Sather Tower is a bell tower with clocks on its four faces on the campus 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 un ...
. It is more commonly known as The Campanile ( ,
also ) for its resemblance to the
Campanile di San Marco in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. It is a recognizable symbol of the university.
Given by
Jane K. Sather in memory of her husband, banker
Peder Sather, it is the third-tallest bell-and-clock-tower in the world.
Its current 61-bell
carillon, built around a nucleus of 12 bells also given by Jane Sather, can be heard for many miles and supports an extensive program of education in
campanology.
Sather Tower also houses many of the Department of Integrative Biology's fossils (mainly from the
La Brea Tar Pits
La Brea Tar Pits is an active paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' in Spanish) has seeped up from the gr ...
) because its cool, dry interior is suited for their preservation.
Overview
At tall, it is the second-tallest free-standing bell-and-
clock-tower in the world. It includes seven principal floors and an eighth-floor observation deck above the base.
Designed by
John Galen Howard, founder of the
Department of Architecture at the University, Sather Tower was completed in 1915 and opened to the public in 1916. It marked a secondary axis in Howard's original
Beaux-Arts campus plan and has been a major point of orientation in almost every campus master plan since.
Sather Tower houses a full concert
carillon, enlarged from the original 12-bell chime installed in October 1917 to 48 bells in 1979 and the current 61 bells in 1983.
During the Fall and Spring semesters, the carillon is performed for ten minutes at 7:50 a.m., noon, and 6:00 p.m. during weekdays, from 12:00–12:15 p.m. and 6:00–6:10 p.m. on Saturdays, and from 2:00–2:45 p.m. on Sundays and intermittently at other times of the year.
The bells also toll the hour 7 days a week between the hours of 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. At noon on the last day of instruction each semester, "
They're Hanging Danny Deever in the Morning" is played. (The song employs only the original set of bells installed in 1917.) Following that, the carillon is silent until the end of
finals.
A gift by Evelyn and Jerry Chambers in 1983 endowed the position of University Carillonist as well as practice rooms, practice keyboards, a campanology library, and international Carillon Festivals every five years from the anniversary of the Class of 1928. Private and group lessons are offered in carillon through the Department of Music, subject to auditions and with Music majors receiving priority. Students work on one of Sather Tower's two practice keyboards until they are ready to perform on the carillon itself.
An elevator takes visitors 200 feet up to an observation deck with sweeping views of the campus, the surrounding hills,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, and the
Golden Gate. Admission is free for UC Berkeley students, staff, and faculty, three dollars for seniors,
Cal Alumni Association members, and persons age 17 and under, and four dollars for everyone else.
The trumpets of the California Marching Band every year play Cal spirit songs during Big Game week from the top of the tower. Known as the Campanile Concert, the music can be heard throughout the campus and Berkeley, and in some cases, all the way to Oakland.
The surrounding promenade features a grid of pollarded London Plane trees, frequently enjoyed for the sport of
slacklining.
On April 16, 1959, a 67-year-old retired attorney jumped to his death, prompting a daily patrol to guard the platform. On January 4, 1961, a 19-year-old undergraduate student committed suicide. Following this second suicide, the University installed glass panes to enclose the viewing platform. These panes were removed in 1979 due to complaints that the panes were muffling the sound of the expanded carillon. In 1981, metal bars were installed. Nevertheless, in 1982, an undergraduate student managed to scale the newly-installed bars but was talked down from the ledge.
In 2017, a pair of
peregrine falcons began nesting on top of Sather Tower. They were followed by webcams and the
Cal Falcons social media project.
Carillon and its history
The Berkeley Carillon originated as a twelve bell chime, cast in 1915 by
John Taylor & Co
John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, ...
of
Loughborough,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. The original bells were a gift of Jane K. Sather, who also gave the university the Sather Tower (in which the bells were housed),
Sather Gate (named for her husband the Norwegian-born banker
Peder Sather), and endowed chairs in History and Classics. The original bells were installed in 1917 and played for the first time on November 3, 1917, to mark
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
's
Big Game against
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
. The delay between the founding and the installation of the bells was caused by
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, as well as the
US Customs Service
The United States Customs Service was the very first federal law enforcement agency of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government. Established on July 31, 1789, it collected import tariffs, performed other selected borde ...
in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
.
The original bells all bear the inscription "Gift of
Jane K. Sather 1914," acknowledging the benefactress for whom the Tower is named. The largest of the original bells bears an inscription by Isaac Flagg, Professor of Greek, Emeritus, "''We ring, we chime, we toll, / Lend ye the silent part / Some answer in the heart, / Some echo in the soul.''" The current bells range from small 19 pound bells to the 10,500 pound "Great Bear Bell," which tolls on the hour and features
bas-relief
Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...
carvings of bears as well as the constellation
Ursa Major.
It was soon discovered that these twelve bells were insufficient to play many popular tunes, including the
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...
. During the following decades there were a number of discussions about enlarging the instrument, but nothing came of this need.
A thirteenth bell was installed along with a clock in 1926 to strike the hours. This clock and bell had originally been installed in 1899 in Bacon Hall and were named for William Ashburner, a university regent.
In 1978, the Class of 1928 decided, as a fiftieth anniversary gift to the university, to add some bells. They began a campaign among their members, hoping to raise around $45,000 for a few new bells. In several days they managed to raise over $150,000 and decided at that point to enlarge the chime to a full carillon of forty-eight bells. Bids were sought, and the
Fonderie Paccard
Fonderie Paccard is a French foundry in Annecy. Founded in 1796, the foundry has cast more than 120,000 bells located throughout the world. The foundry has been continuously operated by seven generations of the Paccard family. The largest bell ca ...
of
Annecy, France, was awarded the contract. The new Class of 1928 Carillon, which incorporated the original twelve bells, was installed and inaugurated in 1979. An article about the new instrument in
The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America
The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America (GCNA) is a professional association of carillonneurs in North America, dedicated to the advancement of the art, literature, and science of the carillon. It was founded in Ottawa, Canada, in 1936 by ...
's publication ''The Bulletin'' ended by suggesting that perhaps another class might at some future date consider adding additional bells and making this concert carillon into a grand carillon.
In 1983, Jerry Chambers, a wealthy member of the class of 1928, and his wife Evelyn (class of 1932 and honorary member of the class of 1928), along with the class of 1928, gave a handsome endowment for the carillon. These funds were used to enlarge the instrument to a fully chromatic, five-octave instrument beginning with low G, renovation of two floors of Sather Tower for two practice keyboards, a
campanology collection, and a studio for the University Carillonist. In addition, the Chambers Carillon funds, which is the sole source of support for the carillon program at Berkeley, endowed a full-time position for the University Carillonist (one of only five full-time positions in North America), and a carillon festival to be held every five years honoring the Class of 1928, counting from that year.
As of 2008, the carillon program is one of the most active in the world. It offers an instructional program which attracts about thirty students each semester, a performance program of seventeen ten-minute recitals and one forty-five-minute recital each week. There is additionally a professional staff of eight artist performers, and a part-time maintenance person. The carillon program remains fully funded by the generous endowment of Jerry and Evelyn Chambers.
See also
*
List of carillons in the United States
References
External links
Visitor Services – The Campanile at BerkeleySather Tower Carillon (Music Dept. Page)The Campanile MovieCampanile Free-Fall
{{University of California, Berkeley
1914 establishments in California
Bell towers in the United States
California Historical Landmarks
Carillons
Clock towers in California
Gothic Revival architecture in California
History of Alameda County, California
John Galen Howard buildings
Landmarks in the San Francisco Bay Area
National Register of Historic Places in Berkeley, California
Tourist attractions in Berkeley, California
Towers completed in 1914
Towers in California
University and college buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California
University of California, Berkeley buildings