The Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library at the University of California, Berkeley / Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects

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Text description provided by the architects. Designed by Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects, the environmentally sensitive Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library at University of California Berkeley helps alleviate the university’s growing pains since World War II. During the post World War II building boom on the University of California Berkeley campus, an “Arts Quadrangle” was established on a former playing field uphill from Hearst Gymnasium. Quickly, three sides were filled—a fine arts building to the south, an architecture building to the east, and two music buildings, one for classrooms and one a performance hall, to the north. To the west, the quad was left open to a view framed by Hearst Gymnasium and native vegetation to hints of the East Bay and sunsets beyond. Campus building did not stop, however, and the fourth side of the Arts Quadrangle was soon coveted as one of the last unbuilt sites on campus.