Bowles Hall

Last updated
Bowles Hall
Berkeley Landmark  No. 120
Bowleshall.jpg
Bowles Hall as seen from the southern, front side.
Location map Oakland.png
Red pog.svg
USA California location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location Berkeley, California
Coordinates 37°52′24.1″N122°15′10.5″W / 37.873361°N 122.252917°W / 37.873361; -122.252917
Built1928
Architect George W. Kelham
Architectural style Tudor
Website bowleshall.org
NRHP reference No. 89000195
BERKL No.120
Significant dates
Added to NRHPMarch 16, 1989
Designated BERKLOctober 17, 1988 [1]

Bowles Hall is a coed residential college at the University of California, Berkeley, [2] known for its unique traditions, parties, [3] [4] and camaraderie. [5] [6] Designed by George W. Kelham, the building was the first residence hall on campus, dedicated in 1929, and was California's first state-owned residence hall. [7] It was built in 1928 with a $350,000 grant from Mary McNear Bowles in memory of her husband, Berkeley alumnus and University of California Regent Phillip E. Bowles. Mr. Bowles was said to have three loves: horses, horticulture and the University of California. [8]

Contents

Although a university-operated residence hall, its male-only tradition, classic façade, partitioned four-man rooms, and common areas gave it a social, fraternity-like atmosphere. "Bowlesmen" have traditionally been a tight-knit group of students who regularly practice various traditions and rituals that are exclusive to the Hall. With its pale stone exterior, five-arch entry arcade, and crenelated tower, it was listed in 1989 in the National Register of Historic Places as an example of 'Collegiate Gothic' architecture. [9]

From 2006 to 2014, a group of former residents worked with Berkeley officials, planning the Hall's restoration and reconstitution as a co-ed residential college. Following a 14-month restoration in a public-private partnership, the Hall reopened in August 2016, welcoming female students for the first time.

The building

An etching of the Bowles Hall crest. "Ut Tibi Sic Alteri" is the motto and it is translated as "As to yourself so to another." Bowles Hall Crest.jpeg
An etching of the Bowles Hall crest. "Ut Tibi Sic Alteri" is the motto and it is translated as "As to yourself so to another."

Designed by George W. Kelham, the building has eight levels comprising two-room suites and a common room (originally designed to house two, but now housing four). The Julien and Helen Hart Memorial Library was added to the building in 1939 through the gift of James D. Hart, their son, and their daughter, Ellen, and her husband, San Francisco architect and engineer Joseph Bransten. Hart was a professor of English and the editor of the Oxford Handbook of American Literature. Bowles Hall also sits on top of the Hayward Fault. [10]

In order to avoid having the aging residence hall dismantled in the late 1980s, a group of Bowlesmen successfully petitioned to have the building added to the National Register of Historic Places (#89000195, 1989). [11] The hall was also designated a City of Berkeley landmark on October 17, 1988, a mere 11 years after the first recorded "high five". [12]

The hall earned LEED Silver certification in August 2017. [13]

Recent history – restoration

The university administration attempted to dismantle Bowles Hall and build a new residence hall in its place, but this was deterred when Bowles Hall was entered into the National Register of Historic Places. In April 2001, food service in the dining hall was ended and the dining room made into a generic "recreation room." [14] The dining hall had previously hosted popular barbecue dinners on Friday evenings.

In 2006, the Haas School of Business was planning to turn Bowles into an educational center and conference facility, [15] [16] but the university backed down from the decision. [17] At about this time, a group of alumni formed the Bowles Hall Alumni Association, and then the Bowles Hall Foundation, with the aim of establishing Bowles Hall as a modern residential college.[ citation needed ]

In 2014, the Regents of the University of California approved a plan that enabled the Bowles Hall Foundation, a 501c(3) entity, to renovate and operate Bowles Hall as a residential college under a 45-year lease. The Foundation developed a plan to completely renovate and refurnish Bowles Hall. In June 2015, formal agreements with the Regents of the University of California were executed. The restored Hall reopened in August 2016. It serves 188 undergraduate students, three live-in faculty members, and several graduate residents. It is considered on-campus housing for the purposes of financial aid.[ citation needed ]

History

In the late 1940s and the 1950s, Rose Gilmore, the widow of a Berkeley professor who was looking for her own calling at Cal, fulfilled the position of Head Resident. [18]

Women have been welcomed as residents since 2016. [19]

Notable alumni

Movie appearances

Bowles Hall drinking song

Traditionally the Cal Band parades from nearby Memorial Stadium through the campus and streets of Berkeley after a home football game. The band will play in front of Bowles Hall during their tour, playing "By" for the Bowlesmen. [23] The tradition of playing "By" for Bowles Hall is said to have begun back when the entire football team lived there. The band would play for the players as they walked back to their residence hall after the game. However, when the football team was relocated, the band decided not to play in front of Bowles Hall. Subsequently, some of the men of Bowles lay down in the road, blocking the Cal Band from playing, until the band was forced to oblige them.


We're the men of Bowles Association,
Coming here from over all the nation.
Drinking here together one and all,
We lift our voices loud for Bowles Hall!

(Chorus)

Here's to Bowles Association.
Drink it down and then,
Drink a toast to home sweet home,
Of California men. Rah! Rah! Rah!
Fill your glasses to the brim,
And lift them in the air.
And drink a toast to Bowles Association,
And the Golden Bear.

Men of Bowles are gathered here together,
Toasting everything from girls to weather.
But the very greatest toast of all,
Is the one that we now give to Bowles Hall!

(Chorus)

--Joseph Ehrman III, 1948

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley, California</span> City in California, United States

Berkeley is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emeryville to the south and the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington to the north. Its eastern border with Contra Costa County generally follows the ridge of the Berkeley Hills. The 2020 census recorded a population of 124,321.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Berkeley</span> Public university in Berkeley, California

The University of California, Berkeley is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley, it is the state's first land-grant university and is the founding campus of the University of California system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California State Polytechnic University, Pomona</span> Public university in Pomona, California

California State Polytechnic University Pomona, is a public polytechnic university in Pomona, California. It is the largest of the three polytechnic universities in the California State University system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Memorial Stadium</span> Stadium in Berkeley, California, USA

California Memorial Stadium, also known simply and commonly as Memorial Stadium, is an outdoor college football stadium on the west coast of the United States, located on the campus of the University of California in Berkeley, California. It is the home field for the California Golden Bears of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Maybeck</span> American architect

Bernard Ralph Maybeck was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He worked primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area, designing public buildings, including the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and also private houses, especially in Berkeley, where he lived and taught at the University of California. A number of his works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloyne Court Hotel</span> United States historic place

The Cloyne Court Hotel, often referred to simply as Cloyne, is a historical landmark in Berkeley, California and currently one of the houses of the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC), a student housing cooperative. It is located at the north side of the University of California, Berkeley campus at 2600 Ridge Road, near Soda Hall and Jacobs Hall, and is the next door neighbor of the Goldman School of Public Policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California Marching Band</span> Marching band at the University of California, Berkeley

The University of California Marching Band, usually shortened to Cal Band, is the marching band for the University of California, Berkeley. While it is administered under the auspices of the university, the Cal Band is almost completely student-run and represents Cal at sporting events and other social gatherings. The name of the band is officially "The University of California Band" according to the constitution, but is typically called "The University of California Marching Band" or "The Cal Band". When the band marches out of Memorial Stadium's North Tunnel for football pre-games, it is referred to as "The Pacesetter of College Marching Bands, the Pride of California".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University House, Berkeley</span> Historic building in Berkeley, California

The University House is a residence and venue for official events on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley. Designed by the architect Albert Pissis and completed in 1911, it was formerly named President's House while it served as the home of the president of the University of California, starting with Benjamin Ide Wheeler and ending with Robert Gordon Sproul. Since 1965, it has been the home of the Chancellor of the Berkeley campus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of California, Berkeley student housing</span>

Housing at the University of California, Berkeley, includes student housing facilities run by the office of Residential and Student Service Programs (RSSP). Housing is also offered by off-campus entities such as fraternities and sororities and the Berkeley Student Cooperative (BSC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Golden Bears</span> Intercollegiate sports teams of the University of California, Berkeley

The California Golden Bears are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Berkeley. Referred to in athletic competition as California or Cal, the university fields 30 varsity athletic programs and various club teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)'s Division I primarily as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), and for a limited number of sports as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). In 2014, Cal instituted a strict academic standard for an athlete's admission to the university. By the 2017 academic year 80 percent of incoming student athletes were required to comply with the University of California general student requirement of having a 3.0 or higher high school grade point average.

The campus of the University of California, Berkeley, and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck, and their colleague Julia Morgan. Subsequent tenures as supervising architect held by George W. Kelham and Arthur Brown, Jr. saw the addition of several buildings in neoclassical and other revival styles, while the building boom after World War II introduced modernist buildings by architects such as Vernon DeMars, Joseph Esherick, John Carl Warnecke, Gardner Dailey, Anshen & Allen, and Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Recent decades have seen additions including the postmodernist Haas School of Business by Charles Willard Moore, Soda Hall by Edward Larrabee Barnes, and the East Asian Library by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California School for the Blind</span> School in Fremont, California, US

The California School for the Blind is a public educational institution for blind children, K-12, located in Fremont, California. Its campus is located next to the California School for the Deaf.

Stern Hall is an all-female residence hall at the University of California, Berkeley, constructed and operated by the University. It was built in 1942 on a $258,000 grant from Rosalie Meyer Stern, daughter of Marc Eugene Meyer and widow of Sigmund Stern, class of 1879. It is the sister hall to Bowles Hall, the all-male residence on campus. The Hall was first opened for 90 undergraduate women; currently it houses approximately 267. It is located at Hearst Avenue and Highland Place.

The Campus of the University of Southern California, also known as the University Park Campus is located in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The campus sprawls across 226 acres and contains most of the academic facilities and residential buildings of the University of Southern California. The University Park campus is in the University Park district of Los Angeles, 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of downtown Los Angeles. The campus's boundaries are Jefferson Boulevard on the north and northeast, Figueroa Street on the southeast, Exposition Boulevard on the south, and Vermont Avenue on the west. Since the 1960s, through-campus vehicle traffic has been either severely restricted or entirely prohibited on some thoroughfares. The University Park campus is within walking distance to Los Angeles landmarks such as the Shrine Auditorium and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which is operated and managed by the University. Most buildings are in the Romanesque Revival style, although some dormitories, engineering buildings, and physical sciences labs are of various Modernist styles that sharply contrast with the predominantly red-brick campus. Widney Alumni House, built-in 1880, is the oldest university building in Southern California. In recent years the campus has been renovated to remove the vestiges of old roads and replace them with traditional university quads and gardens. The historic portion of the main campus was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Register of Historic Places listings in Alameda County, California</span>

This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Alameda County, California.

The history of the University of California, Berkeley, begins on October 13, 1849, with the adoption of the Constitution of California, which provided for the creation of a public university. On Charter Day, March 23, 1868, the signing of the Organic Act established the University of California, with the new institution inheriting the land and facilities of the private College of California and the federal funding eligibility of a public agricultural, mining, and mechanical arts college.

George W. Chang is a professor and a resident faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. He resides on campus with his wife Abby, while he is currently an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Nutritional Sciences and Toxicology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Morgan Hall</span> Historic building in Berkeley, California

Julia Morgan Hall is a historic building in the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley, California. Built in 1911, the building was designed by prominent California architect Julia Morgan and originally located on the central campus of the University of California, Berkeley, near the present location of the Haas School of Business. It served as a gathering place for Berkeley's female students, who wanted a female counterpart to Senior Hall, the senior men's meeting hall.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cowell Memorial Hospital</span> Historic place in Berkeley, California

Cowell Memorial Hospital , is a historical former building in downtown Berkeley, California. The Cowell Memorial Hospital was built in 1930 and demolished in 1993. The building and it site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1993. The hospital's entrance and Hospital's south wing were designed by Arthur Brown Jr. in the Neoclassical style and built in 1930. The hospital's east pavilion, designed by Weihe, Frick & Kruse and built in 1954. The hospital's north wing was designed by E. Geoffrey Bangs and built in 1960. After being demolished in 1993, a new building was built, Haas School of Business. The Cowell Memorial Hospital has a Residence Program from 1962 to 1974, noted for its work with disabled students. National Register of Historic Places was given both for the buildings and the contribution it health care work. Some of the work noted is the called the Cowell experiment, by Ed Roberts, The Father of Independent Living.

References

  1. ↑ "Berkeley Landmarks". Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Retrieved 2013-03-04.
  2. ↑ Harvey Helfand (2002). The Campus Guides: University of California Berkeley. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. p. 257. ISBN   1-56898-293-3.
  3. ↑ "Bowles Halloween Party Nixed By School". Daily Californian. October 19, 2004. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  4. ↑ "Bowles Hall Halloween Bash Results In Arrests". Daily Californian. November 3, 2003. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  5. ↑ "Castle with a Thousand Tales". Daily Californian. September 16, 1996. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  6. ↑ "Bowlesmen Are More Than Boys". Caliber Magazine. Nov 10, 2012. Archived from the original on 2016-02-10. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  7. ↑ "Bowles Hall History". Archived from the original on 2010-07-14. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  8. ↑ "Philip E. Bowles". Alameda County Biography. Archived from the original on 2011-07-04. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  9. ↑ "Bowles Hall". National Park Service.
  10. ↑ Maffei, Joe; Redmond, Lucy; Burton, John (2009). "Evaluation and Retrofit for Fault Rupture: UC Berkeley, Bowles Hall". In Goodno, Barry (ed.). Improving the Seismic Performance of Existing Buildings and Other Structures. pp. 1281–1294. doi:10.1061/41084(364)118. ISBN   9780784410844.
  11. ↑ "National Register #89000195 Bowles Hall". National Register of Historic Places in Alameda County, California. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  12. ↑ "Berkeley Landmarks - U. C. Campus" . Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  13. ↑ "Historic Bowles Hall Earns LEED Silver Certification" . Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  14. ↑ "Dining Commons at Bowles Shut Down". Daily Californian. May 8, 2001. Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  15. ↑ DelVecchio, Rick (February 22, 2007). "Battle of Bowles Hall -- tradition vs. money / UC business school sees cash cow in transforming historic boys residence hall into site for executive training center". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Communications Inc. Retrieved 2013-01-14.
  16. ↑ The Daily Californian Archived March 12, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ Delvecchio, Rick (2007-07-15). "BERKELEY / UC backs down on plan to convert dorm". The San Francisco Chronicle.
  18. ↑ "» A Virtual Re-Opening Hall Tour" . Retrieved 2019-12-15.
  19. ↑ "bowles hall coed - Google Search". www.google.com. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
  20. ↑ Brenneman, Richard (January 30, 2007). "Famous Bowles Alum Picks Residence Hall Over Haas Plans for Landmark". The Berkeley Daily Planet. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
  21. ↑ Sanders, Robert (February 8, 2011). "Les Richter Finally to NFL Hall of Fame" . Retrieved 2012-12-09.
  22. ↑ Boys and Girls (2000) - IMDb
  23. ↑ "Bowles Hall Drinking Song" . Retrieved 2012-12-09.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.