Durant Hall is a historical building in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

. It was originally dedicated in 1911 as the Boalt Memorial Hall of Law, and was named in the memory of Judge John H. Boalt (1837–1901) because his wife, Mrs. Elizabeth J. Boalt, gave $100,000 towards its construction. A group of California lawyers gave $50,000. The four-story building was designed by architect

John Galen Howard John Galen Howard (May 8, 1864 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts – July 18, 1931 in San Francisco, California) was an American architect and educator who began his career in New York before moving to California. He was the principal architect at in ...

(1864-1931) in the

Beaux-Arts style Beaux-Arts architecture ( , ) was the academic architectural style taught at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, particularly from the 1830s to the end of the 19th century. It drew upon the principles of French neoclassicism, but also incorpor ...

, like much of the core

campus of the University of California, Berkeley The campus of the University of California, Berkeley and its surrounding community are home to a number of notable buildings by early 20th-century campus architect John Galen Howard, his peer Bernard Maybeck (best known for the San Francisco Pal ...

. From 1911 to 1951, the building was the home of the UC Berkeley School of Jurisprudence, which later became the

School of Law A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction. Law degrees Argentina In Argentina, l ...

. By 1921, enrollment had reached 285, which was clearly too much for a building of that size and resulted in severe overcrowding. The building's tiny size was one of the primary constraints on the growth of the law school at Berkeley for over three decades. In 1951, the law school finally moved to a newly-constructed law building in the southeastern corner of campus, which was dedicated as the new Boalt Hall. The old Boalt Hall was renamed Durant Hall in honor of the first president of the

University of California Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

Henry Durant Henry Durant (June 18, 1802 in Acton, Massachusetts – January 22, 1875 in Oakland, California) was the founding president of the University of California.SF Chronicle, July 25, 2010. "Where to Find Celebrities' Resting Places" by Charlie Wells ...

(1802-1875), president from 1870 to 1872. Durant Hall was then home to UC Berkeley's East Asian Library from 1951 to 2007. That library also grew too big for Durant Hall, and like the law school, was suffering from severe overcrowding by the time it moved to the new C.V. Starr East Asian Library building in 2008. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

on March 25, 1982. In 2010, after a renovation, Durant Hall reopened as the new home for the offices of the deans of the

UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science The College of Letters and Science (L&S) is the largest of the 14 colleges at the University of California, Berkeley and encompasses the liberal arts. The college was established in its present state in 1915 with the merger of the College of ...

. center, Durant Hall lion statues

References

{{National Register of Historic Places in California 1911 establishments in California Commercial buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California Commercial buildings completed in 1911 National Register of Historic Places in Berkeley, California

See also

References