Overview

In the 1890s, state legislators, benefactors and administrators of the University of California began to discuss large-scale expansion and redesign of its campus. In 1896, the San Francisco Call published designs for new UC professional schools produced in a new Neo-Classical style, made increasingly influential by graduates of Paris's École des Beaux-Arts. The Curlett design departed from the prevalent Italianate or Richardsonian Romanesque modes of many public buildings built during the 1880s and 1890s; a writer for the Call indicated it reflected a new design approach: "The Ionic style of architecture shown in the above design has many admirers." (See "Design for Affliated Colleges of the University of California," San Francisco Call, vol. 79, no. 68, 02/06/1896, p. 4.)

Building History

In 02/1896, the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art staged a competition for three new professional school buildings--those for Dentistry and Pharmacy, Law and Medicine--of the University of California; the competition entries of six architectural firms were exhibited, although none of the buildings depicted were ever built. The firms showing work at the Hopkins Institute of Art included William Curlett, B. McDougall and Sons, Albert Sutton, Martens and Coffey, Julius E. Krafft and T.C. Pelton.

Building Notes

Unbuilt.

PCAD id: 21065