a garden campus: oakland campus legacy prints

When enrollment increased following the influx of veterans of World War I, Fredrick Meyer purchased the rundown four-acre James Treadwell estate in Oakland for $60,000. In preparation for the relocation of the school, which took place four years later in 1926, the overgrown estate was transformed into a garden campus by a crew of faculty, alumni, and students, who received discounted tuition in exchange for their work.

Over the decades, multiple references to “a garden campus” appear in the college’s printed material. Historical maps and images indicate that the grounds included a traditional Japanese garden with koi pond and arched bridge to honor the college’s long association with Japan; a Victory Garden for growing in-short-supply foodstuffs during World War II; and more recently, a community garden built and tended collaboratively by the Community Arts and Textiles Programs for edible, fiber, and dye plants.

The expansive landscape was mentioned most often by faculty, staff, and students as a high priority when envisioning unification in San Francisco. It was this legacy that inspired Studio Gang’s design of Double Ground, the new building planned for CCA’s San Francisco campus.

To honor this garden heritage, each print features flora that have grown on the grounds, including the eucalyptus trees that line the drive up to Macky Hall; the olive trees that frame the parking lot; the magnificent redwoods that hover over the campus; the palm trees that lined the retaining wall along Broadway Avenue; and the cacti and cherry trees that dotted the landscape.

In the process of combing through the archives, a string of sun images designed in diverse era-specific styles were unexpectedly discovered scattered throughout the decades on brochures and catalogue graphics. No formal explanation of this unofficial logo has been identified, but the longevity of the motif leads to the conclusion that it was intended to subtly suggest the sunlit nature of the green oasis. Though not all of the sun graphics appear on summer session brochures, many do, including the 1948 summer session—attesting to the appeal of the East Bay’s warm weather.

Historical images from each decade illustrate not only to the beauty of the garden campus, but to its consistent use for plein air drawing classes, student assemblies, graduation ceremonies, outdoor sports, social gatherings, and quiet relaxation. For ten decades students, faculty, and staff have enjoyed participating in these outdoor activities under the sun.

The 1922 ground map and accompanying site plan of the Oakland campus lays out the aspirational plans for the future development of the college. Some of the projected building and garden projects were never realized, but illustrated maps of the historic grounds as they develop over the decades not only identify buildings but also signature plants, emphasizing the importance of the gardens in envisioning the campus.

In the original master plan, which was likely designed by Meyer, projected construction included the Woodworking Shop (constructed in 1923, now the Facilities Building), the Craft Building (constructed in 1925, now the B Building), a large supply shop along Broadway (never built), and a grandly scaled instructional building, also along Broadway (never built), as well as several other multipurpose buildings and extensive gardens along Clifton Street, which included an orchard and cultivation plots.

Towering blue gum eucalyptus trees line the roadway from the main gated entrance on Broadway Avenue toward Macky Hall. For decades, cars drove through these iconic trees, which stand more than one hundred feet tall and drop large sheets of variegated bark in shades of grays, blues, greens, and browns.

An early photo shows students in the fashionable dress of the era walking up the curved lane towards Macky Hall, then called Treadwell Hall, where Meyer and his family lived on the third floor. Students took classes on the lower levels of the newly renovated mansion and in the Carriage House, which had been moved from its original location and converted to classrooms. Students also took craft classes in the Woodworking Shop and the Craft Building, painted en plein air under the eucalyptus, oak, and redwood trees, and exercised on athletic fields.

As the gardens took shape during the early years, artworks—many made by faculty and students—began to populate the outdoor areas. The Faun was created by student Hazel Zua Weller as part of Nova Bartlette’s sculpture class. Marked on the back with the words “Ba.Ed 1926, face inspired by the face of poet Leo Stearling,” the beloved Faun has watched over the campus for nearly one hundred years and is currently located west of Meyer Library.

Hazel Weller (1897–1979) received a Bachelor of Education from California School of Arts and Crafts and served as faculty for two years in 1927 and 1928. She went on to teach art in the Berkeley Public School District in 1928, first at Burbank Junior High School, and beginning in 1942, at Berkeley High School for thirty-five years. Weller also served in the Army Air Forces during World War II.

According to a 1965 college brochure, the U.S.S. Tennessee bell was purchased in the early 1930s and was hung in an archway that bridged two buildings. Another U.S.S. Tennessee bell is currently housed in a museum in Huntsville, Tennessee, but battleships were often outfitted with large primary bells and smaller secondary bells, used to mark time, sound warnings, and signal important occasions. Even today, maritime law requires that all ships carry a bell. In contrast to its military use, the college’s bell was rung to call the community of artists together for campus meetings and events. Photography professor Chris Johnson suggests that in contemporary terms it may be understood as a poetic repurposing, much like the Biblical saying “from sword to ploughshares.”

In 1965 when the resident hall was built, Gloria Sibila (BFA 1951, student body president) took it home for safekeeping and housed it in her garage until the bell tower was installed later the same year. Designed and built by William Newbold Dohrmann (Interior Design BFA 1964), who worked at Gensler & Associates, the tower and bell are currently located between the Carriage House and Macky Hall.

Since the founding of the college, letterpress cuts have been used for printing college publications. A collection of more than one hundred are now stored in the CCA/C Archives and several have been matched with their printed images. The 1930 summer session/fall term catalogue was printed with a series of letterpress blocks carved in wood and shows creative activities in ceramics, drafting, painting, set design, and more. Little is known about the designers, makers, or dates of these blocks, but the 1934 summer session catalogue cover, showing a stylized image of the bell in its original location in the arch, was designed by senior student Lawrence Rehag (BEd 1935).

In the late 1960s the wood blocks were nearly tossed off the cliff above the shopping center the fate of no-longer-used printing presses and other discarded materials and equipment. Fortunately Vincent Perez (BFA 1964, instructor Painting/Drawing) collected the boxes of the blocks and stored them in his home until 2002, when they were returned to the college.

California College of the Arts has transitioned through four names in its 113 years of existence. First opened under the name School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts, it was simplified to California School of Arts and Crafts a year later in 1908. When the Treadwell estate was purchased in 1922 the school was privately owned by Frederick and Laetitia Meyer, but was soon incorporated as a nonprofit educational corporation and granted collegiate status. The newly chartered institution 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 located in Boston, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.

It was not until 1936 that the California School of Arts and Crafts became California College of Arts and Crafts—a name that remained in place for seventy years. To unify the breadth of disciplines under one term, the Board of Trustees voted unanimously to change the name to California College of the Arts in 2003, a decision that was not without detractors.

Another nuanced reference to the sunlit campus, the Sundial is one of the earliest pieces installed on the grounds. A 1929 photograph shows its original location just west of Meyer Library, indicating that it has likely rested undisturbed in this location for one hundred years.

Photographs from subsequent decades highlight the Sundial as a central feature of student life. The Sundial is currently missing its dial and tile inlay, but in the 1925–1926 catalogue an image depicts the original tiles that read “Gift of Class 1922,” which was the first class of graduates from the new Oakland campus. This and the Faun are two of the earliest works in a long history of artworks created by the college community that were tucked into the gardens across the extensive grounds.

Garden clean-up days were a regular part of the college culture, extending community participation past the original period of construction. Landscaping on campus during WWII likely included Victory Gardens, which were common in the United States during wartime when commercial crops were diverted to military personnel. Food rationing began in 1942 and the federal government mounted a vigorous campaign to encourage citizens to cultivate fresh vegetables in private gardens, schools, public parks, and even roof tops. This practical solution also boosted morale by engaging those on the homefront in the patriotic act of “sowing the seeds of victory.” Often tended by women, an estimated 20 million Victory Gardens produced food to feed American families.

During the war enrollment numbers dropped by fifty percent, but rebounded after the end of the conflict when troops returned from the service and attended the college on the G.I. 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 sixty percent male at the end of the 1940s.

For decades, palm trees lined the campus western border along the retaining wall. According to college archives, the palms were not a part of the original Treadwell Estate gardens, but they appear on the 1922 visionary campus map and again on the 1953 campus map. Photos show that the palms were removed by 1966, but it is unclear when they were cut down.

As early as 1907, faculty and students organized “Jinks” to celebrate the end of the term. The masquerade balls, theatrical performances, burlesque productions, and period-style entertainment continued into the 1940s and 1950s and were at the heart of the community’s “fun and frolic” social life.

After the move to the Oakland campus, the events were held in Guild Hall, built along Clifton Street in 1930 and destroyed by fire in 1971. The three-story building, designed in a simplified Mission Colonial style matching the architecture of the Woodworking Shop and Craft Building, housed an assembly hall, stage, and classrooms for set design and costuming. One narrative shared by Richard Mitchell (BEd 1953), who attended the college on the G. I. Bill, described how he and his date arrived at a ball in a tuxedo and floor-length gown. It was not until they entered the room that party goers caught a glimpse of the back of her skirt—cut away from waist to hem—revealing her underwear, garterbelt, and stockings.