International House Berkeley

unprecedented $500,000 challenge grant from The Kresge Foundation to spur the House towards the successful conclusion of its historic $10 million effort to protect its services and purpose for the new millennium. The Legacy s national frontiers blur, and as walls and curtains between nations crumble, diverse peoples are being thrust together to an extent never imagined. Looking to the 21st century, International House is The distinctive dome atop International House has become an iconic likely to welcome increasing numbers of black landmark not only of the UC Berkeley campus, but of the East Bay hills. and white South Africans, Soviets of different I-House traditions of international fellowship ethnic backgrounds, and eastern Europeans, for will form the basis of their House memories and decades isolated by ideology. the stories they will tell to their children. All together, under one roof, they will join an international community and will, like former A Note About House Architecture residents, be forever changed: And Furnishings We came to grips with each other as real entities, he architect responsible for International not images on travel posters; one in which we had House Berkeley was George W. Kelham, to deal with the realities of our own ethnocentrisms, who played a leading role in the and not abstractly either...one in which we were construction of San Francisco's Palace Hotel, bent, hurt, pleasured, delighted, enlightened, Public Library, Civic Center and Federal Reserve CHANGED.....in short, one in which we grew. Bank. International House was Kelham's essay in Harry Edmonds' chance encounter with a Spanish Colonial Revival, a style chosen because lonely Chinese student in 1909 helped create it was thought to be indigenous to California. an institution where university students from Much of the architecture and design of the House across the country and across the seas could find a reflects the Moorish influence upon Spanish vibrant international home where, as one Turkish culture. Some specific reflections of Spanish resident puts it, "you never feel like you are a influence include: the iron chandeliers in the foreigner." Great Hall and dining room, the domed tower, Now, nearly seventy-five years after its establishthe balconies, the dining room's sunken patio, and ment, I-House Berkeley counts among its residents the extensive use of painted tile. the children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews The decorative painting and furnishings of the of former residents. They had heard from relatives House also reflect a Spanish style with Moorish about the Sunday Suppers, National festivals, influences. The Great Hall's ceiling was originally language tables, distinguished speakers, crosshand painted to resemble the fir or pine wood cultural discussions and coffee hours. And these ceilings commonly found in Spain. And the A T 14

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