Ramona's Cafe

In 1964, when the building was complete, William Wurster predicted that it would take twenty years to achieve the same lived-in comfort that made the old Architecture building (the “Ark”) so memorable. Few would argue that the building had fully matured by 1984, but it had certainly been through a momentous time.

 The building opened in the midst of the Free Speech Movement, People’s Park protests, and other important revolutionary actions centered in the Bay Area, but in May, 1970, following then Governor Ronald Reagan’s retributive closure of the university, CED students and some faculty took direct action within Wurster Hall. Together this group formed “Gorilla Graphics,” producing anti-war and other consciousness-raising posters using silk-screening equipment available through the Design Department. By all accounts the poster operation took over multiple spaces in Wurster Hall, including two first-floor classrooms used for sharing food.

This informal food service space was named “Ramona’s Café,” although no one remembers the exact origin of that moniker. In light of food safety regulations, campus administration would not allow such operations to continue, but in typical Berkeley fashion, the students negotiated for formal food service on the condition it would provide healthier and more wholesome options than elsewhere on campus.

In 1983, the CED created a more formal setting for Wurster Hall’s food service with a new design by the architectural firm Fernau + Hartman. This was an early project for the firm, formed in 1981 by CED graduates and later faculty Richard Fernau and Laura Hartman, but its design embodies the thoughtful and imaginative approach that characterizes the firm’s subsequent forty-plus years of architectural practice.

Like the original architects of Bauer Wurster Hall, Fernau + Hartman had to contend with an intimidating mix of colleagues and mentors as clients. To convince this critical group, Fernau + Hartman commissioned an elaborate exterior model—made from lead, no less—to show their proposed alterations and additions to the plaza in front of the building. On the interior, the designers worked to create a colorful and welcoming space in a building otherwise adamantly colorless. At the request of the café operators, Fernau + Hartman also devised a clever solution for a tight space: a movable cash register unit that could be pushed out during open hours. The project won an Honor Award from the AIA Northern California chapter in 1984.

Ramona’s Café closed in 2016 and the following year the restaurant Rice and Bones opened in a renovated space (Rice and Bones closed during the mounting of this exhibit). Ramona’s outdoor space was also removed and reconfigured into today’s Ong & Ong Plaza.