Julia Morgan Hall (formerly Girton Hall) is a historic building in the University of California Botanical Garden in Berkeley,

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 ...

. Built in 1911, the building was designed by prominent California architect

Julia Morgan Julia Morgan (January 20, 1872 – February 2, 1957) was an American architect and engineer. She designed more than 700 buildings in California during a long and prolific career.Erica Reder"Julia Morgan was a local in ''The New Fillmore'', 1 Febr ...

and originally located on the central 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 ...

, near the present location of the

Haas School of Business The Walter A. Haas School of Business, also known as Berkeley Haas, is the business school of the University of California, Berkeley, a public research university in Berkeley, California. It was the first business school at a public universit ...

. It served as a gathering place for Berkeley's female students, who wanted a female counterpart to Senior Hall, the senior men's meeting hall.

History

Berkeley's female students began planning the hall in 1909 and raised money for the building between 1909 and 1911. The building was first called Girton Hall during this period; the name came from

Girton College Girton College is one of the Colleges of the University of Cambridge, 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1 ...

at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, which was the first women's residential college in England. When the building opened in 1911, its name changed to Senior Women's Hall. The hall gave women's groups at Berkeley a place to meet and represented a significant step toward gender equality at the university. In 1940, the building was moved 160 feet west to make room for a street extension. In 1969, it became a campus child care center, and its name was changed back to Girton Hall to acknowledge its history, even though the name had never been applied to the building after its construction. The building was added to 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 ...

in 1991. In 2014, to make way for an expansion of the Haas School of Business, the child care center moved to another location near the university campus, and Girton Hall was cut into four pieces, moved to the UC Botanical Garden, and reassembled. The name of the building was changed to Julia Morgan Hall, and it re-opened to the public in 2015.

Gallery

File:Julia Morgan Hall - 2015-07-25.JPG, Current location at UC Botanical Garden File:Girton Hall (Berkeley, CA).JPG, Previous location near Haas School of Business

References

External links

Julia Morgan Hall
by the UC Botanical Garden {{National Register of Historic Places in California University of California, Berkeley buildings School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in California School buildings completed in 1911 National Register of Historic Places in Berkeley, California 1911 establishments in California