The concrete Brutalist architecture-style building on UC Berkeley’s east end is known to the campus community as Wurster Hall, named after husband and wife William Wurster and Catherine Bauer Wurster, Berkeley professors who together in the 1950s helped to create Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED), the first college of its kind in the world.
To the greater public, though, Catherine Bauer Wurster is not equally recognized as part of the Wurster Hall namesake.
“I think a lot of people just assume the building is only named after her husband and have no idea about her legacy and significant accomplishments,” said Berkeley Environmental Design Archives Curator Chris Marino. “She was just as much behind the creation of CED as was her husband.”
That is why the building is being renamed Bauer Wurster Hall.