Bulldozers have been at work for the past few weeks bringing down the UC Berkeley Smyth-Fernwald housing complex built at the top of Dwight Way as “temporary” housing for married students after World War II.
Tom Miller shot the video above, and said that, given that the university has no current plans for the newly opened vista, his guess is that local wild turkeys and deer will be moving in.
The Smyth-Fernwald buildings, designed by architect Walter H. Ratcliff Jr. in 1945, served as student family housing for 68 years until they were vacated last June. The complex includes apartments, a community center and maintenance offices. Parts of the property were demolished in 1999 due to safety concerns about creep structural damage.
Christine Shaff, Communications Director for Facilities Services at UC Berkeley, said there are no plans at this point for the Smyth-Fernwald site once it is cleared. “We will do landscaping and erosion control, and the foundations of the buildings will be left in place,” she said, adding that the roadways and street lights will remain in situ. The final residential building will be torn down this week and the demolition work is expected to continue until early May.
The 19th-century Smyth House which is also on the site, will not be demolished, although it is in need to maintenance and is in poor shape. It, and the estate, was donated to Cal in 1926 by engineer William Henry Smyth, an Englishman who came to Berkeley in the late 1800s. It was Smyth who coined the term ‘Technocracy’ in 1919 which he defined as “scientific reorganization of national energy and resources, coordinating industrial democracy to effect the will of the people.”
Shaff said there were no plans for Smyth House either. She said it had been secured and alarmed as it had been broken into and vandalized “a couple of times.”
Daniella Thompson, who sits on the board of directors of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, said she feared the worst. UC Berkeley has neglected other university-owned historic buildings, including the Anna Head School on Channing Way (Thompson calls the treatment “demolition by neglect”) and the 1885 Cheney House on College Avenue, which was pulled down in 2010.
UC Berkeley is under pressure to build more student housing given projections about future enrollment. It recently completed the Anna Head Residence Hall at 2538 Channing Way, providing accommodation for 160 sophomores and 224 upper level students. Its 2020 Long-Range Development Plan identified the need for housing for 1,600 students. Most of the rentals in the current proposal to construct 1,000 new housing units in central Berkeley over the next few years are designed for students.
Read more about the Smyth estate at Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association and at the Berkeley Historical Plaque Project.
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