Sather Tower
Sather Tower | |
Sather Tower, from California Memorial Stadium, at sunset | |
Location | Berkeley, California |
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Coordinates | 37°52′19″N 122°15′28″W / 37.87194°N 122.25778°WCoordinates: 37°52′19″N 122°15′28″W / 37.87194°N 122.25778°W |
Built | 1914 |
Architect | John Galen Howard |
Architectural style | Gothic Revival |
Governing body | Private |
MPS | Berkeley, University of California MRA |
NRHP Reference # | 82004650[1] |
BERKL # | 158 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | March 25, 1982 |
Designated BERKL | February 25, 1991[2] |
Sather Tower is a campanile (bell and clock tower) on the University of California, Berkeley campus. It is more commonly known as The Campanile (/kæmpəˈniːliː/ kamp-ə-NEE-lee) due to its resemblance to the Campanile di San Marco in Venice, and serves as UC Berkeley's most recognizable symbol. It was completed in 1914 and first opened to the public in 1917.[3] The tower stands 307 feet (93.6 m) tall, making it the third tallest bell and clock-tower in the world.[4] It was designed by John Galen Howard, founder of the College of Environmental Design, and it marks a secondary axis in his original Beaux-Arts campus plan. Since then, it has been a major point of orientation in almost every campus master plan. The tower has seven floors, with an observation deck on the eighth floor. Some floors are used to store fossils.
Overview
A gift by Evelyn and Jerry Chambers in 1983 endowed the position of University Carillonist (currently Jeff Davis) as well as practice rooms, practice keyboards, a campanology library, and international Carillon Festivals every five years from the anniversary of the Class of 1928. Private and group lessons are offered in carillon through the Department of Music, subject to auditions and with Music majors receiving priority. Students work on one of Sather Tower's two practice keyboards until they are ready for performance on the carillon itself.
An elevator takes visitors 200 feet up Sather Tower to an observation deck with sweeping views of the campus, the surrounding hills, San Francisco, and the Golden Gate. Admission is free for UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty, one dollar for seniors, Cal Alumni Association members, and persons age 18 and under, and two dollars for everyone else. Sather Tower is also an obvious suicide point, and in 1958 a 67-year-old retired attorney jumped to his death, prompting a daily patrol to guard the platform. In 1961, after sophomore John Patterson's suicide jump, glass panes were installed to enclose the viewing platform. However, in 1979 these panes were removed after the carillon was expanded and due to complaints that the panes were muffling the sound. Finally, in 1981 a set of metal anti-suicide bars were installed.
The trumpets of the California Marching Band every year play Cal spirit songs during Big Game week from the top of the tower. Known as the Campanile Concert, the music can be heard throughout the campus and Berkeley, and in some cases, all the way to Oakland.
Sather Tower also houses many of the Department of Integrative Biology's fossils because its cool, dry interior is suited for their preservation; these fossils are mainly from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.[5]
The surrounding promenade features a grid of pollarded London Plane trees, frequently enjoyed for the sport of slacklining.
Similar structures
A tower based on the Berkeley Campanile is located at the University of Concepción, Chile. Another university clock tower bearing a resemblance to the Campanile is the Joseph Chamberlain Memorial Clock Tower at the University of Birmingham, England, which is modelled on the Torre del Mangia in Siena.[6] David Lodge's novel Changing Places tells the story of exchange of professors between the universities of Rummidge and Euphoric State, Plotinus (thinly disguised fictional versions of Birmingham and Berkeley), which in the book both have replicas of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on campus.[7]
Footnotes
- ↑ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2006-03-15.
- ↑ "Berkely Landmarks". Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. Retrieved 2013-03-04.
- ↑ "Architecture: A 'city of learning' overlooking SF Bay". History of UC Berkeley. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
- ↑ "The Campanile (Sather Tower)". UC Berkeley Visitory Services. Retrieved 2011-10-24.
- ↑ http://seismo.berkeley.edu/seismo/geotour/campanile_fog.html
- ↑ Stephens, W.B. (1964). "Secular architecture". A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 7. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 43–57.
- ↑ Showalter, Elaine (2005). Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-19-928332-3.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sather Tower. |
- Visitor Services - The Campanile at Berkeley
- Sather Tower Carillon (Music Dept. Page)
- The Campanile Movie
- Campanile Free-Fall
- Berkeley Landmarks :: Sather Tower
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