthetic unity, and served as District Architect for blocks, allowed the architectural similar to other large-scale urban the Farm Security Administration firm of Harrison and Abramovitz renewal projects, the complex had regional office in San Francisco. to create a completely new form of underground parking that knit the In this capacity, DeMars designed civic space. The key was that civic buildings and spaces into a continu- and constructed schools, clinics, spaces like these were imagined as ous and varied set of experiences. community centers, and affordable better than those of the previous era. The architectural gem was the housing for migrant farmworkers in Moreover, Lincoln Center’s plaza Memorial Union building. Built rural areas and established research had light and air, and the spaces were of a concrete frame with a form in low-cost housing and communi- cultural rather than governmental. reminiscent of a Greek temple, it ties with colleagues Burton Cairns, The student union at Berkeley would housed the student bookstore, pub, Garret Eckbo, and planners such as borrow not only the site-planning lounge, exhibition space, ballroom, Francis Violich. In 1943, he served logic of Lincoln Center but also the meeting rooms, memorial chapel, as the Chief of Housing Standards social and convivial spaces implied roof garden, and spaces for billiards, for the National Housing Agency in by its cultural program. In this way, bowling, table tennis, and crafts. Washington, DC. During this time, Berkeley’s student government would Although this building symbolized DeMars helped established Telesis, a not dominate the design, which would the union as a whole, other buildings city and regional planning organiza- instead emphasize school pride and a completed the program. One tion dedicated to the promotion and social spirit. two-story building with an undulat- popularization of regional planning, DeMars’s own practice dealt ing concrete roof contained the research, and individual anonymity with large-scale urban projects. In cafeteria, kitchen, and private dining amid team efforts.34 In 1951 DeMars partnership with Donald Ray, DeMars rooms. A tower housed student proposed plans for the develop- studied and proposed numerous civic and athletic offices, while the last ment of Diamond Heights in San centers, in downtown Richmond and structure contained a performing Francisco, an unprecedented middle- San Jose, California, for example, that arts center that seated audiences income mixed-use development, and combined housing, office space, retail, of 500 and 2,000.39 Early drawings in 1957 collaborated with Hardison and urban environments. Much like show that DeMars and Hardison on the design of row housing in University of California Berkeley’s used floor materials to designate Richmond, California.35 DeMars’s student center, these projects major pedestrian thoroughfares, design approach grew out of these envisioned people strolling through similar to paving patterns used on experiences. Sensitive to climate and public plazas, enjoying food and drink city sidewalks or shopping malls. human inhabitation, he sought work outside but adjacent to work environ- Describing the paving patterns that bridged housing, neighborhood ments inside. Plazas, colonnades, and as “carpet,” DeMars envisioned design, and civic spaces. pedestrian bridges gave coherence students walking from the bookstore Urban renewal and large-scale to the building ensembles.37 In this past the billiards and game room to planning projects were afoot at this way, DeMars’s concurrent projects the project room on their way to the time as well. DeMars would have renewed urban areas and imbued cafeteria, all inside the building.40 In been aware of older massive develop- them with a reverence for bustling form and diagram, the student union ment projects, such as Rockefeller city centers, where citizenship was project, while diverse program- Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 Center, and projects that were seen and practiced collectively. matically, was made legible through contemporaneous to his practice, Berkeley’s student union and plaza circulation, building materials, and such as the Lincoln Center for the reflected this civic optimism. lines of sight between spaces. Performing Arts in New York City. Using the mechanisms of The most celebrated part Both had the financial backing of urban renewal, the postwar student of the project, however, was the John D. Rockefeller, but the latter union project at Berkeley took lower, central plaza. It was here that used government initiatives to claim over an entire city block, which DeMars and Hardison envisioned the and clear a swath of New York’s the university had bought and pulse of student life (Figure 7). With Westside slums for what visionar- cleared of local bars, cafés, and the lounge, dining terrace, and pub ies hoped would be the world’s most stores.38 By 1961, with the bulk of activities spilling out and over the

242 Architecture in Support of Citizenry at Sather Gate to the new edge of campus at Telegraph Avenue. He included a modest fountain to the side of the alley but on axis with the administration building and steps to the lower plaza. The lower plaza, which was constructed on top of the union’s underground parking garage, had raised concrete planters with olive trees and wooden benches. It was similar to the upper plaza, in that Halprin used exposed aggregate concrete pavers with brick expansion joints to establish an orthogonal grid. Both spaces had informational kiosks, lighting standards, and perimeter seating and a common material palate of concrete, brick, and wood. Recontextualized in is his 1963 book, Cities, the plazas of the student Figure 7. Vernon DeMars and Donald Hardison a bear sculpture, which, like Saint union served as the foundation for depicted students as leisurely citizens on the Mark atop the basilica in the Venetian Halprin’s early ideas about cities dining terrace overlooking the lower plaza, the bear sculpture, and myriad leisure activities. The piazza, blessed the campus.41 With and city design. It gave credence to California Memorial Union (later renamed the these parallels between the two the use of kiosks, benches, lighting, Martin Luther King Jr. Union) is on the left, while the plazas, DeMars and Hardison sought and water features, as well as paving student office tower, Eshleman Hall, and Zellerbach Auditorium are center and right. A covered to cast the union as an environment patterns in dedicated pedestrian canopy and bridge (far right) thread the buildings for modern citizenry where students plazas.44 In this way, it was his together, circa 1958. (Courtesy of the Vernon would deliberate and discuss while historical survey of cities portrayed DeMars Collection, Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley. Reproduced with they ate, drank, and participated in in his book, including his work at permission.) the daily activities of college life. Berkeley, that informed his approach The designer of the lower and to later projects such as Ghirardelli space, it served as an outdoor theater the upper plazas was Halprin, who Square, Nicollet Mall, and Portland’s for casual spectators. Concerts, dance had worked on Berkeley’s master plan downtown open-space sequence, performances, academic festivals, in the early 1950s and consequently which were part of the postwar and impromptu rallies at the foot of shaped Kerr’s Long Range Development pedestrianization of cities.45 When a sculpture of Berkeley’s bear mascot Plan for the Berkeley Campus and the architectural critic Allen Temko could take place here and be seen many features of the student union criticized the Berkeley project as and heard by nearly anyone using the complex. He had, for example, “planned chaos” and “dogmatic complex. As the architects hoped, formally established the need for a antidogmatisim,” DeMars and such activities would solidify school pedestrian plaza and the importance Hardison relied on their understand- spirit and their vision of campus of landscape design before DeMars ing of medieval cities by explaining citizenship. and Hardison competed in the that the “continuum of shelters and By comparing the student union student union design competition.42 terraces filling the end of the square to Piazza San Marco, DeMars and He had also articulated his notion of like stalls and booths in a great Hardison suggested that citizenship a “total environment,” a concept he market” was deliberate.46 Halprin, would be modeled on Renaissance would further in the 1960s through however, turned Temko’s criticism ideals, civic space, and architecture. his work and writings, by stressing of the project into a well-deserved Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 DeMars understood that the residents the importance of using existing compliment. In a letter to DeMars, of Venice visibly practiced citizen- landforms along circulation paths, Halprin wrote that “planned chaos” ship in the great main piazza, where plantings, outdoor meeting places, accurately described “the modern deliberation and discussion took and architecture for the campus approach to compositions.” In his place. Thus, he imagined that the design and the student union view, the project was “deliberately large lower plaza at Berkeley would be project.43 city-like” and an “accidental or an outdoor gathering place for all of For the student union, Halprin semi-planned situation” in that it its citizen-students. He and Hardison designed the pedestrian mall to contained elements of cities and of gathered the main “civic” buildings of have an alley of sycamore trees that modern city planning.47 It supported campus around the plaza and included connected the old edge of campus Halprin’s emerging theory of

Robinson JAE 70:2 243 landscape and urban design, which turned toward historic precedents as it abstracted natural forms, integrated contemporary social needs and materials, and harnessed modern planning processes.48 In this way, the student union plazas allowed Halprin to test his ideas alongside those of DeMars and Hardison. Considered as a total environment, the designers created civic spaces that served as the principal and monumental entrance to the university, which FSM activists soon coveted.

Design, Citizenry, and “In Loco Parentis” The conflict over campus and free speech that led to the FSM, as well as the political dimensions of the movement itself, has been chronicled Figure 8. View of crowd in Sproul Plaza, with tables participation as a way forward, and as and the student union in background, November by scholars, firsthand observers, and 1964. (Courtesy of the Free Speech Movement a form of citizenship.52 filmmakers.49 Less understood are Photograph Collection, University Archives, Even though the student union the spatial territories claimed by Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley project bears resemblance to notable student activists on Sproul Plaza and [UARC PIC 24B:1:10]. Reproduced with permission.) civic spaces of the time and came the student union building.50 Without to fruition as many other university a sanctioned “speaker’s corner” or proved foundational for both cultural campuses were building new student “free speech island” students used and political citizenship on campus at unions, Berkeley’s student center the plazas and parts of the union to a crucial point in history.51 It seems gave union proponents and student express unsanctioned political ideas. that DeMars, who taught architecture union architects an architectural After students faced pressure from at Berkeley, understood the campus model to follow.53 The project is tied the administration to stop political citizenry better than the administra- to the vision of its architects, who had activities in the fall of 1964, students tion, and that Halprin, who designed designed vibrant urban centers, and openly (and defiantly) disseminated civic spaces elsewhere, joined to an institution of higher education information from tables set on the DeMars and Hardison in creating that believed, by virtue of its institu- plaza near the base of the union a civic environment for Berkeley’s tional actions, that architecture and building and soon sustained a sit-in campus. The project developed over the built environment influenced around a police car for several days. the course of a decade and at key student behavior. Kerr and his Students also carried out hunger moments in time included student colleagues abandoned their “free strikes at the base of the union and input: in 1948 under the direction of speech island” only because architec- used union balconies and interiors the Alumni Association and through- ture contained the potential to teach to organize, observe, and document out the 1950s under the direction of citizenship. And it did. Students campus activism. For much of the DeMars in his architecture studios. took cues from the student union movement in 1964 and 1965, the The proximity of DeMars and buildings and Sproul Plaza—the size, administration building and its Halprin to the student body as design historical references, placement, and interiors figured prominently in the educators should not be overlooked. didactic content—and exercised their story, but the student union, which The collaborations between faculty civic duty and right to free speech. Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 stood within a few hundred feet of and students, of which the student DeMars, Hardison, and Halprin may it, and the postwar plaza between union is an example, and the not have foreseen the importance of the two were the visible epicenter pedagogical positions of faculty in the the student union and plaza for the of student activity, democracy, and College of Environmental Design at FSM, but they understood civic space citizenship (Figure 8). Berkeley point toward the participa- and which ingredients were necessary DeMars, Hardison, Halprin, and tory design movement of the 1960s. It to bring it to life. the faculty at Berkeley who drafted was during this time that the faculty the Student Center Competition brief and students became acutely aware Acknowledgments could not have predicted the FSM, of social and environmental problems The author is indebted to Professor but the student center and its plazas and saw environmental design and Andrew Shanken, Professor Kerwin

244 Architecture in Support of Citizenry Press, 2011). comprehensive campus plan in 1954. Rejected Klein, Curator Waverly Lowell, and 4 For a concise summary, see Peter Van Houten by the Office of Architects and Engineers, it the editors of JAE for their insight- and Edward L. Barrett, eds., Berkeley and was picked up by Kerr, who then understood ful comments. Every effort was made Its Students: Days of Conflict, Years of Change, the “total environment” as an imperative for to obtain permission to reproduce 1945–1970 (Berkeley: Berkeley Public Policy the campus community. The crux of this type material in this article. If any proper Press, 2003). of environment lay in the interstitial spaces 5 Rules governing political expression changed in between buildings—paths, walkways, parking acknowledgment has not been 1938 when the Regents severely limited the types lots, and plazas—and in student life. For these included, copyright holders may of student activities permitted on campus. See reasons, courtyards, plazas, and benches became notify the author. ibid., 53; and the Clark Kerr Papers, Bancroft what Kerr, faculty, and administrators discussed Library, University of California, Berkeley when they sought to foster socialization carton (c) 4, folder (f) 28 (hereafter cited as “Kerr on campus. See Landscape Subcommittee, Funding Papers”). “Program of Action,” revised March 15, 1954; Funding for this research came from 6 Kerr Papers [carton 5f12]. “Preliminary Report on the Landscape Plan,” both the Bancroft Library and Joan 7 See discussion in Van Houten and Barrett, September 1954; and Lawrence Halprin’s E. Draper research fellowships at the Berkeley and Its Students (note 4), 51–111. preliminary landscape plan (Kerr Papers [carton University of California, Berkeley. 8 Cabinet meeting minutes from Spring and Fall 3F12]). 1960 (Kerr Papers [f18c66]). 25 Clark Kerr, “The Berkeley Campus Plan,” 9 For history and analysis of free speech at Hyde California Monthly, October 1956, 24–25. Author Biography Park, see published work by John Michael 26 Clark Kerr, “William Wurster: Master Architect Clare Robinson, PhD, is an Roberts, especially “Expressive Free Speech, of the Holistic View of Environmental Design,” Assistant Professor in the School the State and the Public Sphere: A Bakhtin- in Design on the Edge: A Century of Teaching Deleuzian Analysis of ‘Public Address’ at Hyde Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, of Architecture at the University Park,” Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, eds. Waverly Lowell, Elizabeth Byrne, and of Arizona, where she teaches Cultural, and Political Protest 7, no. 2 (2008): Betsy Frederick-Rothwell (Berkeley: College of modern architectural history and 101–19. Environmental Design, University of California, theory and design studios. Her 10 Kerr was not the only university president to Berkeley, 2009), 71–72. research examines the architecture imagine a sanctioned “free speech” space within 27 Letter to Bob [Robert] Evans, December 12, view and earshot of campus administrators, nor 1952, Vernon DeMars Collection, Environmental and planning of the mid-twentieth was this the first time in history “free speech” Design Archives, University of California, century, especially social environ- would reach the ears of those in charge. Berkeley (hereafter cited as “DeMars ments on college campuses, for their 11 See “The Kerr Directives,” reprinted in Van Collection”). educational, social, and economic Houten and Barrett, Berkeley and Its Students 28 Letter from DeMars to Clark Kerr, June 2, 1953, (note 4), 74–77; Kerr Papers [carton 5f12]; Ray DeMars Collection. import. She is the recipient of Colvig, Turning Points and Ironies: Issues and 29 Letter from Clark Kerr, June 12, 1953, in numerous grants, including a Events—Berkeley 1959–1967 (Berkeley: Berkeley response to DeMars’s letter, June 2, 1953, Graham Foundation Grant, Spiro Public Policy Press, 2004), 17–18; and Clark Kerr, DeMars Collection. Kostof Fellowship at the University The Gold and the Blue, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University 30 The Daily Californian (May 1953) reported student of California, Berkeley, and the of California Press, 2003). design proposals from DeMars’s studio, but 12 “Statement of Student Rights by President he began teaching the problem as early as 1950 James and Sylvia Thayer Research Clark Kerr,” May 15, 1960 (Kerr Papers [carton (Facility list for the University of California Fellowship at the University of 4f21], later published in Van Houten and Barrett, Union Building [studio assignment], DeMars California, Los Angeles. Berkeley and Its Students (note 4), 153–55. Collection). 13 Ibid. 31 Vernon DeMars, A Life in Architecture: Indian 14 Note that membership to the Association of Dancing, Migrant Housing, Telesis, Design for Notes Students at the University of California (ASUC) Urban Living, Theater, Teaching, an Oral History 1 For Berkeley’s storied history, see Carroll was at times voluntary, but by the mid-twentieth (Berkeley: Bancroft Library, 1992), 338– 9; and Brentano, “The Two Berkeleys: City and century, the organization levied mandatory fees Shirley Murphy, “New Student Union Model University through 125 Years,” Minerva 33 for student activities, including athletics and the to be Unveiled in Wheeler,” Daily Californian, (1995): 361–71; and Don Mitchell, “Iconography student union building campaign, and therefore January 4, 1955, 1. and Locational Conflict from the Underside: membership became compulsory. 32 Daily Californian, January 7, 1955, 1-S. Free Speech, People’s Park, and the Politics of 15 Cabinet meeting minutes from Spring and Fall 33 DeMars, A Life in Architecture (note 31), 337. Homelessness in Berkeley, California,” Political 1960 (Kerr Papers [f1 8c66]). 34 “Telesis,” Architectural Record 88, no. 4 (1940): 11, no. 2 (March 1992): 152–69. For Geography 16 California Alumni Association, Students at 69–70; “A Group of Young California Architects, the social training unions promised, see Clare Berkeley, a Study of Their Extracurricular Activities Regional Planners, Landscape Architects, Robinson, “Student Union: The Architecture with Suggestions for Improvements on and off Campus Industrial Designers Ask the Question, ‘Is and Social Design of Postwar Campus to Broaden Their Preparation for Citizenship This the Best We Can Do?’” California Arts and Community Centers in California” (PhD diss., (Berkeley: University of California, 1948). Architecture 57 (1940): 20–21; and Harry Sanders, Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 University of California, Berkeley, 2012). 17 Ibid., 145–64. “Space for Living: A Challenge by Telesis,” 2 Paul Heyer, Architects on Architecture: New 18 Ibid. Architect and Engineer 142 (August 1940): 6–7, 58d. Directions in America (New York: Van Nostrand 19 Ibid., 9. 35 Richard Brandi, “San Francisco’s Diamond Reinhold, 1993), 101. 20 Ibid., 83–84. Heights: Urban Renewal and the Modernist 3 For metaphors and discussions of campuses as 21 Ibid., 96. City,” Journal of Planning History 12, no. 2 (2012): cities, see Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University 22 See Kerr, The Gold and the Blue (note 11), 90–110. 133–53; and Matthew Gordon Lasner, “Architect (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 23 R. Scheer, “The Battle of Berkeley: Dialectics of as Developer and the Postwar U.S. Apartment, 1963); Paul Venable Turner, Campus: An American Confrontation,” Ramparts 8, no. 2 (August 1969): 1945–1960,” Journal of the Vernacular Architecture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Planning Tradition 42–53. Forum 21, no. 1 (2014): 27–55. 1984); and, more recently, Sharon Haar, The 24 Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin 36 Richard Miller, “Lincoln Center: A New Kind City as Campus: Urbanism and Higher Education in informed Kerr of this concept. Under the of Institution,” Architectural Forum, August Chicago (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota direction of the UC Regents, Halprin drafted a 1958, 74–77. See also Peter Allen, “A Space for

Robinson JAE 70:2 245 Living: Region and Nature in the San Francisco in the Sixties, directed by Mark Kitchell (P.O.V. Bay Area, 1939–1969,” (PhD diss., University of Theatrical Films, 1990). California, Berkeley, 2009). 50 Donald Mitchel, in his book Right to the City: 37 See plans and illustrations of San Jose, Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space (New Richmond, and San Francisco’s Embarcadero York: Guilford, 2003), examines the spatial Center in the DeMars Collection. implications of the FSM. 38 The visions and processes of urban renewal 51 For the competition brief, see Program of guided the administration’s efforts to purchase Competition, Student Center, University of land and expand the campus southward. California, Berkeley Campus (Berkeley: University Initial renderings of this expansion appear of California, Berkeley, 1957). in Berkeley’s publication, Students at Berkeley 52 Alison Hirsch, “Scoring the Participatory (note 16). University of California Berkeley’s City: Lawrence (&Anna) Halprin’s Take Part comprehensive plan of 1956 is another Process,” Journal of Architectural Education 64, no. milestone. See Kerr, “The Berkeley Campus 2 (2011): 127–40; Mario Comario, “Community Plan” (note 25); and William Wurster, “Campus Design: Idealism and Entrepreneurship,” Planning,” Architectural Record, September Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 1959. The Bancroft Library contains volumes 1, no. 4 (December 1984): 227–43; and essays of archival material, but Peter Allen offers the published in Design on the Edge (note 26), such most succinct summary of Berkeley’s campus as “Discussion Draft of the College Plan” expansion in “The End of Modernism? People’s (83–86) and “People’s Park: An Experiment in Park, Urban Renewal, and Community Design,” Collaborative Design” (151–53). Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 70, 53 Texas A&M and the University Florida no. 3 (September 2011): 354–74. introduced new outdoor civic spaces in unions 39 Vernon DeMars and Donald Hardison, during the postwar period. Associated Architects, The Winning Design in a Competition for a Student Center on the Berkeley Campus for the University of California (Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, 1957). 40 “Paraboloids for a Pedestrian City,” Western Architect and Engineer, September 1959, 4–5. 41 DeMars Collection. 42 “A Preliminary Report on the Landscape Plan, University of California, Berkeley Campus,” September 1954, 1–2 (Kerr Papers). 43 Landscape Subcommittee, “Program of Action,” revised March 15, 1954, and “Preliminary Report on the Landscape Plan,” September 1954 (Kerr Papers [carton 3 F12]). 44 See Lawrence Halprin, Cities (New York: Reinhold, 1963), esp. 53, 73, and 108. 45 For discussions of Halprin’s early work and professional significance, see Randy Gragg, ed., Where the Revolution Began: Lawrence and Anna Halprin and the Reinvention of Public Space (Washington, DC: Spacemaker Press, 2009); and Alison Hirsch, City Choreographer: Lawrence Halprin in Urban Renewal America (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014). For the pedestrianization of cities, see, for example, David Smiley, Pedestrian Modern: Shopping and American Architecture, 1925–1956 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013); and Victor Gruen’s classic book, The Heart of Our Cities: The Urban Crisis: Diagnosis and Cure (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1964). 46 Alan Temko, “Planned Chaos and the Piazza,” and Vernon DeMars and Donald Hardison’s official response,Architectural Forum, October Downloaded by [Association of Collegiate Schools Architecture] at 13:27 07 December 2017 1961, 112–17. 47 Letter from Lawrence Halprin to Vernon DeMars regarding Alan Temko’s criticism, October 19, 1961 (DeMars Collection). 48 Halprin, Cities (note 44). 49 See Robert Cohen, The Free Speech Movement: Reflections on Berkeley in the 1960s (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Neil Smelser, Reflections on the University of California: From the Free Speech Movement to the Global University (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010); and the documentary filmBerkeley

246 Architecture in Support of Citizenry