Special Collections - Anteater Antics

Campus Park

First Campus Landscaping in 1965 and 1966

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Coulson Tough (Left, Campus Arcjhitect) and George Uematsu (Right, Landscape Architect) inspect new plants for the campis in August 1968.

Coulson Tough (Left, Campus Architect) and Gene Uematsu (Right, Landscape Architect) inspect new plants for the campus in August 1965.

The two people primarily responsible for the early campus landscaping that has resulted in the wide variety of trees and plants that we now enjoy on campus were Coulson Tough (Campus Architect) and Gene Uematsu (Landscape Architect).  The photographs (below) of the grounds preparation and the new campus landscaping were taken in 1965 and 1966.

Aldrich Park (formerly Campus Park) being prepared for new landscaping in 1965.

Aldrich Park (formerly Campus Park) being prepared for new landscaping in 1965.

New lawns and trees just planted on campus in 1966.

New lawn and trees just planted on campus in 1966.

Gateway Study Center (left) and Langson Library (right) with new trees in 1966.

Gateway Study Center (left) and Langson Library (right) with new trees in 1966.

Aldrich Park dedicated on June 6, 1984

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When the campus opened on October 4, 1965, the partially completed park in the middle of campus was called Campus Park. It remained Campus Park until 1984 when it was renamed Aldrich Park, in honor of Daniel Aldrich, who retired in 1984 after twenty-two years of service as UCI Chancellor. The renaming of the park was only one of numerous events that took place in the Spring of 1984 in honor of the retirement of our first Chancellor. The dedication of the 21-acre Aldrich Park occurred on June 6, 1984. Below is a photograph of Daniel Aldrich with former Orange County Supervisor Thomas F. Riley (left) at the dedication ceremony.

AS-061. University Communication Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, the U.C. Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California. Box 144.

Fifth Commencement – June 13, 1970

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Forty years ago, UCI’s fifth commencement ceremony took place in  Campus Park, now Aldrich Park.  Dr. Harrison Scott Brown, Professor of Geochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, spoke on “Technological Change and the Human Condition.” There were approximately 800 students graduating on June 13, 1970. Just a few weeks ago, the forty-fifth commencement ceremonies saw approximately 8,000 students graduate in four days of commencement ceremonies held between June 5th and 13th.

[slideshow]

AS-054.  Anton Ercegovich Slides of the University of California, 1963-1976. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.

How Aldrich Park might have been

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Early proposals for the design of the Campus Park (later called Aldrich Park) included an almost 300 foot tall central bell tower which would have been called “Centrum,”  as well as several connected lakes.  Centrum would have been the tallest built structure in Orange County and visible for miles. These aspects of the design were not completed.  The University Archives has numerous photographs of  Pereira’s architectural models and campus plans.  Pereira’s project workbooks ( Collection # AS-127), which document the various phases of campus planning can also be found in the University Archives.

 AS-061.  University Communications Photographs. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.
 

Early planning for physical layout of campus

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In the winter of 1962, UC President Clark Kerr invited UCI Architect William Pereira and UCI Chancellor Daniel Aldrich to meet him in Berkeley to discuss how best to use the newly selected Irvine campus site. At the meeting, Kerr recalled an influential book he had read as a graduate student, Johann Heinric von Thunen’s Der Isolierte Staat (1863), in which he envisioned the ideal city “as a series of concentric circles starting out with central city buildings and going out to industrial, housing and agricultural areas.” Kerr then drew a rough sketch of a proposed layout of the Irvine campus, a circle with the names of disciplines around it. The basic design was then elaborated during the physical planning, which incorporated a concentric and radial scheme. The Central Campus was designed to consist of six quadrangles, each representing an academic unit, which radiated out of the ring. The ring unified the school both functionally and artistically. Distances between each quad were minimized and provided movement for pedestrians and bicycles. At the center of the ring is the 29-acre Daniel Aldrich Park, originally named Campus Park, which is the metaphorical heart of the campus. Designed as an informal gathering place, it was based on the central parks of cities and universities throughout the world.

UCI Campus Layout