Royce Hall

Royce Hall
Main façade of Royce Hall, inspired by the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan, Italy
Map
Address340 Royce Drive
Los Angeles, California
United States
Coordinates34°4′22″N 118°26′31″W / 34.07278°N 118.44194°W / 34.07278; -118.44194
OwnerUniversity of California, Los Angeles
OperatorUniversity of California, Los Angeles
TypePerforming arts center
Capacity1,800
Construction
Opened1929 (1929)
ArchitectAllison & Allison
Website
www.roycehall.org

Royce Hall is a building on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Designed by the Los Angeles firm of Allison & Allison (James Edward Allison, 1870–1955, and his brother David Clark Allison, 1881–1962) and completed in 1929, it is one of the four original buildings on UCLA's Westwood campus and has come to be the defining image of the university.[1] The brick and tile building is in the Lombard Romanesque style, and once functioned as the main classroom facility of the university and symbolized its academic and cultural aspirations. Today, the twin-towered front remains the best known UCLA landmark. The 1800-seat auditorium was designed for speech acoustics and not for music; by 1982 it emerged from successive remodelings as a regionally important concert hall and main performing arts facility of the university.

Named after Josiah Royce, a California-born philosopher who received his bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley in 1875, the building's exterior is composed of elements borrowed from numerous northern Italian sources.[1] While very different in their composition and near-symmetry, the two towers of Royce make an abstract reference to those of the famous Abbey Church of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan.[1] A building of very similar form on a much smaller scale was a centerpiece of the College of California campus in Oakland in 1860, the predecessor of the University of California.[2]

  1. ^ a b c UCRegents (1998). "Welcome Home to Royce Hall". UCLAToday. Archived from the original on 2006-12-30. Retrieved 2007-04-18.
  2. ^ Whitcher, Jeremiah E.; Drouaillet, Gustave. "Official Map of the City of Oakland". Online Archive of California. California Digital Library. Retrieved 22 February 2019.