Wurster Hall

William Wilson Wurster, Dean of the Architecture School, who was married to the notable planner Catherine Bauer Wurster, was the man who established the basic design parameters for The College of Environmental Design, picked the architects and approved or vetoed their every decision. Wurster tasked Donald Olsen, Joseph Esherick, and Vernon DeMars, all UC Berkeley architecture faculty members, to design a building that incorporated the Departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, City Planning, and Decorative Arts. Open for classes in 1964, Wurster Hall looked as Wurster had intended “…like a ruin that no regent would like…it is absolutely unfinished, uncouth, and brilliantly strong….this is the way architecture is best done.” Pictured are two preliminary designs.