Volume 2, Issue 8 October 2002

2002
2001

2002: The Rededication of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building The music of the Cal Band filled the atrium as guests entered the rededicated building. (Click for larger image.) Peg Skorpinski photo Built in 1907 and closed four years ago for renovation, the Hearst Memorial Mining building reopened its doors in September as UC Berkeley's state-of-the-art home to the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, the temporary hub for CITRIS — the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society, and interdisciplinary initiatives in nanoscience and nanotechnology. As part of the $90.6 million retrofit, the Beaux Arts architectural gem now sits on a base isolation foundation system of 134 composite steel and rubber bearings. Pioneered by UC Berkeley engineers two decades ago, the system allows the 60-million-pound building to move 28 inches in any horizontal direction during an earthquake. When philanthropist Phoebe Apperson Hearst funded construction of the building at the turn of the 20th century, she dedicated it to the memory of her husband, U.S. Senator George Hearst, who made his fortune in mining. With that in mind, the building was originally designed to accommodate equipment for mining technology, including a three-story crushing tower in the central court that was impressive in its time. Students of the School of Mining engaged in mine rescue drill at entrance to Lawson Adit, 1918. (Click for larger image.) Courtesy Bancroft Library Archives Over the decades, studies in the Hearst mining building have evolved from mining to mineral engineering to present-day materials science and engineering. The building that once had flues for extracting smoke from furnaces is now equipped with HEPA filters to purify the air, crucial for sensitive electron microscopes and other lab equipment, including pulsed laser deposition chambers and electron beam lithographic machines. The laboratories have been upgraded to include acoustical shielding to protect against ambient noise, and the electrical wiring and telecommunication lines have been upgraded. Where students in the past learned how to mine diamonds, students today are creating synthetic diamonds used to coat hard drive disks to protect them against failure. The renovated Hearst Memorial Mining Building celebrates its new beginning. (Click for larger image.) Peg Skorpinski photo The original architect of the building, John Galen Howard, noted such inevitability of change at the 1907 dedication ceremony: "We have tried to make our building so that its main structure shall be ... a mere shell whose interior portions may be torn out, adjusted, rebuilt, if necessary, without affecting the strength or aspect of the whole." Have a memory of the Hearst Memorial Mining Building you want to share? We want to hear from you... The Hearst mining building sits just 800 feet west of the Hayward Fault, which had once been accessed through a horizontal tunnel, the Lawson Adit, drilled by mining students in the early 1900s. Named after Andrew Lawson, a UC Berkeley professor of geology and mineralogy, the mining shaft was extended from 200 to 900 feet to give seismologists a close-up look at the fault. As the focus of research shifted away from mining over the decades, the shaft fell into disrepair, and much of it has since collapsed. The entrance to the tunnel, less than 12 feet from the building, is now locked, but still visible as a reminder of the achievements made by students and researchers at UC Berkeley while Hearst remains a proud symbol of the innovations still to come. Hearst History and Photography Fact sheet on the Hearst Memorial Mining Building and the seismic retrofit Photos and video of the Hearst Reopening Event Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking research underway today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our lives tomorrow. Editor, Director of Public Affairs: Teresa Moore Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz Designer: Robyn Altman Subscribe or send comments to the Engineering Public Affairs Office: lab-notes@coe.berkeley.edu. © 2002 UC Regents. Updated 9/30/02.