Making Places — CCA’s Campus History

In 1907, following the destruction of his home and workshop in the San Francisco earthquake, German-born cabinetmaker and art teacher, Frederick H. Meyer, establishes the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts in the Studio Building on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley for 43 students and three teachers: himself, Isabelle Percy West, and Perham Nahl. Xavier Martinex joins the faculty later that year. Meyer’s wife, Laetitia, serves as secretary.

Alum and former trustee, Tecoah Bruce, and two unidentified people at the plaque commemorating the Studio Building in Berkeley, which was the original site of the California School of Arts and Crafts.

City of Berkeley Landmark no.22 National Register of Historic Places STUDIO BUILDING 1905-1906, placed by the CCAC Alumni Association and the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, September 12, 1982.

Now renamed California School of the Arts and Crafts and having outgrown the Studio Building, the school moves to 2130 Center Street in Berkeley.

In 1910, the school expanded to include 2119 Allston Way, formerly the Kellogg School and the Berkeley High School, and continued to use the building through 1925 until the move to the Oakland campus was complete in 1926.

During this era of the school, men and women took life classes separately.

By 1921, the classrooms and studios of the Berkely location on Allston Way were filled to capacity, and the building could not accommodate the complex metal and woodworking studios that the curriculum required. Seeking a new campus where he could build all of the school amenities he desired, Frederick Meyer purchased the site at Broadway and Clifton Street for $60,000 in 1922 and received four acres of rough, overgrown land and the Treadwell estate buildings, a mansion, a carriage house, and a barn. Meyer and his family moved into the third story of the mansion (now Macky Hall) and renovated the lower floors as classrooms. Despite a lack of formal architectural training, Meyer’s woodworking skills, design experience, and time spent in a San Jose architect’s office enabled him to plan and execute the renovation as well as design and construct new buildings.

Supported by the labor of the school’s students, who received discounted tuition in exchange for their efforts, Meyer cleared the gnarled site, improving on some existing landscape features while removing others that encroached on his vision for future construction. Pictured: Letitia Archambault and Minerva Hogadone.

After renovating the mansion (now Macky Hall), the barn, and the Carriage House for residential and classroom use, the first buildings that Meyer and the students built were a woodworking shop (now Facilities Building), a small model’s house (no longer extant), a tool house and garage (no longer extant), a storage house (no longer extant), and the athletic fields (no longer extant), which were to be used for outdoor meetings until a building could be built with a large assembly hall.

Men at work leveling the ground in preparation for building the Crafts Building (now B Building), looking toward Clifton Street. Frederick Meyer at lower left.

The Carriage House was moved and converted to classrooms in the mid 1920s. Frederick Meyer stands in front of the building in this image. The building would be moved one more time to make way for the Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center, which was built in the 1970’s.

Faun sculpture on the Oakland campus created by student Hazel Z. Weller (BAEd 1926) in Nova Bartlette's class. Weller went on as faculty for two years in 1927 and 1928. Per markings on the back, the face was inspired by the poet Leo Stearling. This and the Sundial are two of the earliest works in a long history of artworks from the college community being incorporated into the gardens and grounds. Currently located west of Meyer Library.

The Sundial was gifted to the school by the class of 1922, according to the original inlaid tiles inlaid, the first class of graduates from the new Treadwell campus. Viewed here looking South beyond it, at the time the circular court was being built in 1929.

A 1925 letter to Dr. William S. Porter seeking finances toward securing $15,000 to complete buildings on the Oakland campus prior to the start of the 1925 Summer. Porter was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1932 he served as President of the Board and was eventually made an Honorary Board Member. In 1922, the school became a non-profit institution with a governing board of trustees. The newly chartered California School of Arts and Crafts was described as the second accredited art college in the country in 1922, and one of four degree-granting art programs in 1926, the others being located in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Over 50 different subjects were taught, organized into three professional programs: applied arts, arts education, and fine arts.

Students took their classes in the renovated Treadwell estate buildings, created crafts in the woodworking shop and the Craft Building, painted en plein air amongst the campus’ eucalyptus and redwood trees, and exercised on purpose-built athletic fields. They had no dormitory, no cafeteria, no dedicated library, and no assembly hall in which they could gather together for meetings or performances. These developments came in the following decades.

Clifton Street at the end of the dirt road that ran along the side of the Woodworking Shop (now Facilities Building) and the Crafts Building (now B Building).

Imagined campus map for California School of Arts and Crafts produced in preparation for the move to the recently purchased Treadwell estate in Oakland.

In a campus master plan that was likely designed by Meyer circa 1925, plans for future construction included a craft building (now B Building), a large supply shop along Broadway (not built), and a grandly scaled instructional building, also along Broadway (not built), as well as several other multipurpose buildings and extensive cultivated gardens along Clifton Street. Perhaps reflecting Meyer’s limited architectural skills, the larger planned buildings along Broadway were not completed.

In 1930 Students came mainly from the Bay Area, but included those from further afield in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Canada, Hawaii, Mexico, and the Philippines. Enrollment numbers declined through the decade, likely in response to the Great Depression. Increased industrialization in Oakland began to make demands on the school marking an era where the practical root of the educational model Frederick Meyer espoused would come further to the fore. Citing Oakland’s virtue as a union between rail and sea transportation, a newspaper report in 1931 described the way that a strong design college added value to the city, attracting to it more and more manufacturing firms. The school’s applied arts programs were seen to improve Oakland’s ability to compete in the increasingly industrialized economic climate of the era. Classes in design, illustration, commercial design, photography, printmaking, and interior design led students to careers as factory designers, commercial artists, art teachers, and set and costume designers in the emerging motion picture industry in Los Angeles. At the close of 1931, the California School of Arts and Crafts was recognized as one of only eight industrial art schools in the United States, and one which had established a national reputation for its design programs.

The campus developed during this first decade as a series of small one- and two-story buildings, the largest of which prior to 1930 was the Craft Building (now B Building). They were designed with an architectural unity, all in a simplified Mission Colonial or Spanish Colonial Revival style with smooth stucco cladding, flat roofs, and stepped parapets. Some areas included arched portals and bells, and facades included recessed areas which may have been intended to hold glazed decorative tiles, similar to those still extant at the Facilities Building.

CSAC Riding Group at Sequoia Riding Club, Oakland, which was located at 2923 Mountain Blvd. in the East Oakland Hills near what is now Joaquin Miller Park.

The handful of buildings that Meyers and the students had constructed when the campus was established served the student body well for several years. However, in 1930, Meyers oversaw the construction of a large new building planned to hold the school’s popular Saturday and evening classes as well as classes for younger students. This building was known as Guild Hall and also contained the school’s first auditorium, with facilities for producing plays, and a public exhibit hall in which to display student work. Located on Clifton Street, the architectural design of Guild Hall was the most ambitious of any of the campus’s purposes-built buildings thus far; while the simplified Mission Revival style of the woodworking studio (Facilities Building) and the Crafts Building (B Building) was continued, Guild Hall was three stories in height, with storefront public gallery spaces at the first story and a large glass awning window at the third story to maximize light in the interior studios. The auditorium was at the rear of the building, and two arched portals flanked the building, one with niche and hanging bell details. This mixed-use building continued to serve the school for the following 40 years until it was destroyed by fire in 1971.

Birthday guests in Guild Hall; Frederick Meyer shown pointing at cake next to Laetitia Meyer; Isabelle Percy West third from left; Xavier Martinez second row from back under exit sign, Babs Meyer front row in black velvet dress with glasses.

The Barefoot Players, left to right, Bob Gumpertiz, Lowell Herrerra, Ray Coates (director) performing in Guild Hall.

Earle Bond and Fred Robler dressed in costumes at the California College of Arts and Crafts' Bal Masque Futura in Guild Hall. Bal Masque Futuras and Surrealist Balls would become a long enjoyed tradition at the college.

Blueprint for a blacksmith shop by Frederick Meyer which was completed in the 1930’s though the exact date is unknown.

The newly built blacksmith shop.

Arthur Cardoza, Frederick Meyer, and Everett Harris clearing Eucalyptus Trees along Clifton Street as work continued on the gardens and grounds through this period.

Created as a memorial to Perham Nahl, the Japanese Tea Garden was likely located near Broadway, now the faculty parking lot. The ceremony included the unveiling a bronze memorial tablet (now missing) and various speeches, including one by Japanese Consulate General, Mr. K. Nakashima. Also pictured is the Mini-Pagoda which was later moved near Nahl Hall.

Students around the Sculpture Studio, with B Building and Clifton Street in background.

Barbara Hoel, Julia Isackson, Alice Soll, Marion Kent, Phylura Gibbs, and Barbara Calkins during Garden Clean-up Day. This photo appeared in the Oakland Tribune with the caption, “With Tony the gardener off to war, the girls of the California College of Arts and Crafts took matters into their own hands devoting their talents to the chrysanthemum bed.” World War II affected enrollment at the college, now named California College of the Arts, almost immediately, with the fall enrollment numbers dropping by 50 percent between 1941 and 1942.

By 1946, to serve the swollen enrollment after WWII, the college acquired several former Women’s Army Corp WAC barracks buildings from the U. S. Government. Formerly located in Berkeley, the buildings were transferred to the CCAC campus at no cost and were renovated to serve as classrooms, studios, and the campus’s first cafeteria. While none of these postwar buildings remain extant on campus, they appear in historic photographs as one-story rectangular vernacular structures of wood frame construction. The largest was the cafeteria, located at the north side of campus near Clifton Street (current location of the Shaklee Building). Other smaller classroom buildings were located south and west of the cafeteria and along the campus’s south perimeter. These buildings were removed in a piecemeal fashion to make way for larger buildings constructed during the following decade; however, some of these barracks survived on campus until the 1970s.

Enrollment numbers stayed low through the war years but rebounded dramatically after the close of the war. In these years, fueled by the GI Bill, the percentage of male students overtook female students for the first time in the school’s history, with the student body becoming more than 60% male at the end of the decade. During this time, the school had a waiting list of interested applicants, and Spencer Macky, President succeeding Meyer, instituted a policy in which preference was given to local Bay Area veterans over those applying from out of the state.

View of 1941 shopping center construction as seen from third story of Treadwell Hall (now Macky Hall).

Enrollment at CCAC leveled off in the early 1950s, as the surge of World War II GIs completed their education and graduated. During the Korean conflict, veterans were again encouraged to enroll, but did not do so in the same numbers as the earlier generation of veterans.

Coursework at CCAC continued to expand into new artistic mediums, reflecting a broader expansion in the art world. Students debuted the production of the school’s first experimental filmmaking class in 1951; called “Marvin Jones,” which premiered at Guild Hall and starred students as well as faculty members including Carol Purdie, who taught costume design and dramatic arts at CCAC for over 20 years. In 1954, the school established its textile program, under the guidance of German-born artist Trude Guermonprez, who continued to expand the field of textile and fiber arts at the school for the following two decades. Students and faculty in the painting department in the 1950s, including Richard Diebenkorn, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, and Robert Bechtle were instrumental in the development of the Bay Area Figurative movement.

Looking northeast, the back of Guild Hall can be seen to the left, Facilities and B Building can be seen in the center background.

The desire to construct a residential dormitory on campus had first been voiced by Frederick Meyer when he drew a master plan for the campus in the 1920s. This desire had been deferred through the Depression and the rapid piecemeal provision of classroom space in the 1940s. Students from outside the Bay Area lived in college-approved apartments and rooming houses in the Rockridge neighborhood. By the second half of the 1950s, with a student body hovering around 500 people, the college finally had the money and the undeniable need to construct its first dormitory.

The firm of Blanchard & Maher designed a modern two story L-plan building, sited at the interior of campus, and arranged in response to steep topography to include a two-story residence hall and a one-story cafeteria area. When completed, the building housed 39 male students and 39 female students, and was reported to be the first on-campus dormitory at an art college west of the Mississippi River. An experienced “house-mother” managed the building and its residents.12 The building was named Irwin Hall in honor of 1936 alumna Dorothy Irwin and her husband Henry Irwin. A monolithic sculpture was donated by Tsutomu Hiroi, a summer guest teacher and design affiliate of famed Japanese designer Isamu Noguchi, on leave from Tokyo Gakugel University; this sculpture, originally located in the courtyard southeast of the building, is now located south of the building.

The construction of Irwin Hall was the first action in a projected 10-year plan instigated by President Harry Ford to prepare the school for the demands of the anticipated enrollment increase and program expansion at CCAC. The expected rise in enrollment, which did come in the 1960s, was a result of the demographic phenomenon that came to be known generally as the “baby boom.” This plan, which initially included the construction of a second residence hall, a new library, and the replacement of the World War II-era barracks buildings with larger buildings, was enacted, in varying forms and degrees, in the following decade.

At the outset of the decade, the CCAC campus included a mixture of buildings of varying ages, styles, sizes, and contemporary usefulness. The original Treadwell mansion, known by this time as Macky Hall in honor of Spencer Macky, had been added to several times. The other buildings from the Treadwell era, the carriage house and the barn, also had large additions. The Woodworking studio (Facilities Building) and the Crafts Building (B Building) had been added to, and Guild Hall was flanked by the barracks buildings that had been installed on the campus in 1946. Irwin Hall was the largest building on campus; the remainder of the approximately 15 other buildings were smaller barracks buildings or cabins built by Meyer in the 1920s, turned into lockers or storage. Circulation through the campus still reflected a time when the small winding paths needed only to accommodate horse-drawn carriages; the haphazard placement of smaller buildings further constricted the potential for vehicular through-traffic.

In the fall of 1960, CCAC president Harry Ford extended the deadline for class registration due a 30 percent increase in enrollment from the previous year. The faculty now included 46 teachers offering classes in six departments. Over the course of the following decade, as the post-war “baby boomers” came of college age, enrollment continuously increased, nearly tripling over the course of the decade. During this decade, female enrollment began to overtake male

enrollment again for the first time since the close of World War II; this pattern would continue through the following decades.

In response to what were perceived as inefficiencies and a potential impediment to the continued growth of the college, in 1964, CCAC president Harry Ford hired the architecture and planning firm of DeMars and Reay to create a forward-thinking development program for the Campus. The school began renting space for gallery exhibitions and certain classes off campus, along on the west side of Broadway and on College Avenue. The school continued to enjoy a strong reputation for artistic and academic education, and continued to attract well-known teachers and a diverse and ambitious student body. The college welcomed Viola Frey, Peter Volkous, and Robert Arneson, all who graduated from CCAC, bringing international prestige to the ceramics department at CCAC.

CCAC Gallery located at 5283 Broadway.

In 1967, construction began on two major buildings on the CCAC campus. Following the recommendations of the DeMars and Reay development program, the two new buildings addressed the campus’s insufficient studio, library, classroom, and auditorium space. The buildings were located at the southern perimeter of campus and replaced several small studio and classroom buildings. Both buildings were designed by DeMars and Reay.

Founder’s Hall, named in honor of Frederick and Laetitia Meyer, Isabelle Percy West, and Perham Nahl, was built to house the campus library, classroom and studio space, and a large lecture hall. It was designed in the Brutalist style, constructed of exposed concrete with large geometric forms and minimal ornament. The building included three structural sections in response to the sloped topography of the site. The building presented a severe façade to the south which when constructed included a student sundeck at its western portion (this sundeck was enclosed during alterations made to the building in the 1980s). The building presented much more playful facades towards the interior of the campus, including painted window frames, a broad glass awning, and large windows at the library reading room. The courtyard that was formed by the facing arrangement of Martinez Hall and Founder’s Hall was richly mosaicked by faculty member Hugh Wiley and his students at the time the buildings were completed.

Rendering of the interior of Meyer Library by student James Haws created in memory of Professor Eric Stearne.

Martinez Hall, named in honor of famed artist and long-time, much-loved teacher Xavier Martinez, was built to serve as painting and printmaking studios. It was designed in the Third Bay Tradition style, clad in flush rustic wood cladding with four massive sawtooth roof elements that captured the northern light. The design included a mural wall, which faces the campus and has hosted a rotating display of student mural art since it was constructed.

Honorary degree ceremony held in front of the Martinez Hall mural. Since at least 1970, the west-facing wall of Martinez Hall has been a visual public forum for community dialog at CCA. The series of temporary murals, some lasting less than a semester and others as long as 13 years, continues to express aesthetic and political concerns and reflects the changing nature of the college.

Students descending stairs in front of the Bosch inspired Martinez Hall mural, 1975.

The Bosch-inspired Martinez Hall mural, in progress in 1973.

Early stage of the 1976 Martinez Hall mural, transferring the drawing to the mural wall.

Three students, up on a swing stage, at work on the 1976 Martinez Hall mural.

The 1981 Martinez Hall mural in progress, which was completed in December of that year. Faculty Malaquias Montoya at right.

The 1985 Martinez Hall mural in progress, working on the linework. The mural was produced in The Mexican and Chicano Public Art class, a course initiated four years earlier by Malaquias Montoya. Students in the course created group statements on current issues and painted the murals on the Martinez building. The course reinforced the Ethnic Studies intention to introduce students to the “arts and cultures of ethnic minorities in the United States.”

The Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center, showing the building close to completion, in 1973. The 1970’s the college finished taking shape to how we recognize it today with the addition of the Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramics Arts Center and the Raleigh and Claire Shaklee Building. And in 1977 Macky Hall was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center, after completion, in the summer of 1975.

CCAC faculty Viola Frey and Art Nelson, and CCAC President Harry X. Ford, with the one ton pot made by Frey, Nelson, and students. The clay was donated by Joyce and Paul Quyle and adorned with clay "kiln gods" made prior to the groundbreaking by various Bay Area potters and distinguished guests at the 1973 groundbreaking for the Noni Eccles Treadwell Ceramics Art Center.

The Raleigh and Claire Shaklee Building, which houses Glass, Metal Arts, and Sculpture Programs, is completed in 1979.

In 1985, the college purchases Cogswell College’s architecture program for $1 and established the undergraduate Architecture program in San Francisco. Similar to the founding years moving from building to building in Berkeley, CCAC’s San Francisco presence shifted quite a bit in the Design District before finding a permanent home at 1111 Eighth Street. The Interior Design program in the late 1970’s enjoyed proximity to the Design District in our first SF home on Samson Street in the historic National Ice and Cold Storage Company, one of the largest and oldest masonry constructions in the city built in 1941 to manufacture ice for the city's fishing industry. Up until 1980s, the Ice House was a design showroom for the Interiors Mart of San Francisco. As more space was needed, the Architecture and Design programs in SF were located on Stockton before leasing space at 1700 De Haro.

In 1995 the college launched a comprehensive campaign to raise funds for the renovation of a new San Francisco campus. The college purchased a building formerly used as a bus depot from Greyhound Lines, Inc. to create a new home in San Francisco. In 1996, the first phase of the renovation of the new campus was completed and the Design and Architecture programs moved in.

President Lorne Buchman during Nave construction with Mayor Willie Brown.

In 1999, the college celebrated the completion and opening of the San Francisco campus with an opening gala. The formerly Greyhound bus depot, now a 160,000 square foot campus includes the Logan Galleries, the Tecoah Bruce Galleries, individual studios for graduate students, Simpson Library, Timken Hall, instructional studios and classrooms, and academic administrative offices, giving a permanent home to the college’s Architecture, Design, and Humanities and Sciences programs. Acrobats from the SF School of Circus Arts performed in the Nave during the celebration.