Royce Hall - Two Towers, Not Twins

Photo: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on UCLA Campus Walk, a free self-guided tour.

You're standing on Royce Quad, the lawn at the heart of UCLA, and the building with the two brick towers is Royce Hall. When classes moved here from the old Vermont Avenue campus in 1929, the Westwood site was mostly bare hills, and Royce was one of just four original buildings. Its architects, the Allison and Allison firm, borrowed from the Romanesque churches of northern Italy, especially the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan. That choice is why so much of UCLA is red brick, round arches and patterned tile.

Look closely at the towers. They are not twins: their windows, arches and details differ. Inside is an 1,800-seat auditorium where George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Ella Fitzgerald all performed. The 1994 Northridge earthquake badly damaged the building, and a $70.5 million seismic rebuild, finished in 1998, gave it a new concrete frame.

The hall is named for Josiah Royce, a philosopher born in a California gold-mining town. Stand in the middle of the lawn and see how many differences between the towers you can spot.

Getting here: The tour starts here on Royce Quad, on the lawn in front of Royce Hall.

Did you know?: The auditorium was designed for lectures and speeches, not music; it became a major concert hall only after later remodelings.

Photo op: Stand in the middle of the quad lawn to fit both towers in one frame; the afternoon sun warms the brick.

More on Wikipedia: Royce Hall · Josiah Royce · Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio · 1994 Northridge earthquake

Royce Hall - Two Towers, Not Twins

Stops on this tour