Émile Bénard

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Henri Jean Émile Bénard
Self-Portrait

Perspective of Central Hall in Gymnasium, 1899
Ink and wash on paper
26-5/8 x 32-5/8 in. (Matted: 30 x 36 in.)
John Galen Howard Collection (1955-4), Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley

Section of Gymnasium, 1899
Ink and wash on paper
39 x 60 in.
University Archives, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Detail of Dormitory Balcony, 1899
Ink and wash on paper
40-1/4 x 50-1/2 in.
University Archives, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

Henri Jean Émile Bénard (June 23, 1844 - October 15, 1929), was a French architect and painter.

He was born in Goderville and died in Paris. Émile Bénard, as he was known, was a Parisian, trained at the Beaux-Arts. A man of ambitions and a visionary, winner of The Phoebe Hearst International Architectural Competition and the Berkeley Campus in 1899 with his project "Roma".

[1] Emile Bénard, Paris Tribunes of Gymnasium Complex, 1899 Ink and wash on paper 32 x 44 in. University Archives, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley

[edit] The Phoebe Hearst International Architectural Competition and the Berkeley Campus, 1896-1930

[2]

The first-place winner, Émile Bénard of Paris, had submitted one alternate to his final scheme (he had submitted two schemes in Antwerp) and had added three drawings to the plan, section, and elevation requested for the study of one of the building groups. Bénard had won second place in the 1866 competition for the Grand Prix de Rome; in 1867 he was the first-place winner. Entering competitions was a staple of his career, as indeed it was of many outstanding graduates of the école. His drawing skills were exceptional, as the plates for this competition demonstrate (of particular note are the perspective view of the gymnasium, the interior of the gymnasium vestibule, and the gratuitous detail of a sculptural group on the capital of a pilaster supporting part of a balustrade).

Bénard’s scheme won unanimous praise for having successfully addressed all of the jury’s concerns. The elevations were judged to be “excellent in scale, character and nicety of proportion,” and the drawings “beautifully rendered.” The only weakness noted was that some of the buildings in the upper part of the plan were too far from those with related departments, making some rearrangement perhaps necessary. In the end, “The jury, after an examination of the references and certificates submitted by M. Bénard, declare that this architect offers the guarantees which justify his being entrusted with the execution of the work.”

pg 34

An international panel of jurors concluded the Hearst competition in the summer of 1899, when it unanimously selected the drawings of Emile Benard of France. A master of the École des Beaux-Arts, Bénard gave the jurors and U.C. regents just what they desired -a permament world's fair bespeaking San Francisco's imperial mission in the Pacific following the annexation of Hawaii and the Spanish- American War. Benard's plas was appropriately code-named "Roma" for the competition. Its exquisite pen and ink drawing, overlaid with pale opalescent washes, conjured a city of Parisian buildings organized along a sloping esplanade. The axis continued off campus by way of a preexisting approach known as University Avenue, which led straight to the bay.

Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin by Gray A Brechin - Provided by University of California Press

The $10,000 first prize and the job of Supervising Architect went to Henri Jean Emile Benard of Paris. His plan was distinguished from the others in that his east-west axis included a square, treelined esplanade and formal garden, instead of a long boring axis with buildings set at monotonous intervals along it. His plan contained many different sizes and shapes of buildings, with domes, courts, towers and different roof styles, instead of rows of buildings of the same size and shape. His plan made elegant use of Charter Hill, with stairs and buildings working their way up to a monument at the top. Moreover, unlike most of the other plans, and unlike the campus today, it afforded a view of the hill from strategic points in the central campus. Like the other plans, Benard favored a formal instead of topographical layout. He and Howard both left the southwest corner of the site (where Harmon Gym, Evans Field and Edwards Stadium are today) as forest.

Benard visited Berkeley to collect his money and put the finishing touches on his masterpiece; his "difficult personality," lack of English, and disappointment at the probable outcome of his grand plan (it would have cost $80 million--the Regents had less than $1 million to spend) were probably why he declined the job of Supervising Architect and proceeded to Mexico City, where he spent the next ten years before returning to France and thus dropping out of our history.

[3]

Not surprisingly given the Ecole's preeminence, a Parisian, Ecole-trained architect named Emile Bénard won first prize. Bénard's plan for the University was a formal Beaux-Arts composition arranged around a central east-west axis with minor cross-axis. The buildings were to be monumental structures in classical styles built of uniform materials.

Emile Bénard declined to be appointed supervising architect, and in 1901 the position was offered to John Galen Howard, the fourth-place winner of the competition. Although Howard was directed to execute Bénard's plan without any substantial departure, he made small alterations until the plan was more his than Bénard's. However, Howard was loyal to the Beaux-Arts character of Bénard's plan.

[4]

The competition, won by Emile Bénard of Paris, brought Berkeley not only a building plan but worldwide notoriety. The London Spectator wrote, "On the face of it this is a grand scheme, reminding one of those famous competitions in Italy in which Brunelleschi and Michaelangelo took part. The conception does honor to the nascent citizenship of the Pacific states. . . ." At Oxford University, which at the time was strapped for funds, a Latin orator said, "There is brought a report that in California there is already established a university furnished with so great resources that even to the architects (a lavish kind of men) full permission has been given to spare no expense. Amidst the most pleasant hills on an elevated site, commanding a wide sea view, is to be placed a home of Universal Science and a seat of the muses."

[5]

His grand scheme, to no one’s surprise, bore a certain resemblance to the Place de la Concorde superimposed upon the bumps and creases of the Berkeley highlands. As required by the competition, Bénard’s plan envisioned a campus for eight thousand students, although there were then only two thousand in the university. Critics called it absurdly visionary. (The number of students is now close to thirty thousand.)

[6]